Name: Anthropological Fieldwork
SKU: 1-4438-1754-6
Availability: InStock

Anthropological Fieldwork

A Relational Process

Edited By: James Davies, Dimitrina Spencer

£39.99

The contributors to this volume argue that participant observation is an embodied process mediated by emotions. For fieldwork to attain its fullest potential, emotional reflexivity is essential. They propose new ways of practising it to enhance anthropological knowledge.

Anthropologists are affected by and affect others through emotional engagement; they “manage” emotions or allow them to unfold as vehicles of understanding. The contributors to…

Anthropologists are affected by and affect others through emotional engagement; they “manage” emotions or allow them to unfold as vehicles of understanding. The contributors to this volume argue that participant observation is an embodied relational process mediated by emotions. If fieldwork is to attain its fullest potential, emotional reflexivity must complement the wider reflexive task of anthropologists. This makes particular demands on the training of anthropologists, and the contributors to this volume propose new ways of practising emotional reflexivity (such as radical empiricism) that enhance anthropological knowledge. Emotions in anthropology are explored from a variety of methodological and theoretical standpoints, drawing on fieldwork in Nepal, the UK, Taiwan, Russia, India and the Philippines.

Dr Dimitrina Spencer obtained her doctorate in Social Anthropology from Oxford University. She researches learning, science and technology at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, and works as a relational psychotherapist in training for the Oxfordshire County Council. She is a co-editor of Emotions in the Field: The Psychology and Anthropology of Fieldwork Experience (Stanford 2010).

Dr James Davies obtained his doctorate in Social Anthropology from Oxford University. He is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology and Psychotherapy at Roehampton University. He is also a qualified psychotherapist (UKCP) and has worked widely in the National Health Service and other clinical settings. He is author of The Making of Psychotherapists: An Anthropological Analysis, and is co-editor of Emotions in the Field: The Psychology and Anthropology of Fieldwork Experience. His next book on the anthropology of suffering is due to appear next year.