Emotions in the Field: the psychology and anthropology of fieldwork experience. Stanford: Stanford University Press

Edited by: James Davies & Dimitrina Spencer (in press)

As emotion is often linked with irrationality, it’s no surprise researchers tend to under-report the emotions they experience in the field. However, denying emotion altogether doesn’t necessarily lead to better research. Methods cannot function independently from the personalities wielding them, and it’s time we question the tendency to underplay the scientific, personal, and political consequences of the emotional dimensions of fieldwork. This book explores the idea that emotion is not antithetical to thought or reason, but is instead an untapped source of insight that can complement more traditional methods of anthropological research.
With a new, re-humanized methodological framework, this book shows how certain reactions and experiences consistently evoked in fieldwork, when treated with the intellectual vigor empirical work demands, can be translated into meaningful data. Emotions in the Field brings to mainstream anthropological awareness not only the viability and necessity of this neglected realm of research, but also its fresh and thoughtful guiding principles.

"This book is a welcome rediscovery of the importance of emotions as key social and political facts. The perception that emotions are not after-effects but are themselves constitutive of practice is a timely reminder and insight."
—Paul Rabinow, University of California, Berkeley

"A powerful affirmation of the humanity of the field encounter in all its ambivalence, and a timely call for social scientists to harness the rich potential of a people-centered research enterprise."
—João Biehl, Princeton University

Anthropological Fieldwork: a relational process

Edited by: Dimitrina Spencer & Davies, J. (Cambridge Scholars Press [in press])

The Making of Psychotherapists: an anthropological analysis