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Accepted Paper:
Violating boundaries in a field of uncertainties
Imola Püsök
(University of Göttingen)
What happens when the act of being in the field itself seems like an act of violence? In my paper I will discuss the difficulties of understanding social and ethical rules and boundaries in a field where local people are scarred by recent intrusions into their community.
Paper long abstract:
“Anyway, this experience made me realise, that this whole field(work) is about breaking different levels of intimacies. I now feel that my boundaries have been violated. But perhaps I myself am violating boundaries by being here?” I wrote this in one of my e-mails while on fieldwork in a former mining village, a place and a community that has been marred by an ongoing mining dispute. (Sending e-mails was a way for me to stay sane and connected, but this activity also proved a useful method for deciphering and analysing my experiences.) The more than twenty years-long dispute and uncertainty broke up the community, tore apart families, brought about a disintegration of the formerly stable social and economic networks, and made locals acutely distrustful of and even hostile towards anyone who came to exploit them in any way – including sloppy PhD students and researchers. In my paper I will discuss the difficulties of negotiating boundaries, both spacial, psychological and bodily ones, in a field where it was always unclear whether one is in a position of power or powerlessness, and where interpreting and negotiating these positions was a necessary daily activity in the interaction between locals and Others.