A Day among the Diehard terrorists: the psychological costs of doing ethnographic research

摘要

This article describes the experience of a sociologist who made contact\udwith a group of diehard terrorists responsible for multiple murders in order to conduct an ethnographic \udstudy. After outlining the sociological profile of the diehard terrorists,\udthe author—making reference to the ethnographic studies of Jack Douglas, Martin Sanchez Jankowski, and Laud Humphreys—describes how he followed their traces. The aim of the article is to analyze the psychological costs that the sociologist must pay when \udhe interacts with men and women who, in addition to proudly claiming credit\udfor the homicides they have committed, affirm the importance of continuing to kill in order to salvage humanity’s future.