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This book focuses on the emotional hazards of conducting fieldwork about or within contexts of violence and provides a forum for field-based researchers to tell their stories. Increasingly novice and seasoned ethnographers alike, whether by choice or chance, are working in situations where multidimensional forms of violence, conflict and war are facets of everyday life. The volume engages with the methodological and ethical issues involved and features a range of expressive writings that reveal personal consequences and dilemmas. The contributors use their emotions, their scars, outrage and sadness alongside their hopes and resilience to give voice to that which is often silenced, to make visible the entanglements of fieldwork and its lingering vulnerabilities. The book brings to the fore the lived experiences of researchers and their interlocutors alike with the hope of fostering communities of care.

This paper discusses the benefits of using film in ethnographic fieldwork. During the fieldwork for Kamilla's Ph.D. project about elderly people's health and social relations, we have experimented with the use of video. In this paper we focus on the results of and reactions to using self-produced film material in focus group discussions conducted in an activity centre for retired people in Copenhagen. The method applied turned out to be beneficial in expected but also positively surprising ways that enabled us to gain insights beyond those of solely word-based approaches. Please view our short film clip Bodil in the Snow (http://vimeo.com/59180448) which we used for accessing knowledge about health issues among the elderly in Copenhagen, as discussed in the article.

Methodological "confessions" are an established genre of ethnographic writing and have contributed to the development of reflexivity in the practice of qualitative research. Yet despite their prevalence, methodological reflections on the specific challenges of conducting ethnography in institutional sport settings have not been developed. The aim of this article, therefore, is to provide a confessional representation of ethnographic fieldwork in a male academy sport environment in the United Kingdom which exhibited several institutional characteristics. Five images are used as stimuli for further methodological reflection in order to illustrate and analyze some practical, ethical, and relational qualities of ethnographic fieldwork. The interpretation and analysis draw attention to strategic ways ethnographers adapt their ethnographic presence in response to specific contextual challenges and constraints. The article concludes with a series of recommendations to guide ethnographic fieldworkers (especially novice ethnographers) in settings of a similar nature.

This case discusses the ethnographic challenges that the increased prominence of online interactions represents. Sociologists need to reflect on the nature of online forums and adjust their methodology if they want to understand new forms of social interactions. In my own work, I took up this challenge by exploring an online surrogacy support and information forum, www.surromomonline.com, as my fieldsite. I spent a decade immersed in this online world, reading discussion threads on numerous sub-forums in which women discussed a wide range of topics, such as relationship with their couple, contract negotiations, embryo transfer practices, termination of pregnancy, and even non-surrogacy issues, including family, work, news, and more. I also contacted surrogates by posting on the forum; their responses helped me understand www.surromomonline.com discussions and stances more accurately. I found that understanding the history and context of online discussions is important for comprehending the meanings people create together. Treating discussion threads, rather than individual posts, as the unit of analysis helps provide context for understanding data from online forums. Much as in physical life, meanings inform actions, and people never construct meanings alone. Long-term immersion in www.surromomonline.com enabled me to see change over time; surrogates modified and renegotiated previous conceptualizations and notions. Looking for negative cases is just as important in analyzing online data as it is in any other ethnographic work. This case exemplifies the implementation of the interactionist insight that feelings, practices, and meanings are formulated collectively in interactions even in the context of online forums.

As sisters and sociologists, we shared an unnerving experience of sexual harassment in one of our preliminary field sites. Our research pursuits split thereafter, with one of us leaning into questions of gender and sexuality and the other steering clear. Despite our diverging interests, we both encountered discomforting moments that raise questions about what data we render surplus in our analysis. In this article, we draw on ethnographic and interviewing data from our respective projects to conceptualize "discomforting surplus" as ethnographic data that we omit from our analyses. We offer two types of discomforting surpluses: those that reveal dissonance between our actions and self-conceptions, and those that seem not just uncomfortable, but inconsequential. We mine these discomforting surpluses, calling for introspection about our subject positions and the potential benefits of trying out analytical frames we have ignored. We conclude with practical suggestions for reflecting meaningfully on our relationships to the field and engaging in thought experiments that center discomforting surplus. These contradictions, omissions, and unnerving questions in ethnographic research are important to grapple with as we encounter a push for greater transparency and open science.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to report on video making in two different contexts within the Community Arts Zone research project, an international research project concerned with the connections between arts, literacy and the community.Design/methodology/approach– At one project site, researchers and parents from the community filmed their children making dens with an artist. At another site, a professional film crew filmed young people engaged in arts practice in school settings.Findings– In both cases, researchers, artists and community participants collaborated to do research and make video. This paper discusses the ways that this work was differently positioned at the two sites. These different positionings had implications for the meaning ascribed to video making from the point of view of the participants, researchers and artists involved.Originality/value– By drawing on perspectives of researchers and artists, the paper explores implications for video making processes within ethnographic research. These include a need for awareness of the diversity and fragmentation of the fields of both visual research and visual arts practice. In addition, the relationship between research and the visual is unfolding in a context in which the digital is increasingly ubiquitous in everyday life. Therefore the authors argue for the need for researchers and artists to explore their epistemological assumptions with regards to video and film, and to consider the role of the digital in the lives of their participants. The coming together of these positions and experiences is what constructs the meaning of the digital and visual in the field.

In this essay I reflect on the ethical challenges of ethnographic fieldwork I personally experienced in a female gambling study. By assuming a covert research role, I was able to observe natural occurrences of female gambling activities but unable to make peace with disturbing feelings of my research concealment. By making my study overt, I was able to fulfill ethical obligations as a researcher but unable to get female gamblers to speak their minds. I responded to such ethical dilemmas by adjusting the level of involvement, participating in female gambling culture as an insider and observing it as an outsider. This fieldwork suggests that the ethics of participant observation should be addressed in relation to the sensitivity of the research topic, the vulnerability of the researched individuals, and the plasticity of field membership roles.

This article presents how the classical roots of ethnographic fieldwork can be considered and adapted when teaching ethnography in social work and public health courses. The experiential community engagement component of the course is discussed in-depth (with ten classroom examples), as well as how to enhance fieldwork skills through classroom activities, which Master's of Social Work (MSW) and Bachelor's of Social Work (BSW) students will need in preparation for entering the field. Students who have undergraduate experiences in ethnography with faculty mentors are often taught 'how' to use the elements of fieldwork but not the 'why' of the methods. Two books reviewed in this issue of the journal are viewed as exemplars for student learning and can be used in the classroom. Researcher reflection is highlighted as a necessary skill, and the need to consider the community as partners is essential for the design, rigor and understanding of classroom projects in ethnography.

This case study describes, analyses, and gives examples of, and personal reflections on, the difficulties in doing ethnographic research in a gender-stereotyped organization. In this text, the focus is on the method used and not specifically on the outcome of the research project. The motivation for the design of the study and why this method was chosen as a way to better understand how leadership is taught and practiced in everyday working life situations are presented; in addition, the difficulties of working as an ethnographer are discussed. The study highlights ethical perspectives on research concerning both public and private interests, and on data collecting and working as a participant observer.

Calixta Guiteras, Esther Hermitte et Joan Ablon ont été des pionnières pour les femmes anthropologues en Amérique du Nord et du Sud. Leurs trajectoires se sont rejointes sur les hauts plateaux du Chiapas au milieu du xx e siècle. La première partie de l'article utilise la correspondance de professeurs masculins pour illustrer la lutte de Calixta Guiteras contre le sexisme de l'école d'enquête sur le terrain de 1942-1943 et contre le cloisonnement des postes permanents. L'analyse suggère que malgré la plus grande inclusion des femmes sur le terrain, la profession ne s'est pas automatiquement féminisée. S'appuyant sur cette idée, la deuxième section consacrée à Esther Hermitte et Joan Ablon montre, à l'aide de leurs carnets, comment l'étude sur le terrain a suscité une prise de conscience des multiples implications du genre dans la conduite de la recherche, née de l'expérience des contradictions de l'inclusion asymétrique. Prises ensemble, ces expériences de genre sur le terrain, où l'on est censé être à la fois participant et observateur, démontrent le développement d'une conscience en relation avec les conditions matérielles de la vie d'une femme « pionnière ». Au cours des années 1940 et 1950, période présentée comme celle de l'inclusion croissante des femmes dans la discipline de l'anthropologie, la présence des femmes dans le domaine a ainsi redimensionné plutôt qu'éliminé les hiérarchies de genre au sein de la discipline.