The Shadow Side of Fieldwork: Exploring the Blurred Borders Between Ethnography and Life

The Shadow Side of Fieldwork draws attention to the typically hidden or unacknowledged aspects of ethnographic fieldwork encounters that nevertheless shape the resulting knowledge and texts. Addressing these invisible, elusive, unspoken or mysterious elements introduces a distinctive rigor and responsibility to ethnographic research. The luminaries in anthropology dare to explore the ‘unspeakable’ and ‘invisible’ in the ethnographic encounter. This book: considers personal and professional challenges (ethical, epistemological, and political) faced by researchers who examine the subjectivities inherent in their ethnographic insights; explores the value, and limitations, of addressing the personal in ethnographic research; includes a critical discussion of the anthropologist’s self in the field; and, introduces imaginative rigor to ethnographic research to heighten confidence in anthropological knowledge.