Suchergebnisse

As anthropology turns toward the cultural issues of the 21 st century, more and more ethnographic fieldwork is and will continue to be conducted in regions fraught with conflict, instability, and terror. Despite a growing literature that seeks to develop new theories and perspectives for the study of violence, little mention is made of the practical matters of survival in perilous field sites and how the anthropologist's experience of violence in the field should be considered. What is needed is a pragmatic strategy for dealing with threats to the safety, security, and well‐being of anthropologists and informants who work amid the menace of violence. Drawing on my own fieldwork in Haiti, I suggest the adoption of new tactics for ethnographic research and survival in dangerous fields—strategies that challenge the conventional ethics of the discipline, reconfigure the relationship between anthropologist and informant, and compel innovation in negotiating the exchange of data under hazardous circumstances. [Keywords: fieldwork, violence, methodology, ethics, Haiti]

Draws on ethnographic field research in Haiti to examine the impact of violence on the lives of street children. It has been estimated that almost 500,000 children ages 5-18 live on city streets, where they are treated as a criminal subset of society. The focus is on street children who live in Potay Leyogan, a congested section of Port-au-Prince now called "Kosovo" because of its violence. Interviews conducted with these children in 1999 revealed daily misery & the combative stance taken toward them by paramilitary antigang units of the Haitian National Police, who wrongly associate street children with the activities of poor young men engaged in banditry or the illegal drug trade. Violent "sweeps" routinely carried out by the police are described, along with the incarceration of street kids who have few civil rights & no legal representation. It is contended that there is an urgent need to change perceptions of street children as dangerous social threats, & for Haiti to move away from using paramilitary solutions for social ills. 3 References. J. Lindroth