Abstract

The field of ghosts and spirits is pregnant with emotional accounts of misunderstandings, altercations, pain, sadness, discomfort, anxiety, and vulnerability. Many scholars reject personal accounts of the supernatural in view of its ostensible failure to meet the standards of scientific validity and credibility. There is, however, much to consider, given that the experiences in ethnographic fieldwork in these settings comprise complex and multifaceted intersections that deal with the vulnerability of researchers and the “others” we are studying ethnographically. This chapter discusses and unpacks the relatively neglected issue of “vulnerability” that ethnographers face in fieldwork, with an emphasis on the study of ghosts and spirits. I present selected ethnographic fieldwork experiences and critical moments based on my study of spirit possession and everyday religiosity among Muslim families in Singapore and Malaysia. Embracing and reflecting on the relational dimensions of vulnerability not as a “problem,” which needs to be resolved through recourse to “objective” knowledge but rather through meaningful engagement and reflection through such “critical moments,” enables us to revisit and redraw the boundaries of social research and contemporary ethnographic field methods.