oa Veilig veldwerk in een onveilige wijk

Safe fieldwork in an unsafe neighborhood. Researching lynching in a Latin-American slum

On July 23, 2007 Hólger Morales is caught breaking into a house in Atucucho, a slum in the outskirts of Quito. Morales is kicked, hit and eventually set on fire by an angry mob of neighborhood residents. He dies of his injuries on the spot. The author conducted four months of ethnographic fieldwork in Atucucho in search for explanations for and meanings of the lynchings in Atucucho. In this article he highlights some of the challenges, difficulties and restrictions of doing potentially dangerous fieldwork. He discusses, among other things, the process of gaining access to the neighborhood, the importance of a good gatekeeper and the extra measures taken because of the ‘delicacy’ of his subject of study.