Does the Unconscious Influence Our Ethnography? Psychoanalysis during Fieldwork in Argentina

Abstract

Ethnographic fieldwork is an emotional research practice because of its intersubjective nature and empathic embrace of the actor’s perspective. This intersubjectivity also involves the fieldworker’s unconscious, which influences ethnographic encounters and anthropological interpretations. Two years of psychoanalysis in Argentina revealed the influence of the unconscious on my fieldwork about political violence and trauma through dream analyses and the analyst’s interventions. This understanding improved the rapport with research participants and opened an alternative road to reflexivity.