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University of California Press

About the Book

Fieldwork Under Fire is a path-breaking collection of essays written by anthropologists who have experienced the unpredictability and trauma of political violence firsthand. These essays combine theoretical, ethnographic, and methodological points of view to illuminate the processes and solutions that characterize life in dangerous places. They describe the first, often harrowing, experience of violence, the personal and professional problems that arise as troubles escalate, and the often surprising creative strategies people use to survive.

In "writing violence," the authors give voice to all those affected by the conditions of violence: perpetrators as well as victims, civilians and specialists, black marketeers and heroes, jackals and researchers. Focusing on everyday experiences, these essays bring to light the puzzling contradictions of lives disturbed by violence: the simultaneous existence of laughter and suffering, of fear and hope. By doing so, they challenge the narrow conceptualization that associates violence with death and war, arguing that instead it must be considered a dimension of living.

About the Author

Carolyn Nordstrom, Visiting Scholar in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is the editor of The Paths to Domination, Resistance, and Terror (California, 1992). Antonius C.G.M. Robben, Professor of Anthropology at Utrecht University, is the author of Sons of the Sea Goddess: Economic Practice and Discursive Conflict in Brazil (1989).

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
The Anthropology and Ethnography of Violence and Sociopolitical Conflict
Antonius C. G. M. Robben and Carolyn Nordstrom

PRISONERS OF LOVE
With Genet in the Palestinian Field
Ted Swedenburg

RUMOR
The Beginning of the End
Anna Simons

ACCIDENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Witnessing the 1989 Chinese People's Movement
Frank N. Pieke

SEDUCTION AND PERSUASION
The Politics of Truth and Emotion among Victims
and Perpetrators of Violence
Antonius C.G.M. Robben

FEAR
Living in a State of Fear
Linda Green

CREATIVITY AND CHAOS
War on the Front Lines
Carolyn Nordstrom

RAPE ATTACK
Ethnography ofthe Ethnographer
Cathy Winkler, with Penelope] Hanke

COMING HOME
The Croatian War Experience
Maria B. Olujic

FACE
The Anthropologist as Terrorist
Joseba Zulaika

EPILOGUE
Ethnographic States of Emergency
Allen Feldman

ENDPIECES: THE DOING OF
ANTHROPOLOGY
Myrna Mack
Elizabeth Oglesby

Reflections on an Antropologia Comprometida:
Conversations with Ricardo Falla
Beatriz Manz

Reflections on Managing Danger in Fieldwork:
Dangerous Anthropology in Belfast
Jeffrey A. Sluka

CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX

Reviews

"Required reading for anyone about to leave for the field. . . . A timely, deserving, and original contribution to a rapidly growing body of literature on the study of violence."—Jean-Paul Dumont, George Mason University