Doing Research while Being Scared to the Bone: Reflexively Looking back on a Field Study on Madness in Gabon

Abstract

Using data collected for my doctoral research in Gabon, and building upon social science research on witchcraft and madness, I set out to reflexively analyse my positionality as a researcher and the way in which fieldwork relations influenced the construction of my object of study. Taking into account that in Gabon, especially in the context of Fang socio-religious practices related to Bwiti [the invisible], therapeutic processes designed to care for madness are conveyed with and reinforce a certain vision of the mad person as dangerous, this reflexive exercise serves as an opportunity to examine the feelings of anxiety which the presence of mad persons arouse in me, and the impact of this powerful emotion on my research process. The reflexivity proposed here consists of showing how dealing with this fear revealed the intimate ramifications of madness, brought to light because of my cultural and familial proximity to it. Furthermore, it demonstrates how this fear forced me to consider these affective exchanges as materials to be made use of, alongside the research data collected in the therapeutic village of Endedang Ening.