Qualitative researchers of ‘unsavory’ populations experience a complex range of emotions as they sustain close contact with people and communities that are deemed reprehensible, dangerous, or toxic. Empathy, in particular, raises ethical and methodological challenges for scholars who must build rapport with people who may perpetuate racism, sexism, xenophobia, and so on. Drawing on existing qualitative literature and ethnographic fieldwork, I propose critical empathy as a methodological framework to account for the difficult and sometimes problematic emotional dimensions of research on ‘unsavory’ populations. Instead of trying to resolve the tensions between empathy and critique, critical empathy compels us to grapple with these tensions and make them apparent in our work.

“令人讨厌”人群的定性研究人员在与被视为应受谴责、危险或有毒的人和社区保持密切接触时，会经历一系列复杂的情绪。移情尤其会给那些必须与可能延续种族主义、性别歧视、仇外心理等的人建立融洽关系的学者们提出了伦理和方法论上的挑战。借鉴现有的定性文献和民族志田野调查，我建议将批判性同理心作为一种方法论框架，以解释对“令人讨厌”人群的研究中困难且有时有问题的情感维度。批判的同理心并没有试图解决同理心和批评之间的紧张关系，而是迫使我们应对这些紧张局势，并使它们在我们的工作中显而易见。