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Fall 2002: The Risks Of The Profession: Undertaking Research In Dangerous Fieldworks
The Risks of the Profession: undertaking research in dangerous Fieldwork (PDF, 38 pages, 142.9 KB) , by Valérie Amiraux & Daniel Cefai
This introductory text comes back on the existing literature and restores the richness of previous reflections. The bibliography gathers the main texts published in France and abroad on the hidden aspects of scientific research. The authors chose to give priority to two main reflection axes without pretending to be exhaustive: the tumultuous relation between the investigator and the investigated (feelings of empathy or rejection towards the individuals or groups on which one does a inquiry; difficulty to establish trustful relationships; the ambiguities of the researcher's position notably when he is asked to take position) and the various interferences marking the stages of the object construction (private experiences, political or media pressure) and then, in a strictly distinctive timeframe, the production of a knowledge and its restitution, or even possible applications on the political scene. Considering this, the introduction does not limit to a presentation of the issue's contributions. It gives way to reflections leads, not dealt with in the articles, but that could generate further works on the scientific aspect of the researcher's mutation into an expert, particularly in the judicial field, as it is also enunciated.
Working on Islam in War-torn Bosnia (PDF, 32 pages, 206.1 KB) , by Xavier Bougarel
The Cold War sanitised the author's analysis of political violence among revolutionary peasants in El Salvador during the 1980s. A 20 year retrospective analysis of his fieldwork documents the ways political terror and repression become embedded in daily interactions that normalise interpersonal brutality in a dynamic of everyday violence. Furthermore, the structural, symbolic and interpersonal violence that accompanies both revolutionary mobilisation and also labour migration to the U.S. inner city follows gendered fault lines. The snares of symbolic violence in counterinsurgency war spawn mutual recrimination and shame, obfuscating the role of an oppressive power structure. Similarly, everyday violence in neo-liberal peacetime facilitates the administration of the subordination of the poor who blame themselves for character failings. Ethnography's challenge is to elucidate the causal chains and linkages in the continuum of violence that buttresses inequality in the post-Cold War era.
Violence in times of War and in Times of Peace: lessons of the post-Cold War: the example of Salvador (PDF, 35 pages, 101.9 KB) , by Philippe Bourgeois
The Cold War sanitised the author's analysis of political violence among revolutionary peasants in El Salvador during the 1980s. A 20 year retrospective analysis of his fieldwork documents the ways political terror and repression become embedded in daily interactions that normalise interpersonal brutality in a dynamic of everyday violence. Furthermore, the structural, symbolic and interpersonal violence that accompanies both revolutionary mobilisation and also labour migration to the U.S. inner city follows gendered fault lines. The snares of symbolic violence in counterinsurgency war spawn mutual recrimination and shame, obfuscating the role of an oppressive power structure. Similarly, everyday violence in neo-liberal peacetime facilitates the administration of the subordination of the poor who blame themselves for character failings. Ethnography's challenge is to elucidate the causal chains and linkages in the continuum of violence that buttresses inequality in the post-Cold War era.
Entering into the Movement: distance and participation on a sensitive field in Turkey (PDF, 29 pages, 160.5 KB) , by Elise Massicard
Elise Massicard was put under a particular pressure working on the alevis minority in Turkey: her own enquiry could participate to the constitution of a knowledge on the alevis – and even the construction of an alevi subject – that could serve the interests of the community. The author shows all along the article the various political implications of her research and what they imply for the researcher: which distance is right? How could she conciliate the research imperatives with the necessary trustful relations without which there would have been no exchange? The author shares her experience of Turkey without pretending to generalise her conclusions. She details the concrete difficulties she was faced to and the answers she had to find.
Notebook on Jordan, from field inquiry to the experience of mediation (PDF, 5 pages, 21.8 KB) , by Géraldine Chatelard
This contribution suggests a particular illustration of the dynamics that can lead a researcher to voluntarily engage on his field. Through the form of a diary not destined to publication, this article mixes field notes and subsequent comments. A conflict emerged in South Jordan between public authorities and Bedouins from the creation of a natural resource. Several events and requests led the anthropologist to act as a mediator. A series of questions then emerged on the work and status of a researcher in the society he pretended studying in a distanced way. Are the objectivity and the refusal to become implicated tenable positions in contexts profoundly affecting ethical convictions? More generally, isn't the French ethnographical traditional will to defend the paradigm of the objective researcher becoming illusory?
War and Assembly, the discovery and the learning of democracy by the Nicaraguan Miskitus (1981-1988) (PDF, 20 pages, 63.9 KB) , by Gilles Bataillon
The Miskitus Indians from Nicaragua are since the 1989 end of the contras-sandinists civil war and the victory of the opposition on the sandinist national liberation front (SNLF) experiencing democratic forms of power at every stage of social life. The discovery and the apprenticeship of democratic practices and manners surely come from the "spirit of time". But this discovery and apprenticeship have also been the Miskitus' sole experience, which one ought to retrace in so much as it occurred in the a priori unfavourable context of armed battles and civil war. This article intends to do so, supported on the one hand of interviews made with miskitu guerrilleros in 1984-1985 and others from 1997 to today, after their return to civil life, and on the other hand on different guerrilla archive documents.
Itinerary of a Research: The civic engagement of an anthropologist in Kabylie (PDF, 21 pages, 66.3 KB) , Interview with Alain Mahe
Alain Mahé has been travelling Kabylie, its history and rites for more than twenty years. In this interview he remembers his experiences and the way they supported his work of enquiry, and how he considers them inthe light of his personal researcher trajectory. In this interview, Alain Mahé recalls how his career and research topics are linked to his personnal trajectory, his friendships and childhood in a suburb south Paris.
Review Essay: About Josepha Laroche's (eds) Loyalty in International Relations (PDF, 6 pages, 21.3 KB) , by Wolf-Dieter Eberwein
In this review essay, Wolf-DieterEeberwein comments on the book directed by Josepha Laroche, called La Loyauté dans les relations internationales (Paris, l'Harmattan). This collective book gathers the presentations that occurred during a conference by the International Studies Section of the French Political Science Association (Association Française de Science Politique) the 17 contributions discuss and spot the light on central aspects of the normative foundation of the international system and the judicialisation of international relations.