This paper aims to reflect on selected methodological and ethical issues in anthropological and ethnographic research on death. I will analyse these issues from two interconnected perspectives. The first perspective examines methodological challenges in anthropological and ethnographic research that transcend the individual researcher and address broader research problems, not solely those related to death and dying. The second perspective focuses on the researcher’s response when encountering death during field research, which is also a complex and multifaceted issue. While anthropologists and ethnologists often strive for objectivity in their research, it is essential to recognise that the researcher might also be personally affected by the death. Consequently, death becomes not only a subject of academic interest but also a complex experience that influences the researcher’s personhood during fieldwork. These two perspectives cannot be sharply separated; rather, they represent two sides of the same coin. Therefore, the subsequent reflections in the paper will weave together these two lines of thought. I will illustrate both the general theoretical and methodological considerations using examples from foreign anthropological research, as well as ethnographic research I have conducted in rural areas of Slovakia.
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