This issue of the Swiss Journal of Sociocultural Anthropology hosts a dossier that seeks to uncover the vulnerabilities encountered by researchers in anthropological fieldwork and academia, tracing their political and epistemological potential in the creation of ethnographic knowledge grounded in practices of reciprocity and solidarity. The contributions explore how anthropologists recover from various experiences of discomfort, harm, and violence by creating bonds of care and support with others, including interlocutors and fellow researchers. These relationships critically shape and reshape their perspectives and the knowledge they create. The guest editors introduce the concept of “reciprocal vulnerability”, recognizing that vulnerabilities are relational, shifting, and situational experiences and positionalities that can connect people across differences and inequalities, thereby enabling for new forms of exchange and reciprocity to emerge and thrive in fieldwork and anthropology more generally.
The dossier is followed by two special features. The first investigates how anthropologists engage in multimodal practices to convey research and negotiate power dynamics, advocating for a dynamic, performative approach to representing the “other” and rethinking scholarly practices. The second set of interventions initiates a conversation around the Ascona Charter, which spells out generic values and concrete commitments to inspire hope and collective deliberation and to catalyze transformative change within and outside the discipline of anthropology.
