Ethnographers face a dilemma once they become privy to sensitive information shared with them in the role of “friend” rather than in the role of researcher. The author explores this topic using as a case study information that emerged when friends in southern Mexico confided their personal experiences with sexual violence, arguing that it may be only through the sharing of confidences that firsthand accounts of responses to violence can enter the ethnographic record. Yet the women’s concerns that their experiences might become public knowledge coincide with broader debates of researchers’ preservation of informants’ privacy, particularly when discussing culturally sensitive topics such as rape.
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