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Contribution short abstract

After sustaining presence in violent situations during my fieldwork with vigilantes in urban Burkina Faso, I want to discuss three difficult claims: violence gets easier; violence creates its own time; and violence as a subject has epistemic value.

Contribution long abstract

What does it mean to sustain ethnographic presence when violence is exercised right in front of our eyes? What does my ability to be present say about me as a researcher and person? And what will people make of my stories? These are only some of the questions I keep asking myself after researching with and writing on vigilante groups in urban Burkina Faso, with whom I was able to participate in over 120 crime interventions involving corporal punishment, public shaming, and incarceration. Based on this research, I want to discuss three claims I keep struggling with. The first is that violence gets easier; the second is that violence creates its own time; and the third is that violence as a subject has epistemic value. With the first claim, I will challenge Donham's assumption that violence always "overtakes and overwhelms" by reflecting on my multiple affective responses to physical punishment. With the second claim, I will explore how the moment of a violent act breaks intersubjectivity, the possibility to attune with each other, and how this speaks to what we have so far learned about violence from its before and aftermaths. My third claim is that sustaining presence in violent situations can have epistemic value. I will ask myself: What have I learned by being there? Based on this discussion, I will address the question of when, how, and to what extent we can ethically speak and write about violence in red times.