La mia stanza al The Fountain: strategie di inclusione ed esclusione in una enclave

This article is based on a reflection upon my ethnographic field-work conducted in the Northern Irish Protestant enclave of The Fountain, between 2003 and 2004 during my doctoral studies on martyrology in the Irish Republic tradition. The ethnographic field-work I conducted, the people around about me and the same topography of that research into a violent urban setting, made me understand that I was, too, the subject of anthropology. However, if on the one hand, this can make the ethnographer at home with the discipline of anthropology; on the other hand, security-related issues represented a continuous concern for both the ethnographer and the people dwelling in his research locus. After some fifteen years after my main field-work, the discussion will re-explore the challenges the ethnographer encountered while doing participant observation and, in particular, practicing anthropology in a violently divided society on ethno-religious lines.