The Multi-Sided Ethnographer

As ethnographic fieldwork blurs the boundaries between ›private‹ and ›professional‹ life, ethnographers always appear to be on duty, looking out for valuable encounters and waiting for the next moment of disclosure. Yet what lies in the gaps and pauses of fieldwork? The contributions in this volume dedicated to anthropologist Martin Sökefeld explore methodological and ethical dimensions of multi-sided ethnographic research. Based on diverse cases ranging from hobbies over kinship ties to political activism, the contributors show how personal relationships, passions and commitments drive ethnographers in and beyond research, shaping the knowledge they create together with others.

Tim Burger is a postdoctoral researcher at the Collaborative Research Center »Cultures of Vigilance« at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (SFB 1369). He has conducted fieldwork on São Jorge Island, Azores, and in Central Java, Indonesia, with a focus on agriculture, economic practices, household relations, and the state. Before pursuing his doctoral thesis in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge, he studied for a MSc in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE), and B.A. in Social and Cultural Anthropology and Law at LMU Munich where he also taught various undergraduate courses.

Usman Mahar holds a postdoctoral position at Universität St. Gallen. His anthropological investigations delve into various aspects of unequal mobility, irregularisation and return. His current research examines the lived conditions and rights of migrants in Austria as part of the EU-Horizon project, ›Protecting Irregular Migrants in Europe‹ (PRIME). He received his PhD from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. His multi-sited doctoral research in Germany, Italy and Pakistan (2019-2022), focused on the affective responses and improvisations of irregularised migrants and ›voluntary‹ returnees.

Pascale Schild is a social anthropologist at Universität Bern. Her research focuses on disaster government, politics of reconstruction, the state, political solidarity, peace and conflict and ethnographic vulnerability. She holds a PhD from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Between 2021 and 2024, she was a visiting researcher at the South Asia Institute at SOAS University of London.

Anna-Maria Walter is a social anthropologist at the Rachel Carson Center. Her PhD research at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München focused on the anthropology of emotions, gender relations and mobile phones in the high mountains of Gilgit, northern Pakistan. As a postdoctoral researcher for the University of Oulu, Anna-Maria has worked on conceptions of the self through social media use, digital anthropology and field methodologies, the socio-ecological dimensions of Alpine ski touring, perceptions of mountain landscapes more broadly as well as indigenous knowledge of glaciers.