On Witnessing, Standing with, and Collaborating: Thoughts on Expertise, Knowledge Production, and the Ethics of Compensation

Abstract

Anthropologists have struggled with the issue of how to “give back” to the people who have welcomed us, collaborated with us, and become our friends. Expert witnessing for the asylum cases of members of communities that have opened their doors to us is one way of addressing uneven relationships and power dynamics.  I provide expertise for cases almost exclusively from a place where I have worked for decades in Guatemala, a site of intensive migration.  This contribution discusses the convergence of research and asylum claims, the donations to a scholarship fund I request as compensation, and the realm of the everyday in the construction of legal narratives.