Ambivalences, possibilities and impossibilities of an «at home» ethnography in a women’s shelter

Abstract

In a 1987 essay on auto-anthropology and its limits, Strathern raises from the very first lines a fundamental question: «how one knows when one is at home». This question introduces the analysis of my positioning in ethnographic research conducted in an anti-violence centre where I worked as an operator, and from which emerge the ambivalences and contradictions generated by the relationships with the interlocutors, primarily the operators of the anti-violence centre. My experience as a former anti-violence operator made my research an ethnography at home, both in terms of the research context and the object of the ethnographic investigation, which was the critical analysis of the practices aimed at supporting migrant-origin women. Starting from my own practices, my personal experience constituted, from an ethnographic perspective, the ontological and epistemological nexus of the research, making it essential to question the implications of my relationships with the involved subjects. As a result, a process of negotiation unfolded regarding roles, content, methods, and ethnographic outputs, with my position being that of a «compromised» researcher, shaped by my involvement in the research field. The analysis of my experience unfolds through this series of reflections, which, revisiting the collected material after some time, allowed me to recognize the risks, impossibilities, and possibilities of the research process undertaken.