Back to Normality, De-familiarisation Anew

Fieldworkers are exposed to deeper identity changes that are the result of the management of different cultural references and stimuli. A double aspect of de-familiarisation unfolds when researchers return from the field; this can be paralleled to the fifth stage of culture shock, as well as to a “disengagement” process in psychotherapy. As an inner process, it has a purely cognitive function and is built throughout the construction of an intermediate identity that the researcher has developed with and under the influence of their research participants. This “oscillation” between several worlds is stabilised when the anthropologist realises that they stand in between several positionalities, performing an intermediate identity, similarly to the actor being in between the stage and their dressing room, whilst being aware of their performative presence and the social role that this entails.