Dancing and Romancing with Infantry: Reflections on an Ethnography

Abstract

The literature on ethnographers doing research in dangerous and violent situations has not much to say on the complexity of motives, which propel the latter into such contexts. This paper examines the motives which propelled the author into doing research with the UK infantry including in an operational context. It links these motives to the author's biographical development over decades and examines practices and perceptions which helped sustain those motives when fieldwork became problematic. The paper combines auto-biographical memories (in italics) with field notes made during participant observation with infantry.