Mojitos with Field Limes

The Productivity of Ethnographic Adversities

Abstract

This article argues that certain adversities encountered in fieldwork may be productive for anthropological research. To make this point, the article discusses three adverse situations faced by the author during his fieldwork in Cuba – an eviction, two hurricanes, and some burns – and the ethnographic knowledge that they made possible. The article’s more substantive topics include moral anxiety, the production of the state, informal solidarity, the gift economy, and everyday temporality in contemporary Cuba