Fieldwork Under Fire: Contemporary Studies of Violence and CultureCarolyn Nordstrom, Antonius C. G. M. Robben Fieldwork Under Fire is a path-breaking collection of essays written by anthropologists who have experienced the unpredictability and trauma of political violence firsthand. These essays combine theoretical, ethnographic, and methodological points of view to illuminate the processes and solutions that characterize life in dangerous places. They describe the first, often harrowing, experience of violence, the personal and professional problems that arise as troubles escalate, and the often surprising creative strategies people use to survive. In "writing violence," the authors give voice to all those affected by the conditions of violence: perpetrators as well as victims, civilians and specialists, black marketeers and heroes, jackals and researchers. Focusing on everyday experiences, these essays bring to light the puzzling contradictions of lives disturbed by violence: the simultaneous existence of laughter and suffering, of fear and hope. By doing so, they challenge the narrow conceptualization that associates violence with death and war, arguing that instead it must be considered a dimension of living. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
PRISONERS OF LOVE | 15 |
With Genet in the Palestinian Field | 25 |
RUMOR | 41 |
ACCIDENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY | 61 |
SEDUCTION AND PERSUASION | 80 |
FEAR | 101 |
Carolyn Nordstrom | 129 |
RAPE ATTACK | 154 |
COMING HOME | 185 |
The Anthropologist as Terrorist | 206 |
EPILOGUE | 223 |
Elizabeth Oglesby | 254 |
CONTRIBUTORS | 295 |
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ambiguity anthropologists Argentine army asked become Beijing Belfast Berkeley body Carolyn Nordstrom conflict context counterinsurgency CPRs Croatia cultural dangerous death dirty war discourse emotional ethical ethnographic everyday experience face fact fear fedayeen field fieldwork force friends Genet going Guatemala guerrilla happened historical human rights ibid interviews IPLO issue July 14 killed knew lence lives look massacres means memory ment military Mogadishu Mozambicans Mozambique Myrna Myrna Mack narrative Nordstrom Northern Ireland Operation Restore Hope Palestinian participants People's Movement police political violence question rape rapist reality refugee Renamo repression resistance Robben rumor sense Siad Siad Barre situation social society soldiers Somalis stories strategy survival talk Taussig tell terror Tian'anmen Square tion told torture trauma truth understanding University of California University Press V-Ss victims village witness women words writing Xe'caj York Yugoslavia Zagreb