Rolling the Windows Up: On (Not) Researching Violence and Strategic Distance

In this article, I reflect on my experience conducting fieldwork in some of the violent neighbourhoods of urban Honduras. Using examples from ethnography conducted in and around San Pedro Sula on life after deportation for Honduran migrants, I make two interventions into broader discussions regarding the methodological adaptations necessary for conducting research in violent contexts. First, I tease out the complex relationship between studying within the context of violence and studying violence itself. I ask: does ethnography in violent contexts inevitably become ethnography of violent contexts? From there I discuss navigating risk and security as an outsider-insider, challenging the idea that local knowledge is always uniform, reliable, and applicable to a researcher. Drawing from my experience in the field, I argue that understanding the local “rules” combined with cultivated distance can be strategic both for the outsider-ethnographer and the locals with whom she is working.