Jeremy–indeed! You get at some of the sticky points I was trying to raise with this discussion. I agree that “shutting off” could produce an ethically problematic situation, and that’s exactly what I struggle with here. Because of the pre-existing depths of my relationships in this place which is my home, and with the subject matter of the research I do, I find that it creates a parallel and structurally similar set of ethical dilemmas when I do *not*–sometimes, at least–check my ethnographic hat at the door of some of the situations I am in. I have no desire to turn my relatives, my long-time friends, into ethnographic subjects–though they may indeed be part of the fabric of my “life in the field.” In some ways, I think about my field research as a job. Sometimes I am at that job, and sometimes I am not.

This is not unlike the way that, for instance, medical anthropology, or the anthropology of finance institutions, or of other expert cultures is conducted, to my understanding. Though there may be times when the lawyer leaves UNHCR to go out for lunch with the ethnographer, the space of action of the research is still bound up with the particular site (perhaps an office building, or a prison, or a hospital). The contours of “the field” have changed dramatically for all of us in the last 30 years especially, and especially with the rise of complex telecommunication spaces.

Here, I’m not suggesting we should let go of our ethical commitments as ethnographers–quite the contrary. I’m trying to figure out what it means to let go of the pathological need to be working all the time, because none of us can do that anyway, and how to let it go in a way that is true to the relationships I have with the place I live, and with the kind of research I do. Thanks for your comment–this is the kind of discussion I hoped would be forthcoming from the article! Apologies for my longwinded response…