Emotional risk assessments in the field: Leaving Tanzania during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This article provides a narrative account of one anthropologist's experiences in the field at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The account is based on the researcher's field diary and digital communication, supplemented by online news reports from the period March to May 2020. The researcher's emotional assessments of the risks that COVID-19 posed to herself and others around her stood in sharp contrast to the way her interlocutors in the field responded to the virus. The article makes a case for the empirical value of a researcher's emotions, especially in moments of confusion and feelings of disconnection, in order to understand varying risk perceptions. This article moreover draws attention to the experiences of people living outside the initial epicentres of the pandemic. Many Tanzanians perceived COVID-19 as just one risk among many in their already uncertain daily lives.