Countertransference in an anthropological study of violence in Pakistan

This article revisits my anthropological fieldwork over ten years with men who became mercenaries in Karachi’s MQM party. In my previous interpretations of their stories I sought to develop a moral-political counter position from which to refute the psychopathological, defend their humanity and, as I was often urged in my fieldwork, ‘tell’ their pain to the world. Reflecting anew on one case, ‘Arshad’, I consider how tales of fantastic violence, even when they are racked with terror and torment, are perversely enthralling. I link this to ways dissociative patterns are fostered culturally, and by political leaders, creating simultaneous modes of attachment and detachment for people living amidst extreme violence. Arshad’s self-aggrandising stories were necessary for coping with and detaching from an increasingly fragmenting reality—until his fantasy became a punishing, perpetual present. Researching his story propelled me over time towards a radical pacifism and a growing discomfort at his belief in his actions as wholly justified. For Arshad, this means I have betrayed him. It also raises important ethical questions regarding the limits of sympathy for his plight. Last, in their phantasmagoric appeal, I wonder if such stories can become a site of resistance, a way to write against violence?