Echoes in the Field : Confronting the Unexpected Deaths of Interlocutors in Medical Anthropology Research

Fotić, Jelisaveta (author)

This article examines the deaths of elderly interlocutors after ethnographic research on dia-betes in Belgrade. From the author’s dual position as an anthropologist and a person with diabetes, it argues that grief and mortality are not disruptions but analytical events integral to ethnography. Reframing loss in this way advances medical anthropology’s engagement with chronicity and death, while exposing the structural neglect embedded in biomedical individualism.

• Language: English
• Keywords: medical anthropology, interlocutor death, diabetes, reflexivity, emotional labour, grief, engaged anthropology
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Geographic coverage: Beograd (Srbija)
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.02.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 90-105
• Numbering: Letn. 4, št. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-180175
• UDC: 39:612.013:616.379-008.64(497.11Beograd)
• ISSN on article: 2820-6088
• DOI: 10.4312/svetovi.4.1.90-105
• COBISS.SI-ID: 270467843
• Publication date in RUL: 04.03.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Svetovi
• Publisher: Založba Univerze v Ljubljani
• ISSN: 2820-6088
• COBISS.SI-ID: 148550403

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Odmevi na terenu : soočanje z nepričakovanimi smrtmi sogovornikov v raziskavah medicinske antropologije

Abstract

Članek obravnava smrti starejših sogovornikov po etnografskih raziskavah diabetesa v Beogradu. Z dvojnega položaja avtorice kot antropologinje in osebe s sladkorno boleznijo zagovarja tezo, da žalovanje ter smrtnost nista motnji, temveč analitična dogodka, ki sta sestavni del etnografije. Takšno preokvirjanje izgube krepi obravnavo kroničnosti in smrti v medicinski antropologiji ter razkriva strukturno zanemarjanje, vtkano v bio-medicinski individualizem.

• Keywords: medicinska antropologija, smrt sogovornikov, sladkorna bolezen, refleksivnost, čustveno delo, žalovanje, angažirana antropologija