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75785-01 - Course: Under Pressure: Navigating Power and Emotions in Fieldwork (3 CP)
| Semester | spring semester 2025 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers |
Ambre Elsa Alfredo (ambre.alfredo@unibas.ch)
Kaue Felipe Nogarotto Crima Bellini (k.crimabellini@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | Immersive fieldwork practices have been extensively employed across the social sciences. However, more than a methodological exercise, fieldwork is an intricate landscape of power dynamics, unpredictability, and emotional engagement. This seminar, designed for Master’s or late undergraduate students, explores two critical dimensions of fieldwork: Power and Emotions. The first half of the course focuses on Power by examining how gender, sexuality, race, and positionality manifest in various ways and influence our experience of the field and the research process. Thinking through concepts such as ‘othering,’ we explore the frictions inherent to the power dynamics that shape interactions between researchers and participants, and the space itself. The second half of the course turns to Emotions, delving into the affective dimensions of fieldwork. Here, we look at how emotions permeate the research process—from personal likes, dislikes, wants, and needs to the complexities of being affected in the field. Through theoretical perspectives, writing assignments, and case studies, the course aims to create a space to discuss and reflect on fieldwork's challenges and complexities and equip participants with tools and strategies for navigating the emotions and power dynamics that arise in fieldwork. |
| Bibliography | Recommended Readings: Ahmed, Sara. 2006. "Introduction: Find Your Way." In Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, 1-24. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822388074-003 Annavarapu, Sneha. 2021. “Difficult Encounters, Fragmented Positionalities: gender, caste, and Hindutva in the field”. Engenderings (blog). December 1, 2021. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/gender/2021/12/01/difficult-encounters-fragmented-positionalities-gender-caste-and-hindutva-in-the-field/ Behar, Ruth. 1996. “Chapter 1. The Vulnerable Observer”. In The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart, 1-33. Beacon Press. Berry, Maya J., Claudia Chávez Argüelles, Shanya Cordis, Sarah Ihmoud, and Elizabeth Velásquez Estrada. 2017. “Toward a Fugitive Anthropology: Gender, Race, and Violence in the Field.” Cultural Anthropology 32 (4): 537–565. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca32.4.05. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1937. "Appendix IV. Some Reminiscences and Reflections on Fieldwork." In Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande, 240-254. Clarendon Press. Favret-Saada, Jeanne. 2012. “Being affected.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2 (1), 435-445. https://doi.org/10.14318/hau2.1.019. Feldman, Gregory. 2011. "If Ethnography Is More than Participant-Observation, Then Relations Are More than Connections: The Case for Nonlocal Ethnography in a World of Apparatuses." Anthropological Theory 11 (4): 375-395. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499611429904 Kopenawa, Davi, and Bruce Albert. 2013. "How this book was written." In The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, 424-458. Harvard University Press. Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 2004. "Perspectival Anthropology and the Method of Controlled Equivocation," Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America 2(1): 3-20. Available at: https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol2/iss1/1 |
| Admission requirements | The number of participants is limited to 25 students. The places are assigned according to date of enrollment and subject of study. Priority will be given to the subjects listed under "modules". |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| wöchentlich | Tuesday | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
Dates
| Date | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday 18.02.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 25.02.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 04.03.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 11.03.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Fasnachstferien |
| Tuesday 18.03.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 25.03.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 01.04.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 08.04.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 15.04.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 22.04.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 29.04.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 06.05.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 13.05.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 20.05.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Tuesday 27.05.2025 | 12.15-14.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Modules |
Modul: Grundlagen der Ethnologie (Bachelor's degree subject: Anthropology) Modul: Methoden der Nahoststudien und der Gesellschaftswissenschaften (Bachelor's degree subject: Near & Middle Eastern Studies) Modul: Methoden der Near & Middle Eastern Studies und der Gesellschaftswissenschaften (Master's degree subject: Near & Middle Eastern Studies) Module: Interdisciplinary and Applied African Studies (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: The Urban across Disciplines (Master's degree program: Critical Urbanisms) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Ethnologie |