I was in the midst of packing my rucksack for next day's departure for Kabul when I received the email asking if I would write this short piece on emotions and fieldwork. As always before a trip to Afghanistan, I had spent the previous days and weeks emotionally charged, questioning the wisdom of my trip. My pre-trip feelings circled around, if not fear, then at least very strong apprehensions around safety and security. In my head, I played through time and again what to do in potential situations of car bombings, kidnappings and targeted attacks against guesthouses for foreigners, which had all markedly increased in Afghanistan over recent months and years. Apart from my own concerns, I was also keenly aware of the price that I was also making others close to me pay through their own apprehensions regarding my safety. Although they might not always voice it, I knew that my parents, siblings, friends and colleagues would be worried, each inevitable piece of news of yet another attack in Afghanistan putting them on edge. Agreeing to write this piece, however, also raised apprehensions of a different sort, both around opening up publicly about emotions and around the risk of navel-gazing. Nonetheless, I wanted to write this piece and own up to my own fears and weaknesses.

I chose voluntarily to go to Afghanistan and many other conflict zones over the years. Unlike most of the local Afghans, I have a European passport, a variety of credit cards, travel and health insurance, access to embassies and the ability to buy a plane ticket in minutes. I am also white and a male, both of which are identities that unfortunately still, or perhaps increasingly, give me unfair and undeserved advantages in terms of mobility and access. Therefore, I can go into, move around and also leave conflict zones when it behoves me, as soon as I start feeling too uncomfortable. Thus my apprehensions are, to a degree, of my own making and choosing, and wallowing in them at times seems like a luxury, a self-made Western problem, and a perverse self-indulgence.