Drawing upon a longitudinal ethnographic engagement spanning more than four decades in Botswana, this presentation reflects on the ethical and narrative possibilities that emerge through long-term anthropological relationships. Moving beyond extractive models of fieldwork, The Long Conversation explores how knowledge is shaped through intimacy, repeated encounters, obligation, memory, and care. At the center of this work are the evolving relationships formed since the early 1980s in the village of Mokokwana in Botswana’s Tswapong Hills. Rather than treating ethnographic interlocutors as sources of data to be interpreted from analytical distance, this presentation examines how anthropological understanding develops through sustained human involvement across time, aging, separation, return, and shared vulnerability. The presentation argues that narrative and reflexive forms of writing are not merely stylistic choices, but ethical practices that challenge older colonial and positivist assumptions within anthropology. By weaving together personal memory, ethnographic observation, and historical transformation, The Long Conversation proposes a mode of representation grounded not in detachment, but in relational responsibility. More broadly, the presentation asks what becomes possible when anthropology allows uncertainty, emotional attachment, and moral entanglement to remain visible within scholarly writing. In doing so, it offers an approach to ethnography that foregrounds reciprocity, care, and the unfinished character of human relationships.

Authors:
Pnina Motzafi Haller, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

About the Presenter(s)
Prof. Pnina Motzafi-Haller is a retired anthropologist (Ben-Gurion University, Israel). Her work focuses on reflexivity, narrative, and ethnographic writing. She is currently completing The Long Conversation (Palgrave).

See this presentation on the full schedule – Wednesday Schedule

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