Despite the recent theoretical debate over the importance of addressing emotions in fieldwork, most European undergraduate programmes in anthropology still lack methodology courses that specifically focus on the emotional impact of doing research. In this article, I draw from my research with activist parents of autistic children in Portugal to explore the affective dimensions of fieldwork experience. In particular, I give an account of how I have dwelled on the emotional challenges that I faced, how these have resulted in vehicles of understanding and affected the analysis of my work as an anthropologist. While fieldwork experience always entails unexpected and surprising emotional challenges, I argue that as anthropologists we can surely benefit from more tailored support networks, safer spaces for discussion, and better pastoral care.

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From the refrigerator mother theory to more recent comparisons to ‘warrior-heroes’, mothers of children with autism spectrum disorders have been historically categorised as emotionally remarkable. Drawing on my ethnographic fieldwork in Portugal, I explore in this article how mothers politically mobilise emotions, characteristics, and acts usually associated with good mothering, such as maternal love, dedication, and sacrifice. While these socially expected phenomena have been addressed as instruments of the relegation of women to motherhood and care labour, I propose a novel look at the value of affectivity in discourses and practices of care and advocacy. I argue that mothers strategically embody and employ their affectivity as political capital to validate their role as expert caregivers and advocates, creating new opportunities to access leading positions within the autism advocacy movement.

O texto analisa as determinações morais e médicas referentes aos cuidados que mulheres grávidas e mães devem ter em relação às tentativas de controle acerca da saúde e bem-estar de seus filhos. E também evidencia as tensões explicitadas pelas mães de crianças autistas frente à incapacidade do conhecimento médico-científico em oferecer subsídios que pudessem ter ajudado, especialmente em um possível diagnóstico que permitisse auxiliar na compreensão do processo e nos cuidados a serem oferecidos.

The perfection industry: human or post-human? discussionIn "We post-humans: from genesis to freedom", Pussetti critically reflects on the meaning of what we can understand today as "human" following, in particular, the growing use of medical biotechnologies (such as endocrinology, genetic engineering, cosmetic surgery, and dermatology) for betterment purposes. While the history of the human species has always been accompanied by practices of body transformation due to humans' inherent aspiration and tension to construct, alter and improve their own selves, the contemporary proliferation of less invasive and low-cost cosmetic procedures has provided us incredible chances of transform-ability and new opportunities of "molding" the body we would like to have. Drawing from Remotti's 1 concept of anthropo-poiesis, which indicates the various processes of self-construction of the individual particularly from the point of view of body modification, Pussetti argue that we are actively engaged in a continuous process of self-construction thanks to socialization, acculturation, and our deliberate practices of body modifications. A feeling of incompleteness spurs

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