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Steven Sampson

Steven Sampson

Professor emeritus

Steven Sampson

Involved and Detached: Emotional Management in Fieldwork

Author

  • Steven Sampson
  • Anna Hedlund

Editor

  • Nerina Weiss
  • Linda Green
  • Erella Grassiani

Summary, in English

Using examples from fieldwork among armed groups in Congo and pre-1989 Romania, this article argues against the prevailing ethos of ethnographers engagement with the people they study, in favor of a dynamic between engagement and detachment, what we call 'emotional management'. Two examples from our fieldwork are given, Hedlund on fieldwork with armed groups, Sampson on his informants being haraased by the Romanian secret police.

Department/s

  • Social Anthropology
  • Department of Sociology

Publishing year

2022-06-01

Language

English

Pages

114-137

Publication/Series

The Entanglements of Ethnographic Fieldwork in a Violent World

Document type

Book chapter

Publisher

Routledge

Topic

  • Social Anthropology

Keywords

  • Social Anthropology
  • Romania
  • Paranoia
  • ethnography
  • ethnographic fieldwork
  • Congo
  • Secret Police/Securitatea
  • surveillance
  • Emotions

Status

Inpress