This special issue on 'Sexuality and Danger in the Field' is intended to start an uncomfortable conversation. It attempts to discuss, in a frank and honest manner, how fieldwork can involve a number of unexpected dangers and risks for the inexperienced fieldworker, especially if that fieldworker is female. As first-year anthropology undergraduates quickly learn, fieldwork involves immersing oneself in an unfamiliar social, cultural and political environment. What often goes unacknowledged, however, is how fieldwork equally involves entering into a new gender and sexual economy in which different understandings of reciprocity and exchange may be at play. It is to highlight this latter aspect that this special issue of JASO emphasizes fieldwork as a gendered experience. We ask: How does one's gender and/or sexuality influence fieldwork. Where exactly are 'danger' and 'risk' located. And, most importantly, how can we better prepare (female) fieldworkers to cope with and negotiate these realities.
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