Ethnographic fieldwork and emotional work: Epistemological and methodological notes

Abstract

This article presents a brief theoretical review of the anthropology of emotions from my fieldwork in Veracruz in the 90s. I was interested in dealing with emotions as a key factor in the process of knowledge and ethnographic discovery, and as an epistemological and methodological main factor in both the process of fieldwork, as in the analysis, reflection, “edition” and writing anthropological text. I intend to try to reflect on the ways in which emotions, while with us, make up and “polluted” during our field situation, with emotional management work can clarify our ethnographic “lens”, and access to knowledge and understanding issues that would otherwise be beyond our reach