Ethical Challenges and Practical Risks of Fieldwork Research in Development or Emergency Contexts . Introduction

The bygone figure of the lonesome ethnologist settled for a long time in an exotic distant village is fading away. New generations of social anthropologists stay out of office for much shorter fieldwork periods in order to investigate issues concerning close or distant places or people. They pay special attention to the diversity of local stakes and interests, to the multiplicity of opinions and understandings, to the complexity of other’s world. They do worry about the intercultural encounte...


Introduction
Sylvie Ayimpam and Jacky Bouju  and debates about the methodological innovations springing from emer-gency and development actions stand in good place amid these new researches. Some of them following the reflexive turn cogitate on personal involvement in aid programs. Yet, apart from the milestone book of Florence Bouillon, Marion Frésia and Virginie Tallio (2005), the French speaking anthropology of development and urgency kept uninvolved in this reflexive trend. Therefore, the aim of this issue is to start filling the gap. But, in doing so, we shall not follow the existing literature main stream which is mainly concerned with ethical and methodological problems stemming from doing fieldwork in very dangerous contexts or war situations (Nordstrom and Robben, 1995;Nilan, 2002;Sriram & al., 2009). Indeed, all the pape s gathe ed he e deal ith ode atel haza dous fieldworks.
Moderately hazardous fieldworks are interesting because they create a global atmosphere of faint insecurity. The researcher accepting to engage fieldwork in such context knows well that he (she) will find himself (or herself) caught in awkward and worrisome situations, some of them being more difficult to cope with than others. In this case, the right perception of risks is central and it depends of a fine and accurate understanding of what is at stakes for all parties interacting. In turn, this depends of the researcher s pe so al i ol e e t i people s p o le s a d ho he has egotiated the various identities assigned to him. It also depends of the previous roles he has played locally and of the new roles he is ready to take upon himself.
In moderately risky situations, hazards stem from research topics that a e politi all se siti e , so iall illegiti ate o eligiousl ta oo .
The specific difficulty of such topics is that they are characterized by conceptual clashes that ake the elusi e a d soaked ith a tago isti meanings that mistreat most of the basic methodology requirements (neutrality, cross control validation, etc.) This is made clear in Ramatou Ouedraogo a d Hadiza Moussa s pape s. They describe lengthily how they have been involved into tensed local antagonisms, concerning on one side abortion in an hostile and stigmatizing community context and on the other side, excision in a social context religiously explosive. Hazards may also originate in the authoritarian context surrounding fieldwork as shown i Moll "u d e g a d Mikaela Le Meu s pape s. I a situatio filled ith extreme political tension or religious hatred violence is likely to burst out at a o e t. This has ee " l ai Batia ga s experience in Central African Republic where he found himself caught in a local situation underi ed a pa t suspi io agai st all hu a ita ia field o ke s.
Then, well informed about a risky fieldwork situation, knowing how much access to the research site may be hazardous, the researcher may cancel is leaving to the field. This is what happened to Sten Hagberg and Gabriella Körling. With the burst out of the Malian civil war, access to their research site became impossible. To cope with the situation, they engaged i a ki d of dista t su e , a ethodologi al adapti e optio that te ds to be more and more used to circumvent field access difficulties. Today, extended fieldwork is threatened in several ways. On one side because of the generalization of insecurity problems that may cause hazards to the researcher, his assistants or his informers, and on the other side because of a continuous shrinking of institutional funding of anthropological field research. As a result, field research practice is becoming more and more complicated to implement. Therefore, many anthropologists explore ways and means adapting the classical participant observation method to these p essu es. "te Hag e g a d Ga iella Kö li g s o t i utio gi es a good idea of the many a s to take otes a d ue ies f o afa that a e experimented nowadays.
Each paper in this issue illustrates a different way to question the ethical problems met when coping with risks on the field. They may be summed up in four main questions: -How is fieldwork method knocked up and tinkered in authoritarian contexts where investigation is not welcomed and interviewing kept under surveillance?
-What particular ethical and methodological issues rise when fieldworking in sites becoming hazardous in pre or post-conflict situations?
-Is it possible to investigate any research topic whatever its sensibility? -Finally, how much is direct fieldwork interaction necessary? What are the ethical and methodological limits of distant anthropological survey?