IMAGINING POLAND – DOING FIELDWORK IN POLAND
IMAGINING POLAND – DOING FIELDWORK IN POLAND

Summary/Abstract: When I was asked to contribute a little text to this special issue, I was wondering about the character of it. What should it be like and what tone would be appropriate? Should it be a personal account of my (ethnographic) experiences as a (German) anthropologist in Poland? Should it be a report about my fieldwork or rather about my personal encounters? The more I thought about it the more ambivalent I felt. I wanted to contribute something but I could not decide on form and content. I went through my old “field notes” and I went through my diary. Recalling curiosity, frustration, anger, and anxiety, I felt even more ambivalent. I wondered whether I wanted to deal with and write about these emotions and the difficulties I encountered while doing fieldwork in Warszawa once again (I had devoted a whole chapter on these difficulties from a methodological and epistemological perspective in my dissertation). It took me a long time going back and forth thinking whether or not I could or should contribute something. This is what I came up with.

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