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An exchange initiated by Michaela Haug and Rosalie Stolz, with Anna-Madeleine Ayeh, Tabea Häberlein, Julia Pauli, Birgitt Röttger-Rössler, Thomas Stodulka and Sophia Thubauville

Paideuma 70/71:341– 354 (2024/25)

https://doi.org/10.21248/paideuma.2273

Abstract: 

Anthropologists rarely walk alone. Indeed, they frequently have company: interlocutors in the field, especially when relations have grown and intensified over a longish time span, as well as research partners and assistants or accompanying family members. While the first feature prominently in anthropological writing and the second are often mentioned in acknowledge-ments, being the sorts of company that add to the researcher’s credibility, the presences and absences of a fieldworker’s family are not explicitly mentioned as often or discussed in what may be joint ethnographic texts. While various aspects of the researcher’s positionality and their affects are increasingly reflected upon in theses, monographs and articles, the same does not yet hold true with regard to the kinship belonging and networks of care that researchers are part of and which are in one way or another made to resonate with fieldwork. Issues of the compatibility of (field)work with one’s family, especially (infra)structural and financial challenges, have been central in current initiatives aimed at increasing the visibility of accompanied field-work. In fact, balancing child-care and academic work is a demanding task at institutions of higher education as well.

A particular challenge for anthropologists can be the long-term field-work which lies at the heart of our discipline. Encompassing the entire life and persona of the researcher, anthropological fieldwork can be expected to be influenced in various ways by the fieldworker’s social embeddedness and family status. Accompanying family members add to the complex social dynamics in the field, but they also have an imprint on the research that is worth closer examination. This even holds true when, for different reasons, researchers must try and keep the field separate from their private lives. These considerations have led us to wonder how this highly valuable source of reflexive ethnographic knowledge remains largely untapped.

We therefore suggested that this topic would fit very well with the theme ‘Contested knowledge’ of the bi-annual meeting of the Association of the German Anthropologists that was hosted in Munich in 2023. We set out to explore whether and to what extent the knowledge gained from accompanied fieldwork is contested.Instead of elaborating our own ideas and speculations, we invited a number of colleagues – Anna Madeleine-Ayeh, Tabea Häberlein, Julia Pauli, Birgitt Röttger-Rössler, Thomas Stodulka and Sophia Thubauville – to join in our discussion, first in-person in Munich, and now through written exchange. Based on their considerable experience with different constellations of accompanied fieldwork at different career levels, the contributors provide glimpses of their fieldwork experience and offer insights, personal reflections and criticisms. This personal style eventually is intended to instil in readers their own reflections on their experiences and their own takes on their ability to balance fieldwork with family and acquire knowledge from the fact of accompanied fieldwork itself. As with any good conversations, we sincerely hope that this will provoke many more discussions and dialogues, both backstage and ‘front of curtain’.