The emotional, political, and analytical labor of engaged anthropology amidst violent political conflict.

Given the harsh realities that people live through in southern Philippines, where there is rife human rights violations and violent political conflict, it becomes difficult and arguably unethical for anthropologists to assume a position of neutrality. Following calls for engaged anthropology, I contend that engagement entails simultaneously an emotional, political, and analytical labor and troubles the separation of the self and other. I suggest that a way to labor through these challenges of researching suffering, and the reciprocal obligations this implicates, is to utilize feminist reflexivity and epistemic reflexivity.