Mutuality and Empathy

Focusing on issues of empathy and mutuality, and self andother, as experienced in the everyday challenges of doingparticipant-observation fieldwork, this volume makes a significantcontribution to rethinking the experiential and conceptualconstruction of the field. The contributors adopt a criticaland self reflexive approach that goes beyond issues of voiceand representation raised by early postmodern anthropologyto grapple with issues concerning the nature of knowledgetransmission that lie at the very heart of the ethnographic effort.They explore how multiple modes of attending, awareness andsense making can shape the ethnographic process. Of noteare those unanticipated, less palpable forms of communicationthat are peripheral to or transcend more formalized andstructured research methods and agendas. Among theseare empathy, intuition, somatic modes of attention and/orembodied knowledge and identification, as well as, sharedsensory experiences and aesthetics. By the elaboration of suchconcepts the volume as a whole offers a substantial elaborationof a phenomenological approach.