In this article, I describe two fieldwork experiences dealing with traumatic subject matter: a three-month trip to the Russian Federation, researching the crimes of Stalin against the Soviet population, and a two-week odyssey across Poland, researching memorialization of the Holocaust as it occurred there. I had a much more difficult time on the Polish trip. These trips took place at different times, and my positionality had changed dramatically between the two experiences. The other relevant factor in each case was the nature of the material itself and the extent to which I was exposed to it. The Stalinist Terror is much more submerged in Russian society, for example, and it was often challenging to find evidence that it had occurred, as this involved travel to often far-flung Gulag and mass execution sites. In the Polish case, however, the Holocaust narrative and evidence of its occurrence was front and center in my experiences there, to the extent that the ubiquity of sites where terrible events occurred became overwhelming. The interaction of my positionality and the extent to which I was exposed to different types of traumatic experience, led to widely differing emotional tolls on my psyche in each case. I hope an analysis of this interaction, and the differing effects it produced provides information about planning and executing research on traumatic subjects that is valuable to others preparing to undertake it. (Or perhaps it will provide a cautionary tale about what to avoid). This article adds to the literature on personal negative outcomes experienced by those researching traumatic subject matter, particularly in the social sciences.

中文翻译：

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这会留下痕迹：研究大规模屠杀和种族灭绝中的立场和继发性创伤

在本文中，我描述了两次处理创伤性主题的实地考察经历：为期三个月的俄罗斯联邦之旅，研究斯大林对苏联人民犯下的罪行，以及为期两周的波兰之旅，研究对大屠杀的纪念它发生在那里。我在波兰之行经历了更加困难的时期。这些旅行发生在不同的时间，两次经历之间我的立场发生了巨大的变化。每个案例中的另一个相关因素是材料本身的性质以及我接触它的程度。例如，斯大林主义恐怖在俄罗斯社会中更为普遍，要找到它发生过的证据往往很困难，因为这通常涉及前往遥远的古拉格和大规模处决地点。然而，在波兰的案例中，大屠杀的叙述及其发生的证据是我在那里经历的首要和中心，以至于可怕事件发生的地点无处不在，变得势不可挡。我的立场和我接触不同类型的创伤经历的程度的相互作用，导致在每种情况下对我的心理造成截然不同的情感损失。我希望对这种相互作用及其产生的不同影响的分析能够提供有关规划和执行创伤性主题研究的信息，这对于准备进行该研究的其他人来说是有价值的。（或者也许它会提供一个关于应该避免什么的警示故事）。本文补充了研究创伤性主题（尤其是社会科学领域）的个人负面结果的文献。