When the Ethnographer Encounters War

'Written by Marcello Mollica, the last chapter before the epilogue portrays the fear of the ethnographer in the field. Fear is no longer fear of the Other, but the writer's own. It includes the 'memory' approach as well, because the writer talks from today's perpective of fears experienced during events that took place eight years ago. He was not only sharing a time and a space during the research, but also the experience of fear with his informants in the field. In situatiin like the one he describes, there is no place for observation; he becomes a full participant even when it was not plannned in the research programme. This account, based on personal, experience, supports the idea that fear implied a lack of freedom' (from Editors' Introduction, p. 23). 'The chapter written by Marcello Mollica, which thematises the fears of anthropologists working in areas of violent conflicts, i.e., warfare zones, aptly concludes the volume. That an anthropologist, or any other sensible person for that matter, should experience fear in these situations is absolutely normal. Actually, the opposite would be rather odd. In conclusion, we could ask ourselves whether fear is the constant companion of anthropologists working in the field' (from Christian Giordano's Epiloque, p. 226).