Friendship in the Field
(Southwestern University)
While I was researching in Munich, Germany for my capstone (senior thesis), I made an emotional attachment with a “key informant”, and we became fast friends. Working with people with HIV through the local AIDS organization, I was constantly coming into contact with sad stories. My friend was one of these sad stories. While I wanted to interview her and take her life history down, the ethics of the situation became blurred as I met her father and accompanied her to doctors. Can an anthropologist really be a friend and a researcher at the same time? I want to challenge anthropology to look at the emotional aspects of creating and maintaining relationships with the people they depend on for information. Critically reflecting on my experiences in the field and on relevant anthropological literature, I explore the importance of including friendships in ethnographies and ask: Can anthropologists have ethically sound and emotional relationships with their “subjects”?