How motherhood reshapes ethnography: A mother-ethnographer's fieldwork in Algeria during the Hirak movement

Abstract

This article examines how motherhood reshapes ethnographic practice by bringing ideals of the “good ethnographer” and the “good mother” into tension. Drawing on an autoethnography of my fieldwork in Algeria during the Hirak movement (2019–2020), I demonstrate how caregiving responsibilities transformed the geography, temporality, and desirability of field engagement while enabling alternative care-centered modes of research. The analysis reveals three interconnected dimensions. First, episodic fieldwork and alternative field sites made perceptible dynamics that prolonged immersion can render less visible. Second, conflicting ideals of the “good mother” and “good ethnographer” reshaped the conditions of fieldwork and, more fundamentally, its very desirability. Care networks functioned as epistemic infrastructure rather than merely personal accommodation. Third, motherhood—as a biographical transition—fundamentallyrestructured positionality in “back-home” ethnography. Rather than asking whether care-shaped or constrained research is “good enough,” this article shifts the burden of proof: does the ideal of unconstrained immersion justify systematically excluding researchers navigating caregiving, disability, or chronic illness? I argue that recognizing diverse ethnographic practices as epistemically generative is essential to rethinking what constitutes rigorous and valuable ethnography.