scientific methods in order to produce reliable results. Anthropologists
should record, describe, and understand through the power of a combina-
tion of intellect, theory, and data. It is a very rational enterprise. And
indeed one of the big sins of doing ethnography is seemingly to “go native”
and to feel, think, and sense too much like the locals do. Yet, some ethno-
graphers have increasingly asked: is “going native” indeed to be avoided at
all cost? Or should we instead bepermeatedby the field? Should we get
emotionally and physically involved with the surroundings in which we find
ourselves?Goode (1999)evencontemplated whether it is advisable to have
sexual relations with informants. For him: “It’s difficult to sentimentalize
and romanticize the people you’re studying” (Goode, 1999, p. 312) if you
know too much about them intellectually, emotionally, and physically.
Therefore, rather than writing about caricatures, disembodied others, or
exoticized “natives,” researchers would experience and write about people
that are not “other,” but that are much like themselves.
To be sure, unlike what scientific methodological decrees tell us, if we
aresubmerged in a field for many months and years we are not dictated by
our intellects alone. Already Clifford Geertz pointed out that: “Not only
ideas, but emotions too, are cultural artifacts in man” (Geertz, 1973,p. 81).
Therefore, can we in fact say anything meaningful about a culture, which
we only understand as a disembodied, objective observer who continues to
be one step removed? ForAltork (1995)we do not gain an in-depth under-
standing of a people if we solely “objectively” observe the “natives” as
though they were a different species, but rather, we understand better and
deeper if we involve our “bodies, minds, and hearts” (p. 99). We have to be
immersed long enough and be sensitive enough to learn to listen “to the
feel of the place” (p. 103). Indeed, fieldwork experiences may bring into
play a heightened sense of awareness with researchers experiencing a sen-
sual awakening making them emotionally, physically, and intellectually
“deeply responsive” to the people and the place. By letting the field open
up our senses, we may in fact understand a people from the “inside out,
rather than from the outside (by the way of the intellect) in” (p. 103) Such
an empathetic understanding adds to the ethnographic endeavor and
enables us to better represent and understand those we study and claim to
know. In that sense we become “permeated” by the field, “contaminated” if
you will, as the self becomes a “key to what we know” (Krieger inGoode,
1999 , p. 302). Indeed, when doing research, there is almost always a great
deal more participation and involvement going on than admitted in print.
However, instead of culling ourselves out of the data, knowledge may be
enhanced by becoming part of it.
Knowledge-Making and its Politics in Conflict Regions 33