Debris: autoethnography, feminist epistemology, ethics, and sexual violence

This article examines the impact of methodological choices and collaborative processes in a complex study that delved into the intimate experiences of violence as narrated by conscripts to the Peruvian armed forces. Lurgio Gavilán is a Peruvian anthropologist who strongly identifies with the interviewed veterans because of his own experiences, and Jelke Boesten is European feminist scholar with specific ideas about gender justice. Our collaboration allows us to raise fundamental questions around the limitations, validity, and ethics of knowledge production. The "debris" of this collaboration refers to the ethical questions that we may have previously failed to raise and address. Why did each of us embark on this research? Have our respective epistemological positions shifted due to the research? How has the nature of the collaboration, and our different positions of power therein, enlightened or concerned us? With what are we left, and what do we leave behind?