Emotions and Ethical Dilemmas in Anthropological Research

April 17, 2026

Dr. Faduma Abukar Mursal, UNILU

Dr. Pascale Schild, UNIBE

Dr. Omar Kasmani, Freie Universität Berlin

This workshop aims to explore the role of affects and emotions when experiencing and navigating ethical dilemmas in anthropological research. Throughout the stages of a research project, from ethnographic fieldwork to the creation and dissemination of anthropological knowledge, researchers are confronted with conflicting professional and personal responsibilities and emotions involving ethical considerations of 'how one ought to live' (Laidlaw 2023, 1) and how to act well. In this workshop, we will bring together debates on 'ethics' and 'emotions' in anthropology. Taking feminist critiques of the dichotomy between emotion and reason/professionalism as our starting point - including Ruth Behar's The Vulnerable Observer (1996) - we will explore the importance of affects and emotions in 'driving' researchers and informing their perspectives.

Emotions are intertwined with ethics, revealing 'what matters' (Lutz 2017) to people and how they strive to act ethically in response to the world around them (see Kuan 2023). Drawing on contemporary feminist and queer scholarship (see Kasmani 2022), we will discuss how affects and emotions reveal and respond to situations in which conflicting matters are at stake for researchers in relation to their professional and personal lives. Methodologically, we will approach emotions as a way of knowing (see Decleve 2023); that is, as a means of understanding and navigating ethical dilemmas in fieldwork and academia (see Davies and Spencer 2010). We ask: what can we learn about ethics and its dilemmas in anthropology by listening to the emotions of researchers and those around them? How do affects contribute to ethical dilemmas, and vice versa?

This one-day workshop offers young researchers in anthropology and related disciplines an opportunity to share their experiences and reflect on the emotions and concerns that arise when encountering ethical dilemmas in research. Participants are encouraged to present their projects and discuss related ethical dilemmas and their emotional entanglements. This includes, but is not limited to, dilemmas involving the blurring of personal and professional boundaries, such as falling in love in the field, feeling powerless in the face of research participants' living conditions, encountering violence during fieldwork and in academia, and the ways in which anxieties about the end of work contracts play out in research projects.

In addition to the presentations and their discussion, the workshop will feature a keynote lecture delivered by Dr. Omar Kasmani, who will also provide feedback on individual contributions.

Suggested readings

Behar, Ruth. 1996. The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks Your Heart. Boston: Beacon Press.

Davies, James and Dimitrina Spencer (eds). 2010. Emotions in the Field. The Psychology and Anthropology of Fieldwork Experience. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Decleve, Livnat Konopny. 2023. 'This is What My Fear Told Me': Fear as Key to Understanding Political Action. Israel Studies 28 (1): 106–121. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/871387

Kasmani, Omar. 2022. Queer Companions: Religion, Public Intimacy, and Saintly Affects in Pakistan. Durham: Duke University Press.

Kuan, Teresa. 2023. Emotion and Affect. In The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Ethics, edited by James Laidlaw. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 309–334.

Laidlaw, James (ed.). 2023. The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lutz, Catherine. 2017. What Matters. Cultural Anthropology 32(2): 181–191. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca32.2.02.

Stodulka, Thomas, Samia Dinkelaker and Ferdiansyah Thajib (eds.). 2019. Affective Dimensions of Fieldwork and Ethnography. Cham: Springer Verlag.

Guest speaker

Dr. Omar Kasmani, Freie Universität Berlin

Osmar Kasmani is a cultural anthropologist and visiting professor at Freie Universität Berlin. His work combines the study of Islamic life-worlds with queer and affect theory, exploring critical notions of public intimacy and post-migrant be/longing. He is the author of Queer Companions: Religion, Public Intimacy, and Saintly Affects in Pakistan (Duke University Press, 2022), which won the 2023 Ruth Benedict Prize and the 2024 Bloomsbury Pakistan Prize, and is the editor of Pakistan Desires: Queer Futures Elsewhere (Duke University Press, 2023).

Venue

University of Bern, Hochschulstrasse 4, 3012 Bern, Main Building

University of Berne

Venue: University of Bern, Hochschulstrasse 4, 3012 Bern, Main Building

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