The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Steven Sampson

Steven Sampson

Professor emeritus

Steven Sampson

Involved and Detached: Emotional Management in Fieldwork

Author

  • Anna Hedlund
  • Steven Sampson

Editor

  • Nerina Weiss
  • Erella Grassiani
  • Linda Green

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

Publishing year

2023-06-01

Language

English

Pages

93-116

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

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISBN: 9781032333816
  • ISBN: 9781003333418