This article discusses ethnographic research conditions in “sensitive” or “dangerous” field sites especially in areas of conflict and violence, drawing on recent short fieldworks in Western Sahara. The reflection considers the different situations that cause discomfort for the researcher in these field sites, as well as the heuristic opportunities that this discomfort generates for the ethnographer, obliging him to renew his approaches, to reconsider his objects, and rethink his relationship with the field and his interlocutors.
