Management of Extreme Situations

5Some Methodological Considerations in Relation to the Objects Involved

Over the past few decades, anthropology has been open to areas of contemporary society on a massive scale, and more particularly to so-called sensitive or crisis areas. These areas can refer to spaces (camps, ghettos, slums, etc.), groups (foreigners, migrants, refugees, unemployed, etc.) and social conditions (social marginalities and exclusions, economic and political inequalities, etc.). They concern both situations of discontent and distress (victims of diseases and epidemics, structural violence, etc.) and extreme experiences (ecological disasters, wars, risky behavior). Doubts and methodological hesitations have arisen from these fields, in particular the central question of the researcher’s legitimization modalities, their relations with the various institutions operating in these fields, the collaboration and restitution of the results to the different populations or groups concerned, and finally the anthropologist’s loyalty and ethical and civic commitment (Agier 1997; Le Palec and Luxerau 1999; Naepels 2004; Bouillon et al. 2006).

Contrary to the traditional perspective of anthropology, which required the researcher to ignore themself, to keep silent about any emotion in order to establish an objective relationship with the realities they were studying, to conceal the way in which they had negotiated their presence in the field, to pay little attention to the effects of their work, the new anthropology ...