This paper problematizes the idea that the clear presence of affection in ethnography, both during field work and in the analysis and writing stages, detracts from the scientificity of the research and the anthropologist. To do this, I will use my own PhD project that works with youth on the move to Europe, with an extensive multi-sited fieldwork, as a case study. My clear position in favour of composing a story about my findings in which my voice as an anthropologist and, my emotions, sufferings, pains, but also laughter and fun, as a human being, is found, supposes a questioning of my work as subjective, uncritical, politicized or unscientific. In many cases, criticisms of anthropologists' clear affective positioning towards the people they work with have been disguised as too much honesty or authenticity, under a look of condescension. The people we talk to are “informants”, the experiences we live are “participations in the field” and political commitment to the phenomena and social processes studied, if they are not mere ornaments, a symptom of “scientific weakness”. With all this, I want to argue that the honest presence of affection in contemporary ethnographies allows us to reflect on the impact of the anthropologist on the ground and on the people with whom they work. It is from this reflection that the role of our position as researchers in the field can be explored and a path towards a less hierarchical and imposed and more humane and creative knowledge can be opened.

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