Accompanied Research in Literature

Paper proposal for the planned handbook “Accompanied Fieldwork in Anthropology”, edited by Julia Koch-Tshirangwana, Judit Tavakoli & Sophia Thubauville, cp. GAA Working Group „Family in the Field” & Handbook Project “Accompanied Fieldwork in Anthropology”

Even if the topic of accompanied research in social anthropology, receives until now little attention, it does appear in the literature from time to time on closer analysis. This handbook chapter gives an outline of the literature on accompanied research, its content and its reception.

The first publications of anthropologists, who took not only their spouses, but also their children to the field, are from as early as the 1940s. In the 1990s, inspired partly by the writing culture debate and partly by feminist and gender perspectives, publications on accompanied field research, recorded a first peak, but stayed mainly anecdotal. Today the topic addresses many important issues of current concern such as research ethics, co-production of research, embodiment and relationality in the field and therefore contributes to numerous theoretical debates in anthropology.