Deep ethnography

Studying atrocities poses many challenges for ethnographers, not least of which is how to represent violent experiences, often exceed articulation. The perpetrated during the military dictatorship in Argentina are no exception. Yet, my fieldwork Buenos Aires, I found that violence forcefully surfaced ethnographic encounters, as a result having accidentally absorbed interlocutors’ psychoanalytic reasoning into praxis. Everyday practices used among survivors and relatives disappeared, such catharsis working through guilt, filtered ongoing self-reflections served crucial role emerging understanding an Argentine “ethics feelings.” couple this shared praxis with creative prose one integral way practicing ethnography violence. Communicating words instill rather than explain vexed feelings engages readers indeterminateness psychic “depths” Argentina. This doing anthropology what call deep ethnography—an emergent form sensing, talking, thinking, writing about feelings.