Of flesh and bone: emotional and affective ethnography of forensic anthropology practices amidst an armed conflict

Abstract

As I set out to write about my research process with forensic anthropologists in a country with a long-lasting armed conflict, I was unable to ignore the imminent role that affect and emotions play in my practice and in my relationship with this topic. I fought the urge to disregard the struggle implied in writing about my own practice. Thus, I reflect on the effects and affects that this fieldwork and its related methods have on my approach to this topic, to the people I work and share with, and to myself. My argument is twofold. First, if one is to acknowledge that affect and emotions produce knowledge and that knowledge productions have world-making effects, as researchers we need to attend to the worlds we enact through our own research and knowledge production practices. Second, writing and registration practices constitute modes of research that, in themselves, produce knowledge. I develop my argument in three steps. I reflect on the difficulties of writing this particular text; I address my own knowledge productions – that include my own registration practices, and I attend to the worlds that I help to enact. I also pay attention to others’ registration practices.

Keywords

• affect and emotions
• field notes
• writing practices
• knowledge production practices
• feminist sts ethnography
• care
• material semiotics
• colombian conflict
• forensic anthropologists