Paper Short Abstract:

In my fieldwork (2017–2018) on fertility rituals in Montenegro, where son preference persists, my body became a site of knowledge production. After participating in fertility rituals aimed at conceiving a male child, I discovered I was pregnant and gave birth to a son. I argue that fieldwork is ongoing, continually reshaping the researcher’s understanding of the field and themselves. This experience also deepened my understanding of the women I engaged with in the field and who also participated in similar fertility rituals.

Paper Abstract:

In my fieldwork (2017–2018) on fertility rituals in Montenegro—a society where son preference persists in both historical and contemporary contexts (Stump 2011, UNDP 2012)—my body became both a site of knowledge production and an example of embodied ethnographic subjectivity. Participating in fertility rituals and womb massages aimed at conceiving a male child, I returned to Latvia and soon discovered I was pregnant. Several months later, I gave birth to a boy. This deeply personal experience, inseparable from my research, challenges conventional understandings of fieldwork as a detached or finite process. My body’s transformation and the birth of my son blurred the lines between the personal and academic, field and home.

This paper contributes to the panel’s exploration of unwriting by centring the researcher’s body as a key site of knowledge production. First, I argue that fieldwork does not necessarily end but remains embedded in the researcher’s life, continually reshaping their understanding of the field and themselves. My pregnancy, as an outcome of field participation, reflects the enduring presence of the field. Second, this embodied experience deepened my understanding of the women I collaborated with—women who also engaged in fertility rituals to conceive sons.