The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork [1st ed.] 9783030464325, 9783030464332

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii
Introduction (Roger Mac Ginty, Roddy Brett, Birte Vogel)....Pages 1-15
How I Dealt with My Ethics Committee, and Survived (Jonathan Fisher)....Pages 17-33
When Humans Become Data (Roxani Krystalli)....Pages 35-46
Researching Over-Researched Societies (Gráinne Kelly)....Pages 47-63
Preparing for Fieldwork Interviews (Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Birgit Poopuu)....Pages 65-83
Being Indiana Jones in IR: The Pressure to Do ‘Real’ Fieldwork (Laura Routley, Katharine A. M. Wright)....Pages 85-100
Interview Locations (Paul Jackson)....Pages 101-113
From Risk Aversion to Risk Management (Sophie Roborgh)....Pages 115-129
Researching ‘Militant Groups’ (James W. McAuley)....Pages 131-145
The Ethics of Ethnographic Peace and Conflict Research (Gearoid Millar)....Pages 147-162
Solitary Decision-Making and Fieldwork Safety (Max Gallien)....Pages 163-174
Making Contact: Interviewing Rebels in Sierra Leone (Kieran Mitton)....Pages 175-187
Participatory Action Research: Challenges and Rewards in Fifteen Field Lessons (Georgina McAllister)....Pages 189-206
Conflict Ethnography Goes Online: Chatnography of the Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions (Ilmari Käihkö)....Pages 207-221
Negotiating Relationships with Vulnerable Communities (Nick Morgan)....Pages 223-236
Gatekeepers (Gyde M. Sindre)....Pages 237-247
Working with Translators: Implications of the Translator’s Positionality for the Research Process and Knowledge Production (Kristina Tschunkert)....Pages 249-261
Facing Violence in the Field (Roddy Brett)....Pages 263-277
Interviewing Perpetrators of Genocide (Manolo E. Vela Castañeda)....Pages 279-293
Interviewing Elites (Christine J. Wade)....Pages 295-304
Secrecy and Silence in Fieldwork: Reflections on Feminist Research on Violence in Latin America (Mo Hume)....Pages 305-320
Read the Room: Side-by-Side Methodology in a Belfast Ice Hockey Arena (Eric Lepp)....Pages 321-337
Traversing Fieldwork with Imperfect Language Skills (Simon Philpott)....Pages 339-351
Confessions of a Local Researcher (Nemanja Džuverović)....Pages 353-363
Gendered Challenges to Fieldwork in Conflict-Affected Areas (Kathleen M. Jennings)....Pages 365-379
Race, Positionality and the Researcher (Sarah Njeri)....Pages 381-394
Fixers and Friends: Local and International Researchers (Morten Bøås)....Pages 395-405
“Mummy I Want to Go Home”: Children and Parenthood in the Field (J. M. López)....Pages 407-420
Privilege (Stefanie Kappler)....Pages 421-432
From the Field Back to Academia (Malgorzata Polanska)....Pages 433-443
The Politics and Practicalities of Writing (Birte Vogel, Roger Mac Ginty)....Pages 445-453
‘Each Word is Powerful’: Writing and the Ethics of Representation (Angela J. Lederach)....Pages 455-470
Perspectives on “Giving Back”: A Conversation Between Researcher and Refugee (Jessica Field, Ali Johar)....Pages 471-484
Back Matter ....Pages 485-493

Citation preview

The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork

Roger Mac Ginty · Roddy Brett · Birte Vogel Editors

The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork

Editors Roger Mac Ginty School of Government and International Affairs Durham University Durham, UK

Roddy Brett School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies University of Bristol Bristol, UK

Birte Vogel Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute University of Manchester Manchester, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-46432-5 ISBN 978-3-030-46433-2  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Katrien1/Shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction 1 Roger Mac Ginty, Roddy Brett, and Birte Vogel 2

How I Dealt with My Ethics Committee, and Survived Jonathan Fisher

3

When Humans Become Data 35 Roxani Krystalli

4

Researching Over-Researched Societies 47 Gráinne Kelly

5

Preparing for Fieldwork Interviews 65 Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Birgit Poopuu

6

Being Indiana Jones in IR: The Pressure to Do ‘Real’ Fieldwork 85 Laura Routley and Katharine A. M. Wright

7

Interview Locations 101 Paul Jackson

8

From Risk Aversion to Risk Management 115 Sophie Roborgh

9

Researching ‘Militant Groups’ 131 James W. McAuley

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CONTENTS

10 The Ethics of Ethnographic Peace and Conflict Research Gearoid Millar

147

11 Solitary Decision-Making and Fieldwork Safety 163 Max Gallien 12 Making Contact: Interviewing Rebels in Sierra Leone Kieran Mitton

175

13 Participatory Action Research: Challenges and Rewards in Fifteen Field Lessons 189 Georgina McAllister 14 Conflict Ethnography Goes Online: Chatnography of the Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions 207 Ilmari Käihkö 15 Negotiating Relationships with Vulnerable Communities Nick Morgan

223

16 Gatekeepers 237 Gyde M. Sindre 17 Working with Translators: Implications of the Translator’s Positionality for the Research Process and Knowledge Production 249 Kristina Tschunkert 18 Facing Violence in the Field 263 Roddy Brett 19 Interviewing Perpetrators of Genocide 279 Manolo E. Vela Castañeda 20 Interviewing Elites 295 Christine J. Wade 21 Secrecy and Silence in Fieldwork: Reflections on Feminist Research on Violence in Latin America 305 Mo Hume

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22 Read the Room: Side-by-Side Methodology in a Belfast Ice Hockey Arena 321 Eric Lepp 23 Traversing Fieldwork with Imperfect Language Skills Simon Philpott

339

24 Confessions of a Local Researcher 353 Nemanja Džuverović 25 Gendered Challenges to Fieldwork in Conflict-Affected Areas 365 Kathleen M. Jennings 26 Race, Positionality and the Researcher 381 Sarah Njeri 27 Fixers and Friends: Local and International Researchers Morten Bøås

395

28 “Mummy I Want to Go Home”: Children and Parenthood in the Field 407 J. M. López 29 Privilege 421 Stefanie Kappler 30 From the Field Back to Academia 433 Malgorzata Polanska 31 The Politics and Practicalities of Writing 445 Birte Vogel and Roger Mac Ginty 32 ‘Each Word is Powerful’: Writing and the Ethics of Representation 455 Angela J. Lederach 33 Perspectives on “Giving Back”: A Conversation Between Researcher and Refugee 471 Jessica Field and Ali Johar Index 485

Notes

on

Contributors

Berit Bliesemann de Guevara is a Professor in International Politics at Aberystwyth University. She has conducted fieldwork interviews on war and peace themes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Germany, Kosovo, Myanmar and the US. Her recent methodological interest is in the value of drawing and textile-making as arts-based methods to accompany interviews. Morten Bøås is Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. He conducts fieldwork in Africa and the Middle East. His most recent books include Africa’s Insurgents: Navigating an Evolving Landscape (2017) and Doing Fieldwork in Areas of International Intervention: A Guide to Research in Closed and Violent Contexts (2020). Roddy Brett  is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Bristol. Prior to this, Dr. Brett worked for seven years at the University of St. Andrews, where he was Director of the Masters Programme in Peace and Conflict Studies and Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. His fields of research include conflict, peace processes/ peacebuilding, genocide and human rights. During thirteen years living in Latin America, he acted as Advisor to the UNDP and the UNHCHR and as Advisor on Indigenous Affairs to the Norwegian Embassy. He worked with the Centre for Human Rights Legal Action in Guatemala, as a member of the original team that prepared the evidence against former dictator General Ríos Montt, leading to his conviction in May 2013 for eighty years for genocide and crimes against humanity. In 2015, he led a UN investigation into the role of the delegations of victims in the Santos-FACRC-EP peace process. He has published in a broad range of journals, and published five monographs and edited five collected volumes. His most recent books are The Origins and Dynamics of Genocide: Political Violence in Guatemala (2016),

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

The Politics of Victimhood in Post-conflict Societies: Comparative and Analytical Perspectives (2018) and The Path Towards Reconciliation After Colombia’s War: Understanding the Roles of Victims and Perpetrators (2020). Nemanja Džuverović  is Associate Professor in Peace Studies at the University of Belgrade. His research areas include welfare in post-conflict environments, political economy of liberal peacebuilding and international statebuilding in the Balkans. He has published a range of articles and book chapters relating to peace and conflict studies. Jessica Field  is a Lecturer in Global Challenges at Brunel University London and an Adjunct Associate Professor at O. P. Jindal Global University, India. Jessica’s research focuses on disaster governance and refugee protection in South Asia. She has recently completed two projects exploring Rohingya refugee perceptions of “self-reliance” and “resilience” in India. Jonathan Fisher is Reader in African Politics in, and Director of, the International Development Department of the University of Birmingham. His research focuses on the intersections between conflict, (in)security and authoritarianism in Africa, and he has a particular interest in Eastern Africa. He is co-editor of the journal Civil Wars. Max Gallien is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and a political scientist specialising in the politics of smuggling and informal economies, the political economy of development, and the modern politics of North Africa. Mo Hume  is a senior lecturer in Politics at the University of Glasgow where she specialises in Latin American politics, with a specific research interest in the gendered politics of violence and conflict. She has carried out extensive fieldwork in Latin America, particularly Central America where she also spent several years as a development worker with a local women’s organisation. She is currently researching struggles for socio-environmental rights along the Atrato River in Colombia in the context of an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Paul Jackson  is Professor at the University of Birmingham. He has worked on security, governance and decentralisation for twenty five years and has carried out fieldwork in countries as varied as Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Colombia, and Nepal. He has worked with groups ranging from militaries and government to chiefs and insurgents. Kathleen M. Jennings  is Head of section for Research and Development at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan University, and was previously a senior researcher at the Fafo Research Foundation, Oslo. Her research interests include United Nations peacekeeping and peacebuilding interventions, gender, peacekeeping economies, and qualitative methodologies.

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Ali Johar (Maung Thein Shwe) is Education Coordinator for the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative in Delhi, a founder of the Rohingya Literacy Programme, a Rohingya Youth Leader, and a “Global Youth Peace Ambassador” recognised by the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development, Government of India. Ali was born in Rakhine (formally known as Arakan) in Myanmar. Ilmari Käihkö is an assistant professor at the Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership, Swedish Defence University, and a veteran of the Finnish Defence Forces. His research concentrates on the cultural sociology of contemporary war in places like Liberia and Ukraine, as well as the fieldwork methods required by this endeavour. Stefanie Kappler is Associate Professor in Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding at Durham University. She is currently working on a range of externally funded projects that investigate the politics of memory in relation to peacebuilding, the cultural heritage of conflict as well as the role of the arts in peace formation processes. Gráinne Kelly  is a lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies, based at INCORE (International Conflict Research Institute) at Ulster University. Her research interests include reconciliation, testimony work and the intersection of theory, policy and practice in peacebuilding. She has conducted qualitative research in Cambodia, Sierra Leone and Northern Ireland. Roxani Krystalli has spent a decade working on feminist approaches to peace and justice, as a researcher and humanitarian practitioner. In September 2020, she will begin her appointment as a Lecturer at the University of St Andrews, where her research and teaching will focus on feminist peace and conflict studies. Angela J. Lederach is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology in the Department of Cultural and Social Studies at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Her research examines the politics of peacebuilding, youth, gender and masculinity, and multispecies approaches to peacebuilding. Her current project advances a critical anthropology of peace through ethnographic and participatory research in Colombia, outlining the practices and discourses of ‘slow peace’ that social leaders employ in Montes de María. She is the co-author of When Blood and Bones Cry Out: Journeys Through the Soundscape of Healing and Reconciliation. Eric Lepp is a peace scholar whose current research explores spaces of encounter and the construction of community which includes the ‘other’ in conflict-affected societies. He is particularly interested in the unorthodox, resistant, and unexpected spaces where peace is being enacted and imagined against a backdrop of division.

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Dr. J. M. López is a lecturer in Health and Society at the University of Bradford, UK. She has worked with families affected by HIV/AIDS, survivors of armed conflict, and midwives in Mexico and UK. Her research as an anthropologist centres on reproductive and sexual health rights, life course in contexts if violence. Roger Mac Ginty is Professor at the School of Government and International Affairs, and Director of the Global Security Institute, both at Durham University. He has conducted field research in Georgia, Lebanon, Uganda, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sri Lanka, and the US. He is author of two monographs, co-author of two books, editor and co-editor of eight books, editor of the journal Peacebuilding (with Oliver Richmond), and editor of the Palgrave Macmillan book series Rethinking Political Violence. He is former Program Chair of the Peace Studies Section of the International Studies Association. He co-directs the Everyday Peace Indicators project (with Pamina Firchow). Georgina McAllister With an NGO background since the early 1990s, George’s experience spans both the humanitarian and development sectors. George is currently Assistant Professor in Stabilisation Agriculture within the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University where she applies regenerative lens to food and farming systems in fragile environments. James W. McAuley is Professor of Political Sociology and Irish Studies at the University of Huddersfield. He has written extensively on issues around political conflict and division, and especially on unionism and loyalism in Northern Ireland. Gearoid Millar is Head of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen. His publications examine the local experiences of international interventions for peace, justice, and development in Sierra Leone, as well as on developing the Ethnographic Peace Research (EPR) approach. His current research focuses on complex Twenty-First Century challenges to peace. Kieran Mitton is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He has conducted extensive field research in Brazil, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, working primarily with ex-combatants, gang-members and ­violence-affected communities. Nick Morgan teaches at Newcastle University. He is an ethnographer and discourse analyst working on citizen participation, nationalism and conflict in Colombia, Venezuela and Panama. He is currently working on the ­AHRC-funded Screening Violence project, which explores the imaginaries of conflict and reconciliation in Algeria, Argentina, Colombia and Indonesia.

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xiii

Sarah Njeri is a Research Associate at the African Leadership Centre. She is an interdisciplinary researcher in peace, conflict and security with over 20 years’ experience in the international development and humanitarian aid sector. She is experienced in researching complex contexts. Her research explores the issues of post-conflict reconstruction especially Landmine impacted contexts from within an integrated peacebuilding framework. Simon Philpott  conducts research that spans interests in Indonesia, popular culture and world politics, and visual culture, particularly documentary film. He works in the literatures of post-structuralism and post-colonialism. A year living in Papua New Guinea as an impressionable teenager played some part in shaping Simon’s research interests. An Australian anchored in NE England. Malgorzata Polanska  is a Postdoctoral Research Associate on an ESRC-funded project ‘Place, crime and insecurity in everyday life’ https://securityinplace. org/ at Keele University, UK. She holds a Ph.D. in humanitarianism and conflict response from University of Manchester, and her interdisciplinary research concerns experiences of uncertainty, everyday (in)security and ­ bottom-up approaches to peace. Birgit Poopuu is a Post-doctoral Fellow at Aberystwyth University where she works on her project “The Politics of Peace and Conflict Knowledge: Syria and the Diverse Landscape of Local Knowledge/Experience” (PUTJD760). Conducting relational interviews with Syrian activists Birgit has explored the merits of dialogue in creating more space for research participants’ experience. Sophie Roborgh, Ph.D. holds a Presidential Academic Fellowship in medical humanitarianism at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, University of Manchester. Her interdisciplinary work focuses on localisation of medical humanitarianism and medical volunteering in times of conflict and political unrest. She also studies politicisation of healthcare more broadly, including attacks on healthcare. Due to the fieldwork-heavy nature of her work, she has become increasingly interested in improving research ethics and methodology in challenging contexts. She hopes to continue to work towards becoming a better researcher and advocates for improved support and understanding among institutions and funding organisations for fieldwork. Laura Routley is a Senior Lecturer in African and Postcolonial Politics at Newcastle University. Her current research explores the politics of prisons in contemporary West Africa. She has previously worked on NGOs and Corruption and is the author of, Negotiating Corruption: NGOs, Governance and Hybridity in West Africa, (Routledge, 2016).

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Gyde M. Sindre is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of York, UK. Her research focuses on the politics of war-to-peace transitions and peace, specifically non-state armed groups, rebel-to-political party transformation, rebel diplomacy and the wider processes of state-building. Sindre is the founder of the Politics After War Research Network. Kristina Tschunkert  is a Ph.D. researcher at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on everyday economics of humanitarian aid interventions and its interrelatedness with peace and conflict in the context of host-refugee relations in Lebanon. Manolo E. Vela Castañeda is Professor Investigator in Sociology at the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City. Between 2011 and 2012 he was visiting fellow at the Kellogg Institute, University of Notre Dame. As a public sociologist, he writes a regular column for the daily newspaper elPeriódico de Guatemala. Drawing from comparative and historical sociology, his research topics include the analysis of revolutions, peasant and indigenous rebellions and other social movements. Birte Vogel is Lecturer in Humanitarianism, Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Manchester, UK. She has conducted fieldwork in Colombia, Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, India, Sri Lanka and the US. She teaches research ethics and has organised and supervised fieldwork trips for students at different universities and is very familiar with the problems of first time researchers. She was Assistant Editor of the journal Peacebuilding and a guest editor for Civil Wars. She has published, amongst others, in European Security, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, International Peacekeeping and Cooperation and Conflict. Her co-edited book “Economies of Peace” was published with Routledge. Christine J. Wade  is Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Washington College. She is the author of Captured Peace: Elites and Peacebuilding in El Salvador, and the co-author of Understanding Central America: Global Forces and Political Change, Latin American Politics and Development, Nicaragua: Emerging from the Eagle’s Shadow, and other publications on Central America. Katharine A. M. Wright  is a Lecturer in International Politics at Newcastle University. Her research explores the intersection of gender and security in institutional settings, including NATO and the EU. She is the co-author of NATO, Gender and Military: Women Organising from Within (Routledge, 2019).

Abbreviations

ARGA Alliance pour la Gouvernance en Afrique BiH Bosnia Herzegovina CINEP Centre for Popular Education and Research CSA Childhood Sexual Abuse DDR Disarmament, Demobilisation, Reintegration DRC Democratic Republic of Congo DSLR Digital Single-Lens Reflex camera ESRC Economic and Social Research Council EU European Union EULEX European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo EUPM European Union Police Mission EUTM European Union Training Mission FAMA Malian Army FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office FGD Focus Group Discussion GBV Gender Based Violence GDPR General Data Protection Regulation HYRES Hybrid pathways to resistance in the Islamic World ICBL International Campaign to Ban Landmines IIAP Instituto de Investigaciones Ambientales del Pacífico IR International Relations IRA Irish Republican Army JAC Local Neighbourhood Association KFOR Kosovo Force MBT Mine Ban Treaty MESA Middle East Studies Association MSC Most Significant Change NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NATO HQ North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Headquarters NGO Non-Governmental Organisation NRC Norwegian Research Council

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ABBREVIATIONS

OSCE Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe PAR Participatory Action Research PI Principal Investigator RECS Research Ethics Committees RUF Revolutionary United Front UAE United Arab Emirates UG Undergraduate UN United Nations UNCST Uganda National Council for Science and Technology UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNMIK United Nations Mission in Kosovo USAID United States Agency for International Aid ZANU-PF Zimbabwe African National Union—Patriotic Front

List of Figures

Fig. 22.1 Fig. 22.2 Plate 13.1 Plate 13.2 Plate 13.3

SSE Arena—Ticketmaster, online seat selection (Source Ticketmaster 2016) Text messages to myself Capturing their event timeline (14 October 2016) (© Georgina McAllister) Collective indicator ranking (9 February 2017) (© Georgina McAllister) ‘Cultural ritual’ group share their stories on managing conflict and environmental change (22 February 2017) (© Georgina McAllister)

328 330 194 196 199

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction Roger Mac Ginty, Roddy Brett, and Birte Vogel

This book is designed to give confidence to, and share experience with, researchers who are contemplating fieldwork, especially fieldwork in societies affected by violent conflict. There are multiple pressures, many of them unspoken, to engage in perfect fieldwork and produce perfect fieldwork results. Indeed, many of the journal articles and books that we read say little about the practical and ethical difficulties that researchers experience when conducting fieldwork. The impression that is given is that everything went well and that the research design worked as intended when it was taken to the field. The pressure to produce perfect results is felt particularly keenly among Ph.D. students and early career researchers who may be anxious to please their doctoral or tenure committees. There are also, of course, the social science strictures that seek to ensure the robustness and reliability of evidence and results. The experience of the editors of this book is that things often go wrong during fieldwork: interviewees don’t turn up; the battery in your recording R. Mac Ginty (*)  School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, Durham, UK e-mail: [email protected] R. Brett  School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK e-mail: [email protected] B. Vogel  Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_1

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2  R. MAC GINTY ET AL.

device dies just before you are going to start an interview; you can’t find the agreed location; an election or violent incident means that it is simply too risky to be on the streets; you get sick; you are under surveillance by the authorities and you do not want to endanger interviewees, so you scale down your research; the research design that you developed in the comfort of your office simply doesn’t make sense once you are in the country. The list of things that can, and do, go wrong during fieldwork is endless, yet these tend not to be narrated in a formal way. They are often discussed on the margins of conferences, and among colleagues, but are rarely recorded in the endnotes of a journal article lest an unfeasible research design is seen as weakness. One place where research failings might be spoken of is in the bars around academic conferences and workshops. Here semi-boastful pub-talk might mix bravado, comedy, and often a good deal of ethnocentrism. This book is offered as a corrective to the under-reporting of what (might) go wrong in fieldwork and to the Indiana Jones syndrome whereby some researchers might be tempted to inflate stories of their bravery and ability to overcome the odds to ‘scoop’ those perfect research results. The book is offered with humility. It does not cover everything and— unfortunately—shows the usual bias in much academic work in which voices from the Global North predominate. We greatly appreciate that many of those who experience difficulties during the research process are local scholars. However, this book focuses mainly on the experience of the ‘outsider’ researcher. The book also does not offer all the answers, but it hopes to make researchers aware of some of the potential pitfalls and ethical dilemmas they might encounter. It is unusual, however, in that large parts of all chapters are written in the first person. These sections tell the stories of academics who have: made mistakes, made progress through trial and error, felt guilty about ethical issues, come to the realisation that they were underprepared for the emotional side of fieldwork, and understood that a lot of social science methodology books emphasise abstraction when practicality, empathy, and ethics are called for. By encouraging contributors in this book to write in the first person, our aim has been to humanise the subject of field research and to make clear that it is a personal journey that is often accompanied by numerous practical and ethical choices, as well as constraints such as the decisions of ethics committees or the outcome of funding or visa applications. We are grateful that authors had the courage to not only share their success stories but talk openly about the mistakes they have made along the way and the ethical, moral, and practical challenges they encountered. This is part of a truly reflexive academic culture and enables others to learn from these experiences. The book stresses the importance of writing the researcher back into the fieldwork process, methodological considerations, and results. Above all, the chapters in this book show that research is relational. The research experience and its outcomes, including access to sites, research participants, and interviewees, and what they are willing to share with us, heavily depend on the

1 INTRODUCTION 

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relationships academics build in the field. Not everyone will be able to carry out every type of field research successfully. What we are able to do in the field does not only depend upon who we are, and who we know, but how others see us, and what they think we might be able to offer in return. A range of identity markers such as gender, age, nationality, skin-colour, religion, and family status can have unanticipated impacts on our research (see chapters by Njeri or Murray de Lopez), because they impact on how others treat us, both positively and negatively. We might just not get along with some interviewees, in which case they might share very little with us. Others might become close friends during the research process (see chapter by Bøås). It is also in these personal relationships that many of ethical issues arise: How do we, emotionally and practically, deal with the often difficult situations of our research collaborators? What can we promise to ‘give back’? How do we use our research results, privilege, and networks to make a difference to their communities? Crucially, this book encourages us to see fieldwork as something more than a series of methodological techniques. Rather than thinking of research as a linear process, and fieldwork as one stage in that, it is suggested that we conceive of research as part of the complex assemblage that makes up the researcher and the context in which researchers operate (see chapter by Mitton). Connectedly, we can’t see ethics and ethical dilemmas as something that only occurs during fieldwork. Thus, ethical dilemmas or concerns for the security of our interviewees do not occur only in the fieldwork phase. They should start when we plan our projects, what we consider data, and continue all the way into the writing up and publishing process (see chapters by Lederach, Krystalli, Millar, and Vogel and Mac Ginty). Research design and the fundamental assumptions upon which that is based are connected with the political economy of universities, specific fieldwork techniques, how fieldwork results are to be disseminated, and many more issues. It is worth noting that many of the contributors to this volume struggled to write in the first person. Part of this, it is worth conjecturing, is because academic writing privileges the abstract and the impersonal. In an effort to be ‘scientific’ and ‘professional’, the individual is subjugated to an impersonal language. Yet, as the chapters in this book affirm, fieldwork is deeply personal. It is often, especially if part of a Ph.D., conducted alone. It relies on individual decision-making, budgeting, time-keeping, and ­security-consciousness. Even if there is a Ph.D. supervisor or a Principal Investigator who has a management role in the research, it is often up to the individual researcher on-the-ground to make judgement calls (see chapter by Gallien). The rest of this introductory chapter will consider a number of salient issues that impact on fieldwork in conflict-affected societies. Many of the issues interlock to produce a complex landscape in which research is to be undertaken. Gender, for example, cuts across many issues, often in subtle ways (see chapters by Hume, Jennings, Kappler and Tschunkert).

4  R. MAC GINTY ET AL.

The obvious implications of gender might include the difficulty a female researcher might encounter in safely accessing a male environment, ­including when interviewees are from elite sectors of society (see chapter by Wade). But many other subtle dynamics might be at play, depending on the circumstances. For example, after a full day of interviews, a female researcher might not feel comfortable going out for dinner on her own and thus feel restricted to a hotel room. Or she might be accompanied to interviews by a male colleague or interpreter. Despite asking questions, the interviewee might address all of his answers to the male—in effect, ignoring the female researcher. Or, the female researcher may have to change her research focus if her original research site is in a country affected by the Zika virus. Female academics also have caring responsibilities more often as their male counterparts, meaning that fieldwork periods often need to be shorter, or turned into a logistic and financial challenge by having to take family members along or pay for extra care at home while away (see chapter by Murray de Lopez). Many of these issues are personal and subtle and all come on top of the many structural factors that often make academia an unwelcome space for females (see everydaysexism.com).

Security In May 2018, Durham University Ph.D. student Matthew Hedges was seized by the authorities in the United Arab Emirates and held in the most appalling conditions (Hedges 2019). He was accused and eventually convicted of spying and sentenced to life imprisonment. During his incarceration, he was subject to torture (most of it psychological) and had little access to consular or legal advice (BBC News 2018). Pleas that he was conducting scholarly research held zero traction with the UAE authorities, who released him after six months in captivity. In January 2016, Giulio Regeni, a Cambridge University Ph.D. student, was abducted, tortured, and murdered during field research in Egypt (Michaelson and Tondo 2019). It is most likely that the perpetrators were Egyptian security officials (Michaelson and Tondo 2018). Given such incidents, it is not surprising that security issues deserve to be taken seriously by researchers (see chapters by McAuley, Brett, Mitton and Roborgh). It is also worth noting that while the cases of Hedges and Regeni received considerable media attention, their local research interlocutors were also likely to have received unwelcome attention from the authorities. Networks such as Scholars as Risk demonstrate the need to better support the security and academic freedom of local researchers (see scholarsatrisk.org). It is a truism that anyone wishing to conduct field research in ­conflict-affected societies must be aware of the potential of some sort of risk. Usually, active war-zones are out of bounds for academic researchers and so most research occurs in ‘post-conflict’ societies. Yet these societies are often troubled and often extremely violent, with the risks to researchers ranging

1 INTRODUCTION 

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from state surveillance, crime surges, and the possibility of the reoccurrence of the conflict. In such circumstances, and given the high-profile cases like Hedges and Regeni, it is unsurprising that universities place an emphasis on risk awareness and avoidance (the role of ethics committees is discussed in the section below). It is worth noting that the security situation in states can change quickly, with Egypt, Sri Lanka, South Sudan, Colombia, and Venezuela providing good examples. This is of particular relevance as there is often a lag between the research design and fieldwork phases of research. Given the possibility of a changing security situation, it is advisable that researchers build a Plan B and Plan C into their research design (see chapter by Gallien). These back-up plans might also have to contemplate shelving fieldwork altogether—a very difficult step given the ‘pressure’ to be seen to undertake fieldwork that is felt in some quarters (see chapter by Routley and Wright). The first responsibility of the researcher is to the researched and thus it is worth asking if the research is necessary (see chapter by Kelly). While the external researcher might have privileges, rights and protections (although the Hedges and Regeni cases show that this is not always the case), local actors—interviewees, fixers, translators, interlocutors—may not (see chapter by Kappler). Many research contexts—Israel, China, Turkey, India, and Sri Lanka—to name a few, are host to states that are suspicious of the motivations of researchers and may enact surveillance of the researcher and those they come into contact with (Abbott 2018). This raises a number of potential problems. The first of these, and already mentioned, is the possibility that the research might endanger research subjects. This presents the question: Is any research project worth potential harm to others? A second potential problem relates to the political orientation of the researcher. Although notionally social scientific research is an objective exercise in gathering and reviewing evidence, it is common that researchers might have sympathies in relation to a conflict or a cause. Aside from the obvious implications that this might have for the impartiality of the research, it also raises practical issues of safety and security for the researcher and the researched (see chapter by McAuley). States and organisations may be pre-disposed against research that is likely to portray it in a bad light and so may scrutinise visa applications and requests for interviews and be interested in the locations the researcher visits, and who they talk to. The security apparatus of many states involved in conflict is often technologically savvy, and it is reasonable to assume that communications can be monitored and digital devices hacked. Although ethics applications routinely state that interviewee identities and interview notes will be encrypted, encryption training is not universally available across universities and ethics committees do not check if this is actually done. Technology has advanced significantly in recent years and researchers are often on the backfoot when it comes to data protection, and understanding how easily governments and others can access our research data if it is not stored and uploaded carefully.

6  R. MAC GINTY ET AL.

The duty of care we have towards our research participants should encourage every researcher to understand what they can do to protect interview notes and recordings in the best possible way (see chapter by Vela). Indeed, it is not just our research data that is potentially open to seizure and scrutiny. Capable and interested state authorities will be able to access a researcher’s phone contacts and entire email trail. In some research settings, it is advised that researchers use ‘burner’ laptops or mobile phones. Social media also offers a potentially rich evidential trail on the (im)partiality of the researcher. It is unlikely that states or potential interviewees will wade through the academic corpus of a researcher to find out their orientation in relation to a conflict or issue. They will simply check the Twitter feed of the academic. Indeed, our published outputs (whether academic or on social media) act as a caution to the temptation to invent or present a false persona during fieldwork. The editors of this work advocate honesty (unless one is involved in deep cover ethnography) as cover stories often unravel. In some cases, for example, for many researchers who work in China, it has become routine to have no social media profile and to use only the most basic of technologies (first generation mobile phones). Such researchers work on the assumption that they and their interlocutors are monitored and thus proceed with care. They report a constant ‘nudging’ by the Chinese state as it tests the extent to which it can control academic freedom, and they envisage a time—in the not very distant future—when fieldwork will not be possible in China (Tran 2017). State surveillance raises the issue of self-censorship or the extent to which academics limit their research lest they put themselves or the researched at risk. On the one hand, it is responsible for all researchers to appreciate that there should be limits on research that is intrusive, disrespectful, or potentially harmful. On the other hand, self-censorship—in publication but also in field research activities—constitutes the imposition of boundaries on research. In the worst of cases, it abets a political project that might be authoritarian. A revealing case, not directly related to fieldwork but illustrative of the wider research environment, relates to the Chinese state’s attempts to limit access to academic journal articles in China Quarterly. In the summer of 2017, the Chinese regime asked Cambridge University Press to remove over 300 articles critical of the regime from the China Quarterly online archive—or risk having all Cambridge University Press products banned from China (Pringle 2017). As a backdrop, it is worth noting that educational publishing is a massive business with a huge potential for growth in China and elsewhere (Lahiri 2018; Tan 2017). Cambridge University Press complied. A backlash followed, with western academics citing the importance of academic freedom. Cambridge University Press eventually relented, but the case is instructive of the precarious nature of academic freedom and how it is prone to both commercial interests and authoritarian threats. UNESCO published guidelines on academic freedom in 1997, but these are not binding (UNESCO 1997). It is worth noting that the western notion

1 INTRODUCTION 

7

of the university, and academic research, is quite peculiar to a time and a place. As became clear through the Matthew Hedges case, his captors had little understanding of the western notion of academic research. It is worth stressing that western notions (that might seem ‘natural’ and obvious to researchers at western universities) are not universal. So, at the heart of many of the security issues that can impact on field research, is a potential cultural clash between the assumed universalism of western ideas and practices, and a particularism of the conflict-affected research location. The aim of this section is not to give an unnecessarily bleak picture of field research security problems. The problems are substantial and the list of territories where field research is impossible or inadvisable is long and very probably growing (Human Rights Watch 2017). Yet field research is possible in many conflict-affected societies as long as sensible planning and risk minimisation takes place (Mukhopadhyay 2017). As many of the chapters in this book attest, it is possible to overcome challenges, stay safe, keep research interlocutors safe, and gather data (see, for example, the chapters by Mitton, Brett, Roborgh, and Vela). This requires preparation, attention to detail, and consistency; factors that should be part of good academic practice anyway.

Ethics Ethics and risk are often conflated, and although they overlap substantially, they are not the same thing. In relation to fieldwork, ethics refer to the moral code that will govern the conduct of the researcher and the basis of the research project. A minimal ethical starting point for field research is that it should do no harm and, where appropriate, leave as light a footprint as possible. Many universities and research organisations take seriously the ethical dimension to research and have formalised procedures whereby ethical approval is a precondition before fieldwork can begin (see chapter by Fisher). In many cases, moreover, ethics are key, particularly with respect to new methodologies, such as digital ethnography (see chapter by Kaihko). In an ideal world, ethics committees or Institutional Review Boards are ­pro-research and see their job as facilitating responsible research. In practice, however, ethics committees can be slow, cumbersome and staffed by personnel who are not subject, methodology or context specialists. They sometimes don’t understand what it means to work in conflict-affected societies, or what it means when people’s personal experiences become data (see chapters by Krystalli and Roborgh). This is especially the case when ethics committees are convened at the Faculty or University-wide levels. In some cases, there is also a sense that the primary concern of the ethics committee is ­ managing institutional risk. This might predispose an ethics committee towards ­conservative responses—a particular problem for research projects involving ­conflict-affected societies. It is also worth placing university attitudes to field research in conflict-affected societies in the wider context of universities as

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corporate and commercialised entities. Increasingly, universities do not see education and research as public goods. Instead, they are part of a business model that is risk-averse and interested in research that can be productised and marketised. In this model, blue-sky and theoretical research might be regarded as superfluous and abstract. Research funding that brings in overheads, is easily marketised and made ‘impactful’, and can be conducted with minimal risks, is often prioritised. A key battleground in many universities is between the managerial power holders on the one hand and those academics who might prioritise teaching and research on the other. There is not always compatible ground between the two, and ethics committees are often caught between the two visions of the purpose of universities and research. In some cases, ethics committees outsource part of their job to risk consultants. This reflects a cautiousness with regard to making decisions and accepting liability. Risk consultants, however, do not always have expertise— especially in relation to the specific contexts in which research is proposed. The editors of this volume, for example, are aware of a case in which an academic with decades-long experience of working in Sudan was refused permission to travel there by his university (despite his expert knowledge of the context) and instead the view of a desk-based consultant who had never been to Sudan was preferred. Ethics committees, risk consultants, and insurance brokers all lengthen the ‘research chain’ or the number of people involved in the research approval process—often with consequences for the timeline of the research project and the integrity of the original research design. None of the above discussion should be taken as axiomatically regarding the researcher as always right. Some researchers are over-ambitious, cavalier about risk, and ill-prepared for their proposed research (see chapter by Džuverović). Ethics committees perform a useful function in making researchers stop and think through the practicalities and feasibility of their research design. Indeed, it is often only when filling in an ethical approval form that the researcher is forced to think through the various steps involved in the research process. An ethics committee may be able to ask fundamental questions such as: Is the research necessary, or do you have a Plan B if the research site is inaccessible? There is the danger too, that researchers seek to ‘game’ ethics procedures: they give model answers when filling in the form but do not necessarily abide by these strictures when in the field. The editors of this volume know of no cases in which an ethics committee has followed-up on a research project to ensure that its strictures have been ­ adhered to. There is a sense that ethics committees are hurdles that once successfully jumped over, no longer concern us. It would be difficult to imagine an appetite among researchers for more bureaucracy or scrutiny of research processes, yet it seems irresponsible for universities to set strictures on how research is to be conducted and not monitor the extent to which those strictures are met. Such monitoring would, however, raise questions of liability in cases where ethical procedures were not followed. Who would be liable: the individual researcher or research team, or the university?

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Local Actors Much field research involves working in local communities. The notion of who, what, and where might constitute ‘the local’ is much-discussed in the academic literature (Mac Ginty and Richmond 2013; Mac Ginty 2015). It is worth noting that the local, like all other communities, is an imaginary. It is likely to be complex, stratified, and comprised of networks—many of which are transnational and thus defy simplistic notions of the local as somehow traditional or isolated. Accessing ‘the local’, or any community or site is difficult (see chapters by McAuley, Mitton and Morgan). Researchers are likely to face gatekeeping issues and will probably only see ‘a slice’ of local-life. Gatekeepers might steer researchers towards particular interviewees and narratives, and be anxious that researchers see only a particular ‘slice’ of a community or organisation (see chapter by Jackson). There is, sometimes, among researchers an anxiety to capture the ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ voice of a community. In all probability, there is no such thing and belief in the ‘real people’ of a community risks romanticising a version of a community that may not reflect a complex reality. It is worth noting that the local can be sectarian, corrupt and—on practical matters related to research—may not always offer researchers the most appropriate advice. In any community, there are likely to be multiple voices, some of which will be more powerful than others. Indeed, inauthentic voices often have value. For example, if a community spokesperson is giving an overly rosy view of a situation or community, it is worth asking: Why is this version being given? One issue faced by some locations and communities is a surfeit of researchers. The issue is particularly significant given that many areas are deemed unsafe for researchers. Thus, researchers might be channelled towards a limited number of ‘safe’ options. It could be that the sheer number of researchers becomes a strain on individuals and communities. The danger is that communities see no benefit from hosting researchers and see the research process as extractive and selfish on the part of the researcher, as indeed it has often been. As discussed by Gráinne Kelly in this volume, communities and individuals might shun researchers, seeing them as an additional burden on top of the degradations of conflict and under-development. One way to lessen the burden on communities or local organisations is to offer to ‘give back’ in some way. There might be, however, very different interpretations what ‘giving back’ means, and academic impact is likely unrelated to the impact felt in, and wanted by, the communities we work with. It is often argued that as a minimum, academics could be offering to report research results back to communities or perhaps to offer their skills in grant-writing or report-writing. In the experience of the editors, instances of ‘giving back’ to communities are quite rare or unsuitable to the needs of the community (for one example, see Hancock 2019). For one of the editors, his attempt to report back to the community was met with a stony silence followed by one community member uttering, ‘We know all that. We told you that in the first

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place. What are you going to do about it?’. In this book, Field and Johar, an academic and a Rohingya refugee leader, explore jointly what ‘giving back’ means to each of them, but the chapter also makes us aware of the emotional dilemmas an intense relationship with a vulnerable community can cause for the researcher. It often shows us our own privilege and raises questions about responsibilities, and how we can use privilege to make a positive contribution to the people we work with, for example, through inclusive research designs that focus on the needs of communities (see chapters by Kappler and Millar). While this book ultimately cannot offer an answer how to resolve these dilemmas, it is nonetheless important for researchers to be aware of these questions, and possible expectations of the researched communities, before embarking on field research. Nothing is worse than making empty promises on the spot because we have not anticipated a situation where our interviewees ask for something back in return for their time and effort, and the easy way out is to promise something they are not able to follow through. A final point to make in relation to ‘the local’ is the need to see individuals, communities, and localities as something more than research data and having no role in the research process other than to assist in outside research projects (see chapters by Bøås, Džuverović, and Polańska). Communities are very likely to have their own research resources and capacities. These research resources may not necessarily look like the resources that can be mobilised by university-based researchers and researchers from the Global North; very often, for example, they may be from an oral tradition. Local researchers may not necessarily share the priorities held by outside researchers, but this by no means makes their research invalid or irrelevant. Indeed, the strictures associated with a lot of research emanating from universities and institutions in the Global North (hidden behind paywalls, jealously protected by copyright, and only submitted to the best journals) raise questions about the relevance of much of this research.

Personal Many aspects of field research have a personal dimension. Often, and especially in the case of Ph.D. projects, the researcher will be on-site alone and has to make key decisions on their own (see chapters by Brett, Gallien and McAuley). A supervisor may offer guidance but, ultimately, it may be up to the individual to make a judgement call on whether they leave a fieldwork site because of security concerns, or extend fieldwork in order to pursue further research. Planning, contextual knowledge, and advice will play important parts of this process, but it is often the individual who must make the decision based on the available evidence and a gut feeling. We might be tempted to see fieldwork as a discrete phase, or a period of the research process that is book-ended by research design and a literature review on the one side, and analysis and dissemination on the other. But it

1 INTRODUCTION 

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cannot be neatly packaged like that. It is rare that fieldwork can be a period of complete dedication to on-site research, although one of the editors of this volume was, in fact, prohibited by his doctoral supervisors from returning home during twelve months of field research, a demand that would be unlikely to be approved in today’s environment. And despite what the ­auto-email replies from colleagues might say, it is rare that any of us are away from an internet connection for a more than few days. Professional and personal lives continue and will ‘intrude’ on fieldwork. Whether this is replying to emails from colleagues or keeping in touch with a sick relative, we will not be able to devote all of our time to fieldwork. Indeed, family ties and caring responsibilities mean that many people are simply unable to conduct fieldwork. A reasonably common pattern is for Ph.D. and early career researchers to conduct extensive fieldwork, but for the chances of extensive fieldwork to diminish if researchers have young children or elderly relatives to look after. It is also worth noting that family members might worry about those on fieldwork and so it is important to keep in contact and offer reassurance. One issue that is rarely discussed is the financing of fieldwork. Even those fortunate enough to gain a fieldwork bursary or a research grant will have to budget to make sure that their funds will last the length of the fieldwork and, in fact, allow them to write up their research. For one of the editors of this book, despite securing funding for his doctoral fieldwork from a major research council, this funding did not continue beyond fieldwork, given his previous funding awards. He was told by his supervisors that they would not support his project further unless he secured post-fieldwork funding. If possible, it is prudent to build some contingency into the budget as there may be unexpected costs; in this case, the editor’s mother actually remortgaged her house to guarantee post-fieldwork funding. During fieldwork, researchers from overseas are likely to have to stay in relatively safe parts of the city due to security concerns. These tend to be expensive, and there are flourishing ex-patriate micro-economies in certain parts of Juba, Beirut, and Yangon and many other cities (Jennings and Bøås 2015; Thomas and Vogel 2018). But despite the ‘home comforts’ of fast Wi-Fi and coffee-on-demand that ex-pat colonies might offer, it is worth noting that fieldwork can sometimes be lonely. Obligations to live in such areas also place a wall between a researcher and their local collaborators. It is worth stressing that any no research project is worth jeopardising mental health or well-being and there should be no stigma attached to returning home early or even abandoning a project. Fieldwork can be very tough on stamina, physical health, and mental wellbeing and ‘toughing it out’ may be the wrong course of action (see chapter by Roborgh). A fieldwork journal can be invaluable in recording one’s personal reflections on fieldwork. Fieldwork is rarely a simple matter of collecting data. Instead, it is a personal, sensory, and emotional experience. A journal allows the researcher to capture many of the contextual details that help make sense

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of the research data. It is a means of processing the data and placing it in the context of the wider research journey. A very good practice is to fill in the journal each evening to record one’s feeling and observations. Months later, when the researcher might be struggling to make sense of the research findings, the fieldwork journal rather than the formal interview notes or survey data might be the vehicle that most accurately captures the sights, smells, and sounds of the fieldwork. It is also a useful device to help with some of the personal issues that the researcher might be experiencing. For example, if the researcher is working in an area of immense poverty, they might be confronted with feelings of guilt about their privilege. A fieldwork journal is a useful outlet. Depending on the nature of the research project, the researcher may become an employer through paying for the assistance of a translator or a research assistant. This sort of sub-contracting is often casual and so the researcher must be mindful of the rights of their ‘employee’. A contentious issue on many university campuses concerns precarious employment practices, and it is worth bearing these in mind in relation to translators and research assistants. In conflict-affected settings, it is also very important that the researcher does not put their collaborators or translators in potentially dangerous or embarrassing situations. This can be very difficult in deeply divided societies in which sectarian or identity labels make everyday conversations and interactions difficult. In Beirut, for example, your taxi driver could be from any denomination and so a back-of-the-taxi conversation between you and your research assistant is probably best to avoid your research topic. It is sensible to have an upfront and frank conversation with a translator or research collaborator to establish ground rules and expectations that apply to both parties (see chapter by Tschunkert). Working with a translator or research collaborator might involve long hours in close proximity and there may well be personality issues, issues of trust and reliability, and disagreements over reimbursement. A rudimentary contract is a very good idea, as are personal recommendations from other Ph.D. students or researchers. In the matter of ‘hiring and firing’ but indeed in all other matters relating to field research, the words of one colleague come to mind. When asked for the single most important piece of advice she would give to anyone about to embark on fieldwork, her response was succinct: ‘Don’t be a dick’.

Conclusion Much advice on practical and ethical issues in fieldwork already exists (Howard 2018; Bradbury 2015; Campbell 2017; Helbardt et al. 2010; Sriram 2009). There have been efforts towards developing a ‘research covenant’ or a set of minimum standards that researchers can abide by when working on issues of peace and conflict (Brewer 2016). Such a covenant marks an advance, although essentially much fieldwork depends on decisions by individual

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researchers to ‘do the right thing’ in acting ethically and sensibly. The major contribution of this volume, we hope, is that it contains many contributions in the first person that help demystify fieldwork and reveal that doubt and ‘not knowing’ lie at the heart of fieldwork. The contributions show that fieldwork is much more than a discrete series of actions, such as holding interviews or organising focus groups. Instead, it is part of a process of long-term learning and it is prudent to think in terms of a research legacy and ‘afterlife’ (Knott 2019). Simply by being on-site, the research has impact and leaves a footprint—however light we would like to think that the footprint is. This introductory chapter ends with two points. The first is that there can be a danger that discussion of many of the issues covered in this volume is ‘all about us’. In other words, there can be an over-focus on the travails of the researcher (often from the Global North) and an u ­ nder-focus on the researched (often based in the Global South). This over-focuses on the researcher, and the opportunities and challenges facing him or her, risks perpetuating the privileging of the researcher (see chapter by Kappler). Although the researcher may often face numerous challenges when conducting fieldwork, they almost undoubtedly have multiple practical and material advantages and privileges over the researched and local co-researchers. For example, the researcher probably has a credit card and passport in order to get out of the country should things become difficult and also probably has health insurance should they get sick. Moreover, in the event of difficulty, they might be able to draw on institutional support in terms of a university or line manager. Local actors are unlikely to enjoy the same rights and protections as international researchers. Related to the ‘it’s all about us’ phenomenon is the possibility that the researcher becomes fixated with the importance of their project to the exclusion of all else. It is, of course, understandable that researchers take their fieldwork with due seriousness; their Ph.D. may depend on it or they may have committed to undertake a particular type or amount of fieldwork as part of a research application. Yet, a results at all costs mindset is potentially dangerous—to the researcher and the researched. A ‘must get the results’ path dependency often crowds out the ability of the researcher to step back and ask fundamental questions along the lines of: Is this fieldwork necessary? Are the costs too great? What sort of footprint am I leaving behind? This critical self-awareness is particularly necessary in societies under-going stress. Research—particularly non-practical research—in societies facing humanitarian or post-conflict needs may seem like a self-indulgence on the part of the researcher. An individual researcher may be fascinated by the issue of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence as part of the conflict in northern Uganda. But does that justify engaging with, and possibly re-traumatising, victims as part of a research exercise that will result in a Ph.D. thesis or a journal article that very probably will sit unread? In such a scenario, there is only one beneficiary of the research process: the researcher.

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The second point is that despite all of the challenges that researchers face, and all of the cautionary tales in this volume, fieldwork is usually intellectually rewarding and immense fun. For most social science researchers, the daily routine involves the classroom, the office, the library and complaining about poor campus Wi-Fi or coffee. In other words, many researchers live sedentary professional lives in which the subject of study is accessed second-hand through journal articles, classroom discussion, or online research. The chance to escape the office or library and to engage first-with the topic is invaluable. Flat descriptions or abstract analyses have the opportunity to come alive. Fieldwork is a human, humane, humbling, and sensory experience. It is not simply about operationalising research design. In addition to data-gathering, it is an opportunity to experience culture, food, language, weather, friendship, and some of the daily challenges faced by the people who are the subjects of our research. None of this is to romanticise fieldwork nor the often very difficult circumstances that people live through in conflict-affected societies. It is, however, to remind ourselves that fieldwork can be joyful, liberating, enriching, and fulfilling.

References Abbott, Alison. 2018. In the Palestinian territories, science struggles against all odds. Nature, November 14. Accessed at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586018-07350-9. Last accessed 7 October 2019. BBC News. 2018. Matthew Hedges—Academic ‘psychologically tortured’ in UAE prison. BBC News, December 5. Accessed at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ uk-england-tyne-46451590. Last accessed 20 August 2019. Bradbury, Hilary (ed.). 2015. The Sage handbook of action research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Brewer, John D. 2016. The ethics of ethical debates in peace and conflict research: Notes towards the development of a research covenant. Methodological Innovations 9: 1–11. Campbell, Susanna P. 2017. Ethics of research in conflict environments. Journal of Global Security Studies 2 (1): 89–101. Hancock, Landon E. 2019. Deliberative peacebuilding: Agency and development in post-conflict practice. Peacebuilding, Online first. Hedges, Matthew. 2019. UAE held me as a spy—And the West is complicit. The Atlantic, January 25. Accessed at: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/ archive/2019/01/matthew-hedges-uae-held-me-spy-west-complicit/581200/. Last accessed 20 August 2019. Helbardt, Sascha, Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam, and Rüdiger Korff. 2010. War’s dark glamour: Ethics of research in war and conflict zones. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 23 (2): 349–369. Howard, Ilona. 2018. Doing research in conflict-affected areas: Five lessons for peacebuilders. Saferworld, October 1. Accessed at: https://www.saferworld.org.uk/ resources/news-and-analysis/post/798-doing-research-in-conflict-affected-areas-five-lessons-for-peacebuilders. Last accessed 8 October 2019.

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Human Rights Watch. 2017. Unwilling or unable: Israeli restrictions on access to and from Gaza for human rights workers. Human Rights Watch, April 2. Accessed at: https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/04/02/unwilling-or-unable/israeli-restrictions-access-and-gaza-human-rights-workers. Last accessed 7 October 2019. Jennings, Kathleen M., and Morten Bøås. 2015. Transactions and interactions: Everyday life in the peacekeeping economy. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 9 (3): 281–295. Knott, Eleanor. 2019. Beyond the field: Ethics after fieldwork in political dynamic contexts. Perspectives on Politics 17 (1): 140–153. Lahiri, Tripti. 2018. The two biggest threats to academic freedom have come together in China. Quartz, September 15. Accessed at: https://qz.com/1391449/china-quarterlys-tim-pringle-on-academic-freedom-authoritarianism-and-the-commodification-of-education/. Last accessed 20 August 2019. Mac Ginty, Roger, and Oliver P. Richmond. 2013. The local turn in peace building: A critical agenda for peace. Third World Quarterly 34 (5): 763–783. Mac Ginty, Roger. 2015. Where is the local? Critical localism and peacebuilding. Third World Quarterly 36 (5): 840–856. Michaelson, Ruth, and Lorenzo Tondo. 2018. Giulio Regeni: Italy names Egyptian agents as murder suspects. Guardian, November 29. Accessed at: https://www. theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/29/giulio-regeni-murder-italy-names-egyptian-national-security-agents-suspects. Last accessed 4 October 2019. Michaelson, Ruth, and Lorenzo Tondo. 2019. Egypt frustrates Giulio Regeni investigation three years on. Guardian, January 25. Accessed at: https://www. theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/25/egypt-frustrates-giulio-regeni-investigation-three-years-on. Last accessed 21 August 2019. Mukhopadhyay, Dipaali. 2017. Yes, it’s possible to do research in conflict zones. This is how. Washington Post, April 5. Accessed at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/ news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/04/05/yes-its-possible-to-do-research-in-conflictzones-this-is-how/. Last accessed 21 August 2019. Pringle, Tim. 2017. China’s bid to block my journal’s articles is a new attack on academic freedom. Guardian, August 21. Accessed at: https://www.theguardian. com/commentisfree/2017/aug/21/china-bid-block-china-quarterly-attack-academic-freedom. Last accessed 20 August 2019. Tan, Teri. 2017. Academic publishing in China 2oq7: The academic book market in China. Publishers Weekly, September 22. Accessed at: https://www. publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/international-book-news/ ar ticle/74854-academic-publishing-in-china-2017-the-academic-bookmarket-in-china.html. Last accessed 21 August 2019. Thomas, Joely, and Birte Vogel. 2018. Intervention gentrification and everyday socio-economic transactions in intervention societies. Civil Wars 20 (2): 217–237. Tran, Emilie. 2017. China: Zero tolerance for academic freedom. The Conversation, October 17. Accessed at: https://theconversation.com/china-zero-tolerancefor-academic-freedom-85200. Last accessed 20 August 2019. Sriram, Chandra Lekha (ed.). 2009. Surviving field research: Working in violent and difficult situations. London: Routledge. UNESCO. 1997. Recommendations concerning the status of higher-education teaching personnel. UNESCO, November 11. Accessed at: http://portal.unesco.org/ en/ev.php-URL_ID=13144&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201. html. Last accessed 21 August 2019.

CHAPTER 2

How I Dealt with My Ethics Committee, and Survived Jonathan Fisher

For those of us who work in what the World Bank now calls “fragile situations”, it can often feel that ethics committees are just there to keep us away from the peoples and places at the heart of our research. One might be forgiven for assuming that university Research Ethics Committees (RECS)1 are meant to exist to, well, advise us on the ethics of our research. In their Ethical Guidelines for Good Research Practice, the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth suggest—rightly—that this should begin with a comprehensive consideration of the “relations with, and responsibilities towards, research participants” proposed in a project idea.2 In reality, though, it can often seem like RECs are not very interested in our research participants at all—or, indeed, in our research in general. Instead, at least in peace and conflict studies, they often appear to position themselves as little more than the envoys of an institution’s health and safety board, or of its insurance officers. Is it “safe” to do research there—at least according to the national foreign ministry’s travel advice or the university insurance firm’s algorithms? The consequence can often be a total absence of guidance being provided on the actual ethics of an application and, instead, the imposition of a travel ban by committee members who have sometimes never visited the 1 More

often referred to as Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) in North America.

2 https://www.theasa.org/ethics/guidelines.shtml.

J. Fisher (*)  University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_2

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hemisphere in question. Less than helpful when a REC’s approval is usually a sine qua non for any researcher to undertake what ethics rubric tends to refer to, rather clinically, as “research involving human participants”. This can often be exceptionally frustrating. You are a Ph.D. candidate who has spent months, probably considerably longer, developing a project around a country or region that fascinates you, or an early career researcher who has finally won that postdoc or grant—and the primary instruction your institution’s ethics specialists are providing you with is “you can’t do fieldwork there – (we are told that) it is too dangerous”. What I hope to do in this chapter is to offer some reflections, advice—and encouragement!—on tackling some of the challenges presented by RECs. This will be largely based on my own experience navigating this terrain at two UK universities, and across ten African countries, over the last decade. My core messages are these: 1. The more complex and sensitive your research, the more complicated—and, probably, infuriating—your ethical clearance ­experience will likely be. A project based around interviewing Members of Parliament in Nairobi is probably going to be approved more easily than one involving focus groups with Al Shabaab fighters in Somalia. 2. Pushback does not necessarily mean that you will be prevented from doing your research, but you may need to engage, patiently, in a dialogue with committee members and to help better educate them on the context and content of your work. RECs may seem faceless and inscrutable but they are usually composed of reasonable, conscientious researchers who are open to debate and constructive critique. 3. RECs are, in many cases, deeply flawed and unhelpful, particularly in relation to the politics of research spaces and relationships. At their best, though, they perform a critical role in ensuring that research which may compromise or endanger researchers, respondents, the environment or wider society be properly scrutinized and, where appropriate, modified or prevented. An ethics committee may not, in your judgement, have much additional expertise to share with you on conducting research on your subject in a country you know well, let’s say Chad. That may not be the case for every researcher proposing work there, however, and, believe me, some project ideas can involve deeply problematic assumptions and methodologies! You may also not be the best person to police the ethical dimensions of your own proposals. Years of experience in a research site or area can lead to over-confidence and sloppiness—which can cause a researcher to take methodological and practical choices, the ethics of which have not been fully considered.

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In developing these points, the chapter is composed of three parts. Part one outlines three challenges presented to me, as a researcher, by RECs in recent years, and how I responded to each. Part two reflects on these experiences and draws out four points to consider when approaching RECs and ethical clearance processes. The chapter concludes by exploring the general value of RECs and the various areas where researchers should continue to push their institutions to render ethical clearance processes more useful, meaningful and relevant to ethical challenges we actually tend to encounter.

In Search of Ethics Clearance: Three Real-Life Challenges My research is primarily concerned with understanding the politics of in/ security and state-building in authoritarian states. I have a particular interest in East Africa, borderlands and conflict-affected regions and undertake the bulk of my empirical work in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda— though I have also worked in Djibouti, Kenya, Malawi, Somalia, South Africa and Tanzania. Like most established academics, I also supervise Ph.D. students—most of whom undertake, or have undertaken fieldwork, in Southern states. The three REC-related dilemmas outlined below therefore derive from my experiences securing ethical clearance not only for my own research but also for that of my research students. 1. Ethical clearance and authoritarian research sites and the politics of deception My Ph.D. (2007–2011) focused on Uganda, a semi-authoritarian state, and on trying to understand why Western aid donors had been so supportive of the regime in power there since 1986, in spite of the latter’s poor record on democratization and frequent regional military brinkmanship. Leading donors, such as the US and UK, claimed throughout the 1990s and 2000s to be opposed to supporting authoritarian rule in Africa with aid injections—and many cut aid to these kind of regimes across the continent, but not to the Yoweri Museveni-led regime in Uganda (Fisher 2015). Quite the opposite— development and military assistance to Uganda from London, Washington and elsewhere grew steadily every year and global politicians from the World Bank’s James Wolfensohn to US president Bill Clinton lauded Uganda, and Museveni himself, as a model and inspiration (Fisher 2011). I wanted to understand why this was the case by analysing a range of written materials, but also—indeed, primarily—through interviewing current and former diplomats, donor officials, ministers, politicians and others in Washington, London and Uganda itself. In my ethical review application, I proposed two fieldwork trips to Uganda (including Kampala, the capital, and Gulu, the home of many donor agencies dealing with the humanitarian situation in the north of the country)

20  J. FISHER

which would take place between May 2009 and December 2010. Approval was granted—contingent on my also receiving research clearance from the Ugandan authorities, according to their own processes and requirements. It is not uncommon for RECs to insist upon this for projects involving fieldwork in another country and, in principle, this is quite appropriate. Western researchers cannot expect their home institution’s approval to be directly transferrable to other polities (though, in some cases, it can be), where the rules may be different, and where universities may not be the final authority on such matters. Moreover, failing to secure ethical approval from the relevant institutions but proceeding with research anyway is illegal in many countries (including Uganda) and can lead to the researcher, if caught, being deported or prosecuted. My REC was, therefore, right to insist on me getting ethical clearance in Uganda for the project from these perspectives. Challenge: The body responsible for considering ethical approval applications in Uganda during that period was the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST)—a government agency reporting to a Cabinet minister.3 UNCST was staffed mainly by state bureaucrats, rather than academics, and was responsible for reviewing each application. They could reject, request amendments to, and provisionally approve applications but final approval came—following the payment of several hundred dollars—directly from the Office of the President in the form of a letter signed by a presidential private secretary. This would be produced and processed upon the recommendation of UNCST, though it did not always come and UNCST had little leverage over the much more powerful presidential mansion. Anecdotally, I had heard of a number of Western researchers during the 2000s whose fieldwork was delayed or stalled because they could only present the UNCST letter to local authorities when asked. Having the letter from the President’s Office clearly mattered the most in practice to district bureaucrats and gatekeepers, but was contingent upon securing the UNCST approval. Uganda, however, is a semi-authoritarian state—that was, in part, the rationale behind focusing the Ph.D. project around it. I had been advised by several more experienced researchers on, and in, the country that UNCST would likely be very wary about approving a project whose research question was so politically sensitive: why have Western donors so enthusiastically supported a semi-authoritarian regime in Uganda when they have sought to avoid this elsewhere (including in Kenya, Uganda’s neighbour, during the 1990s)? Even the term “semi-authoritarian” might be enough to sink the application, it was suggested to me and, indeed, several years later a western Ugandan university which had invited me to speak on some research cancelled the event at short notice because the term appeared in the presentation 3 Much

of the information on Uganda’s ethical clearance process provided here remains the case at the time of writing, though in recent years an additional layer of review has been incorporated into the process, undertaken by a nominated—and UNCST-approved—Ugandan research institution.

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title. President Museveni, I later found out, had been in town around the same time and the research centre in question was reluctant to host such a discussion with State House officials so close by. Putting to one side the logistical challenges of applying for research clearance in Uganda from the UK, the broader challenge presented here was an ethical one—albeit one resulting from my REC’s recommendation rather than one embedded within the research proposal itself. When applying for research clearance in Uganda, should I fully disclose what the project is about, and its core premise? This would seem to be the “ethical” thing to do; there was some guidance available from my institution on the use of deception and research respondents, but it did not speak to this scenario. Fully disclosing the project’s core focus and rationale to UNCST would, however, quite possibly lead to the approval application being rejected. I would then have been unable to conduct research there which complied with my REC’s stipulation and would likely have had to leave Uganda and fundamentally change the subject and case study of my Ph.D.— 1.5 years into 3 years of funding. Response: The REC in question was not in a position to advise on these questions but, ultimately—and on the advice of more experienced colleagues—I submitted a carefully framed proposal and application to UNCST. This focused on the core research question of the project—seeking to understand why Western donors had been so supportive of the Ugandan government since 1986. It also sought to place this in context by pointing to the more ambiguous aid relationships enjoyed during the same period by some of Uganda’s neighbours—notably Kenya. It did not, however, refer specifically to the “puzzle” of aid donors being so supportive of a ­semi-authoritarian regime, though a careful reader of the proposal might have taken this to be implied. The final proposal was therefore up-front about the research question and methodology, but quiet on the empirical “puzzle” motivating the study. Though it took several weeks of chasing once I arrived in Kampala (having submitted by post several months earlier), I received the UNCST clearance without problems. Only one respondent ever asked to see evidence of the clearance—and he ultimately did not agree to speak to me anyway. Perhaps just as well, as the Office of the President’s letter never came through. 2. “Risk”, travel advice and remote research Between 2016 and 2018, I was running an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Seminar Series grant called “From data to knowledge: Understanding peace and conflict from afar”.4 The idea behind the grant application had been to bring together scholars, practitioners and 4 More information on the Series can be found at https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/ government-society/departments/international-development/events/from-data-to-knowledge/ index.aspx. Accessed 1 May 2018.

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­olicy-makers from the North and South to discuss and problematize p a growing paradox emerging within peace and conflict studies, and development and peacebuilding more broadly. This was—and is: (1) the ever-increasing focus of Northern policy-makers, and researchers, on so-called fragile and ­“conflict-affected” regions of the world, on the one hand, coupled with, (2) a growing reluctance within Northern policy and research institutions to allow their staff to actually visit, conduct research in, and live in such contexts. Mark Duffield, one of the most prominent commentators on this paradox, has underscored how far perceived risks to Northern personnel in such settings (from crime, kidnapping, poor medical facilities and general insecurity) have led many agencies to run development programmes remotely, through technology and/or local actors, and many universities to bar scholars from fieldwork in sites their insurance agencies consider to be “unsafe” (2014). In his influential 2010 conceptualization of the “fortified aid compound” in Afghanistan and South Sudan, Duffield (2010) described a world where few Northern actors involved in peace and conflict resolution live in, or travel to, the environments which their work relates to—and those that do remain within militarized compounds surrounded by barbed wire, physically separating the “internationals” from the “locals” and curtailing their interactions. Séverine Autesserre has since coined the term “peaceland” to capture this environment (2014). Our Seminar Series would pose the questions: what are the implications of this context for the kind of knowledge that is generated on conflict-affected regions, and to what extent does this knowledge reflect the voices and concerns of communities and peoples living in these regions? The Series was based around seven themed seminars, to be held at the institution of each member of the project team. This included six UK-based institutions and one NGO focused on Somalia, but based in Nairobi, Kenya (many agencies and organizations dealing with Somalia continue to be stationed in Kenya because of perceived security risks). During the Series, however, we came to the view that holding our final, Somalia-focused, seminar in Kenya would end up edifying the very “aid bunkerization” pathologies that our discussions were criticizing, and excluding the “local voices” we were arguing should be heard—hence we have begun to explore the possibility of holding it in Somalia itself. Mogadishu was not an option for a number of reasons—not least the cost of the private security which would have been required, which would have exceeded our budget more than tenfold. We therefore decided on Hargeisa, capital of Somaliland, a sleepy city and home to a number of very ­well-respected research organizations and policy institutes. Though Hargeisa is, in the estimation of those who have been there, no less safe than any other city (and significantly more safe than many, including Nairobi), it is a place which the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) currently

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“advise against all but essential travel” to. It is, however, one of only two FCO-designated “orange” zones in Somalia (the other being the city of ­ Berbera), with the country otherwise coloured red (“advise against all travel”) on the FCO’s Foreign Travel Advice page.5 This FCO status posed a significant problem from an ethical review perspective since my institution—like most Northern universities I am aware of—ties its insurance and risk assessment decisions to FCO guidance. Hence institutional permission to travel to “orange” and, particularly, “red” zones requires one to go through an extensive—and time-consuming— set of internal bureaucratic procedures before a decision on travel can be made. The blurring of “ethics”, insurance and “health and safety” in this context also meant that securing clear guidance on the actual process to follow—20 + emails across several departments over two months—took some time. Ultimately, it became clear that while it would be theoretically possible to hold the seminar in Hargeisa, as intended, this would be contingent on two things. First, undertaking a comprehensive risk assessment on behalf of myself and those participating, and securing sign-off from a range of senior managers in the university. Second, making “security arrangements” for participants and delineating an “emergency plan” for the event, as well as ensuring that all participants also undertook “their own risk assessments” in line with their own institutional requirements before travelling. As the organizer of the event, my institution would have a “duty and care responsibility” to participants. Challenge: It had taken me a number of months to clarify how to secure institutional permission to hold the Hargeisa seminar. In part, this was because all the parts of the university I had contacted to secure clearance had suggested that another office, or individual, would need to sign-off the final decision. Though I am not suggesting that this was an intentional delaying tactic, there is certainly a tendency amongst ethics committees and health and safety offices to defer or refer final decisions when considerable risk is— putatively—involved. Often this means a researcher having to await for quite some time for the verdicts of various higher authorities to be given, as one office “kicks the decision upstairs” and so on. Regardless, I finally knew what process to follow and to comply with this I would need to produce a number of documents as well as to secure sign-off from a number of officers to go ahead. I was, of course, willing to do this. Could I reasonably expect, however, that those I had invited to participate would have the time and energy to do the same within their own institutions in order to comply with my institution’s regulations around their attendance? Moreover, how could I police this set of processes to ensure that each participant had done what

5 Information

correct as of May 2018, see https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/somalia. Accessed 1 May 2018.

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was required before booking their air tickets and hotel rooms? And what about the personal side of things? Participants would be attending pro bono and giving their time and intellectual energy to an initiative under my name. Could it be acceptable to insist that they carry out such an extensive and time-consuming internal bureaucratic process—and prove it to me—just to attend? Would they ever speak to me again after all that?! Response: Ultimately, I came to the view that there would just not be sufficient time available to undertake these tasks thoroughly for each participant before the seminar—particularly in amongst all my other obligations, which would have included the actual seminar arrangements themselves. I was also concerned that asking participants to undertake their own risk assessments and comply with their own institutional requirements in this regard would lead most invitees to simply decline to attend, and the remainder to become increasingly frustrated—with me, by proxy!—at the bureaucratic processes they found themselves having to devote significant time and energy towards. The event was, therefore, held in Nairobi instead—as originally envisaged.6 The majority of participants were of Somali origin, with many travelling from Hargeisa, Mogadishu and elsewhere in Somalia, and the discussions were fascinating and wide-ranging. I could not help wondering, though, how different our discussions might have been if they had been held in the country itself—and how many more local stakeholders might have been able to participate and contribute. A week after the seminar, I travelled to Hargeisa alone—having gone through the internal clearance processes outlined above. This at least enabled me to share and discuss the seminar’s findings with some Somaliland researchers, practitioners and stakeholders who had not been able to participate in the Nairobi event. While I was there, a terrorist attack took place on the London Underground, injuring 30 people. In order to spend one week in Somaliland—which had last experienced a major terrorist attack nearly a decade earlier—I had needed to complete risk assessments and security training, as well as to secure sign-off from multiple parts of the university. What does it say about our state and research institutions’ perceptions of certain parts of the South that I was actually safer in Hargeisa during that week than I would have been sitting on a tube train in Parsons Green? 3. The ethics of researching “criminals” Finally, a shorter summary of a challenge once encountered by a research student under my guidance. The student in question wished to explore state-building in a conflict-affected state and applied to the university’s REC for approval to undertake fieldwork. Her/his plan was to interview a range 6 A summary of the discussion can be found at https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/ government-society/departments/international-development/events/from-data-to-knowledge/2017-09-05-bunkers-bubbles.aspx. Accessed 1 May 2018.

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of elite actors, including a number of rebel leaders. In responding to her/his application for ethical approval, the institution’s REC raised concerns about the possibility of the research leading to the “disclosure of criminal or illegal activity where there could be a legal obligation to inform the authorities” and insisted that the student devise a mechanism to put in place were this to happen. Challenge: How should the student respond? Rebels are, by definition, involved in “criminal or illegal activity”. How, then, can one undertake research on civil war, insurgency and conflict informed by rebel perspectives, while also ensuring that any “illegal activity” one hears about from such encounters is reported to the authorities? Would this not prejudice the researcher’s ability to build trust with her/his respondents—and possibly put her/him at risk from reprisals from the rebels themselves? More broadly, in a situation of civil conflict, who is to be considered “the authorities”, and should a REC insist that a student take a practical position on this? Respond: In this case, we sought advice from a senior colleague who had supervised to completion many theses involving similar work. He helped us to devise a response to the REC which pointed out that rebels were by their very nature undertaking illegal activity and that it would not be appropriate, or safe, for the researcher to engage the authorities on details of their rebellion. That said, we made clear that where there was ambiguity in this regard, the researcher would “consult with the University’s Legal Office to determine whether a legal requirement to disclose information exists”. The REC was satisfied with this response and research clearance given.

How I Dealt with My Ethics Committee—What I Learned As you can see, the challenges presented by the REC on each of the three occasions did not ultimately necessitate substantive change to the research projects, even if the weight of bureaucratic requirements in one instance led to a partial retreat on my part. It is worthwhile, then, reflecting more broadly on what I have learned regarding dealing with ethics committees over the years, as it may help readers facing dilemmas such as those above to devise responses and strategies which both satisfy REC requirements and preserve the integrity of a research proposal. Below, therefore, I sketch out four core pieces of advice in this regard: 1. Plan, persevere and stay constructive RECs are generally composed of your fellow academics—in many institutions you can probably find out who these are from an intranet or other source. They are likely doing the job with limited recognition from peers or managers and are dealing with a large number of applications, some of which may well be poorly thought through. Like you, they are probably h ­ ard-working, intellectually curious and personally decent people who want to do their job

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properly, and to serve their colleagues, institution and discipline well. They are also being asked to take on a grave responsibility by the university—judging and advising on whether research proposed is, at its most basic level, likely to harm respondents or researchers. To use a stark example, they could end up being the only people standing between the devising and implementation of fieldwork involving testing experimental medication on street children in Delhi. They are also obliged to consider and respond to institutional and legal regulations which overlap, to some extent, with Ethics—notably risk and insurance, health and safety and data protection (see below). This means that their queries and recommendations may sometimes seem—indeed, often are—exceptionally conservative or a major over-reaction. It may also be that a particular proposal (such as that around my Hargeisa seminar, above) is something they have rarely come across. Ensuring that every actor in the university whose oversight might be required is consulted, therefore, may take time, involve contradictory advice and necessitate a lot of chasing on your part. Given the often anonymized feedback one receives on ethics applications from “the Committee”, it can often been tempting—and temporarily cathartic—to respond to roadblocks presented in this regard with a grumpy email complaining about the rationale for a particular decision, or the byzantine bureaucratic process being insisted upon. Think, though, how you would respond to such an email given what I have said in the last few paragraphs….. Though it might be the less immediately satisfying strategy, it is much better to take a deep breath and enter into a dialogue with the Committee— thanking them for their feedback, explaining your own position on an issue and asking, perhaps, what they would suggest you do. In general, these are fellow scholars who want to help and—like anyone—they are likely to be more constructive if dealt with politely and with empathy. Moreover, complaining to a REC about the insanity of a particular process in the context of an individual application is unlikely to change anything (though see the final section below). If getting clearance requires you to undertake a lengthy set of tasks to get your research approved, then this is something you are just going to have to do. Ensuring that you apply for ethics approval early is the best way to prevent a temporary roadblock becoming a permanent road closure. 2. Get advice from others You are almost certainly not the first person in your department, let alone your institution, to be presented with any one particular challenge by a REC. If you are a Ph.D. student, your supervisor (s) will likely be advising you on how to deal with the process, but either way, there are many other scholars you can turn to for advice. In some cases—particularly if your REC is based in your department—you can meet directly with colleagues who have been involved in reviewing your application. More broadly, there will likely be senior colleagues in your institution who have encountered, and dealt with, these issues before—either directly

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or through supervision. Academics like little more than to get together and complain about bureaucracy and these colleagues will almost certainly be prepared to assist and advise. You can also reach out to scholars beyond your institution who have worked, or are currently working, in the region or country you are proposing research in. Indeed, these may be the most useful interlocutors for resolving the more practical challenges posed in the REC process—particularly around research clearance, access and risk assessment— since situations in conflict-affected and post-conflict regions can change quickly. I mentioned that during my 2009–2010 Uganda fieldwork I was only asked for evidence of UNCST research clearance once (out of over 100 interviews). During 2016–2018, however, almost every respondent (out of around 60) made this request. Fortunately, on this occasion, I also had the President’s Office letter. Clearly, different scholars will be able to advise authoritatively on different issues—which is why seeking advice beyond your supervisory team is to be recommended, if you are a Ph.D. student. The point, though, is that even if you feel stumped by a REC’s recommendation, others in your institution or field will likely be able to explain to you how they successfully dealt with this issue. One caveat to add here, though, is that research in conflict-affected and post-conflict regions is not predictable, and different scholars will have often quite different experiences in resolving particular ethical challenges. Some fieldwork aficionados relish telling stories about being deported from a country, denied a visa or having their research clearance proposal rejected by a vindictive bureaucrat. These are probably true stories but they are not necessarily the experience you will have—indeed, they probably will not be. Some colleagues may tell you that it is “impossible to do work” on a particular topic in a particular region—but you may find that this is actually not the case (I have in my own research). This does not mean that such counsel should be ignored—rather, that, decisions should be made on the basis of extensive consultation and research, not just academic hearsay (Clark 2013). 3. Understand the REC’s context The role and oversight of RECs, particularly in Northern universities, are becoming increasingly interwoven with questions of health and safety, institutional insurance liabilities and compliance with data storage and protection regulations. In some cases, RECs are pushing back on this trend, emphasizing that questions of researcher safety linked to the general perceived security of a particular site or region are not actually ethical questions per se but, rather, a matter for health and safety officers. Regardless, research clearance processes are now strongly informed by priorities and agendas which might not be immediately clear to a researcher. Many UK institutions, for example, are concerned about how the 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will impact upon the collection,

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storage and publication of research data. Universities—and their insurers— also tend to rely primarily on the foreign travel advice provided by the national foreign ministry as the main guidance on where it is “safe” for researchers to undertake work, and where it is not. This does not mean that RECs and university insurers will not approve travel to an FCO “orange” or “red” zone (in the UK case, see above) but does mean that a researcher should expect to deal with an extensive internal risk assessment and clearance process if her/his research proposed travel to any such region. The consequence of this is that RECs can be predicted to scrutinize an application’s proposed data management and travel plans, for example, not only from an “ethical” perspective but from a legal and insurance compliance perspective. At the very least, they may stipulate that their approval is contingent upon the researcher securing approval from another part of the university responsible for one of these areas. This was, for example, the case for my own approval for travelling to Hargeisa in 2017. Being cognizant of these, and other, regulatory pressures governing REC business can be helpful for ensuring that an application speaks directly to them. A research clearance application which is ambiguous around how consent will be recorded or how data will be stored during fieldwork will be sent back to the applicant not only because of the ethical issues identified herein but also the GDPR non-compliance issues. Likewise, an application which proposes research in Hargeisa which does not explain the process the researcher will undertake to secure internal health and safety and insurance sign-off will likely be put on hold until this issue is spoken to. 4. Educate the REC The membership and makeup of RECs differ across research institutions, even in the same country. In some cases, a REC will be based in an academic department and composed of one’s peers. In others, however, a REC will be a centralized body, whose members are drawn from across the institution and across disciplines. Thus, an application to study peacebuilding in Lebanon might be reviewed by a group who know the country and theoretical context well, or it might be reviewed by a group of mathematicians, theologians, chemists and medieval historians who have never travelled beyond Western Europe. Whatever we might think of the logic behind this, it nonetheless underlines the reality that in many—probably most—cases, your REC will know less than you about the empirical realities of the research site and project being proposed. In the Hargeisa case, I mentioned above, for example, most of the REC was probably not aware that Somaliland (of which Hargeisa is the capital city) has been de facto independent from the rest of Somalia since the 1990s and has a lower crime rate and threat from terrorist attack than the average European city. I could be entirely mistaken, but it would not surprise me to learn that most on the committee had never heard of Hargeisa and would only have a few sentences worth of knowledge to relate on Somalia,

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most including references to the country’s civil war and to Islamist terror networks. This is relevant because it means researchers cannot assume that REC reviews and responses are properly informed by up-to-date information and analysis on a proposed research context. Though it may seem counterintuitive, what is often required—particularly around discussions of risk and risk assessment—is for the researcher to educate the REC (or health and safety officer) on the current situation on the ground in their research site, leading the committee to base their decision, ultimately, on information the researcher has provided. That is to say, and to return to point one above, it is better to react to most roadblocks relating to the fieldwork site through constructive dialogue and presentation of evidence (perhaps in a particular format, in the case of risk assessments) rather than with frustration and irritation. The Ph.D. student researching rebels mentioned above and I both felt that the REC’s initial response on “criminal activity” was faintly ridiculous, or at least very unhelpful, given the context. We were conscious, though, that the reviewers probably had not even considered the political context of researching rebellion because it was so far from their own area of expertise. Consequently, they were likely on ethics autopilot and perhaps transposing common practice in their own field to peace and conflict studies. Our response therefore politely sought to point out this differing context, while also explaining how any legal ambiguities encountered in this regard would be dealt with—and this was sufficient to reassure the reviewer. Probably, the most impressive example of educating a REC that I have come across was undertaken by a former colleague of mine, Suda Perera, in relation to work she wished to do with non-state armed actors in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She was able to persuade the FCO to amend its travel advice on certain areas of that region and have them reclassified from “red” (“advise against all travel”) to “orange” (“advise against all but essential travel”). This was an important amendment because the definition of “essential travel” can include research for many institutions and insurers. Perera was able to do this by challenging the FCO’s judgement, presenting up-to-date information on the situation on the ground and asking policy-makers to defend the current travel advice (2016). As she notes: The risk-averse nature of the FCO’s own [travel advice] ruling means that large swathes of conflict-affected states are designated red. However, these directives are not necessarily based on specific and verified threats, but rather a lack of general knowledge about their ‘safeness’. In this context, no news is bad news, and often very little knowledge about these areas is available. (Perera 2017: 811)

After review, FCO officials decided that in certain cases, their advice was out-dated and should, therefore, be amended. Altering a foreign ministry’s travel advice may, of course, not always be possible. A smaller-scale strategy

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to employ is providing your REC with a letter of support from an NGO or host organization you are in touch with, based in your proposed fieldwork site. Such an organization will be well-placed to speak with authority on the situation on the ground, and to provide reassurance to REC members regarding points of contact and support you have available during your fieldwork. They can also help to persuade REC members that you have actually thought about the practicalities of your research plans and developed relationships with actors who live and work there.

Improving Ethics Committees The reader may have noticed that the different challenges posed by RECs outlined throughout most of this chapter have had rather little to do with, well, research ethics. The likely safety and security of the researcher, according to a foreign ministry’s webpage? Yes. Compliance with legal directives and insurance protocols? Yes. The moral trade-offs required for working in, and with, authoritarian states? Not really, just don’t break the law. Advice on approaching marginalized and traumatized peoples sensitively and appropriately? No, just make sure they sign a consent form. Advice on tackling the unequal power relations and gendered nature of peace and conflict fieldwork? No. Within the somewhat limited scholarship around RECs, core complaints focus around the bureaucratic and tangential concerns of these bodies— how they often end up diverting researchers’ energies away from considering the actual ethical issues raised by our proposals and towards institutional box-ticking (Bosk and de Vries 2004; Haggerty 2004). A critical question raised in this regard is whether or not RECs are actually fit for purpose. At least within the field of peace and conflict studies, are they actually set up to provide meaningful and pertinent advice on the ethical dimensions of our research? RECs and research ethics as we know them today were originally developed in the 1970s in response to a range of inhumane scientific and psychological experiments carried out by Nazi physicians and various US institutions including the Central Intelligence Agency, Stanford University and Yale University since the 1930s (Stark 2012). Their purpose was to establish clear guidance around consent and withdrawal protocols to ensure that those participating in medical research were not harmed in future projects. Though different disciplines have since produced bespoke guidance for scholars in those fields, in many respects RECs continue to perform their role primarily with the closed, clinical space of the medical experiment in mind; the researcher, the subject, the laboratory, the time-limited experimental event itself, etc. This is problematic since most peace and conflict studies research takes place in deeply unpredictable environments where the “research site” cannot

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be so easily delimited and where the complex and gendered power relations between researchers and researched are mitigated barely at all by consent forms and advice on “withdrawal from the research”. I have secured 8 ethical approvals in UK institutions and never had any such issues raised by reviewers. This has broader global implications, however, since UK REC protocols—like those of most research institutions across the planet—have been largely transposed from the US. As Ronald White argues in relation to social science and ethics committees, “while the [REC] process may have been at least marginally well suited to its original mission (to protect federally funded biomedical research subjects from physical harm) that process has become buried in an avalanche of new and unrelated socially constructed mandates” (2007: 547). Indeed, for peace and conflict studies researchers, it is worth reflecting not only upon the critical ethical issues which RECs fail to speak to but also the practical harm that REC’s empirical and discursive practices do (Honey 2007). On the latter, consider this scenario: a white, Western researcher is undertaking fieldwork on market traders in a Southern state and working with a research assistant based at one of the country’s top universities. Both travel from the capital to a distant province of the country. Once there, the two men approach an illiterate market trader operating—according to his country’s laws—illegally. The research assistant explains to him that the white man wishes to talk to him about his work for research but that he (the trader) must sign a piece of paper first. The researcher also needs to check that the trader can read the document before they proceed. The trader does not wish to be inhospitable, or to appear ignorant in front of the educated, well-dressed strangers by admitting his illiteracy. So puts his mark where the scholar is pointing, on two forms—the second of which he is given. Later that evening, and for months thereafter, he worries about what the form says, whether the pair had come on behalf of the authorities and whether the form and his mark upon it may be used against him, perhaps even to evict him from his stall, in the future. For the REC, though, the researcher had secured informed consent and, therefore, acted “ethically”. At a broader level, there is the reification of global zoning undertaken in REC risk assessments and travel restrictions. The designation by a state of “safe” and “unsafe” regions abroad is not just a technical exercise, but a political act. It defines the spaces and communities which can be engaged with and which cannot, often acting—inadvertently—in concert with violent, authoritarian regimes who wish to prevent scrutiny of their activities in particular parts of their territory. In adopting, in the UK case, FCO travel advice as a proxy for acceptable research sites, RECs are often further isolating often marginalized peoples and promoting the same ideas of international hierarchy and superiority advanced in FCO maps which colour “good” places green, “worrying” places as orange and “bad” places as red. This governance

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of movement also dehumanizes populations in conflict-affected regions by ensuring that their stories of resilience and everyday life rarely travel beyond their communities. The aim here is not to end on a discouraging or despairing note but, rather, to advance the chapter’s focus from “dealing with the ethics committee” to actually improving the ethics committee. Throughout this discussion, I have outlined a number of ways in which to successfully comply with RECs’ guidance, while also being able to conduct the research that one is passionate about. I have also, however, underscored some of the ways in which REC practice and advice can be challenged, qualified and, at times, altered. Acknowledgements   This chapter draws on discussions held between 2016 and 2018 across a range of events as part of an ESRC Seminar Series (“From data to knowledge: Understanding peace and conflict from afar”). The author is grateful to the ESRC for funding this programme (Grant number ES/N008367/1). Versions of this chapter were presented at a workshop on “Fieldwork in (Post-) Conflict Settings” held at Radboud University on 18 May 2017 and at a panel on “Regulating Data: The Background Institutions and Political Economy of the Data Revolution in Aid” held at the International Studies Association annual conference in San Francisco on 6 April 2018. The author is grateful to the organizers and participants in these two events for their valuable feedback and comments.

References Autesserre, Séverine. 2014. Peaceland: Conflict resolution and the everyday politics of international intervention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bosk, Charles, and Raymond De Vries. 2004. Bureaucracies of mass deception: Institutional Review Boards and the ethics of ethnographic research. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 595 (1) (September): 249–263. Clark, Phil. 2013. Must academics researching authoritarian regimes self-censor? Times Higher Education, November 28. Duffield, Mark. 2010. Risk management and the fortified aid compound: Everyday life in post-interventionary society. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 4 (4) (December): 453–474. Duffield, Mark. 2014. From immersion to simulation: Remote methodologies and the decline of area studies. Review of African Political Economy 41 (S1) (December): S75–S94. Fisher, Jonathan. 2011. International perceptions and African agency: Uganda and its donors, 1986–2010. Unpublished DPhil thesis, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. Fisher, Jonathan. 2015. “Does it work?” Work for whom? Britain and political conditionality since the cold war. World Development 75 (November): 13–25. Haggerty, Kevin. 2004. Ethics creep: Governing social science research in the name of ethics. Qualitative Sociology 27 (4) (December): 391–414. Honey, Christine. 2007. Rethinking ethics review as institutional discourse. Qualitative Inquiry 13 (3) (April): 336–352.

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Perera, Suda. 2016. Viewing the fourth world: Removed research and remote populations. Presentation at ESRC Seminar Series workshop on “Remote-Gathering and Local Needs” held at the University of Birmingham, UK, on 24 February 2016. Podcast of presentation available at https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/ government-society/departments/international-development/events/from-data-to-knowledge/2016-02-24-unpacking-digital-security-nexus.aspx. Accessed 1 May 2018. Perera, Suda. 2017. To boldly know: Knowledge, peacekeeping and remote data gathering in conflict-affected states. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 24 (5) (October): 803–822. Stark, Laura. 2012. Behind closed doors: IRBs and the making of ethical research. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. White, Ronald. 2007. Institutional Review Board mission Creep: The common rule, social science and the nanny state. The Independent Review 11 (4) (Spring): 547–564.

CHAPTER 3

When Humans Become Data Roxani Krystalli

In May of 2018, while I was conducting research in Colombia for my Ph.D. dissertation on the politics of victimhood during transitions from violence, I received some news.1 My application for a National Science Foundation (NSF) Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant would be recommended for funding. This recommendation was not, however, final. The program officer who had shared the news with me asked me to submit an edited abstract about my research project, proof of Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, and an amended data management plan (DMP). Regarding the DMP requirement, the program officer wrote in an email: Your current DMP is inadequate because it does not describe how you plan to share the data with other researchers. According to NSF guidelines, deidentified data and metadata must be made available on a publicly accessible site, such as ICPSR, QDR, or OSF.2 This should include transcripts of interviews, field notes, and codebook. You should also shorten the timeframe for archiving the materials—an embargo period of 5 years following completion of the project is excessive. The norm in the LSS program3 is 1-3 years. 1 All opinions in this article are my own and do not reflect the views of funding agencies or institutions that have supported my research. 2 ICPSR refers to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. QDR is a Qualitative Data Repository, hosted by the Center for Qualitative and Multi-Method Inquiry at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University, USA. OSF refers to the Open Science Framework, maintained by the Center for Open Science. 3 LSS refers to the Law and Social Sciences Program in the Division of the Social and Economic Sciences of the NSF.

R. Krystalli (*)  University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_3

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36  R. KRYSTALLI You should send me a revised DMP as an attachment. Please submit these items as soon as possible. When I have received them, I will proceed with the recommendation.

Motivated by concerns about the implications of this request for the safety of my research participants and for the ethics and methods of my proposed project, I wrote a memo to the relevant NSF division. As I discuss in the memo, which I have made publicly available in case it can be of service to researchers navigating similar dilemmas (Krystalli 2018), my concerns were manifold. In brief, they included the fact that (a) the emphasis on data replication and transparency was not in line with the tenets of what can make interpretive methodologies or ethnographic methods rigorous (Yanow and Schartz-Shea 2015; Wedeen 2013); (b) there is no way to systematically and adequately anonymize interview data and field notes and still have the output be meaningfully useful for another researcher; (c) interview data and field notes are always already infused with the subjectivity of the people involved in the research, meaning that another researcher approaching the same context with the same questions would likely still generate different data; (d) the politically sensitive context of transition from armed conflict would make the potential de-identification of data risky for my interlocutors; (e) such a disclosure would represent a change of the terms of research through which I had engaged with my interlocutors over the years, and it would risk delegitimizing me, this research project, as well as other research projects in Colombia. The funding agency and I were able to reach a mutually agreeable solution, whereby I would disclose the codebook and dissertation itself after a period of time, but not the interviews and field notes, and I was grateful for their receptiveness to my concerns. Yet, some questions remain, and they motivate my reflections in this chapter. How does the imagination of humans as data inform different approaches to transparency and ethics in research? How do temporalities and spaces of research and violence alike inform interpretations of our responsibilities toward research interlocutors? Who, or what, do we imagine we are protecting when we use the language of ethics and transparency to describe our research? The rest of this chapter proceeds as follows. I begin by reflecting on how researchers discussing questions of ethics often imagine these issues to pertain to a particular kind of research in terms of subject matter and methodology— despite the fact that ethical dilemmas emerge in nearly every research project that concerns itself with power. I continue by conducting a close reading of the language in the section of the NSF email excerpted above, with the aim of reflecting on how the framing of research as “data” enhances or obscures the visibility of certain manifestations of power. Next, I examine how researchers’ interpretation of transparency would be different if we paid closer attention to the dimensions of temporality and spatialization (of research, risks, and violence alike). In the following section, I ask whether transparency dilemmas

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that arise through funding requirements can be resolved through turning down funding. To conclude, I synthesize recent research to advance an alternate orientation of transparency toward a practice of reflexive openness about the processes of funding, analysis and writing, research collaborations, and citations.

Situating the Analysis: Who Has to “Do” Ethics? My exploration of the above questions has been informed by my experiences as an interpretive, feminist researcher who is interested in understanding various dimensions of peace, conflict, and justice.4 Yet, I caution against a kind of “ethics exceptionalism” that presumes discussions of ethics uniquely apply to certain kinds of research. As Amelia Hoover Green and Dara Cohen write in a compelling forthcoming article, many discussions of ethical dilemmas in political violence scholarship focus on “qualitative, fieldwork-based research that requires direct interaction between researchers and research participants in violent or unstable contexts. […] Quantitative data about political violence based on ‘desk research,’ by contrast, often are implicitly treated as ethically uncomplicated.” (Hoover Green and Cohen, forthcoming). Ethical dilemmas are, at their core, dilemmas about power and the ways in which it shapes choices and relationships (Malejacq and Mukhopadhyay 2016). Locating the relevance of ethics and power always “elsewhere,” at the sites of international fieldwork (Fujii 2012), or as linked to bodies imagined to be vulnerable (Das 2006; Baines 2017), can obscure the ways in which power and ethics manifest and hide at sites not commonly framed as violent or volatile. Indeed, I consider the framing of particular settings as “difficult,” “challenging” or “volatile” to be steeped in power dynamics—the same power dynamics that may permit many sites of violence in the “global north” and/ or in affluent countries in “the West” to not be labeled as such. Although the guidelines for ethical practice will vary depending on the nature, topic, and methodology of the research, I join fellow scholars in arguing that discussions of ethics should not be limited to the study of violent conflict (Brigden and Gohdes 2020; Tripp 2018), to interpretive methodologies (Thaler 2019), or to fieldwork methods (Cronin-Furman and Lake 2018). Conversely, I do not think of “the field” as an always already “other” site, directing the researcher’s gaze elsewhere. “In our case, the field was not an a priori thing to be studied, nor a place to go and do ethnography,” write Middleton and Pradhan about their research on sub-nationalist politics in India. “It was a network of connectivity forged through interest, effort, and contingency” (Middleton and Pradhan 2014: 363). Deepa Reddy shares this conceptualization of “the field,” not as a preexisting or singular place, but

4 For

a discussion of what makes certain research approaches feminist in the study of peace and conflict, see Wibben (2016), Sylvester (2013).

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as “an almost random assemblage of sites that come into coherence through processes of fieldwork itself: the field as deterritorialized and reterritorialized, as it were, by the questions brought to bear on it in the course of research” (Reddy 2009: 90). I echo concerns about the coloniality of both the language and the practice of “fieldwork” (Harrison 1997; Amit 2003; Gupta and Ferguson 1997). With those in mind, I conceptualize “the field” in this chapter as less geographically bounded—though it is, of course, located—and better understood as a site of themes and inquiries that has come into being through the process and interactions of research (Reddy 2009).

Becoming “the data” In re-reading the NSF program officer’s email outlining the request to comply with transparency requirements, I am struck by the omnipresence of acronyms. Seven such acronyms appear on seven lines of text. Acronyms are part of a regime of governance, whereby knowledge is converted into shorthand. What do we allow ourselves to skip over, to not process, when concerns about data become abbreviated? This question becomes particularly salient when we consider the verbs that accompany the acronyms. Data must be “made available,” ­“de-identified,” “shared,” and “managed.” In the words of the anthropologist Sally Engle Merry (2016: 11), this language “represents the movement of business management techniques to the public sector.” The portrayal of data is a ­de-personalized one, whereby “data,” imagined to be unruly and untamed, needs to be disciplined and managed—all in a passive voice that risks hiding the subjectivity of the researcher. I am not alone in finding such formulations concerning. In the question-and-answer session following her keynote lecture, Swati Parashar conveyed her experience at a workshop on research ethics. “People were talking about ‘data sensitivity’, ‘data protection,’ ‘data sanitization’, ‘data sensitization,’” Parashar said. “Data, data, data — but there were no people!” (Parashar 2019a). People get stripped from the data in a number of ways during the research process. Not all of these ways reveal themselves during the “fieldwork” itself. Rather, they also emerge during the analysis, writing, and sharing of the research, requiring us to broaden the temporal frame of our storytelling about ethics. “I’m not an anthropologist,” one peer reviewer began in their comments on a paper submitted to an academic journal, “but I find all this scene-setting quite tiring. I think the paper would be strengthened by getting straight to the data. I suggest the author should shorten the interview quotes to get to the point faster.” The point, in this instance, is imagined to exist in a vacuum, free from setting, land, relationships, or surrounding emotions. “My editor made me cut out all the ‘ufff!’ from the final manuscript,” a colleague working in Colombia told me about their process of publishing

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a monograph. “Uffff!” is more than an exclamation in this context. It is a sign of resignation, of humor, of indignation at persistent inequalities and injustice. In my own research, I often asked people who experienced violence to define what the term “victim” meant to them. Nearly a quarter of the responses began with “Uffff!” A write-up that is entirely devoid of this expression is not only disloyal to the patterns of speech of my interlocutors, but also fails to fully capture the humor, persistence, and small acts of resistance that revealed themselves in the daily interactions of a research project on persistent inequalities. As David Duriesmith reminds us in his important reflection on gatekeeping and exclusionary mechanisms in academia (2019: 67), academic disciplines “discipline” their members by designating certain information as essential and other as peripheral. Identifying how humans become eclipsed from “the data” requires that we pay attention to that which triggers impatience: How did certain stories (and modes of storytelling) come to be imagined only as “background,” “context,” “flair,” as non-essential, while others are imagined to contain the substance of the important data? Two contrasting challenges come into view when research based on qualitative fieldwork transforms into “data.” On the one hand, many researchers, particularly in the discipline of political science, have had to fight for insights arising from qualitative fieldwork to be taken seriously as a form of social science. In the era of what Merry calls “the seductions of quantification” (2016: 4) work that centers storytelling and narratives is sometimes discredited as “anecdotal,” as something other than empirical, as fundamentally not data (Krystalli 2019). Importantly, these (mis)perceptions in certain disciplinary environments regarding the value or rigor of qualitative, fieldwork-based research have been met with critique and resistance. Ongoing work by feminist scholars and researchers using narrative approaches has sought to shed light on hierarchies of credibility and the politics of seriousness that inflect research (Zalewski 2006; Wibben 2010; Krystalli and Enloe 2020), as well as to elaborate on the value of narrative approaches for understanding violence (Inayatullah and Dauphinee 2016). On the other hand, the framing of research as data can create the illusion of removing human judgment from the process, thus potentially erasing or obscuring the power dynamics of the interactions that gave rise to research insights in the first place. In the process of becoming “data”—that is, in the process of gaining an acronym and being subjected to management—research can lose its humanity. Thus, a double bind begins to emerge: How can we ensure that qualitative research that arises from fieldwork is taken seriously without dehumanizing it and the process of its generation? And how would our understanding of “data transparency” be different if we placed humans at the center of the discussion?

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Temporalities and Spaces of Research, Risk, and Violence Placing humans at the center of conversations about data transparency requires us to consider temporality and spatialization as dimensions of how we understand research, risks, and violence. And, in turn, that consideration adds another question to the mix: Which human experiences do we privilege in our risk assessments? In his email requesting a revision of my DMP, the program officer had asked me to shorten the timeframe of embargoing the research, noting that “an embargo period of five years following the project was excessive.” This prompted me to ask: Excessive for whom? Whose urgency is invoked and prioritized, and with what implications for others’ safety, security, and comfort? Or, in the words of Maria Eriksson Baaz and Mats Utas (2019: 162), “whose (in)security matters?” At the time that I applied for this particular research grant, the peace accord between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had been a year old. Though important, the peace agreement sought to bring a formal ending to only one dimension of a decades-long armed conflict that had involved various guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, criminal bands, as well as violence committed by state armed forces. While formal peace accords are significant, scholars of peace and conflict studies have emphasized the importance of paying attention to both violence and peace-making initiatives that unfold away from the negotiating table or after agreements have been concluded (Ní Aoláin 2009; Lederach 2017; Mac Ginty et al. 2007). Between January 2016 and May 2019, there were 702 documented assassinations of social leaders and human rights defenders, as well as 135 documented assassinations of former FARC combatants in Colombia (Indepaz 2019: 9). This number only includes officially recorded assassinations, thus not including threats that did not result in death or assassinations that people may have been afraid to report to the authorities. Forced displacement and land dispossession, as well as other forms of violence, are ongoing in many parts of the country at the time of writing—a full year after the conclusion of my fieldwork and the cycles of funding that supported it. In the lives of many of my interlocutors affected by armed conflict, violence continues to unfold in the present tense. “Violence […] needs to be seen—and deeply considered—as a contest not only over space, bodies, or labor, or resources, but also over time,” argues Rob Nixon (2011: 8). Suggesting that a longer embargo period is excessive privileges the needs of imagined users of the research over the experiences of the interlocutors whose stories are at the heart of the project. Data transparency, in this case, protects “the data” and its future use over the people who were integral to the research process. Ultimately, despite the ways in which language can distance and depersonalize, “the people” cannot be divorced from

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“the data” in qualitative fieldwork. The realities of the “temporal overspill” of violence (Nixon 2011: 8) beyond the boundaries of peace accords or the periods formally recognized as wartime require researchers to consider complicated temporal horizons of risk (Maddison and Shepherd 2014). These risks are not only temporally oriented, but also grounded in place (Thaler 2019; Knott 2019). Although my engagement with questions of peace, conflict, and justice in Colombia is ongoing, I now live in Scotland, an ocean away from my Colombian interlocutors. Research publications and other outputs have many audiences, some of which are also located at places distinct from the residence of the researcher or the location of research interlocutors. When works are published, Didier Fassin reminds us (2015: 596), “they escape their creators. They become shared with a public. Their afterlife begins.” In considering the afterlives of research, it is perhaps too easy to separate the imagined users and audience of our work from the interlocutors who brought this work into being in the first place. “While researchers’ insecurity predicaments tend to be limited to fieldwork,” Eriksson Baaz and Utas write (2019: 164), “brokers often live with their involvement in research projects for a long time after.” Any framing of transparency that privileges swift access to “data” should not overlook the complicated dynamics of ongoing violence that research participants may face long after a researcher or funding agency has declared the project over or relegated risks to an imagined past.

Funding, Power, and Reorienting Transparency When I received the NSF program officer’s email regarding the data transparency requirements, I sought advice from colleagues and mentors about how to navigate the dilemmas the request presented. Some of these conversations rightfully revolved around the question of whether to accept the grant in the first place. As one colleague asked, with reference to the possibility that the program officer would not be amenable to my proposed alternatives: “Can you just withdraw from consideration for the grant or turn it down, if it comes to it?” Noble and appropriate as this option may appear, it is itself steeped in the power dynamics of academia. For many professionals who receive little or no institutional funding for their research, external grants are the only way to carry out their projects. This is particularly a concern for Ph.D. students, early career researchers, and contingent faculty—precisely the demographic that, because of a combination of career phase, job precarity or perceived reputational risks, may be reluctant to take on negotiations with a major funding agency regarding the terms of a grant (Parkinson and Wood 2015). Furthermore, expecting grant applicants to be the primary interlocutors in these kinds of conversations, while those who enjoy internal funding support at better-resourced institutions can remain comfortably in the background, exacerbates the already uneven burdens of emotional labor and institutional

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change within the academy.5 As Kanisha Bond writes in her moving t­ribute to Lee Ann Fujii (2018: 46), “for Lee Ann, privilege was ‘simply having a choice’; the ultimate act of academic privilege amounted to ‘choosing not to think about whether to be bothered by inequalities in the field (or wherever).’” Few researchers would actually stand against transparency, as multiple scholars have stated before me (Parkinson and Wood 2015; Tripp 2018). Yet, as Timothy Pachirat rightly points out (2015: 27), “it is the specific details of what is meant by transparency and openness, rather than their undeniable power and appeal as social science ideals, that most matter.” With what in mind, what would transparency about funding look like, if we were to conceptualize it differently than disclosing our research data in ways that might create risks for researchers and interlocutors alike? My attempt to address this question in this section is deliberately framed in the form of more questions. This is both to acknowledge that it is difficult—and perhaps unwise—to be prescriptive when it comes to ethics across contexts, fields, and disciplines, and to recognize that the power of ethical reflections lies in sitting with the questions and dilemmas they present. I think of transparency here not as a compliance-oriented ­ “checkbox” requirement, which may actually elide any meaningful contemplation of power, but as an ethic of openness. I envision this conceptualization of transparency as encouraging researchers to hold ourselves accountable to reckoning with power dynamics—not only vis-a-vis our research participants, but also our collaborators, citations, and broader networks of conversation and influence. While the requirements of a funding agency spurred many of the reflections in this chapter, money itself is often absent from conversations about research ethics in conflict settings. Yet, the availability and allocation of research funds, and the institutional affiliations with governments or private sector actors that may emerge through the process of securing funding, are certainly part of the power dynamics of field research. The concept of a “data depository” and related disclosures that some funding mechanisms have come to require “can bear strong connotations of state surveillance or surveillance by foreign governments” (Krystalli 2018: 6). The history of foreign diplomatic and military intervention into civil conflicts, as well as the legacies of different disciplinary entanglements with militaries and intelligence agencies, enhances the salience of these concerns among certain research participants (Wood 2006; Price 2011; Parkinson and Wood 2015). This requires researchers to consider and document a series of dilemmas. How did they discuss funding sources and the researcher’s potential

5 I acknowledge, of course, that financial support is not the only reason people apply for grants, particularly when grants themselves become part of assessment and prestige systems and hierarchies within academia.

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affiliations with research participants?6 What questions and concerns arose in that process? And how does funding—its existence, magnitude, and limitations—“offer a glimpse into the political economy of academic life” (Callaci 2019: 2) by influencing the time horizons and scale of research projects?

Conclusion: Broadening the Conversation Imagining transparency beyond fieldwork broadens the lens of relationships that come into view when we consider the research process. As other contributors to this volume have pointed out, and other researchers have echoed in different contexts, transparency also applies to the processes of analysis and writing (Bond 2018; Knott 2019) and to the silences researchers introduce and erase alike, whether consciously or unwittingly (Parpart and Parashar 2019; Fujii 2012). A full consideration of transparency would also bring into view the role of research relationships and interactions with fixers, brokers (Eriksson Baaz and Utas 2019), research assistants (Middleton and Pradhan 2014), and collaborators living and working in one’s context of study (Bouka 2018; Parashar 2019b). What the above considerations have in common is a curiosity about how we constitute the “I” in research (Shepherd 2016: 2). Funding, collaborations, and citations require us to view the researcher as situated within a broader world of interactions, privileges, vulnerabilities, and power dynamics. Taking these aspects into consideration can have the effect of what Emily Callaci (2019: 2) calls dismantling “the myth of the lone, self-contained ­genius-at work.” A more holistic, less individuated, more interaction-oriented conceptualization of transparency would invite us to narrate these dimensions and their effects on the research process and outcomes. I worry about some of the limitations in the current conversation about ethics—limitations for which I, too, am responsible. I worry about reflexivity becoming performative, or being yet another “checkbox” compliance exercise, or functioning as a form of gatekeeping, whereby those of us who have been implicated in many ethical minefields now tell others to never do research of a certain kind. Not all worry needs to be allayed; after all, opportunity can arise from discomfort. I find one such learning opportunity particularly hopeful. Indigenous scholars and allies are expanding conversations about transparency, risk, and ethics beyond human subjects. Such conversations invite us to reflect on our ethical relationships to land, place, and the non-human elements that shape the lived experiences we embody and study (Kimmerer 2013; Brown 2017; Pascoe 2007; Larsen and Johnson 2016). What these conversations require us to consider is practicing openness and reflexivity, not

6 I

am grateful to Emma Shaw Crane for challenging me to think about this question through many different angles in my own research.

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merely writing about it. Writing can, indeed, be a form of praxis. It is my hope that an ethical practice that invites meaningful reflection and provokes an uncomfortable, disquieting reckoning with power can go beyond disclosure and documentation, leaping off the page to affect daily interactions, collaborations, and acts of acknowledgment and solidarity.

References Amit, V. 2003. Introduction: Constructing the field. In Constructing the field, 9–26. London: Routledge. Baines, E. 2017. Buried in the heart: Women, complex victimhood and the war in Northern Uganda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bond, K.D. 2018. Reflexivity and revelation. Qualitative & Multi-Method Research 16 (1): 45–47. Bouka, Y. 2018. Collaborative research as structural violence. Political violence at a glance. http://politicalviolenceataglanceorg/2018/07/12/collaborative-researchas-structural-violence. Brigden, N.K., and A.R. Gohdes. 2020. The politics of data access in studying violence across methodological boundaries: What we can learn from each other? International Studies Review. Brown, M.L. 2017. Never alone: (Re)Coding the comic holotrope of survivance. Transmotion 3 (1): 22–22. Callaci, E. 2019. On acknowledgments. The American Historical Review 125 (1): 126–131. Cronin-Furman, K., and M. Lake. 2018. Ethics abroad: Fieldwork in fragile and violent contexts. PS: Political Science & Politics 51 (3): 607–614. https://doi. org/10.1017/s1049096518000379. Das, V. 2006. Life and words: Violence and the descent into the ordinary. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Duriesmith, D. 2019. Negative space and the feminist act of citation. In Rethinking silence, voice, and agency in contested gendered terrains. London: Routledge. Eriksson Baaz, M., and M. Utas. 2019. Exploring the backstage: Methodological and ethical issues surrounding the role of research brokers in insecure zones. Civil Wars 21 (2): 157–178. Fassin, Didier. 2015. The public afterlife of ethnography. American Ethnologist 42 (4): 592–609. Fujii, L.A. 2012. Research ethics 101: Dilemmas and responsibilities. PS: Political Science & Politics 45 (4): 717–723. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096512000819. Gupta, A., and J. Ferguson. 1997. Anthropological locations: Boundaries and grounds of a field science. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Harrison, F.V. 1997. Decolonizing anthropology: Moving further toward an anthropology for liberation. American Anthropological Association. Available at: https:// experts.illinois.edu/en/publications/decolonizing-anthropology-moving-further-toward-an-anthropology-f-2. Accessed 4 November 2019. Hoover Green, A., and D.K. Cohen. Forthcoming. Centering human subjects: The ethics of ‘Desk Research’ on political violence. Journal of Global Security Studies. Inayatullah, N., and E. Dauphinee. 2016. Narrative global politics: Theory, history and the personal in international relations. London: Routledge.

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Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz (Indepaz). 2019. Todos los Nombres, Todos los Rostros. May. Bogotá: Instituto de Estudios para el Desarollo y la Paz (Indepaz). Available at: http://www.indepaz.org.co/separata-de-actualizacion-23-de-mayo-de-2019/. Accessed 25 August 2019. Kimmerer, R. 2013. Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions. Knott, E. 2019. Beyond the field: Ethics after fieldwork in politically dynamic contexts. Perspectives on Politics 17 (1): 140–153. Krystalli, R. 2018. Negotiating data management with the National Science Foundation: Transparency and ethics in research relationships. Memo. Available at:  https://connect.apsanet.org/interpretation/wp-content/uploads/sites/60/ 2015/10/Krystalli-NSF-Data-Sharing-Memo_ForPosting_March2019.pdf. Krystalli, R. 2019. Narrating violence: Feminist dilemmas and approaches. In Handbook on gender and violence, ed. Laura J. Shepherd. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Krystalli, R., and C. Enloe. 2020. Doing feminism: A conversation between Cynthia Enloe and Roxani Krystalli. International Feminist Journal of Politics 22 (2): 1–10. Larsen, S.C., and J.T. Johnson. 2016. The agency of place: Toward a m ­ ore-than-human geographical self. GeoHumanities 2 (1): 149–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 2373566X.2016.1157003. Lederach, A.J. 2017. “The campesino was born for the campo”: A multispecies approach to territorial peace in Colombia. American Anthropologist 119 (4): 589– 602. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12925. Mac Ginty, R., O.T. Muldoon, and N. Ferguson. 2007. No war, no peace: Northern Ireland after the agreement. Political Psychology 28 (1): 1–11. Maddison, S., and L.J. Shepherd. 2014. Peacebuilding and the postcolonial politics of transitional justice. Peacebuilding 2 (3): 253–269. https://doi.org/10.1080/2164 7259.2014.899133. Malejacq, R., and D. Mukhopadhyay. 2016. The ‘tribal politics’ of field research: A reflection on power and partiality in 21st-Century Warzones. Perspectives on Politics 14 (4): 1011–1028. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592716002899. Merry, S.E. 2016. The seductions of quantification: Measuring human rights, gender violence, and sex trafficking. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Middleton, T., and E. Pradhan. 2014. Dynamic duos: On partnership and the possibilities of postcolonial ethnography. Ethnography 15 (3): 355–374. https://doi. org/10.1177/1466138114533451. Ní Aoláin, F. 2009. Exploring a feminist theory of harm in the context of conflicted and post-conflict societies emerging paradigms of rationality. Queen’s Law Journal 1: 219–244. Nixon, R. 2011. Slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Pachirat, T. 2015. The tyranny of light. Qualitative and Multi-Method Research: Newsletter of the American Political Science Association’s QMMR Section 13 (1): 27–31. Parashar, S. 2019a. Ordinary lives and the certitudes of violence: Rethinking accountability and justice. Keynote Lecture. Conference on Gender Studies: On Violence, Helsinki, Finland.

46  R. KRYSTALLI Parashar, S. 2019b. Research brokers, researcher identities and affective performances: The insider/outsider conundrum. Civil Wars 21 (2): 249–270. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/13698249.2019.1634304. Parkinson, S.E., and E.J. Wood. 2015. Transparency in intensive research on violence: Ethical dilemmas and unforeseen consequences. Qualitative & Multi-Method Research 13 (1): 22–27. Parpart, J.L., and S. Parashar, eds. 2019. Rethinking silence, voice and agency in contested gendered terrains: Beyond the binary. London: Routledge. Pascoe, B. 2007. Convincing ground: Learning to fall in love with your country. Canberra: Aboriginal studies press. Price, D.H. 2011. Weaponizing anthropology: Social science in service of the militarized state. Oakland, CA: AK Press. Reddy, D. 2009. Caught! The predicaments of ethnography in collaboration. Fieldwork is not what it used to be: Learning anthropology’s method in a time of transition, 89–112. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Shepherd, L.J. 2016. Research as gendered intervention: Feminist research ethics and the self in the research encounter. Critica Contemporánea. Rev. de Teoría Política (6): 1–15. Sylvester, C. 2013. War as experience: Contributions from international relations and feminist analysis. London: Routledge. Thaler, K.M. 2019. Reflexivity and temporality in researching violent settings: Problems with the replicability and transparency regime. Geopolitics 0 (0): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2019.1643721. Tripp, A.M. 2018. Transparency and integrity in conducting field research on politics in challenging contexts. Perspectives on Politics 16 (3): 728–738. https://doi. org/10.1017/S1537592718001056. Wedeen, L. 2013. Ethnography as interpretive enterprise. Political ethnography: What immersion contributes to the study of power, 75–94. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wibben, A.T. 2010. Feminist security studies: A narrative approach. London: Routledge. Wibben, A.T.R. 2016. Researching war: Feminist methods. Ethics and Politics: Routledge. Wood, E.J. 2006. The ethical challenges of field research in conflict zones. Qualitative Sociology 29 (3): 373–386. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-006-9027-8. Yanow, D., and P. Schwartz-Shea. 2015. Interpretation and method: Empirical research methods and the interpretive turn. New York: Routledge. Zalewski, M. 2006. Distracted reflections on the production, narration, and refusal of feminist knowledge in international relations. In Feminist methodologies for international relations, 42–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 4

Researching Over-Researched Societies Gráinne Kelly

Introduction As I turned on my recorder to begin the interview, it picked up a heavy sigh from the man sitting opposite me, before he began to speak. ‘I’m not sure I have anything else useful to say that I haven’t told your lot before. But, sure, ask away and I will do my best’. This was our first time meeting, although I knew his story. He had lost a close family member during the conflict in Northern Ireland two decades previously. I was a young researcher seeking to understand the multiple impacts of violent conflict on the individual, family, and wider community. I can still remember the twinge of embarrassment I felt from his polite reluctance – near resignation – at being asked, yet again, about his experiences, his opinion on how the bereaved were being supported, and how these services could be improved. It became clear he had not experienced any perceptible change in circumstances from sharing his story with several previous researchers, government agencies and journalists. Despite my discomfort, I felt naively sure that the research study would make that much needed difference to his life, and the lives of others in his situation.

If you are reading this chapter, you are likely at a fairly well-developed stage in your research planning. Within the expansive field of peace and conflict studies, you have identified a gap in existing knowledge, a new angle to explore, or a theoretical argument to test in the field. This might be a comparative study which will investigate several distinct areas or societies, or a single case study from which you will draw wider meaning. The site of investigation may be entirely new to you or you may have conducted previous research in this particular location, society or community. You may belong to G. Kelly (*)  Ulster University, Northern Ireland, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_4

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a new generation of ‘indigenous’ researchers conducting research within your own society. Whatever the circumstances, what might set your research ‘field’ apart is that it has been described as ‘over-researched’, or that your target research subjects are experiencing ‘research fatigue’. This would be a very short chapter if I were to tell you that, in order to avoid the potential challenges associated with the over-researched society, you should revisit your current research plans and entirely change the location or focus of your data gathering to avoid further compacting the soil in an already well-trodden field. The reality is that we often need (or feel we need) to investigate issues in societies which have proved popular to many previous researchers. This can be for good reason: the particular case chosen provides important insights that cannot be observed elsewhere; there are new developments in that context which require documentation and analysis; or there are chronic challenges that would benefit from fresh thinking. In any case, even in the most subjectively over-examined societies, there will be issues that remain in the shadows, subjects that are taboo or unexplored, and people who have not yet been afforded a voice. The purpose of this chapter is to accept the reality that we live in an increasingly scrutinized world, to explore the challenges faced by researchers who are conducting fieldwork in a saturated location or society and to provide some practical advice on how to address them. Globally, there are more doctoral and post-doctoral researchers than at any other time (Cyranoski et al. 2011; OECD 2016). In addition, there are universities full of established academics who continue to conduct research in the field. The number of scholars who are investigating peace and ­conflict-focused themes has multiplied in recent decades, resulting in significant empirically led developments and important new insights. Newsworthy conflicts, and the diverse communities they contain, also attract journalists in droves, drawn both by the incessant demands of the 24-hour news cycle and the opportunity to develop long-read articles and broadcast documentaries. In addition, the presence of international agencies and donors precipitates high levels of societal intervention and an associated drive to empirically measure its impact. Anyone in receipt of some form of peace- or ­development-enhancing intervention will attract the attention of the evaluator’s metaphorical measuring stick and probing questions, as they seek to improve practice, better target resources and justify their continued presence. While the objectives of the particular inquiries may be quite distinct, the experience of participating in any data-gathering exercise may feel remarkably similar to the respondents involved. The theme of over-researched societies and groups has been acknowledged within a range of disciplines and sub-disciplines, including anthropology (Neal et al. 2016; Schiltz and Buscher 2018), sociology (Sanghera and Thapar-Björkert 2008), gender studies (Boesten and Henry 2018), medicine and public health (Cleary et al. 2016; Koen et al. 2017), refugee

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studies (Pascucci 2017; Sukarieh and Tannock 2013) and First Nations and Aboriginal research (Bainbridge et al. 2015; Schnarch 2004). And yet, there is limited published work which explores the practical, ethical and methodological concerns and challenges associated with over-research in its own right (Clark 2008). This is hardly surprising as the empirical uncovering of the experience of an ‘over-researched society’ would require scholars to return to said society to explicitly interrogate the ways in which they felt ‘over-researched’. This irony was not lost of Sukarieh and Tannock (2013) who, despite the challenges faced, published a study on the experience of over-research in the Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in Lebanon. The authors grappled with this paradox, but justified their study on the basis that members of the community had asked that the damaging effects of constant research attention on their community be documented and acknowledged. What Is An ‘Over-Researched’ Society? Koen et al. (2017) observe that, while the term ‘over-researched’ appears fairly self-explanatory, it is worthy of further interrogation as it can manifest in a range of ways, depending on the particular context. ‘Over-researched’ certainly implies a judgement—that too much fieldwork has been conducted, too much attention has been paid to a particular community or issue, and that, by implication, some research could be deemed repetitive, unnecessary or redundant. It implies that there is a negative ethical dimension associated with the over-investigated society, that the novelty of engagement has worn off, and the perception of research utility has not been met with the reality of change promised (Clark 2008). Identifying an over-researched society requires the application of a range of somewhat crude indicators. From a wide vantage point, a broad indicator might be the number of empirically based publications associated with a particular society, community, institution or place. This is likely a poor or imprecise measure as not all empirical work (particularly evaluative and donordriven) is publicly accessible, and not all publications associated with a population or place rely on a narrow pool of respondents. Other indicators might have more traction. Firstly, an over-researched society may be one in which resistance to engage with researchers is perceptible. This might be measured in the number of straightforward refusals by individuals to participate, or the blocking of access by gatekeepers who hold a position of influence or power within the society. That said, there could be other reasons for this resistance to engage, including the sensitive or controversial nature of the topic under research, the level of surveillance within the society, or a simple lack of interest in participating in the researcher’s topic of investigation. A second indicator of over-research might be documented evidence of complaints made about the presence or actions of researchers in the field. But who exactly would the research participants (or their gatekeepers) complain to, and how would

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it be documented? With no centralized place for complaints to be lodged, individual institutions would deal with grievances in isolation, with few connections ever being made with other studies conducted. While organizations which support and advocate for particular groups might monitor the impact of research on their membership, this will only become visible if the issue is raised publicly. Indigenous and First Nations groups, including the San people of Southern Africa, have chosen to develop codes of ethics which researchers wishing to study their culture, heritage or genes must agree to follow (South African San Institute 2017). It is important that we take the issue of over-researched groups seriously, given that its affects might be felt most keenly by the most vulnerable groups in society. While acknowledging that it can manifest in any location, Sukarieh and Tannock (2013: 496) argue that it is most prevalent in communities that are ‘poor, low income, indigenous, minority or otherwise marginalized’ and in those that have ‘experienced some form of crisis (war, genocide, natural disaster, etc.) and/or have engaged in active resistance to the conditions of their poverty and marginalisation’. Well-documented cases have demonstrated that groups with little power or leverage have been exploited by both medical and social researchers for generations. While Institutional Review Boards and Ethics Committees now maintain some oversight of the worst excesses of academic exploitation, so much is embedded in the insidious nature of Western superiority and neo-colonialism that it would be naive to think that this is not still an issue in many contexts. In addition, these Boards and Committees are rarely tasked with any follow-up functions to monitor if the researchers have indeed conducted their studies in the manner described, and agreed, on paper. That said, to take a wholly pejorative position is to mask a wider discussion regarding the—albeit limited—opportunities which may arise from the presence of multiple researchers in the ‘field’. This might include the provision of particular services to the researchers as translators, fixers, drivers or cultural mediators, the receipt of different forms of compensation for research participation, or the highlighting of particular issues within the society with a view to informing and agitating for social change. Why Are Some Societies More Researched Than Others? ‘Over-research’ is perceptible at macro (societal), meso (community, s­ubgroup or institution) and micro (individual) levels. Within the interdisciplinary field of peace and conflict studies, certain societies and regions have certainly been afforded more significant attention than others. Prior to the 1998 Agreement reached in Northern Ireland, John Darby observed that ‘It is difficult to imagine an ethnic conflict anywhere in the world which has been more thoroughly researched’ (Darby 1997: 157). More recently, Gezim Visoka noted that Kosovo has become one of the most studied cases of post-conflict peacebuilding (Visoka 2017: 33). In an article on the role

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of research brokers in northern Uganda, the authors reported that the local population have ‘become overburdened with researchers of all kinds’ (Schiltz and Buscher 2018: 134), particularly in the urban base of Gulu. While certain conflicts may prove more attractive than others due to their particular characteristics and histories, more mundanely, attention on a particular society can be driven by the vagaries of large donor and research council funding and the prioritization and privileging of particular issues and regions. While risk-averse ethics boards might be successful in clipping the wings of the more adventurous researcher, in truth, convenience often sways researchers to focus their fieldwork in one location over another. In a study on the over prevalence of researchers conducting fieldwork on migration in North Africa and the Middle East, Pascucci (2017) observes that over-research often emerges from researchers’ reliance on the existing ­ humanitarian infrastructures and services for access to the ‘field’, essentially ­piggy-backing on their presence. Schiltz and Buscher (2018) observed a similar phenomenon in Gulu, Uganda. These infrastructures include the range of amenities which improve the fieldwork experience of the researcher— including convenient access to a good standard of rental accommodation and hotels, translation services, easily accessible research centres and universities, and transportation hubs and airports. Of course, the concentration of researchers within particular geographical settings can also be exacerbated by the lack of access to other locations, due to ‘closed polities and high-risk contexts’ (Pascucci 2017: 250). I have spent over twenty years conducting empirical research within a heavily researched society—one which I also call home. Not only does Northern Ireland have generations of exceptional academics based on our local universities undertaking studies in their own backyard, but the region attracts hundreds of postgraduate, early career and well-established international researchers each year. Northern Ireland combines a number of distinct advantages for the curious social researcher. The locals speak a widely understood language, the weather is temperate and predictable, it is easily accessible via London or Dublin, has good physical infrastructure and accessible health care, there are several research institutions which can act as academic bases, the locals are generally friendly and hospitable and, despite the prior conflict, it has low levels of criminality. My work has involved qualitative research into a range of conflict-associated social, political and policy challenges, including victimhood, societal division, poverty and reconciliation. In the vast majority of cases, my polite requests for access to informants have been met with generosity, patience and goodwill. That said, as a researcher, I have also encountered the frustrations, cynicisms and refusals which come with being asked, yet again, to contribute in some way to a research study. I have, quite rightly, been asked to justify how my research will generate benefits beyond my own academic ambitions. Prior to my university appointment, I worked for a decade as both a practitioner

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and researcher within the non-governmental and charitable sector. As a consequence, I am often identified as someone with wide networks of contacts and receive regular solicitations, particularly from non-local researchers, to assist them with their research. Sometimes this is a straightforward interview request. Often it is a vaguer appeal to share local knowledge, contacts or identify access points. As a result, I have enjoyed many rewarding conversations with fellow researchers who pose challenging questions, provide new perspectives and share valuable insights from other contexts. Then again, I have also been disappointed by the lack of contextual understanding, preparation, and quality of questioning of others, and felt the encounters had been a poor use of my time. I have many friends and colleagues working as practitioners, academics and policymakers in Northern Ireland who have shared similar experiences with me and are increasingly inclined to decline requests to facilitate introductions, access target groups or engage directly in research studies due to their frequency or the quality of previous engagements. Their experiences have also influenced the advice I hope to impart in this chapter. The purpose of this chapter is to sensitize researchers to the potential challenges, constraints and compromises which go with the over-crowded territory and to provide advice and strategies to consider before, during and subsequent to your field research experience. While there are several ways I could have approached this, I have confined my advice to ten key points. Some of these suggestions might seem aspirational to the researcher without the luxury of a generous and flexible research budget, opportunities for extended time in the field, and the full permission of their ethics ­committee to go beyond what is deemed safe and reliable. However, I hope that in highlighting some of the core areas in which improvements in practice could be made, researchers might feel more prepared to boldly enter a field where others have gone before them. 1. Consider the impact of particular research approaches and methods It would be unhelpful for me to suggest that one particular research approach will deliver more effectively than another within a crowded research environment. A community that is weary of answering endless survey questionnaires might participate more enthusiastically in a focus group which allows them to share their views within a more collaborative group setting. A group which has become increasingly uncomfortable with the long-stay ethnographer in their neighbourhood might be relieved when a researcher ‘parachutes’ in collects their data and leaves. In order to build trust and ensure the greatest level, and quality, of engagement, consider how the overall research approach might help ‘design out’ some of the issues associated with over-research, such as lack of ­control over the focus of the study, discomfort over the mode of data extraction, or disillusionment over the utility of engagement. Social science discourse has long recognized the asymmetries involved in the research process and has encouraged the conduct of research ‘with’ communities and groups,

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rather than extractive research ‘from’ those societies. Participatory action research approaches (and variations thereof) are regularly suggested to address the challenges of over-research. Such approaches are said to maximize the involvement of the subjects from the outset, promote democratic decision-making and partnership-building and encourage the identification of avenues for social change. (Kindon et al. 2007). It is said to bridge the gap between research and practice more successfully than other techniques. That said, it should not be viewed as a panacea for all design difficulties. It is still subject to the challenges of gatekeeping and asymmetries of authority and may promise more empowerment and impact than it can practically deliver. It can be time-consuming for both researcher and the researched, and presumptuous in terms of the level of commitment and participation which research partners might be willing or able to provide. Ultimately, as with any approach which seeks to engage with research informants, it is still a societal intervention which can contribute to the overall perception of being ‘over-researched’. In designing your research study, it is worth considering what methods have been utilized by researchers who have gone before you. If surveys have been previously conducted within a community, what was the response rate? Might this rate be lower if another survey is attempted in quick succession? Should you consider taking an alternative approach to previous researchers in order to encourage engagement of the curious? Are there other reciprocities that could be identified that would be attractive to the individual or community involved? Ultimately, my key advice is to only adopt a methodological approach that you are genuinely able and willing to commit to in practice. 2. Map and widen your possible ‘field’ The primary task of an effective researcher is to identify the most valid and reliable sources of data to answer the research question(s) posed. In some scenarios, this will require a dogged focus on securing that crucial interview with a specific government minister, or gaining access to a particular United Nations reintegration camp to examine its operation first-hand. In others, a degree of flexibility will be possible, allowing you to think more creatively about where you can access the relevant data, while maintaining the integrity of your own research plan. This might be critical in avoiding the challenges associated with the over-researched society. Indeed, it is possible that thinking more expansively about the sources of your research data will result in a superior research study as you gather fresh perspectives and less jaded opinions. Having identified your desired research informants, it is worth asking: Are these particular people or groups the only I can engage with on this issue? Are they just the most convenient? Might a similar sample be ­available elsewhere? Can I justify and explain the relationship between my research objectives and the target population of my fieldwork? In an effort to more fully understand the cultural differences in societal understandings of reconciliation, I secured a three-month fellowship to

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undertake qualitative research in Cambodia. I was interested in exploring both local understandings of reconciliation and how this was applied in practice. I based myself with a local peacebuilding organization, which proved enormously helpful in identifying local Cambodians I could approach, on the basis of their introductions or recommendations. In my naivety, I had not budgeted for translation services and was limited to speaking with individuals who could converse with me in English. This typically meant speaking with locals who worked in, or with, international NGOs, had often lived or studied abroad, or had a higher level of educational attainment than the general population. As I was to discover, these English-speakers were typically on the international researchers’ ‘circuit’ and, while very generous and amenable to my questioning, taken together, represented a narrower and more homogeneous perspective on a very wide and complex issue. Further compounding this limitation, I barely travelled outside of the capital, Phnom Penh, in my search for people’s views of reconciliation. This was, in part, a logistical issue which I did not take sufficient time to resolve, but also a failure to build wider networks, and to address the more acute cultural barriers I would face the further I strayed from the more familiar (to me) urban environment. While the specifics of each research study will differ greatly, my advice is to consider both the physical location of your proposed field as well as the identity, characteristics and socio-economic positions of your potential research informants. People outside of cities have opinions too, and these might differ significantly from those in more cosmopolitan environments. Or they may not. But you will only find out of you identify and engage with them. Get out of the cities and towns and build more time into your fieldwork plans to allow for travel and time outside of your base location. Veer off the beaten track and avoid the ‘urban trap’, as observed by international development scholar, Robert Chambers (2008), where possible. Of course, making these research design decisions may impact on your overall resources. Where possible, write these plans in at the research proposal stage. If you are working with an existing budget, look at possibilities of reallocation of expenditures, or apply separately for internal or external travel or fieldwork grants to supplement existing budgets. In doing so, you might not only address the issue of research fatigue experienced by individuals or communities, but also gather richer and more valuable data which challenges dominant views on a particular issue or phenomenon. 3. Spend time in the field prior to data collection For those who are permanently or regularly based within the society they wish to research, this advice might seem unnecessary. However, depending on the topic, we can all be deemed ‘outsiders’ to a particular location, community or sub-group, and can benefit from gaining context-specific knowledge of the societal dynamics, local actors, and potential access points to research informants, in advance of the data gathering period.

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In the late 1990s, I was employed by a local research institute to develop case study research on emotive and ongoing issues in Northern Ireland. The research institute regularly hosted recent international graduates and I was asked to allow a newly-arrived intern to accompany me on the interviews I was conducting with key figures in the dispute, on the proviso that they were only there in an observational capacity. I worked hard to secure an interview with a prominent protagonist in the dispute, who agreed to a half-hour meeting at this workplace to share his perspective on the issue. During the course of the interview, he referred to a prominent political leader by name several times. As the interviewee made a third reference to this individual, the international colleague (who had previously remained silent) interrupted to ask who the person was that he kept referring to. I felt an immediate and perceptible shift in the dynamic of the interview as he suppressed his irritation at the lack of basic knowledge of key actors in the dispute. I too attempted to conceal my frustration at this intervention. The interview ended soon afterwards. Being physically present in the field is hugely beneficial for a range of reasons. Most obviously, you familiarize yourself with the geography, of the space, but also the daily rhythms of the society, the key actors, social ­divisions and hierarchies, particular cultural cues and the local media and community discourses. If you have been to this field previously, it allows you to update your knowledge, renew contacts and check your own assumptions in what can be a dynamic—and often chaotic—conflict context. This additional time also provides space to build networks and relationships of trust, identify potential research participants, possible access points and gatekeepers. Identification of the levels of research fatigue present within your data-gathering field, and implementation of adaptations to address this in ­ advance of data collection, might make the difference between a productive fieldwork experience, and one frustrated by closed doors and time wasted. If pre-data gathering visits are not feasible due to budgetary and time constraints, consider the inclusion of a ‘settling-in’ period before initiating your fieldwork. I am surprised at how often I have met research students who have pre-scheduled interviews by email and hit the ground running so fast that their interviews become a heady mixture of jet-lag and poorly conceived questions. This only serves to sow seeds of doubt in the informant about the researcher’s credentials, sincerity and ability to deliver any useful impacts. I appreciate this advice may seem indulgent to the doctoral or post-doctoral researcher who has limited time and an inflexible budget. Nonetheless, the more we recognize the value in quality preparation time for fieldwork, the more powerfully researchers can advocate for it in the development of realistic research proposals. 4. Use existing data effectively This is not simply a matter of reading as much as you can about a particular context so that you are well-informed about the field you are intending to enter, although this is, of course, crucial. It is also about being aware of

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existing and available data and how it can be utilized in your own study, to avoid accusations of repetition and replication of previous research studies. Ph.D. students and early career researchers may experience pressures to conduct primary research, as it is viewed as a requirement in the development of a well-rounded and well-trained social science scholar. In their study of the Shahila Refugee Camp, Sukarieh and Tannock (2013: 501) reported on the frustration of one resident who posed the same questions as previous researchers. [Many of them] are young students, and they do not read what has been written on the camps before they come. So sometimes I meet people who are doing carbon copies of research that has been done before, but they are not aware of it. I don’t understand the university PhD students any more, they don’t do their job.

Residents expressed concerned that such weaknesses would result in poor research findings and a lack of tangible impact. A former colleague has worked for a victims/survivors support and advocacy organization in Northern Ireland for many years. During those years, the organization has gathered hundreds of oral history testimonies of individual members, which is motivated by the desire to acknowledge, empower and memorialization lives affected or lost in the conflict. With the full consent of those individuals, their accounts have been published in books and been included in audio-visual projects and advocacy-focused exhibitions, all of which are publicly available. They represent a rich source of data on the lives of those deeply affected by conflict. And yet, the organization receives weekly requests from researchers seeking access to individual victims, for the purposes of gathering the same, or similar, material. Regardless of the ethical challenges of asking victims of conflict to repeatedly share their experiences, it arguably represents a poor use of existing resources and an elevation of primary data collection over the effective use of relevant and accessible materials previously gathered. A greater quantity of primary data collected during research studies is now been acquired by new academic infrastructures such as the UK Data Archive1 and the US-based open ICPSR2 and made available to legitimate researchers. While these repositories will not, by any means, capture and preserve all primary data gathered, they do demonstrate a growing acknowledgement of the utility in drawing on existing primary data, rather than rushing back to the field to duplicate existing studies, which is time and resource-wasting 1 Based at the University of Essex, the UK Data Archive provides access to the largest collection of social science and humanities data in the UK. Available at: https://www.data-archive. ac.uk/. 2 The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) is a long-standing archive of over 500,000 social science data sets. Available at: https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ icpsrweb/.

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and, in the context of conflict-related topics, potentially re-traumatizing. Taking time to identify the range of secondary data sources already available, beyond those typically considered, might mitigate the perceptions, and irritations, that some researchers are covering old ground and asking the same old questions. 5. Communicate well At the heart of securing the trust and confidence of potential research participants is your ability to clearly communicate the nature, purpose, and potential value, of your research. Striking a balance as to the appropriate mode, volume and tone of communication with potential research participants is never easy. The ethical approval process will have mandated the minimum requirements to ensure informed consent has been achieved; however, there is likely more you can do to ensure your approach is as clear, accessible and realistic as possible. Failure to do so is to risk the research participants perceiving no useful outcome for their engagement, and to give the research informant or gatekeeper an obvious justification for rejecting your approach. Over the years, I have been approached by visiting researchers to identify potential informants for their research in Northern Ireland. I have also agreed to be formally interviewed on a range of conflict-related topics. In a few instances, I have politely declined to participate in an individual’s research on the basis of their initial approach. Recently, I received an email from a UK-based doctoral student, who wanted to ‘meet up for a chat’ when he was in Northern Ireland conducting fieldwork on a topic I have previously published on. His email provided limited information on the exact nature of his research and I resorted to googling his name and university affiliation to glean more information before replying. Satisfied of his credentials, I assumed he was on a pre-fieldwork visit as he provided no research protocol or participant information sheet, and agreed to meet with him. On arrival at the meeting point, he passed me an Information Sheet and consent form to sign, while fumbling for a voice recorder in his bag. Politely and firmly, I advised him that no formal interview would be taking place at this time, as I was unaware of this expectation, and unprepared for such an undertaking. The researcher was contrite and apologized for his lack of preparation and failure to communicate his intentions clearly. He also expressed frustration that his schedule was so tight that he could not rearrange another time to meet with me in person to complete the interview. My experience has been that interviewees are incredibly generous with their time and are driven as much by altruistic motives than by self-interest. They wish to be helpful but they need to know the parameters of their participation—timing, venues, expectations, follow-up and any recompense they can expect from giving their time. This does not require you to overload people with communication, but good research etiquette requires you to be entirely clear about the nature of your engagement. The experience with this Ph.D. researcher gave me pause to consider the well-informed and privileged

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position I am into demand better research practice and the weaker, and more exposed position of some research subjects who, when faced with an inexperienced, ill-prepared or arrogant researcher do not feel primed or equipped to do similarly. 6. Accept rejection In any research study, it is sensible to anticipate and make contingencies for rejection of approaches made. In an over-researched context, the possibility of refusal to participate is likely to be high. If you have an ideal data source that you wish to secure, then identify your point of entry and make your approach. If, however, your requests are met with an unequivocal and non-negotiable ‘no’, then move on. While a polite follow-up to silence is generally permissible, frequent and persistent appeals are not. Continuing the pursuit for access in the face of refusal merely contributes to a negative perception of researchers and a belief that their position taken is being dismissed and disrespected. Rejection is disappointing, but it is unlikely to be personal. More likely, those approached have had a negative experience of previous research activities, do not see value in their participation, or the theoretical argument or epistemological position is of no particular interest to them (Clark 2008). Compromises in the course of your fieldwork are likely, and redesigns while you are in the field are to be expected, particularly in the context of researching conflict and its impacts. That said, it is worth considering what lack of response or refusal might also imply. Writing about her research in Rwanda, Fujii (2010) observed that the resistance, evasions and silences which she encountered when seeking to engage with victims or perpetrators of the genocide were not necessarily a rejection of the researcher or the research project, but rather coping strategies adopted to deal with the realities of present circumstances. She argues that, rather than viewing this as a failure of the research approach, this silence or non-engagement is a form of ‘meta-data’ that should be included in the research analysis. 7. Meet resistance with (some) flexibility In any fieldwork scenario, sticking rigidly and resolutely to a methodological design conceived of from the comfort of your office will likely lead to much frustration and disappointment as the reality of imperfect interaction with human subjects unfolds. Conducting research in the field requires you to think on your feet, problem-solve as issues arise, and remain optimistic that it will all come good in the end. When working in a context in which other researchers have previously placed demands on your ‘target’ population’s time, you might have to work especially hard to convince them of the value of engaging in yet another research study. Exploring ways in which you can accommodate the individual as much as possible to minimize any inconvenience is never a bad thing. This might look like: agreeing to meet at a time, or in a venue, which is convenient to them; offering a series of alternative

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dates from which the participants can choose; being patient when their previous meeting runs over and allowing time for such a scenario; agreeing to reschedule at short notice; or conceding to take only hand-written notes if a recording makes the person unlikely to participate. This never looks like: placing you or your research subjects in any unsafe or uncomfortable situation; feeling obliged to provide some form of compensation outside of what was previously communicated; or being unduly messed around by someone on a tin-pot power trip. In reality, this is rarely a black and white issue, and meeting the ‘good enough’ (Firchow and Mac Ginty 2017) measure is sometimes necessary to progress your research in the field. In a research study I was conducting, I was intent on securing an interview with a key actor in a parades dispute in Northern Ireland. He was much in demand by media outlets as the spokesperson for a protest group and had gained some notoriety as a result. I was pleased when he agreed to meet with me and I travelled to his home some distance from the university. On arrival, he admitted he was very hungover and, while he was happy to have a short chat, he was not really in the mood for a long interview. I made a quick judgement that I was unlikely to secure another time with him, offered to pop to the shop and buy him the ­Coca-Cola drink he said he was yearning for, and proceeded with the interview. As it turned out, the drink seemed to perk him up, the interview went well and I got (mostly) what I needed from it. Making modifications to your ‘ideal’ data collection methods does not (necessarily) have to impact negatively on the integrity and robustness of your research, but it requires the use of astute judgement and a degree of a­ gility and flexibility that not only you—but your research team—are willing to agree and concede. 8. Beware the attraction of the ‘convenient’ informant When researching a particular location, society or community, the names of particular individuals, groups or organizations can come up more frequently than others. This may be for good reason, as they are key controllers or influencers in their society, or their profile is raised as a result of the experiences they have had or the issues they have addressed in the public domain. As previously noted, certain informants offer convenience to the researcher as a consequence of their proximity, willingness to engage or professional position which require that they respond positively to requests made. Convenience in itself is no reason to dismiss the valuable contribution a particular source might make to your research study. What I am cautioning against is the engagement with individuals or groups which have a reputation of soliciting attention and enthusiastically providing opinions which diverge markedly from the views of many others within that society. If you are unfamiliar with the context under investigation, you might be inclined to assume they have the pulse of the community and view them as a crucial source, because others have done so previously. These individuals (and the organizations they might

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represent) often gain confidence from having journalists and researchers petition their views—often on a range of topics far outside their remit. They become the go-to person for a section of the media that relies on an emotive story, a pithy soundbite or a divergent or antagonistic response to the majority position. I could name a number of these characters in the Northern Ireland context. If you are interested in speaking with these people specifically because their views deviate significant from the norm, then you should certainly seek them out. My advice pertains to those groups or individuals who purport to speak for others when, to the local observer, they represent a very marginal position. I advise caution in engaging with such informants as it can have less obvious, but wider-reaching consequences. Firstly, it can cause frustration and irritation within the wider society and trigger them to question the knowledge, astuteness or integrity of the researcher. Secondly, engaging with those who rarely decline any opportunity to put their views on record can serve to repeat and compound dominant narratives which have much less validity or traction in the society under investigation. In the context of a society experiencing conflict and division, your research, if naively presented, can serve to magnify particular arguments, entrench positions and repeat truisms which become accepted as fact, rather than opinion. 9. Deliver on your commitments If you have promised your interviewees the opportunity to edit the transcript of their interview, ensure you have built sufficient time into your research process to deliver this. If you have committed to sending your research participants a copy of your thesis or report, then record their contact details, choose an appropriate medium, and honour your word to do so. If you have indicated to research participants that your study will effect a particular change, then pause and reflect on how likely this scenario is, and how you can pursue avenues to increase this likelihood. The evidence from over-researched societies is that cynicism, suspicion, and subsequent refusal to participate, is borne from the failure of researchers to deliver on explicit or implied promises of change (Bainbridge et al. 2015; Clark 2008; Scharch 2004). As an early career researcher, I published an empirical study of a series of highly politicized, localized—and often violent—disputes over expressions of cultural practices in Northern Ireland. Several weeks after its release, I received an angry letter from a mediator involved in one of the disputes, who I had interviewed in the course of the research. She felt I had misrepresented the extent and nature of her involvement in the dispute, further contributing to previous suspicions about her work as reported in the local media during the height of the tensions. This had clearly not been my intention, and I was stung by what I felt was unfair criticism, as I had sought to document her involvement as factually and objectively as possible. In hindsight,

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and given the sensitivity of the issue, I could have either re-checked specific details with the individual (as they diverged from other informants) or shared a draft copy of the case study for factual accuracy and tone-checking, given a time lag between the interview and the final publication of the research findings. Many years later (and having developed a much thicker skin), I questioned the same mediator about the impact of my perceived error. While no real damage had been done, she admitted that this experience had made her increasingly wary of engaging with researchers during times of uncertainty and heightened tension, preferring to leave more time for the dispute to be fully settled and the overall picture to emerge. Ultimately, this comes back to your original research design. If you do not wish to be accused of being a parachute researcher who treats research participants as ‘objects’, rather than ‘subjects’ of the research, then pre-design a project which allows you the time and resources to deliver on commitments made. In my case, I have become more judicious in the promises and assurances that I make, and am more likely to be honest about the limitations of what I can do with the time and resources available than over-commit, and subsequently, under-deliver. 10. Be honest in your write up Taking the academic presentation of most research findings at face value, it would appear that few researchers encounter difficulties in the course of their fieldwork and they executed their research strategy entirely as intended. I find this unlikely. I have rarely been involved in a research study that has not involved disappointments in securing particular research informants, poorly attended focus groups or disengaged participants. In my research methods teaching, I encourage students to think less about delivering the ‘perfect’ fieldwork experience, and more about increasing awareness of their own positionality, limitations, inexperience, biases and blind-spots, in an effort to mitigate against possible challenges in advance, and support honesty about missteps made in hindsight. Students often recount how, for example, my embarrassing story at getting lost on the way to an interview and turning up an hour late has had more impact on their subsequent timekeeping than the generic ‘get there on time’ advice. In the interests of demonstrating research integrity and transparency, and for the benefit of the research community as a whole, taking the opportunity to reflect on both the successes—and the limitations—of your methodological design and its real-life implementation, is to be encouraged. Acknowledging the imperfections in your fieldwork experience is unlikely make your research less trustworthy or robust. Likewise, being more open about the consequences of researching in a ‘high-traffic’ area and reflecting on its impact on the overall findings is, ultimately, of service to those who will follow after you.

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Concluding Comments In nearly every way, there is nothing exceptional about conducting field research in a societies affected by violent conflict. It requires the same mapping, planning and implementing skills as required in another other context. However, putting the potential negative aspects of over-research in the forefront of your mind and reflecting on how best to ‘design out’ potential difficulties, and ‘design in’ strategies for improvement, will ultimately be a worthwhile endeavour. Irrespective of whether your research methods involve participant observation, survey completion, interviews, focus groups or other forms of engagement, your field research will ultimately rely on your ability to secure engagement with the target individuals, groups or communities, and to gather quality data as a result of this encounter. That said, the challenge of the over-researched society is not simply a case of selecting the right methodology or following a prescribed ethical approach. It speaks to wider issues of positionality, power, control and unequal relations between the researcher and the researched, and the cumulative effects of multiple interventions on a society which does not always perceive any associated benefits. Ultimately, my core advice would be: tread carefully and respectfully when you enter any research ‘field’. Be conscious both of who has gone before you, and who will come after you. Surround yourself with supportive colleagues with whom you can discuss the compromises we are often forced to make in the conduct of our research. This might serve to alleviate some of the ‘secrecy’ which surrounds the reality of fieldwork and encourage the creation of communities of researchers who are willing to share both their research techniques, and their research findings, for the wider benefit of the societies which we were drawn to research.

References Bainbridge, R., K. Tsey, J. Mccalman, I. Kinchin, Vicki Saunders, Felecia Watkin-Lui, Y. Cadet-James, A. Miller, and K. Lawson. 2015. No one’s discussing the elephant in the room: Contemplating questions of research impact and benefit in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian health research. BMC Public Health 15 (696): 1–10. Boesten, J., and M. Henry. 2018. Between fatigue and silence: The challenges of conducting research on sexual violence in conflict. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 25 (4): 568–588. Chamber, R. 2008. Revolutions in development inquiry. Earthscan: Abingdon, Oxon. Clark, T. 2008. ‘“We’re over-researched here!”: Exploring accounts of research fatigue within qualitative research engagements. Sociology 42 (5): 953–970. Cleary, M., N. Siegfried, P. Escott, and G. Walter. 2016. Super research or ­super-researched?: When enough is enough…. Issues in Mental Health Nursing 37 (5): 380–382. Cyranoski, D., N. Gilbert, H. Ledford, A. Nayar, and M. Yahia. 2011. Education: The PhD factory. Nature 472 (7343): 276–279.

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Darby, J. 1997. Scorpions in a bottle: Conflicting cultures in Northern Ireland. London: Minority Rights Publications. Firchow, P., and R. Mac Ginty. 2017. Including hard-to-access populations using mobile phone surveys and participatory indicators. Sociological Methods and Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124117729702. Fujii, L. 2010. Shades of truth and lies: Interpreting testimonies of war and violence. Journal of Peace Research 47 (2): 231–241. Kindon, S., R. Pain, and M. Kesby (eds.). 2007. Participatory action research approaches and methods: Connecting people, participation and place. Abingdon: Routledge. Koen, J., D. Wassenaar, and N. Mamotte. 2017. The ‘over-researched community’: An ethics analysis of stakeholder views at two South African HIV prevention research sites. Social Science and Medicine 194 (2017): 1–9. Neal, S., G. Mohan, A. Cochrane, and K. Bennett. 2016. “You can’t move in Hackney without bumping into an anthropologist”: Why certain places attract research attention. Qualitative Research 16 (5): 491–507. OECD. 2016. OECD science, technology and innovation outlook 2016. Paris: OECD Publishing. Pascucci, E. 2017. The humanitarian infrastructure and the question of over-research: Reflections on fieldwork in the refugee crises in the Middle East and North Africa. Area 49 (2): 249–255. Sanghera, G.S., and S. Thapar-Björkert. 2008. Methodological dilemmas: Gatekeepers and positionality in Bradford. Ethnic and Racial Studies 31 (3): 543–562. Schiltz, J., and K. Büscher. 2018. Brokering research with war-affected people: The tense relationship between opportunities and ethics. Ethnography 19 (1): 124–146. Schnarch, B. 2004. Ownership, control, access, and possession (OCAP) or self-determination applied to research: A critical analysis of contemporary First ­ Nations research and some options for First Nations communities. Journal of Aboriginal Health 1: 80–97. South African San Institute. 2017. San code of research ethics (Kimberley, South Africa: South African San Institute). Available at: http://trust-project.eu/wp-content/ uploads/2017/03/San-Code-of-RESEARCH-Ethics-Booklet-final.pdf. Sukarieh, M., and S. Tannock. 2013. On the problem of over-researched communities: The case of the Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in Lebanon. Sociology 47 (3): 494–508. Visoka, G. 2017. Shaping peace in Kosovo: The politics of peacebuilding and statehood. London: Palgrave.

CHAPTER 5

Preparing for Fieldwork Interviews Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Birgit Poopuu

Introduction Interviewer: Please, tell me about one of your first experiences of doing fieldwork interviews. Berit: I was in Sarajevo in July 2004. I remember it was nice and sunny o ­ utside but I was sitting in my living room in a rented flat in Sarajevo’s Buca Potok district feeling blue and wondering whether my research project was feasible at all. I had left the flat some hours earlier in a state of excitement, heading off to the first expert interview for my Ph.D. research. My research question was what kind of state and state-society relations the international intervention was creating in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The interviewee held a leading position in the European Union Police Mission (EUPM) in BiH; he was a long-term connoisseur of the country and the intervention and a fellow German. He had been highly recommended to me by another Ph.D. researcher, who had praised him as dynamic, insightful and open. His positive response to my interview request seemed to confirm this openness to researchers. And given that dynamics of BiH’s ‘monopoly of violence’— or in less conceptual and more interview-friendly terms: its police and military reforms—were central to my research project, I had high expectations with regard to the insights I would gain. The interview reality, however, was sobering. Only a few minutes into the interview, I saw myself questioned by my interviewee about the broader parameters of my project

B. Bliesemann de Guevara (*) · B. Poopuu  Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK e-mail: [email protected] B. Poopuu e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_5

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66  B. BLIESEMANN DE GUEVARA AND B. POOPUU and latest developments in BiH. He also judged the supposedly too theoretical design of my research, which to him, I sensed, affirmed all prejudices about the ‘ivory tower’ that is academia and showed no understanding for the challenges that ‘real-world’ problems posed to practitioners like him. More devastatingly, the interview did not only undermine the relevance of my project, it also managed to chip away at my self-confidence as a worthy researcher. Interviewer: In hindsight, what do you think happened? Would more or different preparation have made a difference? Berit: Reflecting now, I see that a lot of what made me uncomfortable in this interview situation was down to a lack of preparation for fieldwork. For one, I personally was not prepared to be questioned in this way. I also recognise that there were difficulties in bridging critical and problem-solving points of view within the interview context itself, even though we had a shared interest in the issue at stake, namely the challenges of police reform in BiH. More importantly, I was neither well equipped, let alone formally trained, to move my (intuitively) interpretive research design from paper to practice, nor to ‘translate’ between or ‘bridge’ my broadly post-positivist epistemology and the positivist one my interview partner communicated. This may also explain why the other Ph.D. researcher got on much better with him: they shared an epistemological common-ground. The interview as such was not ‘useless’, in the sense that it gave me deep insight into the epistemic assumptions of intervention practitioners—only that this was neither what I hoped to find nor what I was willing to make of the interview at that point. Interviewer: Birgit, would you like to add something? Birgit: Thanks, yes, I would like to explain to our readers that in this chapter, Berit and I will unpack what we think is crucial in preparing for fieldwork interviews. This will take the form of a conversation led by an (imaginary) interviewer, in which Berit will provide vignettes of her experience with fieldwork interviews and I will add comments as a relatively novice interviewer in the midst of preparing for research on and with Syrian peace activists as part of my post-doctoral project. While we will touch upon more standard questions of logistics, access, ethics, physical and psychological safety, etc., our focus will also be on those aspects which are less often spelled out in methods books on interviews. We will start with the more general question of whether interviews are always necessary and advisable and will give three ideas on how to remedy the danger of contributing to interviewees’ exploitation through over-research in war and post-war societies. We will then address the question of preparing for interviews from three different angles: critically and as a first step, interview preparation as part of bigger questions about a project’s epistemology and methodology; second, the preparation of the actual engagement with ‘the field’; and finally, the preparation of the self for the potentially quite challenging and draining task that is conducting research interviews. What we want to highlight throughout is our belief in the value of thinking about the interview from the start as a r­elationship in which both parties have agency and, in the end, are merely human (Fujii 2018; Way et al. 2015). Interviewer: Which types of fieldwork interviews are you going to reflect on?

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Berit: I will illustrate our points with observations from a whole range of projects, in which I have used different forms of interviews, under different epistemological and methodological assumptions, and for different purposes. In addition to my Ph.D. research and later projects on the International Crisis Group and on politicians’ field visits in intervention zones, in which I used semi-structured expert or elite interviews, I will draw on experiences as a research assistant for the project ‘Who governs? The political sociology of UNMIK’ (United Nations Mission in Kosovo), for which I collected data on personal backgrounds, political attitudes and world views, and working routines of peacebuilders in Kosovo through interviews based on highly structured questionnaires with survey elements (Goetze and Bliesemann de Guevara 2014). I will also make references to a project on conflict knowledge among communities affected by political violence in Myanmar, in which our team chose, among other methods, a purposefully unstructured, listening-based methodology for conversations with Burmese artists and peace activists in Yangon (Julian et al. 2019). Birgit: My reflections are prompted by the stories Berit narrates and by my firsthand experience in preparing and conducting some first relational interviews with Syrian peace activists in Istanbul. Doing relational interviews means that a more equal footing between the participants and researchers is continuously cultivated. Through reflecting on power relations and our differing positionalities throughout (Mwambari 2019), relational interviews invite us to recognise the active role that participants have in our interactions, for example, by taking seriously their contributions, interpretations and challenges to the direction and content of our contributions (Fujii 2018). The engagements with Syrian activists were from the beginning envisaged as longer conversations to explore how they understood the Syrian revolution and their role within it. My aim was to see how I could make this research dialogical, that is, how to remove as much as possible the hierarchy and distance between researcher and researched, and how this would play out in practice.

Deciding Whether to Conduct Interviews Interviewer: Before we go deeper into the topic of preparing for interviews, let me ask a provocative question: Do we actually always need to conduct fieldwork? Berit: I think this is an important question, and we maybe do not pose it often enough. Asking respondents questions and making observations in the field are a mainstay in qualitative research (Silverman 2013), and the same is true for peace and conflict studies. More importantly, since the 1990s there has been a rise in fieldwork-related activities in post-war settings, which is hard to overlook when ‘on the ground’. For one, there are scores of university researchers, Ph.D. students, journalists, consultants and (I)NGO analysts who engage a range of actors from policymakers and practitioners of global governance to domestic elites and populations in peacebuilder-sending and -receiving countries in interview activities. In addition, driven by a wish to better train a new generation of peace and conflict researchers, and by the growing competition between universities to provide a positive student

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68  B. BLIESEMANN DE GUEVARA AND B. POOPUU experience, improve students’ employability skills and stand out against competitors in the higher education market, ever more university teachers take their students on study trips to the safer or more easily accessible ones among these countries, where they meet with ‘stakeholders’ and practice their interview skills (Mitchell 2013). Birgit: Especially when it comes to UG (undergraduate) students, research skills could certainly also be trained through cooperation with communities ‘at home’. I have recently organised tandem language classes ­(Arabic-English) in my current home community in Wales and advised the British Red Cross on how to do focus groups to evaluate their service. But there are many other critical areas in which universities could start engaging with their local communities, thereby reducing the need to travel to conflict theatres with students while training them in research methods and even help address problems existent in our own societies (cf. Goffman 2015, esp. the Appendix on urban ethnography at the university). Thinking about the multitude of roles available to researchers may be inspiring in this regard, whether this means being an engaged researcher who can simultaneously wear an activist or volunteer hat or something different altogether (see Shepherd 2018 for ideas). Interviewer: Is over-research really such a problem? Berit: I think it is in some ways. Driven by funder agendas and academic trends, fieldwork has spiked in specific geographical areas and/or fields of study (such as, e.g., transitional justice or war-time sexual violence), and this has led to an over-research of certain organisations and individuals, some of whom have reduced their interview activities to a minimum or stopped them altogether (Močnik 2018). This has detrimental effects on what can actually be studied through and learned from interview-based research. It is no coincidence that the Ph.D. colleague mentioned in my introductory episode had interviewed the same EUPM officer: the specialised communities we deal with in our research are comparatively small, especially when we conduct expert/elite interviews, and even when we focus on larger populations there are locations and groups that are more likely to be studied than others because they are organised in some voluntary (e.g. civil society organisations) or involuntary (e.g. refugee camps) way. Finding more interviewees through ‘snowballing’, academic networks or research brokers and fixers (Eriksson Baaz and Utas 2019) also contributes to an overrepresentation of some organisations and individuals. At the same time, more primary data is being made available through published research and data repositories due to open data policies, so that it might be possible to make a valuable contribution to an ongoing debate or a specific argument in a highly researched area without the (sometimes hardly more than ritualistic) consecration of ‘having been there’ and ‘having talked to people’ (Bliesemann de Guevara 2017). Preparing for fieldwork interviews should hence start with the question of whether they are really necessary and what can be gained from them apart from academic ‘street cred’. Birgit: Additionally, we could ponder the variety of ways in which we can talk/ listen to research participants. Especially when the ‘field’ is scattered across different countries, constantly on the move, and/or relatively visible in all

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kinds of online platforms, as in the case of Syrian activists, doing classic fieldwork may be beside the point. It could mean that some of the exchange takes place via the Internet relying on different social media channels (Fielding et al. 2017). And if fieldwork interviewing in essence is to do with listening, then there are lots of ways for ‘­interviews-as-listening’, for example, by engaging material in blogs, Facebook/Twitter feeds, online archives, web pages, etc., that is, platforms where people already share their (personal/everyday) stories. Interviewer: So no need to conduct fieldwork interviews anymore? Berit: I would rather say: do fieldwork thoughtfully, and perhaps with an unusual focus. There are good reasons to generate (more) primary data on a specific issue through interviews, and there are things that can be done to ameliorate the exploitation which the fieldwork (and interview) industry has led to in some cases. The first is to choose an under- rather than over-researched topic or research puzzle. There are many questions which have not been asked and constituencies who have been ignored by peace and conflict researchers. With regard to BiH, for example, Daniela Lai (2020) observes that the socio-economic problems of the country are understudied in comparison with areas like transitional justice or women’s rights; considering them may give new insights (Distler et al. 2018). Secondly, researchers increasingly ask who and what their research is for and how they can involve in a more meaningful way the groups and individuals sharing their time and information, especially those for whom giving interviews, unlike for policymakers and practitioners, is not part of their daily work portfolio (Močnik 2018). This could range from co-designing (parts of) the research with in situ researchers or participant groups, to light-touch forms of input such as testing an interview questionnaire with some of the prospective participants (Fine 2016; Dzuverovic 2018). There are many different ways of co-producing data, which affect how we see and come to collect stories, for instance, by complementing interviews with arts-based methods to negotiate the ways in which knowledge is produced (Vastapuu 2018; Gameiro et al. 2018). Exploring non-standard forms of interview engagement might be worthwhile. Finally, it is worth thinking from the outset of a project about how to ‘give something back’ at the end, at a minimum by sharing outputs or asking interview participants what would be useful for them: A summary report of the central findings? A blog post for their website? Some in-kind contribution to their work? This avoids the burning of bridges for us or those who come after us. Birgit: I have learned that the usefulness of my research can be contextually negotiated with participants. In a recent online interview my interviewee, an artist/peace activist based in Syria, asked me against the backdrop of a particularly tough day whether there was anything I could do to get her ‘out of there’. I suddenly found myself gasping for air, totally caught off guard. How should I react to this? My interviewee had previously shown me some of her artwork, revealing her mistrust in ‘the outside world’, so after some questions about potential sources of help I decided that a m ­ atter-of-fact way would be best, since I felt that we both were at the brink of falling apart. I let her know that I could only do so much, but offered to jointly try and

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70  B. BLIESEMANN DE GUEVARA AND B. POOPUU think of ways in which we could come up with ‘solutions’. I remembered a local humanitarian NGO supporting refugees, informed them of this case, gave my interviewee’s contacts and said that she would be writing them, too. No response. I turned to the UN to ask for practical advice. No response. I remembered that a local citizen-journalist whose story I had been following had previously supported Syrian families in need of relocating and asked my interviewee to write her and check if she had any advice. The citizen-journalist responded straight-away but said that all that she could advise was just taking the journey to Turkey. I remembered a Syria-based women’s organisation and we both wrote to them. They responded that they could only help by providing the camaraderie of other women, so my interviewee ended up talking to them, as the only available ‘solution’. Moving on, we found that there are small everyday things I can do in return for the many insights she provides for my project. For instance, I put her in contact with the Syrian community organisation Rethink/Rebuild, who are interested in her artwork, with the possibility of a first exhibition of her work in the UK next year—which meant a lot to my interviewee, who is proud of her protest art. This example shows what I mean by contextually negotiated usefulness. Interviewer: So to reformulate, we cannot interview without leaving a footprint but at least we should be aware of that footprint and try to shape it—is that what you are saying? Berit: I think the example above illustrates the value of openly engaging in relational interviewing so that we make an effort to think about i­nterview-based research as a two-way relationship rather than a one-sided data extraction process (see Fujii 2018). This will not take the same form or be of the same intensity in every project. My highly structured interviews in Kosovo were conducted with professional peacebuilders, whose work includes engagement with researchers and who merely asked to be kept updated about the results of the study. As part of our Myanmar project, on the other side, reflecting on research methods and ‘giving back’ has been a central part of the research design from the outset. We are currently working on a booklet and related exhibition based on participants’ drawings and stories through which ordinary people in Kachin and Rakhine states reflected on life amidst violent conflict. This form of ‘giving back’ responds to minority group members’ wish to have experiences of war and hopes for peace known more widely among the majority population, and our project is able to assist in this respect.

Preparing the Research Context Interviewer: Let’s move on to the question of actual preparation. What would you say is the most burning matter before embarking on fieldwork interviews? Berit: I think it is understanding that there are different ways of conducting interviews (and research more generally) which will have different effects on our counterparts and on the data we generate. If you have ever been interviewed yourself, by another researcher or a journalist perhaps, you are aware of how dissatisfying this experience can be. Being interviewed as an expert on BiH, a colleague asked me all sorts of questions about war and

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the peace process in the country, which I was eager to explain in detail, as I was so pleased that somebody finally wanted to tap into my knowledge. To my dismay, he hardly took any notes…unless I mentioned specific pieces of information he was obviously looking for, which then prompted him to tick a box on his questionnaire. I was furious and started to understand the frustration interviews can cause when they do not give interviewees the space to express themselves or to convey their own ideas and meanings, all that which matters from my own epistemological standpoint (see also Mwambari 2019). Methods in this sense are not neutral tools for collecting information; they create a specific relationship between two individuals, which involves power and trust/mistrust. Moreover, which epistemological and methodological understanding our research is based on matters deeply for what we try to achieve through the interview. The most important difference to mention here is probably the one between positivist data collection—or the objective collection of information—and interpretivist data generation—or the reflexive exploration of actors’ meaning-making and context (see in detail Kurowska and Bliesemann de Guevara 2020). Birgit: What is more, interviews are not a mere technique or ‘innocent’ method. They enact worlds: they are ‘within worlds and partake in their shaping’ and are hence instruments of ‘competing enactments of worlds and/or creating disruptive positions in the worlds of international politics’ (Aradau and Huysmans 2014: 3). Claudia Aradau and Jef Huysmans (2014: 11–17) also remind us that methods are to an extent experimental, that is, probing and messy, and therefore allow us to see particular worlds and/or to call particular worlds into question. Berit: And then there is the political history of methods. Interviews have a strong family resemblance with police interrogations and being aware of this might help explain why people in some cases are reluctant to engage in this kind of information extraction—especially when it also involves signing an informed consent form. In this sense, interrogating people via interviews did not seem the most appropriate form of research method for our project among ethnic minority groups in Myanmar, a country that still shows strong traces of authoritarianism and which has a long history of oppressive military rule, especially directed against minorities (cf. Pachirat 2018, esp. Act Four; Salter and Mutlu 2013). Birgit: Right, a lot of methods have been used for questionable ends—for example, ethnographic methods in counterinsurgency operations—so it is the task of the researcher to reflectively position herself and the method in a way that clarifies the logic of her approach. How we self-define as researchers, and how much thought we have given to questions of epistemology, methodology and methods, will determine how we go about doing interviews (Fujii 2018; Ackerly and True 2008; Salter and Mutlu 2013). ‘Interviewing’ is obviously only a broad label for a range of specific modes or techniques of inquiry, which range widely from unstructured to semi-structured and structured modes of inquiry, from survey-style standardised questionnaires to narrative and iterative forms of interviews used in oral history and biographical interviews, to conversational interviewing in which the researcher leaves space for the interviewee’s stories. Having an idea of where we stand

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72  B. BLIESEMANN DE GUEVARA AND B. POOPUU epistemologically and methodologically—taking on the philosophical commitments of the interpretivist or positivist camp—will help figuring out what place the fieldwork interviews have in our research, how we go about them and what we will be able to see (Enloe’s feminist curiosity, see Aradau and Huysmans 2014: 13–17). Berit: Agreed. An expert interview for the purpose of asking for some basic ‘factual’ information about a programme or a policy, or about the backstage processes that have led to them, is very different in this sense from an interview in the interpretivist tradition, which tries to reconstruct the way in which the interview partner constructs meaning about the issue at stake, for example, how something is defined as a ‘problem’ in the first place, how this problem is framed and narrated in specific ways, and what the effects of this problematisation on options for ‘solutions’ to the problem are. In the first case, what is said is what is being looked for; in the second case, how something is being said, that which is left unsaid, the lies and the anecdotes are just as important (Fujii 2018; Kurowska and Bliesemann de Guevara 2020; Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2014). And while in the first case pieces of information that do not add up or contradict each other may lead to further interviews to clarify processes or determine ‘the truth’ by means of triangulation, in the second case such ambiguities, silences and contradictions as well as outright lies are expected and constitute the actual insight into the meaning-making and negotiations at stake (Perera 2017). Interviewer: Can you give an example of how to put this into practice? Birgit: Subscribing to an interpretivist approach that underlines the importance of understanding situated knowledge, I wanted to practice a more dialogical relationship in my research project on Syrian activists. So I invited four Syrians representing the different activist groups in my research to sit on the Advisory Board of my project. In this way, I wanted to leave space for discussions about the research design and progress made and to listen to their views and insights vis-à-vis my research problem. Admittedly, this way of practicing engaged research is not without its problems. For instance, the people I have asked to participate are doing this on a voluntary basis so that means that I have very limited time and resources to get us all together. But I hope that in the end it will bring my research problem closer to real-world concerns and the social worlds my participants are part of (cf. Močnik 2018; Dzuverovic 2018; Vastapuu 2018; for potential problems with this approach, see Poopuu 2020). Berit: It is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the implications of epistemological and methodological choices for interview in detail, but there are a number of works researchers can turn to in this regard (a good starting point is Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2014). And while the actual ‘doing’ of specific interview traditions is not always explicitly discussed in research outputs, there is fortunately a growing number of reflexive pieces in which researchers reflect on how they have done their data collection or generation. We should also mention that the epistemology and methodology may well (and often does) change over the course of a project or an academic career; however, having at least a rough idea at the outset that there are different purposes to interviews depending on the approach, and that this demands of the

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researcher different types of preparation, saves us from waking up one morning wishing we had interacted with interviewees and recorded the potential richness of this interaction in a different way.

Preparing the Actual Interviews Interviewer: What role do structural issues—time, funding, state of the field in your research area—play in preparing for fieldwork interviews? Berit: In an ideal world, the research needs dictate the type of interviews, their number, the time and resources necessary for conducting them, and the way in which they are recorded. In the real world, all of the above will at least to some extent be shaped by structural constraints. Because I was working fulltime as a teaching fellow in a trimester-based university while being a Ph.D. researcher, the only time I had to do my interviews in BiH was from July to September, the months when everyone is on holidays at the Croatian coast and most organisations run at minimum capacity or are closed altogether. It was only in the later part of September when most of my interviews could actually take place (I kept lists with dates of when which interviewee would be back from their vacations). I also had little money for fieldwork, so travel within the country needed to be kept to a minimum to reduce costs, and spontaneous trips were out of question. The number of interviews was determined not by ‘saturation’ criteria but by the end of my fieldwork period. In some interviews, I took hand-written notes and surely missed a lot, in addition to the problem that taking notes distracts from nonverbal interactions with the interviewee. In others, I audio-recorded the whole conversation to be more present during the conversation, only to discover how much of a pain the transcription of ­audio-files is. And how much I actually wrote up of my observations beyond what was said literally in the interviews in a fieldwork diary depended on how exhausted I was at the end of a research day. Had interviews been my only source of research data, my project would not have worked out; to complement document analyses and findings from the secondary literature they were fine. The structural constraints to what I could actually do determined to an extent the type of research, and as part of this the type of interview, I chose to do. This is not uncommon. Birgit: I would push the question of constraints further and ask whether people really get to practice research in the way they want, given the context of the neoliberal university that pushes for quick results, privileges certain types of knowledge (usually that which can be easily translated into impact) and makes other knowledge invisible/irrelevant (Jackson 2018). Berit: I share these concerns. Yet even within these constraints research is happening and there are things that can and should be prepared before starting to interview. There are obvious questions of logistics: Should I interview in person or are phone or online interviews an option? If I go on fieldwork for interviews, then where is my field, and is it just one or do I have to do multi-sited fieldwork? When and how do I best travel? Where will I stay? Do I need an interpreter, and if so, who would be best suited? How will I record the interviews? etc. In addition to these types of questions, the three most important preparation tasks in the context of peace and conflict

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74  B. BLIESEMANN DE GUEVARA AND B. POOPUU research concern the questions of research ethics, risk and safety, and access to interview partners. Birgit: It is crucial to think of ethics, risk and safety, and access as ongoing processes. This means that we need to constantly negotiate them, since we are not doing research in a laboratory but in the social world that can be messy and subject to change (good starting points for defining our ethical position: Ackerly and True 2008; Kappler 2013; Pachirat 2018; Salter and Mutlu 2013). Interviewer: Okay, so let’s discuss these aspects in more detail then. Shall we start with research ethics and data protection? Birgit: There are two sides to research ethics when preparing for interviews: formal institutional research ethics requirements, and the imperative for the interviewer/researcher to not do harm to research participants. In an ideal case, both sides coincide; more often than not, however, formal ethics requirements are either too inhibiting or too generic to give meaningful guidance in every aspect of the conflict-related research (Heathershaw 2020). Going through the formalities is a necessary first step, but we should also have a good plan of how to deal with research ethics in practice. For interviews, informed consent is imperative; that is, participants need to know who we are, what our project is, what we are going to use the interview for, and which rights (e.g. to withdraw, remain anonymous, authorise direct quotations) they have. But we also need to consider, in the light of the discussion about the history of methods above, whether written or oral consent is the more suitable form (Göransson 2020).1 Finally, the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU has highlighted the need to have a good data management plan, that is, to think carefully about how to keep data safe, anonymous and out of the hands of third parties. And again, this will be different depending on where you work and how likely it is that your laptop will be searched or confiscated at the border, for instance, which will happen more likely when travelling in the Middle East than in the EU. Unless you are particularly tech-savvy, it is advisable to seek advice from experts at your university and from other researchers working on the same region, country or topic. Berit: In times of anti-terrorism legislation in many states, it is also useful checking under which legal disclosure demands the research takes place. An example would be UK-based research on the motivations of North African youth to join terrorist organisations in the Middle East. Under the British 2015 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act researchers based in the UK have to proactively disclose any information they might have about persons linked to terrorist organisations to the UK security and intelligence services (HM Government 2015, Section 26(1)), a situation that shapes research methods to a high degree as it forces the researcher to prevent any interview (or other) situation, in which an interviewee might accidentally disclose compromising information. Interviewer: This seems to link in with the theme of risk and safety more generally—can you say more about that? 1 For

useful guidance on oral consent, see Oxford University: https://researchsupport.admin. ox.ac.uk/governance/ethics/resources/consent#collapse281101. Accessed 11 December 2018.

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Berit: Especially when working in areas of ongoing violent conflict, or in those which are listed by our country’s foreign office advice as red or amber zones (no travel or only essential travel recommended, respectively), travel risk assessments that a university may ask us to do can turn out to be a real problem for planned research. But also host countries’ regulations for travel of foreigners can turn out to shape possibilities for fieldwork-based interviews considerably. In the case of our Myanmar project, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) listed the two areas in which our research took place—Kachin and Rakhine states—as ‘amber’ (warning against all but essential travel), giving us some wiggle room for fieldwork in both states (the mass violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine had not erupted at that stage). However, the Burmese government had a high number of travel restrictions for foreigners, including in those areas we wanted to study. Colleagues have reported similar national efforts to control access to different parts of their countries, for instance, from Uganda, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Central Asian countries. In other cases, there may not be a strong state regulating its territory, but instead risk assessments and security advice in the interviewers’ host country prevent them from travelling (currently, e.g., Somalia, large parts of Afghanistan, South Sudan), no matter how experienced the researcher or how well-planned security arrangements for the fieldwork are. In yet other cases, it is known that states and/or armed groups specifically target foreigners including researchers (quite literally with guns or with imprisonment or kidnapping, for instance), which makes going there unwise. In order not to leave such areas ‘blank’, like uncharted territory on our conflict knowledge maps, researchers need to think of other strategies such as working through local informants who have travelled the area (Bøås 2020). Birgit: In any case it is always crucial to seriously and thoroughly plan your security protocol (including the safety of your research participants) and to treat this protocol as a living document, which means that you will take note of the changing security context. Vulnerable contexts can turn out to be even more precarious than thought in the first place. This was the case of Giulio Regeni, the Italian Ph.D. student who was murdered in Egypt while doing research (Stille 2017). A good place to start thinking about your safety (in addition to formal requirements) is to engage with other researchers and their work (e.g. Glasius et al. 2018; Parker and O’Reilly 2013). Interviewer: What can be prepared in terms of access with regard to fieldwork interviews? Birgit: How to gain access to the group of interviewees we are interested in is a major question, which poses itself differently depending on who we want to interview and where/when. This may be a question of physical access, e.g. when it is difficult to access a community in a conflict zone due to ongoing violence. It can be a question of having to deal with gatekeepers in order to gain access to those we would like to talk with, e.g. when groups in society are represented by civil society organisations or only accessible through (paid) brokers. With regard to expert or elite interviews, a question is often whether we should contact the interviewees through formal or informal channels and what the success quotas of doing one or the other would be.

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76  B. BLIESEMANN DE GUEVARA AND B. POOPUU It may be that practitioners or experts are not very responsive by email, but get back to us when we contact them through Twitter. Another important question is that of social access: what kind of characteristics do we have to have to be accepted by our interview partners, and does it make a difference whether we are insiders or outsiders, e.g. in terms of nationality, cultural background, gender, etc. (Bliesemann de Guevara and Kostić 2017: 8–11; Clausen 2020; Kostić 2020)? Berit: While I always prepare access to some extent, planning meticulously who to exactly interview has turned out to be futile in all of my research projects involving fieldwork interviews. The research on UN peacebuilders in Kosovo should have been the clearest with regard to the target group—people working in a civilian policy-relevant capacity for the UN Mission in Kosovo—but turned out to be more messy in reality, with UNMIK involving different pillars led by different international organisations (not only the UN, but also the OSCE and the EU), a follow-up EU mission just being established (EULEX), and peacekeepers changing jobs between organisations or being seconded to national agencies. In these interviews, which contained elements of highly structured surveys, a high quantity of responses was key, so I decided to interview anyone who was willing, snowball more interviewees in all possible directions, and worry about delineations of the ‘sample’ later. In my BiH research, key to many of my interview contacts was a Bosnian, who I had met by chance through friends. Drinking coffee in Sarajevo’s city centre one afternoon, he introduced me to a number of passers-by who turned out to be everything from think tank analysts to high-ranking Bosnian politicians. Serendipity and unanticipated encounters such as this one are seldom discussed in methods books, but they are what has enabled many great researches (iconic: Blok 1975 on the Sicilian mafia). Birgit: Maybe a good preparation strategy is to imagine potential setbacks (interviewees are not accessible, do not have time, make appointments but fail to show up, do not disclose any information beyond what can be found on the website, do not understand the interview questions, refuse my invitation to share stories and experiences, do not take me seriously as an interviewer, etc.) and to develop alternative plans for what to do if things ‘don’t go to plan’. In how far we see this as ‘failure’ will depend on our methodology and epistemology (lack of access, silences, information that cannot be triangulated, etc. can be understood as interesting research data as such)— but in any case an alternative plan is a good thing to have. Creativity (sometimes as simple as asking for help from the community, the contacts you have made so far) can often help in unplanned interview situations. Berit: Indeed. Before travelling to Kosovo to interview peacebuilders I was quite confident that I would have an easy time finding research participants, because there were existing contacts in Kosovo and at the UN, who had indicated their willingness to be interviewed. My only plan was hence to interview these people first and to snowball further interviewees from there. Once in Prishtina, however, it turned out that these first contacts did not have time for me until the very last week of my field stay, or in one case that the interviewee was suspicious of any person-related data collection, and it was harder to make contacts to other peacebuilders than expected. I was so

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desperate after a week without any interviews that I contacted the German diplomatic mission in Kosovo to see whether they could help, and a kind diplomat sent out a message to the events mailing list for German expats in Kosovo. Surprisingly many people contacted me to volunteer for the interview and introduced me to their colleagues from other national backgrounds, which dissipated my new worries that I might end up with a purely German sample (Goetze and Bliesemann de Guevara 2014). Being creative and asking for help is absolutely fine in fieldwork, and it works.

Preparing the Self Interviewer: Berit, your introductory story seemed to indicate that there is also a need for preparing the self for fieldwork interviews—could you explain this further? Berit: I think it is recommendable to prepare the self for the hard (and sometimes emotionally draining) work that is conducting research interviews. To be sure, not all researchers experience the same kind of emotional turmoil I have described in my introductory episode, and not every interview experience in my life has been disconcerting, far from it. My separate interviews with two German MPs of the Green Party in cafes in the vicinity of the Parliament in Berlin were highly enjoyable intellectual exchanges at eye level about the role that field visits play in foreign and defence policymaking, involving a lot of mutual story-sharing, laughter and joint analysis. Yet, there will also always be interview situations that make us feel uncomfortable. There are some common less enjoyable experiences, with regard to which exchanging with others has helped me be less emotionally affected and better prepared when they occur now. Birgit: There is certainly the experience of being ‘put in your place’ or questioned that many researchers share. Interviewees engage with the interview situation in different ways, and there will always be a few who will see it as a struggle over power or authority and who will try to make sure to be in a position of superiority. Berit: Indeed. The head of USAID (United States Agency for International Aid) in Sarajevo at the time of my Ph.D. research reacted quite aggressively to my questions about reform dynamics in BiH’s tax system, through which I was trying to find out how the fiscal reforms in Bosnia had worked, what contestations had accompanied them and what the current state of the fiscal sector was. Maybe he took my questions as a critique of his agency, because instead of answering my questions directly, he started attacking me with economics-related questions, trying to unveil my complete lack of knowledge in fiscal issues—which I was happy to admit. Birgit: When talking with other (specifically female) colleagues, admitting to one’s supposed ‘complete cluelessness’ is often reported to have worked as a strategy to make the interviewee explain a lot and share experiences and stories—not least because the now subordinated interviewer is no longer seen as a threat. Berit: Yes, I have experienced that as well. Unfortunately, in the case of the USAID person, this strategy did not work out, and the interview—which

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78  B. BLIESEMANN DE GUEVARA AND B. POOPUU in the end brought to light some interesting information—turned out to be hard work as I struggled to react adequately to my interviewees questioning. To be sure, being put in your place or into question can happen to interviewers of all ages, genders and other personal attributes. It may to some extent be avoided by paying attention to physical appearances such as the clothes we wear when talking to specific types of people, but clothes cannot entirely prevent it from happening. Be prepared that you might be questioned aggressively about your research and its assumptions, that your thinking might be ‘corrected’ or that you might be lectured about the basics of academic research or your specific field in a patronising manner, and think through how best to react to this. Interviewer: Are there other situations an interviewer should prepare the self for? Birgit: I would say: be prepared for all sorts of human interaction. Sharing with other researchers the great lengths we have sometimes gone to in order to obtain an interview with someone is quite revealing about the interviewer’s approach to data gathering. When we are in ‘interview mode’ we researchers do a lot to accommodate our interviewees’ schedules or routines and to make them comfortable to talk, which we would not necessarily do in other tasks of our academic profession. Berit: Right. In Kosovo and Berlin, for me this usually meant accompanying the interviewees for meals or drinks. When doing the Kosovo research I found out that many of my interviewees would be gone for a long holiday weekend, and I did not think twice when a nice lawyer at UNMIK offered me to accompany her group of colleagues on a road trip to Greece—where I continued my interviews on the beach. In BiH the ubiquitous sharing of Turkish coffees and cigarettes (and sometimes homemade hard liquor) made me shaky but also less distanced from my Bosnian interview partners, I hoped. Flirting has been another part of human interaction that has played a role in some of my interviews. There is a fine line between flirting and sexual harassment though, especially where cultural differences come into play, and it is important to be aware of the possibility of such situations before they occur and to think through how best to react and where to draw the line (this may not least be a question of personal safety). I also had to realise that the quasi-friendships built through research will only last as long as the unwritten rules of the community are respected: when I chose to go out with a group of Kosovars instead of expats on my last evening in Prishtina, my expat interviewees reacted with disbelief, for crossing the invisible boundary between the expat bubble and Kosovar society had somehow broken the weak bonds established before. Interviewer: Anything else? Berit: Yes, be prepared for (perceived) failure…and the avenues it opens. ‘The importance of failure’ was the title of a workshop,2 at which the participants shared their personal encounters with perceptions of failure as a researcher in their fieldwork on such diverse topics as human trafficking, Turkish party

2 Early

career researcher workshop, EISA Paneuropean Conference 2018, Prague.

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politics, the Arab spring, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, security in Lebanon and refugees in North Africa (published in Kušić and Zahora 2020). What exactly had provoked these researchers’ perception of failure (of the project, of the interview, of them as researchers) differed, but most shared past experiences of feelings of inadequateness and vulnerability during interview (and ethnographic) research. When talked to in private, most researchers will have similar stories to share, and the episode in my introduction to this chapter is a classical example. Birgit: Relatedly, researchers often do not adequately prepare themselves for the stress and trauma research in vulnerable contexts can cause for them. In preparation for my own research, I made a point to learn from my colleagues, previous research and organised discussions with a psychologist to understand and notice signs of trauma and secondary trauma so as to be better equipped in situ. This move helped me to better cope with difficult situations in the field and negotiate the binary of success—failure (see Močnik and Ghouri 2020, for a detailed discussion on how to prepare and protect the ‘self’). Berit: One interesting question raised at the already mentioned workshop was how the perception of failure is highly linked to expectations of our academic profession with its emphasis on highly-ranked research outputs, peer-review, impact of research, success in funding applications and similar pressures, which make failure ubiquitous, on the one hand, but write it out of academics’ self-representations, on the other (see in detail Bliesemann de Guevara and Kurowska 2020; Kurowska 2019). Sharing our perceived failures more openly could help normalise the debate and manage our own expectations while preparing for interviews. This book is a good start. The other question raised about failure in research was what success, in this case in interviewing, would look like. In the two episodes shared above which involved the EUPM and the USAID officer, I would have judged the interviews as successful, had they been less confrontational and had there been more information in it directly relevant to my research, or perhaps even confirming my hunch regarding the findings. This did not happen, but what the interviews allowed instead was a first glimpse into the m ­ icro-politics of international intervention, the strategic knowledge production at play in encounters such as this one, and actors’ struggles over positioning in the peacebuilding field. At the time, I was not aware of any of this nor was it my central research concern, but in hindsight—and many years later (thanks to a fieldwork diary with observations and thoughts at the time—highly recommended to have one, regardless of the methodology chosen)—the interviews are helping to make sense of aspects of international interventionism which I now deem central to research on peacebuilding. Birgit: There is also a bigger point to be made here about the merits of an interviewer’s willingness to be puzzled or confused and about paying attention to details which do not seem to be of immediate relevance at the time of the interview (Penttinen 2017). Berit: True. It was such a side-observation on the use of the essentially same, but slightly varied anecdote in an interview with KFOR (Kosovo Force) military officers in Kosovo and by a researcher at a conference in BiH,

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80  B. BLIESEMANN DE GUEVARA AND B. POOPUU which sparked off, first, an intensive debate with my colleague about similar travelling anecdotes he had come across in his Afghanistan research, and later a small project on what we termed ‘urban legends of intervention’ (Bliesemann de Guevara and Kühn 2015). Birgit: The main challenge with an open (or abductive) methodology is that research question and concepts are in flux and that even the overall puzzle is somewhat ‘floating’, hence requiring the researcher’s constant reflection (Kurowska and Bliesemann de Guevara 2020; Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2014). Regular discussion with, and perhaps an ‘emergency contact’ within, a network of trusted colleagues, which can be assembled ahead of the interviewing phase, will in any case help putting perceived failures into perspective.

Conclusion: Fieldwork Interviews as Patchwork of the Possible Interviewer: Our time is almost up. Do you have any final thoughts before we end the interview? Birgit: I hope what we have brought across in this conversation is what we think sits at the heart of doing interviews: the many relationships—our relation to the literature, our position vis-à-vis interviewees, our relation to structural constraints, etc.—that have an effect on how the actual interview will play out, how we position ourselves vis-à-vis existing research, how we will leave the interview—feeling relaxed or devastated—and what kind of knowledge is accessible to us. There are a lot of things we can prepare before embarking on fieldwork interviews, but there is also always a degree of the unanticipated, which we cannot avoid and which we may even embrace as central to access meaning and context of the social worlds we are engaging with. Berit: At a recent conference I bumped into the fellow Ph.D. student from my introductory BiH episode again. 15 years later, we both happen to work on Colombia’s peace process. Her project has made some good progress already, she tells me, with surveys among communities in different parts of Colombia on their attitudes towards the former combatants and the peace process yielding clear and interesting results. In my project, our UK-Colombian team is still in the process of figuring out the textile narrative method meant to complement biographical interviews to study the subjectivities of former combatants in an attempt to re-humanise them in the public perception. Meanwhile, around us violence has resurged in the regions we had planned to conduct our research in and the murder of three geologists of a Canadian mining company in one of our targeted municipalities suggests that it might not be advisable for me, the blond foreigner, to go into the field in this municipality at all, for my own and the team’s and participants’ safety. Yet, while 15 years ago other researchers’ smooth research process engulfed me in a professional crisis, I by now know that our epistemological and methodological choices influence how we perceive the research process and that research challenges arising during fieldwork are valuable because they allow us to rethink our assumptions. I also know which forms of interviews—the narrative interviews, the dialogical encounters, the

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open-ended conversations—I most enjoy as they will bring me closer to my interviewees as fellow human beings, in all the facets this involves, and I have learned to appreciate these encounters as one of the best things about fieldwork interviews. Birgit: This reminds me of a text by the Kenyan author Shailja Patel, which I read recently and which I feel captures this well: “In this room, for one hour / let’s be easy in our skins / observe ourselves with gentle curiosity / proffer and accept / selected morsels of our lives. / Let’s regard each other / with eyes that smile / with faces that engage, / savor without urgency / the strangeness of being human” (Patel 2010, 117). Interviewer: What a poetic end to our interview! Thanks so much for your time and for sharing your thoughts and insights.

References Ackerly, Brooke, and Jacqui True. 2008. Reflexivity in practice: Power and ethics in feminist research on International Relations. International Studies Review 10 (4): 693–707. Aradau, Claudia, and Jef Huysmans. 2014. Critical methods in international relations: The politics of techniques, devices and acts. European Journal of International Relations 20 (3): 596–619. Bliesemann de Guevara, Berit. 2017. Intervention theatre: Performance, authenticity and expert knowledge in politicians’ travel to post-/conflict spaces. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 11 (1): 58–80. Bliesemann de Guevara, Berit, and Roland Kostić. 2017. Knowledge production in/about conflict and intervention: Finding ‘facts’, telling ‘truth’. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 11 (1): 1–20. Bliesemann de Guevara, Berit, and Florian P. Kühn. 2015. On Afghan footbaths and sacred cows in Kosovo: Urban legends of intervention. Peacebuilding 3 (1): 17–35. Bliesemann de Guevara, Berit, and Xymena Kurowska. 2020. Building on ruins or patching up the possible? Reinscribing fieldwork failure in IR as a productive rupture. In Fieldwork as failure: Living and knowing in the (IR) field, ed. Katarina Kušić and Jakub Zahora, 163–174. Bristol: E-International Relations. Blok, Anton. 1975. The mafia of a Sicilian village, 1860–1960: A study of violent peasant entrepreneurs. New York: Harper Torchbook. Bøås, Morten. 2020. Unequal research relationships in highly insecure places: Of fear, funds and friendship. In Doing fieldwork in areas of international intervention: A guide to research in violent and closed contexts, ed. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Morten Bøås, 61–72. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Clausen, Maria-Louise. 2020. Positioning in an insecure field: Reflections on negotiating identity. In Doing fieldwork in areas of international intervention: A guide to research in violent and closed contexts, ed. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Morten Bøås, 159–170. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Distler, Werner, Elena Stavrevska, and Birte Vogel. 2018. Economies of peace: Economy formation processes and outcomes in conflict-affected societies. Civil Wars 2 (2): 139–304. Dzuverovic, Nemanja. 2018. Why local voices matter. Participation of local researchers in the liberal peace debate. Peacebuilding 6 (2): 111–126.

82  B. BLIESEMANN DE GUEVARA AND B. POOPUU Eriksson Baaz, Maria, and Mats Utas (eds.). 2019. Research brokers conflict zones. Civil Wars 21 (2): 157–295. Fielding, Nigel G., Raymond M. Lee, and Grant Blank (eds.). 2017. The SAGE handbook of online research methods, 2nd ed. London: SAGE. Fine, Michelle. 2016. Just methods in revolting times. Qualitative Research in Psychology 13 (4): 347–365. Fujii, Lee Ann. 2018. Interviewing in social science research: A relational approach, Kindle ed. New York and London: Routledge. Gameiro, Sofia, Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Alida Payson and Elisabeth El Refaie. 2018. DrawingOut—An innovative drawing workshop method to support the generation and dissemination of research findings. PLoS ONE 13 (9): e0203197. Glasius, Marlies, Meta de Lange, Jos Bartman, Emanuela Dalmasso, Adele Del Sordi, Aofei Lv, Marcus Michaelsen and Kris Ruijgrok. 2018. Research, ethics and risk in the authoritarian field. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Goetze, Catherine, and Berit Bliesemann de Guevara. 2014. Cosmopolitanism and the culture of peacebuilding. Review of International Studies, 40 (4): 771–802. Goffman, Alice. 2015. On the run: Fugitive life in an American city. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Göransson, Markus. 2020. The interview as a cultural performance and the value of surrendering control. In Doing fieldwork in areas of international intervention: A guide to research in violent and closed contexts, ed. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Morten Bøås, 49–60. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Heathershaw, John, and Parviz Mullojonov. 2020. The politics and ethics of fieldwork in post-conflict environments: The dilemmas of a vocational approach. In Doing fieldwork in areas of international intervention: A guide to research in violent and closed contexts, ed. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Morten Bøås, 93–111. Bristol: Bristol University Press. HM Government. 2015. Counter-terrorism and security act 2015. Available online: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/6/contents. Accessed 9 August 2019. Jackson, Richard. 2018. Post-liberal peacebuilding and the pacifist state. Peacebuilding 6 (1): 1–16. Julian, Rachel, Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Robin Redhead. 2019. From expert to experiential knowledge: exploring the inclusion of local experiences in understanding violence in conflict. Peacebuilding 7 (2): 210–225. Kappler, Stefanie. 2013. Coping with research: Local tactics of resistance against (mis-)representation in academia. Peacebuilding 1 (1): 125–140. Kostić, Roland. 2020. Shifting identities, policy networks, and the ethical and practical challenges of gaining access to the field in interventions. In Doing fieldwork in areas of international intervention: A guide to research in violent and closed contexts, ed. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Morten Bøås, 23–36. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Kurowska, Xymena. 2019. When one door closes, another one opens? The ways and byways of denied access, or a Central European liberal in fieldwork failure. Journal of Narrative Politics 5 (2): 71–85. Kurowska, Xymena, and Berit Bliesemann de Guevara. 2020. Interpretive approaches in political science and International Relations. In The SAGE handbook of research methods in political science & IR, ed. Luigi Curini and Robert J. Franzese, 1221– 1240. London: SAGE.

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Kušić, Katarina, and Jakub Zahora (eds.). 2020. Fieldwork as failure: Living and knowing in the field of international relations. Bristol: E-International Relations. Lai, Daniela. 2020. A different form of intervention? Revisiting the role of researchers in post-war contexts. In Doing fieldwork in areas of international intervention: A guide to research in violent and closed contexts, ed. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Morten Bøås, 171–183. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Mitchell, Audra. 2013. Escaping the ‘field trap’: Exploitation and the global politics of educational fieldwork in ‘conflict zones’. Third World Quarterly 34 (7): 1247–1264. Močnik, Nena. 2018. Sexuality after war rape: From narrative to embodied research. Abingdon: Routledge. Močnik, Nena, and Ahmad Ghouri (eds.). 2020. The cost of bearing witness: Secondary trauma and self-care in fieldwork-based social research. Social Epistemology 34 (1): 1–100. Mwambari, David. 2019. Local positionality in the production of knowledge in Northern Uganda. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 18: 1–12. Pachirat, Timothy. 2018. Among wolves: Ethnography and the immersive study of power. New York: Routledge. Parker, Nicola, and Michelle O’Reilly. 2013. ‘We are alone in the house’: A case study addressing researcher safety and risk. Qualitative Research in Psychology 10 (4): 341–354. Patel, Shailja. 2010. Migritude. New York: Kaya Press. Penttinen, Elina. 2017. Harmless moments in peace-keeping: The politics of telling stories that do not fit into critical security studies narratives. Critical Studies on Security 5 (2): 131–144. Perera, Suda. 2017. Bermuda triangulation: Embracing the messiness of researching conflict. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 11 (1): 42–57. Poopuu, Birgit. 2020. Dialogical research design: Practising ethical, useful and safe(r) research. Social Epistemology 34 (1): 31–42. Salter, Mark, and Can Mutlu. 2013. Research methods in critical security studies: An introduction. New York: Routledge. Shepherd, Laura J. 2018. Activism in/and the academy: Reflections on ‘social engagement’. Journal of Narrative Politics 5 (1): 45–56. Silverman, David. 2013. Doing qualitative research: A practical handbook, 4th ed. London: SAGE. Kindle edition. Stille, Alexander. 2017. Who murdered Giulio Regeni? In The Guardian, October 4. Available online: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/04/ egypt-murder-giulio-regeni. Accessed 11 December 2018. Vastapuu, Leena. 2018. Liberia’s women veterans: War, roles, reintegration. London: Zed Books. Way, Amy K., Robin Kanak Zwier, and Sarah J. Tracy. 2015. Dialogic interviewing and flickers of transformation: An examination and delineation of interactional strategies that promote participant self-reflexivity. Qualitative Inquiry 21 (8): 720–731. Yanow, Dvora, and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea. 2014. Interpretation and method: Empirical research methods and the interpretive turn. Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharp.

CHAPTER 6

Being Indiana Jones in IR: The Pressure to Do ‘Real’ Fieldwork Laura Routley and Katharine A. M. Wright

Introduction Being an academic can often feel like being in a pressure cooker. We are told to ‘publish or perish’, whilst producing ‘excellent’ teaching judged through evaluations proven repeatedly to primarily measure bias rather than teaching effectiveness (Boring et al. 2016; Fan et al. 2019). Ph.D. students and early career researchers, who must navigate a system built increasingly on precarious labour with 54% of academic staff in the UK on insecure contracts (UCU 2016), feel these increasing expectations most personally. Against this backdrop the ability to engage in fieldwork is a privilege limited to the few. In some disciplines, such as Geography and Anthropology, which have much longer traditions of ‘doing fieldwork’, experiences ‘in the field’ come to constitute important parts of scholar’s professional identities and influence how scholars both view themselves and are viewed by others (Vanderbeck 2005: 387). International Relations (IR) has come later to ‘the field’, and fieldwork still remains something pursued by some but far from all IR scholars. There are many ways of understanding IR, and one is becoming an expert on a topic or area without fieldwork. Yet we argue that there is an emerging pressure to do fieldwork, especially in some sub-disciplines including Peace and Conflict Studies, experienced in both formal and informal settings. This pressure comes in a myriad of forms, for example, through L. Routley (*) · K. A. M. Wright  Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK e-mail: [email protected] K. A. M. Wright e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_6

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textbooks, scholarly writing and through ‘stories’ shared over conference coffees. On the one hand, this move to embrace empirically based knowledge is welcome. Fieldwork can help inform and enrich knowledge of a topic or area. Fieldwork provides an opportunity for the ‘researcher to enter briefly the lives of those being researched’ (Jacoby 2006: 153). This enables the researcher to ‘generate knowledge by observing behaviour, asking questions, and analysing data’ (Jacoby 2006: 153). Whilst fieldwork is not necessarily tied to particular methods or methodologies, it is often associated with ethnographic approaches which attempt to elucidate social meanings and practices at particular sites (Brewer 2000: 37). It is a move which has often occurred alongside and within attempts to refocus IR away from the elites—the ‘Great Men’—to understand processes and experiences from ‘other’ perspectives driven by Feminist, Postcolonial/Decolonial and Queer IR scholarship. This is both urgent and necessary. There are considerable positives that come out of this trend in IR, and Peace and Conflict Studies specifically. But there are also ways in which ‘the field’ is constructed and machismo invoked in the ways in which fieldwork is discussed and indeed undertaken that can undermine these gains and which serve to create their own set of inclusions and exclusions. We contend that discussion of these is particularly important in IR for two reasons. First, building on our argument above, the discipline’s fairly recent adoption of fieldwork means its engagement with the virtues and pitfalls of these research methodologies is limited. This can result in these methods becoming perceived as automatically emancipatory which they are not. Second, IR’s interest in security and conflict can serve to raise particular challenges and dangers—ethical as well as physical. As this quote from Jacoby (2006) makes clear: It is unduly problematic that critical IR fails to face fieldwork dilemmas at the very moment at which the call to eradicate residual ethnocentrism by going out into the field and embarking upon local, detailed, cross-cultural, and contextually based studies of other societies has been made. (Jacoby 2006: 158)

Going out into the field has been seen as an emancipatory move getting IR away from its entrenched ethnocentrism. However, as Vrasti (2008) points out, with particular reference to ethnography, this emancipatory hope is sustained through but ultimately undermined by a lack of attention in IR to the rich debates in Anthropology around the politics of ethnographic representations. Vrasti calls for an awareness of the ‘political ambiguities’ of these representations (2008: 283) and we agree. In this chapter, we want to highlight how part of this political ambiguity is how fieldwork is framed and understood in the discipline not just in textbooks and journal articles but in informal contexts.

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Our aim here is not to refute the value of fieldwork or the contribution it can make to our knowledge of peace and conflict. Rather, we seek to problematise what the pressure to do fieldwork does. The reification of fieldwork has wider implications for just who can ‘do’ IR. The ability to conduct fieldwork, often in IR conducted in a faraway place, is affected by race, gender, sexuality, class, health and ability. In this chapter, we critically assess the positive contributions fieldwork can make highlighting its value as a vehicle for connection to those we research with or about. And how this offers opportunities to strengthen the discipline of IR both in terms of the relevance and depth of its insights and the breadth of voices being heard. We also interrogate the impacts of the pressure to do fieldwork; how fieldwork practices and narratives are often bound up with masculinist and colonial logics. The effects of these can undermine and indeed run counter to the virtues of the connection that fieldwork can provide. These tropes of fieldwork are often in danger of framing the researcher as the hero and his struggle to overcome dangers demonstrating the worthiness of his [sic]1 insights. Thus the researcher comes to embody the masculinist protection logic critiqued by feminist scholarship (Young 2003; Partis-Jennings 2017). In their most blatant form, these performances are evidenced in conference discussions and conversations over coffee or dinner in which the academic seeks to portray himself as a version of Indiana Jones. These discussions also often re-inscribe who can know and whose knowledge counts. Both through the asymmetric relationship of researcher and informants (a topic that has been widely discussed by others, see, for example, Smith 2006) but also through the exclusions that arise from the costs and circumstances that circumscribe who is able to do fieldwork. Our own research ‘fields’ are diverse and in our discussion of what constitutes ‘the field’ we reflect on the divergent ways each of our engagements with ‘our field’ is understood, what it means to belong in the field or to be an ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’. We then interrogate the nature of the ‘pressure’ to do fieldwork, drawing out the performativity of fieldwork, often underpinned by hyper masculine narratives, before reflecting on the colonial representations of the field ‘as other’. Finally, we argue that the pressure to do fieldwork is contributing to (re)producing an exclusionary and increasingly elite field. Drawing on our own personal experiences, including of fieldwork, we provide examples of the personal opportunities and costs we have been afforded.

1 Whilst we acknowledge that both men and women can and do tell this type of fieldwork stories, in our experiences more often than not they come from men and are performative of a masculine protection logic.

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Fieldwork as Connection The study of IR has changed from its origins as a discipline primarily concerned with theoretical questions about state relations. The widening and broadening of the discipline, which has accelerated post-Cold War, has allowed more empirically grounded approaches to emerge. In many senses, this is a positive development, allowing space for a more pluralistic conception of just what IR is. It has provided space for critical, postcolonial, decolonial, feminist and queer knowledge building, including the emergence of Peace and Conflict Studies. Yet, it has been accompanied by a push for ‘new’ knowledge often only available first hand ‘in the field’. A case in point is this quote from the fieldwork Chapter of the Research Methods in International Relations (Lamont 2015) textbook which states: As students of IR, our contribution to existing scholarship requires us to bring to the table new knowledge about the world around us. For a growing number of IR research agendas, this task simply cannot be done through traditional desk-based research from your home institution or organization. (Lamont 2015: 143)

One of the sleights of hand which occurs here is an intertwining of methods and research agendas. Addressing certain agendas ‘simply cannot be done through traditional desk-based research’ (Lamont 2015: 143). It is true that as the discipline of IR has expanded, its rather narrow horizons and what ‘fields’ it is interested in have changed. Scholars now explore things well outside ‘great man’ diplomacy ranging just in our own department at Newcastle from exploring the politics of running and the right to space in Jerusalem (McGahern 2019) to an examination of how the conflict in West Papua between state security forces and Papuan independence activists are made visible in particular ways through social media (Philpott 2018). In many ways, these two examples encapsulate what we could term ‘future IR’, representative of a more inclusive, diverse and pluralistic field. However, rather than see this as a change or more accurately an expansion of field sites there is an idea that fieldwork is now undertaken as the norm. There is slippage here which continues colonial tropes about what is ‘proper fieldwork’. Should we call Katharine’s two-week trips to Brussels ‘research trips’, and categorise Laura’s to West Africa as ‘fieldwork’? There is an assumption about what is familiar and what is other that is rooted in colonial legacies of categorisation of European/White sameness and (in this case) African/Black otherness. What counts as ‘the field’, we would argue, can include NATO headquarters (Katharine), Ghanaian prisons (Laura), long distance running races in Jerusalem (McGahern 2019), and many other locales which may or may not appear like the usual sites for IR research. The field for any particular piece of research is also often not particularly neatly bounded. Laura has discussed before her reticence of going with one

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of the Nigerian NGOs she was studying to the UN in New York as this felt like abandoning the field, whereas in reality doing so led to different valuable insights (Routley 2016: 71–81). Anthropology has been discussing the value of multi-sited research for well over two decades (Marcus 1995). What is interesting here is that the drive to include multiple field sites was about trying to analyse global processes (like global capitalism) and trying to get to grips with trends operating at scales more familiar in IR research. Laura recalls as a Ph.D. student attending an IR conference where scholars argued persuasively that IR needed to get to grips with the local and the everyday only to be in a session with Anthropologists a couple of months later discussing how they needed to widen their focus to explore processes beyond the local. Neither of these disciplinary moves is bad. Indeed, accounting for how processes operate and ideas travel across these scales (which are of course fictions of their own) are key questions. However, this also highlights that, where the field is considered to be and what fieldwork is seen to be made up of, can shift within particular research projects and within disciplines. Contemporary IR fieldwork then can mean visiting many different kinds of sites and engaging with very different kinds of actors and this, we think, is greatly enriching to the discipline. The value of this much more diverse assortment of ‘fields’ rests on one of the central virtues of fieldwork which is the opportunity to create or deepen connections with those who inhabit these various sites and indeed with the locations themselves. This connection does not produce on its own knowledge but it allows what knowledge is produced to be comprehended and fashioned through connection rather than distance. This is always an imperfect process and an imperfect connection. For fieldwork is, in many senses, about defining and creating the borders of a field site that relies on at least some ‘displacement from home grounds’ and thus a context the researcher enters as a stranger (Katz 1994: 68). Going to the field involves leaving your normal everyday context, but it also involves encountering another everyday (prisons in Ghana and NATO offices in Brussels are both someone’s everyday). But they are also places where we as researchers are out of place. As Katharine has reflected: When I look back over my fieldwork diary, my first impressions of NATO HQ were about feeling uncomfortable and out of place during the visits. For example, the checkpoint registration at the gates never went smoothly. I was told during every visit that I was not on the list, despite the fact that my contact within NATO had booked me in as a visitor. This typically meant at least five minutes of waiting for the security officer to connect to my contact over the phone and left me with the distinct impression that I should not be there. (Wright and Hurley 2017: 390)

The level of submersion in this other everyday varies within and between methodological approaches but, even when using more immersive

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methodologies such as participatory observation methods or participatory action research, a tension between ‘involvement and detachment’ persists (Sluka and Robben 2007, cf. Powdermaker 2007). What we consider important here, however, is that this allows for some level of connection even as it leaves researchers in an in-between space. The nature of this space is however radically different for different researchers depending on their different subject positions (genders, race, sexuality, disability, class, age) and the kinds of connection, disconnections and power relations that these place researchers in both in the field and in their ‘home’ institutions/disciplines.2 A concentration on connection is particularly valuable when engaging with groups that are often seen as ‘other’ within the academic spheres researchers generally emerge from; as it serves to undermine this distancing (Abu-Lughod 2006: 155) and thus can be a way to bring perspectives into IR that have historically been disregarded. Although this is by no means unproblematic for the ways in which they are brought into the field precisely as ‘marginal voices’ can also be damaging. This is especially as some field sites and some research subjects are regarded as more ‘other’ than others—Laura does fieldwork, Katharine visits NATO. For both of us writing a piece that could wrongly be understood to be anti-fieldwork is rather strange and nerve wracking. For Katharine—as I have argued that feminist scholars should heed Cynthia Enloe’s call to engage in fieldwork at NATO in order to understand how it operates at a day-to-day level (Wright et al. 2019). For me, being in ‘the field’ has sparked research interests which would not otherwise have occurred, for example a sly comment by a research participant led me to examine NATO’s engagement with digital diplomacy (Wright 2019). It has also meant being a ‘critical friend’ to the institutions I study (Wright et al. 2019: 4), being let in as a researcher to actively engage with and support their work. This makes it difficult to maintain the ‘neat distinctions between researcher and researched’ (Holvikivi 2019). For Laura fieldwork has allowed me to gain insights that I genuinely do not think I could have gained by other methods, for example suddenly seeing a disconnection in how I and someone I knew well—Ifesinachi3—who was, to use anthropology’s terminology, an ‘informant’—were understanding something. It helped me to get at a social meaning (in this case a very different perspective on ‘procedural rationality’) that I am not sure I would have understood otherwise (see Routley 2016: 112). Both connection and disconnection were important in this process as I only realised precisely where the disconnect was because I considered Ifesinachi a friend and an ally. But the knowledge that was produced here was knowledge for me that I convey and discuss in contexts my informant is only vaguely interested in. It is also not 2 The particular experiences of those whose research subjects are from the same ‘group’ as they are is an interesting valuable discussion but not one that we have the space to explore here but please see, Abu-Lughod (2006) and Weston (1997) as starting points. 3 This is not her real name but the same pseudonym I used in my book.

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something I discovered—Ifesinachi had this knowledge after all. Abu-Lughod highlights that what we gain from research is always partial truths but what we need in addition is ‘…a recognition that they [these partial truths] are also positional truths’ (2006: 156). They are positional in as much as they depend upon the subject positions of researchers but they are also positional in as much as they emerge from the encounters that occur in fieldwork. In this sense, they are produced with our informants although in our reproduction of them as ‘knowledge’ (in presentations, papers and books) heavily shaped by the framings of the disciplines and literatures that we address. The answers, and what one makes of them, have currency in other sites of enunciation – journals, classrooms, conference halls – that the ethnographer [and other types of researcher] travel[s] to with the scholarly equivalent of war stories. (Katz 1994: 68)

Here Katz highlights two things which we want to pick up on. Firstly, how whilst fieldwork can lead to connection it is also about translation and extraction. Secondly, that fieldwork can often be narrated in ways that are highly masculinised and heroised like war stories.

Fieldwork as Heroism What counts as real fieldwork is often seen in particular hyper masculine ‘heroic’ forms of the explorer in a colonial guise. Katharine’s visits to NATO’s offices and conference rooms don’t live up to this image; they are not ‘exotic’ or ‘dangerous’ enough, so they are often construed as research trips not fieldwork. As IR academics working on issues related to conflict and security, it is a frequent occurrence to encounter ‘fieldwork stories’. Academics are keen to impart their seemingly imperilled journeys into the field. This can make us question our own experience, can we really claim to have ‘done’ fieldwork if we’ve not been ‘imperilled’? What claims to authority are made and legitimated in jeopardizing the physical or social well-being of the ethnographer and/or her informant? Is “better” knowledge that which is produced /secured at great risk? Such an evaluative stance, persistent if rarely articulated is a holdover from the colonial mentality that once delighted in harrowing ethnographic account of the conquests of physical landscapes of native reticent, when wresting “secrets” from remote “natives” was the raison d’etreof the endeavour. (Passaro 1997: 147)

Again, we find ourselves turning to Anthropology for discussion of this dynamic of fieldwork. Fieldwork and ‘the field’ have been central to both Anthropology and Geography, for a significant period. But these disciplines due to their historical collusion with colonial powers and bureaucracies have also had a much more thorough reckoning of their own entanglement

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with colonial rationalities and hierarchies. IR’s history is a more recent one with one of the oldest International Politics Departments at Aberystwyth University celebrating its centenary in 2019. The foundational myth underpinning the birth of the discipline is then usually understood to reside in the aftermath of World War I, the advent of the League of Nations and with an appetite to build peace (Dyvik et al. 2017; Booth 2017). The coming of age of the discipline centres on the Cold War era during which formal colonialism came to an end in a number of parts of the globe (although in Latin America this happened much earlier). The focus of the discipline at this time, however, was firmly on the machinations of the superpowers and the threat of nuclear war and the theoretical discussion was one of the supposedly universal security dilemma. IR’s own sense of itself often misses however key founding directions of the discipline Vitalis has highlighted that the first IR journal was The Journal of Race Development (2017: 100). Likewise, feminist scholarship is often assumed to be a relatively recent addition to the discipline, yet there is evidence of feminist contributions from the outset (Stöckmann 2017). IR did not just overlook colonial hierarchies it was charged with their perpetuation in a changing global context: ‘What…the new interdisciplinary science [IR] promised, was a revised view of and upgraded techniques for colonial administration and the management of race subjection’ (Vitalis 2017: 100). Recently, this more problematic history has surfaced in the debates about the naming of one Aberystwyth’s most prestigious chairs The Woodrow Wilson Chair. This has highlighted that this disciplinary history and the ‘great men’ that it valorises are often problematically entangled with racial segregation and colonial hierarchies. Wilson’s own rhetoric of ‘self-determination’ only applied to some races and his domestic racial policies were of racial segregation (Conway et al. 2019). Meanwhile the League of Nations perpetuated the rulership of white Europeans over Middle Eastern and African territories through the mandate system it instituted for countries that had previously been under the control of Germany or the Ottoman Empire. It is not so much then that IR has not had a serious reflection on its own complicity in colonialism and racial subjection, it is just that we have not yet had the courage to face up to it. Postcolonial and decolonial approaches to IR remain marginal and associated with study of ‘faraway’ places not the core of the discipline. Whilst the ‘exotic’ is less in demand in IR than say it might have been at some-point in Anthropology, IR’s focus on security and conflict does allow plenty of room for the danger braving adventurer. This is especially the case in the more informal ways in which fieldwork is discussed—the ‘war stories’ regaled in the pub. As long as people have been conducting fieldwork a dichotomy has existed between ‘open and hidden discourse about experiences in the field’ (Lecocq 2006: 273). As Baz Lecocq (2006: 273) argues:

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this dichotomy consists of a representation of fieldwork experiences towards colleagues and the larger audience as ideal, unproblematic, and among the best experiences a person can have in life. It is almost like a holiday. It is only in an informal setting, usually the pub, that some dare to speak of the danger, nuisance, despair, and general inconvenience of it all. Even talking about severe illness or other dangers is often done with the self-assured attitude of someone capable of facing Armageddon and getting out alive. Apparently, Indiana Jones does exist.

One such example from IR comes from a keynote at an early career conference Katharine attended during her Ph.D., which centred on the established academic’s fieldwork stories from a conflict zone. He spent much of the time reiterating the danger he was in, and how he had overcome this to be here to tell the tale. Yet this was not something he recommended that we, as Ph.D. students, seek to replicate. So, what was the value in telling us this version of his fieldwork story? The value of this was to reify his experience as expertise, something unattainable for the mere postgraduate students in the audience, something for us to aspire to if one day we were to make professor. These ‘war’ stories and the more formal narratives of fieldwork contained in articles and books that convey the levels of access, the numbers of informants, the seniority of interviewees, serve to provide credibility to their account. Whilst there is a need for a researcher to state that they have ‘been there’ to establish their own authority on the subject (Geertz 1988: 1), this masculine, colonial heroism is also about conquering and knowing ‘wresting secrets’ as Passaro has it (1997: 147). In many subfields of IR (certainly in the UK) there is less expectation that fieldwork findings will attain a reified status of objective truth—they are always ‘partial truths’ as Abu-Lughod (2006) has it. In order to acknowledge and manage this subjective element, IR (and other) scholars have often been encouraged to include reflexive explorations of their own position within the fieldwork. These can be useful, but they are also rather strange in that they are in one sense supposed to convey a kind of vulnerability—the partialness of their findings—but they often work to offer further validation of the researcher’s own experiences. Essays on reflexivity and fieldwork typically end with exhortations for researchers to write more of these kinds of reflections into their research accounts. We find ourselves more ambivalent about this prospect; despite having written this essay, we are not sure we would encourage a student (especially one not yet in a permanent academic job) to do likewise. The implications for those outside of the ‘norms’ of subject positions in IR (i.e. not heteronormative, non-binary gender or people of colour) might be vulnerable in different ways in this process. As a whole, white male social scientists tend to write about themselves in ways that, it seems to us, re-inscribe their own hegemonic masculine positions, whether intentionally or not, ‘ostensibly reflexive fieldwork narratives often afford male researchers the opportunity to publicly affirm their masculine prowess’ (Vanderbeck 2005:

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388). In some cases, reflexive writing can enhance the researcher’s credibility, such as when ‘real man’ ethnographers discuss their ability to relate to hypermasculine youth. In other cases, it might raise some questions, such as when male researchers discuss how potential female respondents were inhibited because they thought the researcher was looking for sex, but either way the author emerges relatively unscathed, having both affirmed his manliness and scored points for reflexivity. In contrast, calls for researchers to write reflexively about gender positionality and performance essentially ask those who deviate from hegemonic gender norms to disclose potentially uncomfortable details about their interactions. ‘Within the context of a masculinist and heterosexist discipline, this is a risky proposition, and one which deserves a far wider discussion than has been the case to date’ (Vanderbeck 2005: 388–389). The image of the heroic masculine researcher has been challenged in some more reflective accounts of experiences in the field. In feminist IR, for example, which places its emphasis on the personal as international a recent ‘conversations’ series in the International Feminist Journal of Politics sought to engage researchers in their narratives of fieldwork (Hedström 2017; Björkdahl et al. 2017; Cole 2017; Wright and Hurley 2017). Yet, whilst these conversations make valuable contributions to widening the scope of just who can do fieldwork and how it is experienced, they continue to centre the individual researcher. As Jacoby (2006) notes, there is a contradiction with centring researcher experience given that ‘increasing the power of the researcher goes against every ethical principle of feminist ethnography to date’. It also does not get us away from the researcher as the hero of the piece, albeit one who has used their experiences to advance their own scholarship. The way in which the IR researcher comes to be configured in a heroic mould is in part through centring on their own experience: Whether it is through an assumed objectivity of their gaze, or, more commonly, through reflexive discussions of subject positions which reinforce their credentials rather than expose vulnerabilities and failings—and indeed being in a position to expose failings would demonstrate a high degree of privilege. But it is also as we have indicated through a sense of danger. Fieldwork in conflict-affected or authoritarian states can be high-risk, and many ‘fields’ are now off limits to researchers. There have been a number of high-profile cases of researchers who have died, been killed or imprisoned whilst in the field. For example, the case of Giulio Regeni, an Italian Ph.D. student at Cambridge University studying Egyptian Unions, who was tortured and killed during his fieldwork in Egypt in 2016 (Osborne 2019). Or the case of Matthew Hedges, a Ph.D. student at Durham University, whose fieldwork in the United Arab Emirates in 2018 was cut short when he was arrested and held in solitary confinement for six months. He is still suffering the consequences in terms of both his physical and mental health (Snaith 2019). These are extreme examples but demonstrate that there can be very real dangers in the field. University risk

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assessment and ethics processes can be onerous, feel counterproductive, ask for tedious detail no-one will ever need to consult, but ultimately they are there for a purpose. Outside of these formal processes there are relevant questions about what this heroic ‘Indiana Jones’ braving of danger does. Returning to Passaro, it is pertinent to ask ‘Is “better” knowledge that which is produced /secured at great risk?’ (1997: 147). Who can and who does take such risks also shapes who gets to research and for some the kudos their research receives. [For those reading (especially students) who are concerned that we think that danger is needed performatively (if not for the robustness of the research) please note we have heard of potential job hires who have scuppered their chances through presentations that focused solely on their ‘war story’, at the expense of understanding the contribution and rigour of their research.] Fieldwork on issues of peace and conflict can also take place in ‘safe’ places, for example, at the UN in New York or NATO in Brussels. Nevertheless, it remains a pricey pursuit. This sits uncomfortably with the reality of a workforce, often with little recourse to internal or external funding. Moreover, many international organisations are based in countries in the Global North whose hostile borders, limit access to these spaces. This works to restrict knowledge of the day-to-day functioning of these institutions to those with the ‘right’ passport, most likely based in the Global North. These constraints are accompanied by vast disparities in access to funding for research across countries and for different individuals. The issue of access and resources therefore raises question of just who can ‘know’ a field? Ultimately, we see the retrenchment of privilege underpinned by colonial logics that governs who can get access to the country or organisation and afford to stay there. However, there are other ways to build expertise of global institutions, for example, as SoumitaBasu (in Holmes et al. 2019: 220) argues, building perspectives on the UN Security Council from multiple sites (Beyond New York) can contribute to understanding how the Security Council is understood in India, Chile or the Pacific Islands.

In and Out of the Field Despite its sometimes heroic guise, fieldwork is frequently mundane, boring and lonely. For every ‘high jinx’ story of (mis)adventure, there are multiple of researchers bored in the field. In particular, this might be when you are away from home and don’t have established networks or access to or recourse to funds for leisure, friendship networks or family. In Brussels, I (Katharine) often find myself at a loose end between interviews. Given NATO’s security measures it is often not possible to stay in NATO HQ between interviews. If you have two interviews a day, which is plenty, there are often large stretches of time between them. I found particularly when I was new to Brussels and on a shoe-string budget that the afternoons and evenings seemed to stretch

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infinitely, especially since NATO HQ is surrounded largely by industrial estates and fields. Gaining access to research sites for me (Laura) frequently involved sitting for hours usually on not very comfortable chairs awaiting an audience with one senior official or another (whilst also frequently being an object of curiosity for those passing). It is a scene that definitely would be cut from any Indiana Jones film. As researchers, the starting point in deciding to do fieldwork or not should be about the research questions you are asking. In research on conflict and post-conflict states there are often issues with security and infrastructure which have practical implications for the design of the research (Roll and Swenson 2019: 248). Kate Roll and Geoffrey Swenson (2019: 248) discuss how access and security issues for their own research in Timor Leste and Afghanistan, respectively, significantly shaped their research findings and limited their ability to engage with ‘normal’ citizens. The pressure to conduct fieldwork, which elevates this mode of data collection above others, can serve to obscure the limits of this methodological approach and the value of others. Moreover in an increasingly digital world, documents, people and spaces are increasingly accessible without leaving our desks as; archives are increasingly digitalised, interviews can often be conducted via video call and institutional spaces analysed through their social media presence. These representations of ‘the field’ may be limited in what knowledge we can gain from them. But are they any more limited than what we gain from being ‘in the field’? This may be particularly pertinent to Peace and Conflict Studies were whilst ­conflict-affected areas are perhaps cut off digitally (many are not), they are also often cut off from physical access too. Can we really gain (more) knowledge of them from being situated in a compound? The answer of course is that we gain different knowledge from the different approaches and sites (digital and ‘real world’) and that this is always mediated, positional and partial. Acknowledging the limitations of our research whether field or desk-based is important in order to maintain the rigour of our research. To do so means challenging the hierarchies of knowledge production which reifies fieldwork. Outside the mundane nature of fieldwork and the possible methodological limitations of the approach lies the realm of the researcher as a person. The potential situations facing individuals that could make fieldwork difficult or limited are myriad and as such it would be a fool’s errand to try and cover these here. But we do want to highlight some aspects of this that are meant to be illustrative rather than comprehensive. This chapter comes out of conversations about fieldwork with Katharine feeling somewhat an imposter to discussions of fieldwork, given she can get from Newcastle to her field and back in a day and whilst there can enjoy Starbucks and free Wi-Fi. Comparing her own seemingly mundane experiences to those of others who return with ‘war stories’ has meant it has taken years to realise that everyone needs time to decompress, process and reflect on their experiences when they return from the field, wherever their field might be, to support their own

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mental health. Being outside of your comfort zone requires resilience. Laura struggles to reconcile her own identity as a ‘field researcher’ with her role as a parent. Experiencing, both  guilt about ‘deserting’ the communities she researches, concerns about not knowing these places as well as she ‘should’, and sadness and loneliness at leaving her young child behind. This represents a heightened version of the complex pressures a lot of women face on return to work but stretched across continents, and with an added dash of imposter syndrome. Colleagues, friends and family both outside and within academia will be interested in your experiences of ‘the field’ or perhaps why you are not undertaking fieldwork. Sometimes their curiosity can, however well intentioned, knock your confidence and exacerbate imposter syndrome because they do not understand your own lived experience. For example, even when you are doing fieldwork you may find yourself repeating explanations such as; ‘No my partner can’t come he has an invisible disability/health issue’ or ‘No my small child isn’t being neglected by me leaving them behind whilst travelling’. This can leave you bearing the burned of revealing or concealing elements of your life which are private in conversations with colleagues. This can also come up when discussing your work when you do not do fieldwork. ‘Aren’t you going to visit x it would make the research so much more interesting?’ when you have decided not to conduct fieldwork because your aren’t able to leave your aging parents. Or, ‘Oh but, so and so went there last year they were fine, I’m sure you’d be ok’, when you are particularly concerned about your safety because of your sexual orientation. These questions and comments again become hard not to take as a personal criticism. Fieldwork decisions can be highly private, emotive and complex. Medical advice for women who are pregnant, looking to become pregnant or breastfeeding, is frequently for many areas of the globe don’t travel. The safety of necessary vaccinations, malaria drugs and other medication has frequently not been tested for these groups. Women who are struggling with infertility for years are faced with dilemmas about which risks to take—with the advice for travellers (including Men) to regions where Zikavirus is present being to stop trying to conceive for two months after return. All of this is very messy and also very personal and private. Fieldwork can also impose financial burdens which some are in positions to take up and many others are not. The study and practice of IR, and the costs associated with it, are personal as well as political.

Conclusion: War Stories and Rigorous Research The pressure to do fieldwork is felt by most of us, not a few of us and this has repercussions for just who can be seen as doing IR. Our advice for Ph.D. and early career scholars is primarily to take fieldwork stories with a pinch of salt and consider what their performance is doing to how we conceive of IR as a field. If you can’t undertake fieldwork, this is also fine. Know that

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there are many other ways to do IR and underexplored contributions you can make to the discipline. There are other ways to make connections, as well as value and amplify the voices that too often do not get heard in IR. If you are considering fieldwork, evaluate what the benefits of being in the field will bring and do not overestimate what knowledge you gain from it. For comparison, we both live in Newcastle but there is much we do not know about life for many in this area, your fieldwork will have similar if not greater limits. This does not undermine its value but accept that your truths are partial and positional. If you do undertake fieldwork, keep yourself and your informants safe. Undertake your University’s risk assessments, consider your safety, trust your instincts about what feels ok and seek local advice. Value your mental well-being and ensure that you get what you need to stay well, whether that is coming home for a period, taking a break from an intense situation, or talking to the right friend or colleague, this is not a failure it is a mature decision. Take research ethics seriously and consider that as a result you may get material which is highly relevant to your work but you can’t use (both of us have experienced this, and sometimes the best stories are the ones you can never tell!). Remember that most of your time in the field will be boring, messy and hardly ever straightforward, even if these aren’t the stories you hear from your peers and professors. And if you are Indiana Jones… take a spare hat… but don’t expect us to read your war memoirs.

References Abu-Lughod, L. 2006. Writing against culture. In Feminist anthropology: A reader, ed. E. Lewin. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. Björkdahl, A., and J. Mannergren Selimovic. 2017. Feeling silences in a place of pain. International Feminist Journal of Politics 19 (3): 383–385. https://doi.org/10.10 80/14616742.2017.1324093. Booth, K. 2017. What’s the point of IR? The international in the invention of humanity In What’s the point of International Relations, ed. S. Dyvik, J. Selby, and R. Wilkinson. Abingdon: Routledge. Boring, A., K. Ottoboni, and P.B. Stark. 2016. Student evaluations of teaching (not mostly) do measure teaching effectiveness. ScienceOpen Research: 1–11. https:// doi.org/10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-EDU.AETBZC.v1. Brewer, J. D. 2000. Ethnography. Understanding social research. Buckingham: Open University Press. Cole, L. 2017. An encounter in fieldwork: Subjectivity and gendered violence. International Feminist Journal of Politics 19 (3): 388–389. Conway, P., T. Vaughan, C. Kaltofen, A. Abu-Bakare, P. Blamire, D. House, S. KleinSchaarsberg, Q. Cloet, I. Cuogo, J. Hopma, L. Cole, I. Bliatka, E. Kast, K. Kušić, and D. Pryer. 2019. The case against Woodrow Wilson, after 100 years. The Disorder of Things. Retrieved 20 May 2019 from https://thedisorderofthings. com/2019/05/28/the-case-against-woodrow-wilson/.

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Dyvik, S.L., J. Selby, and R. Wilkinson. 2017. Introduction: Asking questions of, and about, IR. In What’s the point of International Relations, ed. S. Dyvik, J. Selby, and R. Wilkinson. Abingdon: Routledge. Fan, Y., L.J. Shepherd, E. Slavich, D. Waters, and M. Stone. 2019. Gender and cultural bias in student evaluations: Why representation matters. PLoS ONE 14 (2): e0209749. Geertz, C. 1988. Works and lives. Anthropologist as author. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hedström, J. 2017. Fear and fieldwork in Myanmar. International Feminist Journal of Politics 19 (3): 386–387. Holmes, G., K.A.M. Wright, S. Basu, M. Hurley, M. Martin de Almagro, R. Guerrina, and C. Cheng. 2019. Feminist experiences of ‘studying up’: Encounters with international institutions. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 47 (2): 210–230. Holvikivi, A. 2019. Gender experts and critical friends: Research in relations of proximity, European Journal of Politics and Gender 2: 131–147. Jacoby, T. 2006. From the trenches: Dilemmas of feminist IR fieldwork. In Feminist methodologies for International Relations, ed. Brooke A. Ackerly, Maria Stern, and Jacqui True. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Katz, C. 1994. Playing the field: Questions of fieldwork in geography. Professional Geographer 46 (1): 67–72. Lamont, C. 2015. Research methods in International Relations. London: Sage. Lecocq, B. 2006. Fieldwork ain’t always fun: Public and hidden discourses on fieldwork. History in Africa 29 (2002): 273–282. Marcus, G.E. 1995. Ethnography in/of the world system: The emergence of ­multi-sited ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 95–117. McGahern, U. 2019. Making space on the run: Exercising the right to move in Jerusalem. Mobilities 14: 890–905. Osborne, S. 2019. Giulio Regeni: Cambridge student “tortured to death for being British spy”. The Independent. Retrieved 7 May 2019 from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/giulio-regeni-italy-egypt-murdered-british-spy-cairo-a8901696.html. Partis-Jennings, H. 2017. Military masculinity and the act of killing in Hamlet and Afghanistan. Men and Masculinities 22: 254–272. Passaro, J. 1997. “You can’t take the subway to the field!”: “Village” epistemologies in the global village. In Anthropological locations: Boundaries and grounds of a field science, ed. A. Gupta and J. Fergusson. Berkeley: University of California Press. Philpott, S. 2018. This stillness, this lack of incident: Making conflict visible in West Papua. Critical Asian Studies 50 (2): 259–277. https://doi.org/10.1080/146727 15.2018.1445537. Powdermaker, H. 2007. A woman going native. In Ethnographic fieldwork: An anthropological reader, ed. A.C.G.M. Robben and J.A. Sluka. Oxford: Blackwell. Roll, K., and G. Swenson. 2019. Fieldwork after conflict: Contextualising the challenges of access and data quality. Disasters 43 (2): 240–260. https://doi. org/10.1111/disa.12321. Routley, L. 2016. Negotiating corruption: NGOs, governance, and hybridity in West Africa. London: Routledge.

100  L. ROUTLEY AND K. A. M. WRIGHT Sluka, J.A., and A.C.G.M. Robben. 2007. Fieldwork in cultural anthropology: An introduction. In Ethnographic fieldwork: An anthropological reader, ed. A.C.G.M. Robben and J.A. Sluka. Oxford: Blackwell. Smith, K.E. 2006. Problematising power relations in ‘elite’ interviews. Geoforum 37 (4): 643–653. Snaith, E. 2019. Matthew Hedges: British academic jailed by UAE for ‘spying’ says government did not do enough to help him. The Independent. Retrieved 7 May 2019 from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/matthew-hedges-uae-spy-durham-government-foreign-office-a8900546.html. Stöckmann, J. 2017. Women, wars, and world affairs: Recovering feminist International Relations, 1915–39. Review of International Studies 44: 215–235. UCU. (2016). A snapshot of insecure contracts and institutional attitudes. Retrieved 14 May 2019 from https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/7995/Precarious-work-inhigher-education-a-snapshot-of-insecure-contracts-and-institutional-attitudesApr-16/pdf/ucu_precariouscontract_hereport_apr16.pdf. Vanderbeck, R.M. 2005. Masculinities and fieldwork: Widening the discussion. Gender, Place and Culture 12 (4): 387–402. Vitalis, R. 2017. Beyond practitioner histories of International Relations: Or, the stories that professors like to tell (about) themselves. In What’s the point of International Relations, ed. S. Dyvik, J. Selby, and R. Wilkinson. Abingdon: Routledge. Vrasti, W. 2008. The strange case of ethnography and International Relations. Millennium 37 (2): 279–301. Weston, K. 1997. The virtual anthropologist. In Anthropological locations: Boundaries and grounds of a field science, ed. A. Gupta and J. Fergusson. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wright, K.A.M. 2019. Telling NATO’s story of Afghanistan: Gender and the alliance’s digital diplomacy. Media, War & Conflict 12 (1): 87–101. Wright, K.A.M., and M. Hurley. 2017. Navigating gender, power and perceptions when researching NATO: A conversation. International Feminist Journal of Politics 19 (3): 390–392. Wright, K.A.M., M. Hurley, and J.I. Gil Ruiz. 2019. NATO, gender and the military: Women organising from within. London: Routledge. Young, I. 2003. The Logic of masculinist protection: Reflections on the current security state. Signs 29 (1): 1–26.

CHAPTER 7

Interview Locations Paul Jackson

In 1996 I was somewhere in Northern Uganda visiting a local government office. There was an insurgency going on. I arrived at the local government offices. Typical, single story, African government buildings painted a faded pale green. I walked into the office and there was a government officer behind a desk. On the desk was an AK47 Assault Rifle. Just an AK47. He looked up at me, winked, and said ‘Just in case’.

Interview Locations and Context: The Power of Place For most researchers engaged in fieldwork, the interview is the basic scaffolding that allows you to construct knowledge. Interviews develop individual subjectivity but also allow a researcher to incorporate experiential truths into the creation of knowledge by broadening and deepening the understanding of people being interviewed (Herzog 2005). They do this by encouraging interaction between an interviewer and an interviewee in a social setting, allowing an exchange of knowledge between them. Interviews need at least two people and frequently involve more, forcing the interviewer out of the ethical comfort zone of seeing participants as ‘subjects’ and presenting fully rounded people with broader concerns, networks and existence that would not be picked up by merely ticking boxes. If you are interested in people as a researcher, interviews are the enjoyable part because they allow you to interact with other people, whatever their circumstances. In my twenty years of working on fieldwork in a wide variety of contexts, the interview has remained my main source of knowledge. No two interviews P. Jackson (*)  University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_7

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are ever the same, and I have met some quite extraordinary people, which is the great joy of being a social scientist, as opposed to being an anti-social one. This chapter looks at something that we all deal with but rarely write or read about, beyond ‘is it safe’ or ‘is it convenient’? What I intend to look at here is how the location of an interview can shape the outcomes of that interview, including the knowledge that is taken away and the power relationships that are being conveyed by both parties as part of the interview. In some ways, this chapter buys into the view that conventional classroom research methods don’t just describe social realities, but help to create them (Law 2004). Methods are always political, reality is messy and the relationships, performances and things found in interview spaces are an integral part of that. This implies that the choice of interview location is more than convenience or safety but affects the knowledge gained by that interview; the location itself should be seen as part of knowledge interpretation; and the interview location itself plays a part in knowledge creation as a cultural product and producer (Law 2004; Herzog 2005).

The Interview as Research Context There is a vast battery of advice regarding interviews and several introductory texts cover the details of interview technique, approaches and even the power relations (see, e.g., Mosley 2013). However, the subject of place or the implications of where you actually interview someone, and how that affects the interview itself and the data collection, remains conspicuous by its absence (Elwood and Martin 2000). Location is also curiously absent in otherwise excellent texts on the interview process itself, that tend to concentrate on technique, power and how to deal with difficulties like criminalisation (Mosley 2013). Even texts that I admire for taking an alternative view of where fieldwork can go wrong tend to ignore place (Karlan and Appel 2016).1 Building on Elwood and Martin (2000) in geography, Herzog (2005) in sociology and Gagnon et al. (2014), amongst others in nursing and health, this chapter offers some experience of interpreting place as an integral part of interviewing. The interview itself is probably the most frequently used part of qualitative research. Compared to questionnaires, for example, interviews are used to collect detailed narrative data that allows researchers to understand people’s lives in greater detail. Interviews allow exploration of subjects to elicit meanings in what is normally termed ‘a natural setting’ (Kvale 1996: 174). Interviews also provide a valuable way of exploring the construction of meanings through not only analysing words, answers to questions or reports of informants views, but also through allowing interviewees to speak in their own voice and express themselves in their own words (Berg 2007).

1 The

irony here being that a book called Failing in the Field does not say all that much about the actual field.

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Interviews allow researchers to go beyond qualitative approaches by taking into account the social life of participants. That makes it even more surprising that the location of the interview has remained so elusive as a concern. Where location is mentioned at all, it tends to be in the context of safety and logistics and very rarely does it come up as part of the construction of knowledge that takes place during an interview. Technical descriptions of interview techniques never mention location as a source of information and yet, in my experience, the location of interviews can tell you an awful lot about the people you are interviewing. After all, if you are entertaining people at your home or even in your office, are there some books or papers that you would rather they did (or didn’t) see? What do you tidy up? Or leave for people to see? All of this is part of how you want to project yourself and it is naïve to assume that others do not do the same. As Elwood and Martin (2000: 649–650) contend, Careful observation and analysis of people, activities, interactions that constitutes these spaces, of the choices that different participants make about interview sites and of participants’ varying positions, roles, and identities in different sites can illustrate the social geographies of a place. The “microgeographie” can offer new insights with respect to research questions, help researchers understand and interpret interview materials, and highlight ethical considerations in the research process.

Indeed, geography, has seen a growing interest in space and place as subjects, although not, notably in terms of their own choices of space and place in interviews. Over time these concepts have come to mean different things to different people, but are usually conceptualised as linked concepts (Hubbard et al. 2004). Space is generally perceived as a physical or virtual location, or the distances from, say, public services, police posts or a location of safety. In health care, for example, space is used to examine the issues that affect patients’ access to health services (Poland et al. 2005). Place, however, is seen as an emerging property of someone or something that is a result of a complex web of interactions and forms of practice that result in the creation of subjectivity and the construction of meaning within a specific space (Agnew 2011). Space is where you are, place is what you make of it. Interview location involves both of these elements. If you, as an interviewer, go into an office and see something unusual, or something that has been singled out by the interviewee, then this helps you in formulating your understanding of that space and the person who inhabits it. I once went to breakfast with a leading Maoist leader and his wife around 2009. Like many senior Nepalis, his house has a room that is used for meetings—a public space in a private one. On the wall facing me was an array of pictures communist leaders (Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao), but on the wall next to me was just one portrait of Trotsky. There was nothing else on the wall. Clearly designed to send a message to visitors, the image of permanent revolution by someone who had actually led an armed revolt for ten years, was extremely powerful.

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What Actually Happens in Interviews Part of me is usually horrified when I read methodology books on interviews when they start talking about power. I am a middle aged, white, English Professor. I am not a very posh professor, but to most people I have power and within the academy I am assumed to have lots of power. However, during fieldwork I am always conscious that other people are doing me a favour by making time for an interview. I am not the most important thing that has happened to a lot of people in the particular day that I interview them and they don’t have unlimited time. I have very little actual power and perhaps need to be a little less arrogant and a bit more grateful to the people who are giving up their time to talk to me. I mention this because of two reasons. Firstly, many textbooks seem to be based on the premise that you, as an educated and probably privileged person in a university have all of the power and that the interview process involves you giving up some of that power (see, e.g., Ecker 2017).2 In reality, this may be a far more negotiated process and both parties negotiate the social definition of the interview. Most methodological approaches advise you to be flexible and to fit in with the interviewee and in some ways the subject of the interview will be a determining factor. In Ecker’s (2017) work, for example, the homeless people he was interviewing liked to come to see him or go for a coffee because they saw it as a social event beyond their normal everyday lives. This is a common feature of interviewing in several social spaces in post-conflict environments where, for example, it may be easier to take someone for a drink, or to buy a group of youths on a street corner some Coca Cola and stand around a talk. In a way, this is fitting in with the group but also providing a slight change to routine. It also illustrates that your ‘power’ rests on your ability to buy drinks. It is also true that for extremely sensitive topics like sexual violence; it may be better to interview people in some degree of privacy either in their own home or in a safe space like an NGO where they regularly meet. In most post-conflict situations, homes may be difficult, but the need for privacy remains, placing the practical onus on NGOs and government (if there is any). In more than one place I have hired rooms in local hotels, or even a bar once, where there could be some degree of privacy. Secondly, being a professor from the UK has a certain set of expectations that go with it and these do need to be managed. I have been told several times that people expect ‘something’ to happen after my visit and in one visit to the Luwero Triangle in Uganda, I was met be a group of exasperated locals who declared that they would be willing to talk to me as long as I didn’t propose yet another workshop. They clearly expected me to have 2 This is undoubtedly because Ecker’s excellent paper discusses the issues with regard to interviewing homeless and vulnerable people in the USA, where there are clear issues about authority and power.

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some say on UK Government policy and expected me to take back some of their views to the UK Government, even after I explained what I was actually doing there (it was an evaluation). This particular group were also suffering from a degree of research fatigue and didn’t want any more questions or participation. In such a situation you have no power at all as a researcher because so many people have been there before, frequently asking the same questions. Apart from the obvious issue of them being very aware of answers that were expected of them, this creates issues with people just refusing to talk. There are positive and negative effects to this. On the negative side, you may just get poor research results. People might be unwilling to talk or just say what they think you want to hear, and your access may be compromised. On the positive side, people may be willing to talk if they value what you are doing and you are willing to explain it to them—a negotiation. I had an excellent experience of this when interviewing around 250 former Maoist combatants in Nepal. I had been involved with the peace process and several of them knew that, which gave me some degree of access, but I was still questioned several times about what I was going to do with the research. In one example, I had travelled for around seven hours in a truck full of Maoists who sang songs the whole way. This was certainly not what a conventional ethics committee may have recommended but I was safe, even if I was being driven along the most dangerous roads in the world. Eventually, after an evening of drinking local hooch (‘It’s fine – it is made from fruit, Paul’) I stayed in the safe house that Prachanda and Batterai used during the war to hide from the authorities and I sat around all evening listening to war stories and histories of Maoist views of the war. One female former company commander in particular came to see me at this local mountain HQ but wouldn’t answer anything until I explained what I was going to do with the information. I explained that it was research and that I worked in other parts of the world with other rebel groups and the idea of their experiences being internationalised was seen as a real positive. My power was not over her, it was over what I could promise her about that information and how she would be represented. For the interview itself, she was clearly not intimidated by me and she had all the cards. Donors, Politicians and Power: The Politics of ‘I’m Really Important’ There are some categories of interviewees in a post-conflict environment that you have to deal with, but they like to enforce power over you, or at least project a certain type of power. For them, meeting at their place of work may not be the best option. For many donor staff, their offices may not actually be very good for holding meetings and most of the donor community will have regular haunts where they meet. There are several of these places around the world and they fall into three main types: the grand, glass and concrete hotel where

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you could be anywhere in the world—think the Sheraton in Addis Ababa or Kampala; or the low-rise, slightly run down historical h ­ otel-cum-guesthouse like the Fairview Hotel in Nairobi; or, thirdly, the ‘there is no other hotel’, hotel, like the Lighthouse used to be in Freetown. In Kathmandu, one of the main donor hang-outs for meals, coffee and meetings is the Summit Hotel. During the day it gets packed with people having earnest meetings and drinking expensive coffee. The car park is full of white four-wheeled drive cars and there are several meeting rooms. Whenever I stay there, the days are full of conferences and workshops with at least two going on pretty much every day. The evenings are different, but useful. A lot of experienced consultants stay there. It has a small bar and restaurant and it is quiet so you can work. It also—crucially—has a garden. The bar has been the site of many interesting informal interviews and discussions, and also of unexpected meetings. Such spaces are part of an internationalised place that forms a specific set of constructs implying a way of doing things that is international, cosmopolitan and very, very ‘important’. In the course of working in difficult environments as a fieldworker, you will undoubtedly encounter such spaces and probably have to stay in them. The first time I went to Sierra Leone I stayed in the Lighthouse Hotel with about twenty UK police officers because it was pretty much the only place to stay. In terms of interviews, it may be that in a sense this might be the effective place of work for someone in a donor agency. I have known people to spend an entire day in the same seat in a restaurant just having one meeting after another. As such you are being given access to the everyday politics of donor existence. This is what many donor staff spend their lives doing in field offices or at least a significant amount of their time. Networking with other donors and also officials is a key activity for many donor staff and this will also include off-duty socialising like parties and weekend trips. You can learn a lot from the interaction of donor staff with others—are they friendly? Do people come across and say hello? Or do they avoid the person you are talking to? One of the things I am always surprised by is how indiscreet some people can be in what they assume is a safe space because it is full of other donor and NGO staff. When I worked in Kathmandu with the Maoists during the peace negotiations I was having a drink at the bar of the Summit one evening, when I got talking to the barman. I had been there for a whilst and very frequently and had got to know many of the staff. When I explained what I was doing, he said ‘Ah – we have a Maoist’ and dragged this waiter out of the kitchen. We then talked for a couple of hours. As he described later ‘he was studying me and I was studying him’. When I reported the fact that there was a Maoist waiter in the Summit to the donor officials I met later that week—which was where a lot of international business was conducted—there was a degree of surprise. I suggested that had I been a Maoist and wanted to know what the

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international community was doing, then the Summit would probably the first place I would send a cadre. Just a measure of what kind of bubble some of the international community inhabit. This is frequently made worse by the rapid cycles of incoming and outgoing members of the international community. Most of these people are on one- or two-year contracts and from a local point of view, they come in and then move on without really committing to the locality. One thing to try to do is to find the small group of internationals who have made a commitment to the country they are working in. In every country I have worked in, there have been a small group of people who have fallen in love with the country and have stayed there for several years. Some have married locals and others have settled there permanently and they have invested the time in getting to know a place. Occasionally, they write about it and these sources can be invaluable for the researcher in practical terms. I have in mind here books like Kathmandu by Thomas Bell and Beloved Country by my friend and colleague Gordon Peake about his falling in love with East Timor. Both also contain excoriating analyses of the international community in the tradition of the excellent Naples ’44 by Norman Lewis. When it comes to interviewing ‘locals’ in these types of environment, this is also showing you something as an interviewer. If someone chooses to meet there, then this is clearly showing an equivalence—‘I am also part of this international, sophisticated community’—and there will be regulars who do this. People who are frequently engaged in working with donors, senior civil servants, police or military, they are usually those who are powerful but have some international links through training, employment or background. Interaction in these spaces implies a particular sort of place—an affiliation with internationalised networks. These donor spaces are not neutral territory. The other side of the coin is being careful about inviting people to places like that. Not everyone is comfortable in those surroundings and some people may take offence. For example, interviewing people from vulnerable backgrounds like refugees is usually difficult in those environments, whereas consider the signals you are sending out if you choose that as a location: I want to talk to you but am not willing to leave my sanitised bubble and come and see you in your own country. A caricature, for sure, but also an accurate one. One of the most common criticisms I have heard about Western researchers is that they come and stay in sanitised hotels and never leave. Over the years I have tried to take the opposite view and make friends with people who live there, spending very little time with the international community unless I know them personally. That should not be interpreted as somehow being romantic—it is an entirely selfish decision based on what I enjoy—and there are basic rules about safety and risk that need to be followed. From my point of view I take fewer risks than I used to now I have a family, but I can still occasionally be found in the Himalayas sitting drinking with former Maoists. It should also

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be noted that as a straight, white, male professor, my spectrum of risk is different to some others who would require significantly more care and trust. I can speak for myself, though, in saying that my personal trust in people has usually been rewarded with a series of positive relationships, sometimes over years, with people who I otherwise would have just interviewed for half an hour. Reading a Room—What a Participant’s Choice Can Tell You Assuming you are not going to interview someone in the Sheraton, you are going into the wide world where the location of interviews can tell you a lot about the people who inhabit the context of your research. For me, this is the part that I love. I enjoy travelling around the country drinking it all in. I am not an anthropologist who spends an entire career in one village, but neither do I fly in for a couple of days and fly out. For the last ten years or so I have done what I describe as ‘develop a relationship’ with a country. That is, I only work in a small number of places, usually between one and three at any one time, and I go back to do different activities. I invest in a place and do the work. I am lucky that I enjoy it, but it usually takes some persuading to make me adopt a new country to work in because of that. Before I worked in Nepal it took a couple of Nepali friends of mine around two years to persuade me to get involved in a programme of work and I did so partly because it was the Nepalis who wanted me to do it. Sierra Leone is one of the places I have been associated with since about 2002. My first job there was to go and look at what was left of the local government and assess if there was any prospect of taxation at the local level. I spent a long time in local government offices, but also with chiefs, who at that time had numerous responsibilities and had an organised tax and justice system. In many places I visited there was no government apart from the chief. Each Paramount Chief has his own ‘palaver hut’ (where one goes for a palaver) where the chief would hold court. Entering the palaver hut was always interesting, if only to see who was there. Invariably it was a group of old men although many of the chiefs were new just after the war so the chief himself may not have been particularly old. Whilst the chief presided over the meeting and chaired the public sessions, he was also bound by a series of local networks (he had a place) and the most powerful person in the room may well have been the small, old man in the corner who was the senior member of the local secret society. Chiefs also have to follow rules. To this might be added the experience of one of my postgraduate students. She was interviewing chiefs and came across a younger chief who had been on several international training courses in the UK, Norway and Finland. In the course of the discussion she was asking about women’s representation in the community and the chief spoke very eloquently about gender relations, explaining that he had been on several gender awareness courses. Towards the

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end of the conversation the student asked what the women asked him when they came into the palaver hut. At this the chief rolled about laughing: ‘Oh’, he said, ‘they aren’t allowed in the hut!’ So the location, how the chief chooses to portray himself, and who is included or excluded from the interview location is all critical knowledge about place; the way in which layers and processes construct webs of social relationships that may not be hierarchical but certainly impact on the social lives of local people. You Are a Guest as Well as an Interviewer At some stage a decision has to be made about access. The one to one interview may not be the best way of doing this. I have bought soft drinks and stood around on street corners with former combatants. Bars are extremely useful. If working with people like security services, police, etc. try to go to their local bar with them and have a drink. Be aware that many ethics committees do not allow an interviewer to drink with a subject, but this presupposes a rather clinical approach with hard and fast boundaries around the interview. It is clear that meetings in offices wouldn’t involve alcohol but some interviewees prefer to meet in bars where they may be signalling a more relaxed approach. In Sierra Leone, many civil servants go to Graham Greene’s old bar, which is still there. It is the only place I have ever drank pink gin. Never again—it is vile. But worth it for the titbits of information I got. Although I hesitate to say it, an ability to drink is frequently helpful. This is not just alcohol, and indeed there are several places where you c­ annot drink alcohol, but I have found that drinking with people relaxes them and makes an interaction friendlier and more likely to be open. When working as part of the peace process in Nepal, I was the adviser to the Nepali Technical Committee dealing with the demobilisation of the Maoist Army. As such I was treated as a Nepali even at formal occasions where I sat with the other members of the committee. We had a system of retreats over weekends where the different parties would go and stay. We would have meetings during the day and eat and drink in the evenings. In the end, it was the informal interaction that proved the most important because that was all about trust. In the first meeting, the Nepalis were all drinking really terrible whisky and filling their tumblers up with water to dilute it. As someone from the ­Anglo-Scottish Border I took umbrage with that and my role then became to bring along a different bottle of single malt to start the informal sessions. I would explain where it was from and why it tasted like it did and then I would only allow minimal water, but everyone drank from the same bottle. This, then, became the ice breaker. I mention this story because it is all part of the process of getting to know people. In fieldwork you have to trust people. In a Ph.D. workshop, I was once asked if it was OK to make friends with people when you were doing

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fieldwork and my answer was ‘how could you not?’ I bring this down to the simple fact that these are people and not just ‘subjects’. As researchers we are guests in their country. We go home after our fieldwork and the people we interview usually continue living in the environments we study. The risks of being too controversial or politically awkward are far higher for our subjects than for us. Too often I have seen researchers act as if they are the most important person in the room when they really aren’t and perhaps more textbooks should teach fieldworkers to have far more humility and respect and to act more as if we are guests. After all, this would imply that we have obligations as well as expectations. In the Nepali example, my obligation was partly to give advice, but as a person it was also to drink with them and join the discussion. It Can All Go Horribly Wrong—Discomfort and Danger Of course, not all interview locations are welcome or congenial for talking. Some are downright uncomfortable for a number of reasons. In my own experience, one of the most harrowing days I have spent was visiting primary health care centres in Rakai District on the Ugandan border with Tanzania. The number of children suffering from treatable diseases sounds something close to cliché, but as a father myself this was personally very hard. There are also times when you will need to take slightly higher risks to get higher gains. In dealing with actors engaged with conflict you do end up meeting some people who you rather wished that you hadn’t met and where they arrange to meet could be considered risky by a research ethics committee or, more particularly, by a university insurance officer. Late-night meetings in houses and hastily arranged meetings with guerrillas are always fraught with risk on some level. The key, in those situations, is to take sensible precautions (let people know where you are going, take a mobile, don’t go on your own) and to trust the people you are with. If you don’t trust them then don’t go. Some locations can be menacing and dangerous. In my career, I have been extremely lucky to not really have been in real danger (although my definition of ‘real danger’ is probably a bit more elastic than most), but I have been placed in some extremely awkward situations where I felt distinctly uncomfortable. One of the most colourful was in Sibiu, Romania in 1998. I had been working on a decentralisation programme across Romania that involved establishing support mechanisms for local government to facilitate accession to the European Union. These were based in Bucharest and six small cities across the country, including Sibiu, an extremely beautiful town at the end of a pass in the Carpathian Mountains. Most of the senior politicians we met were either young former dissidents or former communist mayors. In this case, I was meeting a former communist mayor to discuss service provision. We were talking in his office and then he offered to take me for a coffee at a local bar. ‘Fine’, I thought, and followed

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him. This place was pretty quiet but very nicely decorated and we were drinking coffee until (at around 12 noon) the lights darkened and some music came on and the glitter balls started rotating. All of a sudden these three girls came through a door to pulsating music and started dancing. This was clearly more than a coffee shop. After a couple of questions about waste collection and local tax, the conversation became slightly muffled and I made my apologies and left. A strip club is not a conducive environment for discussions on local service provision. I feel that I should point out that I have never been in a strip club either before or since that incident and I could not have been more uncomfortable. Give me a violent psychopath in war zone any day. If you let the interviewee choose the location, be aware that you might not like what they want to present to you. What does this tell me about the former communist mayor apart from the obvious? Well, he didn’t last too long after I was there. He was not really trying to adjust to the new world he faced, but he was trying to be sophisticated and act as if we were ‘all blokes together’, which is a tactic that is deployed by those who are usually worried about something else. In effect, it was an insight into the older world where mayors were able to behave in that way because of their power and also because they shared a number of ways of exploiting that power. The Absence of Location: Interviewing by Remote Control Lastly, I wanted to say something about the decontextualisation of the interview through the increased use of online interviews, Skype and more remote approaches to research. This is on the increase partly due to cost but also as part of a move towards more risk-averse approaches to fieldwork. This is also happening more broadly within the donor community in what Mark Duffield refers to as ‘bunkerisation’ whereby international staff reside in protected bunkers and rely on local staff to go out and do the work (Duffield 2012). Given my argument about the importance of context, you will be unsurprised that I regard this very much as a second class approach. Interviewing by software like Skype has its advantages and most researchers have to use it, but if you have ever attended an interview for a job and someone in using Skype then that person is automatically disadvantaged because the panel does not pick up the subtlety of body language, environmental features or the non-verbal communication that is important when humans interact. Researchers need to be aware that this also distances you as a researcher from the subjects you are researching and this can have an impact depending on who you are researching. A donor officer may be used to using Skype, but the use of technology like this is also a form of exclusion of those who do not have access to computers, so it may only be possible with some types of research in any case.

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One way to increase outreach is to work with teams of local researchers who are able to access spaces that may be difficult for western researchers to reach, for whatever reason. I am currently involved in some work on local government in Afghanistan but there is no way that I can go to most of these governments. I have to rely on teams of people that I know and trust and who I know understand what we are trying to do. This sort of effort requires resources and skill to get right. The time is invested in training and discussion with the interview teams, along with co-development of the interview approaches where possible. This can be a successful approach, but it requires more effort than doing interviews yourself in some ways. However, I have used this approach successfully before and when we have held workshops at the end of the fieldwork we have had excellent discussions about the contexts, what the subject wore, where they wanted to be interviewed, what was there, and any other contextual factors.

What Does Location Tell You About Your Research? Overall this chapter has started to unpick some of the core issues involved with the choice and use of interview location. I have tried to show that the interview is a social construct and in the real world is a negotiated social event. No one side holds all of the power and the location and context of the interview are part of the overall context of the construction of knowledge that is the real purpose of an interview. The guidelines for carrying out interviews should be to be guided by the interviewee. As we have seen above, this not only shows respect for the interviewee, but can also teach you, the interviewer, a lot about who you are talking to and how they want to be seen. This can vary incredibly from the politician who wants to be seen to be important in their office, or as equal to you in a western enclave drinking coffee, through to a female former Maoist combatant who wants to be seen on her farm to enhance her independence. I would go so far as recording a lot of this detail in fieldwork journals, or even—if acceptable—taking a photograph. The female Maoists mentioned above actually played a part in constructing their own photographs. A research student and I used a technique from Africa in getting the combatants to play a role in constructing their own images rather than us just taking pictures or presenting female combatants as something specific in keeping with our own prejudices. In this way, the photograph became an expression of how they saw themselves and their ‘place’. It was striking how many women had themselves photographed on their farms or in their businesses to emphasise independence. One even had her husband pictured behind her doing the washing up to emphasise the equality of their relationship—a hugely political move in a hierarchical society with deep gender role expectations.

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If you accept that the interview is more than a mere exchange of data and is more of a method of construction of knowledge, then the place in which the interview is held is also part of that process. Spending time in Chiefdom courts in Sierra Leone can teach you about networks of obligation surrounding authority figures and potentially how that can be abused whereas talking to vulnerable people in a marginal urban area raises issues of privacy, crowding and how to live in a difficult, smelly, overcrowded environment. This is exactly what the aim of qualitative research is: it aims to contextualise data by allowing the researcher to take into account the social conditions of the subject. If you want to understand people, then understanding their space and their place is the key.

References Agnew, J. 2011. Space and place. In The Sage handbook of geographical knowledge: Space and place, ed. J. Agnew and D.N. Livingston, 1–18. London: Sage. Berg, B.L. 2007. Qualitative research methods for the social sciences. London: Pearson. Duffield, M. 2012. Challenging environments: Danger, resilience and the aid industry. Security Dialogue 43 (5): 475–492. Ecker, J. 2017. A reflexive inquiry on the effect of place on research interviews conducted with homeless and vulnerably housed individuals. Forum: Qualitative Social Research 18 (1). Elwood, S., and D. Martin. 2000. “Placing” interviews: Location and scales of power in qualitative research. The Professional Geographer, 52 (4 November): 649–657. Gagnon, M., J.D. Jacob, and J. McCabe. 2015. Locating the qualitative interview; reflecting on space and place in nursing research. Journal of Research in London 20 (3): 203–215. Herzog, H. 2005. On home turf: Interview location and its social meaning. Qualitative Sociology 28 (1): 25–47. Hubbard, P., R. Kitchin, and G. Valentin. 2004. Editors’ introduction. In Key thinkers on space and place, ed. P. Hubbard, R. Kitchin, and G. Valentine, 1–16. London: Sage. Karlan, D., and J. Appel. 2016. Failing in the field: What we can learn when field research goes wrong. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kvale, S. 1996. InterViews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Law, J. 2004. After method: Mess in social science research. Basingstoke: Routledge. Lewis, N. 1978. Naples ’44: An intelligence officer in the Italian Labyrinth, William Collins. New York: Eland Publishing. A book everyone working in post-conflict should read. Mosley, L. 2013. Interview research in political science. New York: Cornell University Press. Peake, Gordon. 2014. Beloved Land: stories, struggles, and secrets from Timor-Leste. London: Scribe UK. Poland, B., P. Lehoux, D. Holmes, et al. 2005. How place matters: Unpacking technology and power in health and social care. Health and Social Care in the Community 13 (2): 170–180.

CHAPTER 8

From Risk Aversion to Risk Management Sophie Roborgh

I was looking for a language tutor and potential translator in a field site with considerable state surveillance. I asked journalists and fellow scholars whether they knew someone suitable, and one person was recommended several times. I quickly made an appointment to meet him. Opening the door, a young man stood in front of me. He was quiet and shy, wearing spectacles and ill-fitted clothes. We worked over a few sessions on teaching me additional vocabulary of specific relevance to my project, and then we moved towards translating my questionnaire. I was happy with his assistance. A few weeks later, I was travelling on an early weekend morning with local public transport, which tended to be rarely used by foreigners. The platforms and carriages were nearly empty. While my train was waiting at the station to depart, the train on the neighbouring platform came in, right next to us. Through my window and those of the other train, I saw a young man hurrying down the staircase onto the platform and jumping on the train. He was wearing a fashionable t-shirt, his hair carefully styled. Still, he looked remarkably like my translator. Had I seen it correctly? I still do not know. I had never seen him like this. But I did look that man in the eyes for several hours per week, and immediately recognised him, even when dressed so differently. Perhaps he had a doppelgänger. However, if it was indeed him, why was he dressing so differently for his classes with his foreign clients? Was he the introverted young man I thought he was, or was there more to it? In our next meetings, I never asked him if he had been in the station at that day. I also did not tell anyone else of my worries, in case I had seen it wrong after all, and my mistake would harm the reputation and livelihood of a hardworking, innocent man. Instead, I slowly dialled down our engagement, phasing our lessons out, claiming to be busy, and was careful not to involve him in anything potentially sensitive. S. Roborgh (*)  University of Manchester, Manchester, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_8

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This is an example of one of the manifold moments in my fieldwork, where I was confronted with an unexpected dilemma pertaining to risk, both to the participants and myself, which required to be managed. In this case, it dealt with the question whether my translator could be trusted. More generally, it highlights questions on whom to ask advise from, and how to manage potential risks in insecure field sites. This chapter goes further into such questions. The most important obligation for any researcher is to do no harm to research participants and their communities. However, the ability of researchers to safeguard participants is partially dependent on their own personal knowledge, safety and well-being in the field. Working as a researcher in a society to which one’s personal ties are limited at best, creates unique challenges. Many field sites are difficult, but this chapter looks in particular at those characterised by autocracy and surveillance, where even the most innocuous topics can become politically contentious and invite unwelcome attention. Fieldwork is never without risk, especially when conducted in an authoritarian field site that brings its own practical and ethical challenges (Clark 2006). This comes to the fore in the recurring arrests, and sometimes even death, of those venturing into the field, engaging in research, training and other forms of knowledge production (Hedges 2019). With less government transparency and public accountability, factors can be at play of which you (and others around you) are little aware. This chapter is foremost based on my personal experiences researching grassroots medical humanitarianism in three field sites, Egypt, southern Turkey (for the response of local Syrian networks) and Ukraine (both Kyiv and Eastern Ukraine), and my more recent forays in supervising others who engage in fieldwork and primary data gathering. It also draws on literature on research ethics in fieldwork, such as contributions engaging with questions of reflexivity, positionality and relational research contacts. I focus in particular on the experience of the ‘outsider’ researcher, the only experience I can personally speak to. This scholar conducts research in an unfamiliar, or better said, less familiar field site. In my experience, risks are most likely to occur when you think you have sufficient knowledge of a field site and largely understand its spoken and unspoken expectations and restrictions, and suddenly find yourself confronted with a situation that falls outside of this interpretative framework. I conducted my fieldwork largely by myself, during my Ph.D. and in my first post-doctoral field sites. Although I had mentors for all these endeavours, there are limitations to how much they can assist you once you are in the field, far away from your institution. In Ukraine, I was able to work with a research assistant for the first time, which significantly changed the experience. This points to the rather counterintuitive practice that more senior scholars, through accessing larger grants, often can rely on a sizeable, experienced team for their fieldwork (or even fully outsource this element). Meanwhile, relatively inexperienced young researchers, who are engaged in

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insecure, temporary employment, with large pressure to perform, access the same difficult field site with limited direct assistance, resources and companionship, if any at all. This chapter first goes into the practicalities of fieldwork, largely concentrating on challenges in how to become informed about the field site and how to manage relations that can help in this effort. It then argues that risk in fieldwork can never be fully anticipated and hence pre-emptively averted. Instead of limiting our involvement in high-risk research, we should strive to get better at managing these risks, especially in our support for young scholars.

Accessing Field Sites, Networks and Information Getting Started: Reading up on Conducting Fieldwork in Difficult Circumstances Before heading out to the field, there is a lot of literature that you can consult on safety in the field. There are several initiatives that engage with questions of risk and safety during fieldwork. Although for long quite dispersed, increasingly, publications and other resources are gathered in databases and bibliographies, such as the bibliography compiled by the Advancing Research on Conflict (ARC) Consortium, which offers sources on various fieldwork issues, including a specific section on ‘Field logistics, data security, and risk management’. In my field, I also have benefited from the efforts of the ­Post-Research Ethics Analysis (PREA) research project, that fosters and produces research and knowledge exchange on how to conduct research in humanitarian and disaster settings. Although they focus specifically on health in these contexts, their work is of relevance to other themes in these field settings as well. Finally, in a context of risk, acting ethically is of high importance. Reading about other academics’ experiences, for example, in volumes such as the recently published ‘The Palgrave Handbook of Ethics in Critical Research’ (Macleod et al. 2018), has been very helpful in sensitising me to moments and exchanges with moral weight that I would otherwise not have been aware of. Many academic fields also have a national or international association that offers guidelines on research methodology and ethics. Reading up on the Field Site in Question Investigating the political situation in the field site should be a priority. One of the starting points is the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, such as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s country profiles. These provide information on risks in the country where fieldwork is being planned, and their assessments may influence institutional risk assessment process outcomes, and determine whether scholars are allowed to conduct their fieldwork there in the first place. For further information on the ground,

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websites of NGOs, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group, international organisations such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), or websites such as The New Humanitarian, prove helpful. In addition, many countries have a human rights sector, be it in the country itself or in the diaspora. It is worth reading up on their publications and reports. Similarly, a field site may contain independent news media that provide a relatively independent view point in contrast to state media. It is also worth visiting academic conferences, film events, etc. on the topic of that specific field site for the purpose of learning about key developments, important debates, and to make new contacts or expand your networks. However, it is important to take into account that some authoritarian states have a reputation for monitoring their diaspora, including such events. Knowing Your Own Limitations The emergence of new conflicts and catastrophes, as is likely to occur in the case of research in the humanitarian and disaster sphere, creates an urgency to enter new field sites. Research funds will quickly follow as a new ‘hot topic’ emerges, and scholars flurry to put a research proposal together, either invited or out of their own initiative. Sometimes this rapid move into the field occurs without proper reflection whether the individual or team involved is the best positioned to do so, or whether it may contribute to stresses and (research) fatigue among local staff and beneficiaries of the aid industry. Especially in the case of research calls to engage with an emerging crisis, time for reflexive engagement with these questions is limited. This has repercussions for issues such as gaining informed consent, due to a lack of awareness of the specific circumstances (Pillai 2019), and may result in the flooding of local institutional review boards (IRBs) in the Global South with foreign applications of projects that may showcase ignorance of local circumstances (Tegli 2019). The ability to judge to what extent research participants, (potential) other members of the research team and the researcher themself can be affected by the research project (both positively and negatively) is largely based on personal knowledge and continuous engagement with the field site, and an ability to critically reflect on one’s blank spots. It is important to keep in mind that experience with other challenging field sites is only to a limited degree transferable. Sometimes scholars can reel off their ‘tricky destinations’: ‘I worked in Afghanistan, South Sudan, Iraq’, etc. It creates the impression that somehow such societies are similar, and so will the research experience be. Despite the fact that all countries I conducted fieldwork in experienced political instability and surveillance, the level and nature thereof, and its influence on my research projects, differed considerably. Every society had its own concoction of risk factors, which had to be sensitively managed. In addition, in a fast-changing context, previous experience with a field site provides no guarantee that one has an in-depth understanding of current affairs. Field

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sites can change rapidly, and what was once acceptable and common practice, may no longer necessarily remain so. How rapidly became clear to me when I boarded a plane to Ukraine, on my way to the then eastern Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) (now Joint Forces Operation) zone. When I met my research assistant upon arrival, he asked me if I had heard the news. ‘Heard what?’ While I had been travelling, rumours had come out that the northernmost of the two Russia-leaning areas, the so-called “Luhansk People’s Republic”, had experienced some sort of internal power shift. Suddenly, security incidents along the contact line increased manifold, affecting our fieldwork plans. Selecting the Right People to Work with One of the key resources on the ground is your local research team, your local friends and your ‘community’ of fellow scholars, and, depending on context, think tank staff and journalists. Building a local network consisting of several actors, with access to different information (and potentially offering protection), is an important activity, and one ideally started already before departure. If there is the ability to do so, hiring a good research assistant, who understands both local society and the strict standards of academic research, is the single-most important decision in this process. I worked in Ukraine with only one specific assistant and translator. I wish I could say that this person became part of our tiny two-person project team through a very strategic, well thought out, manner. But I actually met him through a series of four rather tenuous links and chance encounters. I agreed with the sum he quoted without discussion and ensured there was no disparity in our accommodation and travel arrangements, to make him feel fully appreciated as part of the team. As I had hoped, he became very invested in the project, actively searching for further avenues for exploration, and turning into a key sounding board for evaluating responses from participants. The fact that he could muster up the enthusiasm to take sleeper trains, or have a six AM morning start in an Eastern Ukrainian winter for a long ‘field day’, always bringing excellent snacks, also helped. We worked as a team for six months, regularly travelling with our rucksacks from town to town, conducting interviews together. My research assistant was much more than just a handy professional to have around. He was in many ways my foothold into society. He helped me navigate tricky conversations and diffuse tensions. He was very charismatic, warming participants to both me as a foreign researcher with only ­limited Russian language skills and the research project. His presence also had a considerable influence on my physical and mental health. When I found myself struck with food poisoning, he dropped by with a shopping bag full of mineral water, wheat crackers and other groceries. When I was struggling with debilitating pressure in my academic and personal life, and my sleep suffered, he scheduled later starts. He therefore mitigated many of the risk factors

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that otherwise could have hampered the project, especially suboptimal decision-making due to local ignorance and lack of cultural sensitivity, and as a result of the prevalence of isolation, physical and mental exhaustion. Seeking (Pro-active) Support from Others’ Efforts Once in the field, one of the first steps is registering with an embassy (or other diplomatic representation) in the field site. Usually, they have an email list or similar warning system, and send out reports if there is a big security incident, or when they anticipate public unrest. However, as they are unlikely to stimulate their nationals’ presence in insecure areas, they may just provide a blanket ‘do not go’ warning pertaining to large parts of the country. This may be helpful for the vast majority of people, but less so if you are conducting research in contexts of conflict and political crises. In Eastern Ukraine, we often had to pro-actively hunt for information on potential security risks. Contrary to staff of humanitarian NGOs and IOs, academics studying the humanitarian response are unfortunately not beneficiaries of the vast protection enterprise that has developed in conflict areas, where entities and organisations such as the International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO) or the United Nations (UN) issue incident data, or even offer real-time incident warnings and updates. This is where your network comes in: it can provide you indirect (but hopefully nevertheless rapid) access to the information you are currently not partial to. In Ukraine, the OSCE was publishing helpful daily reports on security incidents. However, these reports were usually one day old, as it took their staff some time to compile all the data for a comprehensive day report. Therefore, we started to occasionally give them a phone call before heading out anywhere in the vicinity of the contact line. Informing them we were conducting research and had no access to real-time data, we asked them about reports of recent incidents on the route we were planning to take, which they fortunately were happy to provide. Because of ethical and risk considerations, the locations we were planning to visit were generally safe and had been so for quite some time. However, on one occasion our planned route had been shelled the night before, and we therefore decided to change our plans accordingly. In another field site, I knew somebody in an international organisation, who had personal access to such information. If security incidents were reported, or there was a warning, she got in touch with me, informing me which areas to avoid. For this reason, having some contacts among international organisations and the diplomatic community can be helpful. Researcher-Participant Relations and Security A study’s participants also affect security. In many field sites undergoing political turmoil, research essentially entails a leap of faith for both researcher and participant. From the researcher’s side, this promise is very much formalised,

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and explicitly addressed in participant information sheets, consent forms, risk assessments, etc., and subsequent compliance with those. However, as much as participants trust me to keep them and their data safe, I have to trust them to return the favour. This relational consideration affects many decisions, including who to include in the research project. I withheld response when a prospective participant who had dropped out without a word of notice in one of my studies suddenly decided to contact me more than a year later. As he had a unique perspective on some events, I really regretted his decision not to participate. I was not surprised by it, however. He had been nervous about participating in the first place, and changed his mind in the time period between our first meeting, where I introduced the research project, and the actual interview that was scheduled for a few days later. Knowing his considerable reluctance, his decision to initiate contact out of the blue more than a year later, coming in a much more repressive time and with considerably more to lose, gave me pause. I was not sure I could trust his motives for getting back in touch. Erring on the side of caution, I decided not to re-engage with him. Whilst keeping my distance from some (prospective) participants, I socialised with others. The usual professional/private dichotomy one is supposed to maintain as a scholar often breaks down in field sites, where interpersonal trust is in short supply. Providing me with data of their personal experiences in a time of political repression meant that many first wanted to get to know me a little better as a person, before engaging in the research project. Was I ‘safe’? In some field sites, the health workers I studied were part of largely informal networks, that were tightly connected. I often had to undergo an informal ‘vetting process’, with conversations reported to key figures in the networks I was researching. As a researcher, I had promised to maintain anonymity and confidentiality, and could not disclose who else I had talked to. However, I once met up with a participant, who was a little miffed that I ‘was only now coming to talk to [him]’ after first interviewing others he considered less important within the network (see also Clark 2006). Although scholars may rigorously maintain anonymity, some research participants discuss their engagement in the project with each other. There was a mutual duty of care involved in practical matters as well. When conducting my work in Cairo on the medical networks active in the Egyptian revolution, I often had to talk to very busy health workers. They were working long shifts in public hospitals during the day. In the evening, they often worked in a private clinic to compensate for the low payment in the public sector. Finally, I would receive word that someone had some free time to meet me. This was my cue to jump in a taxi or microbus, and cross the metropole of Cairo to wherever this (usually male) health worker wanted to meet. Often, they would subsequently drive me home, or put me in a microbus or a taxi after having spoken to the driver, to ensure I got home safely. It was a courtesy I never could have hoped for, but really appreciated.

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It is also important to know when to say no to an opportunity, due to associated risk. In Eastern Ukraine, we were invited by a fringe political movement to visit their field clinic and spend the night there. Their perspective has been rarely incorporated and it would be a fascinating opportunity to watch the organisation of the field clinic and the interaction among the health workers there. The fact that it was early December did not dampen our enthusiasm, although it did bring up some questions on whether we could find the right kit at this time of year to prevent hypothermia. However, when we found out that the field clinic they had invited us to, was close to the frontline in an area where the conflict was relatively active at that moment, I had to politely decline the invitation. Although, to my knowledge, the clinic had not been shelled before (or since), I could not take the risk that the one night we were there someone would get hurt, especially now that I was also responsible for a young research assistant. Knowing the Limitations of your Network As the story at the beginning of this chapter highlights, it is important to remain discerning when relying on recommendations and assistance from one’s networks. Up-to-date knowledge of the field site is often partially dependent on institutional and local contacts. Academic institutions can, and should, play an important role in preparing researchers for the field. Activities in the most dangerous of field sites are already foreclosed, usually as a result of University risk assessments. Unfortunately, an IRB or risk management department may not necessarily have in-depth knowledge of the field site, nor does a supervisor or line manager. Rarely does one have the good fortune of having a country expert with recent experience in the field site take part in the institutional decision-making process concerning the project or is an opinion of such an expert on the suitability of the research for that field site a requirement during the review process. Ironically, institutional ignorance and overcautiousness can result in well-meaning but misguided guidelines that actually exacerbate risk. A Ph.D. student I know was told he could not conduct interviews in a city which had previously experienced a terrorist bomb attack. Instead, the student now had to meet his interviewees in different localities in the country, some of which were arguably much more dangerous than the city considered off-limits. Meanwhile, the off-limits city had become one of the better policed in the country after the attack. Colleagues who are nationals of the field site are a key source of knowledge. I have personally benefited a lot from their kindness and generosity in answering my ignorant questions, and helping me both before departure and whilst being in the field. However, it is important to keep in mind that they may reason from their own position within their communities, which may affect their perspective of the local situation, and the suggested research project. I have therefore always taken to incorporate their perspectives as a very important input, but searched for others’ opinions as well.

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In appreciating everyone’s suggestions, it is important to keep in mind that one scholar’s risk assessment does not equate to another scholar. Even within the broad, and generally privileged category of the foreign researcher, one should beware of generalisations. Risk is a subjective, differential attribute, meaning that what one person may be able to accomplish with their relationships and positionality in the field, can be off-limits to others. Distinctions occur, through which some members of the research community, notably those who deviate from the male, cisgender, heterosexual, affluent and academically experienced stereotype, find themselves in a more vulnerable position than others (see Clark and Grant 2015). In addition, features such a religious, ethnic and national background can make an important difference. To some peers’ surprise, I discontinued work in Turkey, because there had been an accumulation of diplomatic incidents between the Turkish government and my own (the Netherlands) in the period I was conducting fieldwork. These fall-outs came on top of a generally more restrictive environment for scholars, aid workers and journalists in Turkey. Combined, it reached a level I was no longer comfortable with, and I decided not to pursue a second fieldwork stint there, despite my original plans to do so. This decision was based on a gut feeling, which develops with the time you spend in your field site. Well-meaning colleagues (as well as families and friends at home) may not be aware of the difficulties of your field site. Some of the places I conduct fieldwork in are mostly known to others as pleasant holiday destinations. Flying in with Thomas Cook to spend a week holidaying offers a radically different experience to someone who is walking around asking undesirable questions. This affects my fieldwork experience in two ways: firstly, by contributing to insecurity in the field, and secondly, by affecting my ability to process my experiences upon return. I have learned to inform people regularly contacting me about some of the limitations in communication and have significantly restricted the settings of social media profiles. One colleague who I told about my research experiences upon return responded that she was surprised that it could be stressful, implying I was exaggerating. She had been on holiday in the same place a few weeks ago and had had a wonderful time. Well-Being and the Duty of Care Once you hit the field, there is not always the possibility to carefully reflect and gain an informed second opinion. In some situations, there were few checks and balances beyond my own judgement. The pressures of keeping people safe, safeguarding data and doing research that made the time and money invested in my project worthwhile weighed heavy on me. It was at once exhilarating and affirming, but also created isolation and long-term stress. Over the years I have started to value my well-being more and more as a crucial element affecting the quality of my fieldwork. Especially in the

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sensitive field sites I work in, where there is such limited room for error, I need to be able to focus completely on my work. Although fieldwork can feel like a break from reality back home, I have learned that if I am experiencing personal difficulties, I am not fit to be in the field. In addition to personal issues, structural professional challenges causing stress to academic staff, such as temporary and part-time contracts, underpayment, pension disputes, high workloads, publication pressures, etc. are not left behind when in the field, and may even be exacerbated by a period of fieldwork. Ideally, we have sufficient rapport with our supervisors and line managers to allow conversations about personal and professional issues to occur, without having to fear for our career progress, and to build similar relationships with our students. This means constructing and nourishing a relationship that gives meaning to the words ‘duty of care’, where people dare to express their problems and fears, and to engage in regular check-ins, both invited and uninvited. This also requires institutional support, in allocation of time, resources and training. Part of ensuring well-being is decreasing unnecessary stressors during fieldwork. It is important to establish a functioning working schedule. I engage in a number of shorter return visits (see also Malejacq and Mukhopadhyay 2016), as I have learned that I can maintain the necessary level of concentration for a maximum of two months, after which I need some time to recuperate. With the continuous pressure of a high risk environment, I often felt stuck in a permanent state of hyper-vigilance, which would take time to wear off. Thus, making scholars aware of the stress they will potentially experience, and helping them develop appropriate coping mechanisms is helpful. It would be worthwhile to invest in services that assist scholars prior to departure in mentally preparing for fieldwork and to provide assistance upon return, if needed. Currently, local living costs often dictate grant budgets for fieldwork. The stress level of the actual field site should be taken into account in budgeting allocations as well, with funds available to facilitate well-being, for example in the form of regular return visits back home. Especially young scholars may not have the means to engage in such ‘luxuries’ on their limited income, which may be critical to the success of their project and their long-term well-being. For me, self-care was definitely a learning process. During my project in Turkey and Ukraine, I was warned explicitly that I should watch my expenditure in the field very carefully. In a fieldwork-heavy project, the ­fieldwork-related costs made up a significant sum and were among the few items on the budget that could not be easily controlled or monitored by either the funder or the institution from afar. I was so intimidated by this notice that I ended up renting a bedroom in a Kyiv apartment for 85 pounds per month, one of the cheapest I could find. My three flatmates and I shared a broken toilet, which had to be flushed with buckets of water. The gas leak

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in the kitchen required us to turn the entire gas supply on and off whenever we were cooking. I slept on a borrowed mattress on the floor, that had come with the house, which I covered with bedding that I had newly purchased (of course I spent some time fretting whether I was allowed to purchase bedding on the project budget). The other piece of furniture of note was my ‘Soviet chair’ that came with the room, which could be extended in a narrow and (too) short bed. Behind the chair, I found a previous inhabitant’s boxer shorts. My room, located on the second floor of an apartment block and overlooked by other apartments, lacked proper curtains, only having white transparent window dressing. I dressed and undressed in the half-dark and felt constantly observed whilst being there. These circumstances are not reflective of usual living conditions in Kyiv. They were of my own making and driven by suboptimal decision-making. I was doing difficult work and making long days interviewing people about sensitive topics, requiring my full concentration. Why on earth was I living in a place which obviously cost so much mental energy, and where I could not properly unwind? I could have lived considerably more comfortable and less stressful for twice or triple the price, which still would have been affordable compared to the UK rental market, and probably acceptable to my funders. However, I had become so accustomed to the usual university requirements to go for the most cost-effective option available and took the warning of frugality in my first project budget so much to heart, that I needlessly ended up living in a health hazard. It would have been helpful at that moment to have had someone look over my shoulder and say, ‘What are you doing to yourself? Get a decent place!’ However‚ with the exception of the overall fieldwork location, and the risk involved there, the particular living circumstances of scholars and their general well-being are not part of the conversation.

From Risk Aversion and Risk Transfer to Risk Management If fieldwork is so difficult, unexpected and potentially risky, why should we do it? First of all, there is an ethical imperative here. Foreign scholars are rarely singled out for repression. Crackdown on critical inquiry usually hits the local population at large more than the foreign scholarly community and often precedes it. Local scholars tend to bear the brunt of this repression. Multiple countries engage in repression of academic freedom, as is highlighted by initiatives such as Scholars at Risk, which monitors murder, incarceration and other violence perpetrated against scholars, and seeks to offer support through a network of affiliated institutions. In some difficult research environments, non-local researchers increasingly opt for a model in which research is ‘remotely managed’, often largely from abroad, whilst relying on local researchers. Engagement with local researchers has been championed over time as a way to democratise and decolonise

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knowledge production. However, when done poorly, it can easily result in rather exploitative arrangements, in which local contributors are not properly acknowledged, their vulnerability is taken advantage of, and they rarely obtain PI roles (see Sukarieh and Tannock 2019). Disconcertingly, ‘outsourcing’ of data gathering often entails a transfer of risk from the—often no longer physically present—coordinating researcher/PI to local researchers. The latter may have a number of motives to be involved in research projects, some of which pertain to financial survival and other factors that would nuance the notion of their willing engagement in conducting potentially sensitive research. Local researchers are moreover more vulnerable to the negative response a research project may elicit and have less access to international assistance in case a backlash occurs. It is hence important to investigate whether by staying away from the field site (be it to avoid risk or temporary inconvenience) one increases the risk for somebody else. Being present showcases a personal interest and solidarity. It strengthens the relational over the transactional. Methodologically, there is also great value in conducting fieldwork oneself, or at least being a present and active part of the research team, and investing in getting to know the field site. Making long-term (or regularly repeated) appearances contributes to building up rapport with key brokers and gatekeepers in a social network, aiding access and analysis. Presence also helps the development of an elusive ‘sixth sense’, helping you appreciate when a certain event or statement indicates something out of the ordinary, requiring further exploration. As a visitor, one will always remain an outsider, translating and synthesising others’ experiences to your best ability (Stewart 2018), but a concerted effort can be made to become a less uninformed one. Despite its challenges, fieldwork is therefore a worthwhile exercise. When done well, it includes new perspectives, serves as a way towards more equal and respectful knowledge production processes, and unveils obscured processes to global scrutiny. It can create positive impact both in the community that was studied and in the local and global scholarly community. Because of these possible benefits, instead of putting a halt to research in potentially high-risk environments, we should work towards getting better at managing it. In doing so, we need to be pragmatic and look at the specific research project and approach at hand. Instead of trying to see fieldwork through a one-size-fits-all lens, a ­tailor-made approach should be taken. Such an approach requires increased awareness of the specific challenges of engaging in research in authoritarian contexts, where the local government cannot necessarily be relied upon as a benevolent, or even neutral, force. We need to appreciate that this category of research poses unique risks and should be incorporated as a specific category within standard setting on research ethics and research methodology, requiring specialist support. At times, I have been taught standards, which were less suited to such contexts. For example, due to risk of theft or loss of hand

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luggage in airports, I was advised by a well-meaning information governance officer to put all my data-bearing devices in checked-in luggage. I doubted the wisdom of this, especially in an authoritarian context. At least, with it being within my reach at all times, I would know whether anybody had physically attempted to gain access to the devices. Another example occurred when travelling to a new field site. The travel agency that my institution obligated me to use initially only provided me with quotes for flights arriving in the middle of the night and suggested among others hotels in relatively insecure areas of town, despite plenty of other alternatives. I successfully argued to be allowed to make my own travel arrangements, which worked out both cheaper and safer. Conducting a research project in an ethically and methodologically rigorous manner takes engagement from a wide array of experts. This ranges from gaining local knowledge through connecting with locally active scholars to incorporating an experienced data manager, who can offer tailor-made IT solutions to ensure safe data collection and management. This is expertise that ideally should be available to all researchers active in risky environments, both those with considerable experience whose rise in the academic hierarchy and function as investigator of (multiple) projects may result in less time spent in the field, and to the fledgling young scholar, who may find themselves solo in the field, trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. This will be resource intensive, but also reflects a more sincere commitment to the duty of care towards researchers and participants. In addition, we should also acknowledge that the risks in the field are not just shared by academics in the knowledge production process, but also by other occupations seeking to speak truth to power and collect data, such as policy analysts, think tank staff and journalists. This awareness hopefully serves to form further bridges between these occupational communities. Although employing different methods and standards, the oft-occurring conflation of these occupations in people’s minds in the field should give us pause to consider how incidents and experiences within one group may affect the working environment of others. A conversation on creating a broadly shared minimum standard of practice among these occupations may be worth having as well, as currently standards can clash, for example when pertaining to guardianship of original documents, and the empowerment and safeguarding of local communities (Tucker and Brand 2018; Asher-Shapiro 2018). Finally, as academics we should provide a critical, but supportive community to each other. We are all involved in efforts to improve our research conduct in a rapidly changing context, be it in responding to political developments in our field site, or engaging with the ever-evolving technology involved in data collection and management. An active sharing of best practices and accepting environment for disclosing lessons learned is much needed.

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References Advancing Research on Conflict. n.d. Resources. ARC website section. https:// advancingconflictresearch.com/resources-1. Last accessed 6 November 2019. Amnesty International. n.d. Countries. Amnesty International website. https://www. amnesty.org/en/countries/. Last accessed 6 November 2019. Asher-Shapiro, A. 2018. Who gets to tell Iraq’s history? LRB Blog, 15 June. https:// www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2018/june/who-gets-to-tell-iraqs-history. Last accessed 6 November 2019. Clark, J. 2006. Field research methods in the Middle East. PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (3): 417–423. Clark, I., and A. Grant. 2015. Sexuality and danger in the field: Starting an uncomfortable conversation. Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 2 (1): 1–14. Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). n.d. Foreign Travel Advice. FCO website. https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice. Last accessed 6 November 2019. Hedges, M. 2019. An ally held me as a spy—And the West is complicit. The Atlantic, January 25. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/01/ matthew-hedges-uae-held-me-spy-west-complicit/581200/. Last accessed 1 November 2019. Human Rights Watch (HRW). n.d. Website. https://www.hrw.org. Last accessed 6 November 2019. International Crisis Group. n.d. Crisiswatch: Tracking conflict worldwide. ICG website. https://www.crisisgroup.org/crisiswatch/database. Last accessed 6 November 2019. International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO). n.d. INSO services. INSO website. https://www.ngosafety.org/services. Last accessed 6 November 2019. Macleod, C., J. Marx, P. Mnyaka, and G. Treharne (eds.). 2018. The Palgrave handbook of ethics in critical research. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Malejacq, R., and D. Mukhopadhyay. 2016. The ‘tribal politics’ of field research: A reflection on power and partiality in 21st-century warzones. Perspectives on Politics 14 (4): 1011–1028. OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine. n.d. OSCE special monitoring mission to Ukraine. OSCE website. https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine. Last accessed 6 November 2019. Pillai, V. 2019. Emphasis on beneficence in research with vulnerable populations: Developing an assessment tool for researchers. Keynote paper delivered at Ethics and Humanitarian Research: Generating Evidence Ethically conference, 25–26 March, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. Post-Research Ethics Analysis (PREA). n.d. PREA project website. http://www. preaportal.org. Last accessed 6 November 2019. Scholars at Risk. n.d. Website. https://www.scholarsatrisk.org. Last accessed 6 November 2019. Stewart, E. 2018. Subjects and objects: An ethic of representing the other. In The Palgrave handbook of ethics in critical research, ed. C. Macleod, J. Marx, P. Mnyaka, and G. Treharne, 415–427. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Sukarieh, M., and S. Tannock. 2019. Subcontracting academia: Alienation, exploitation and disillusionment in the UK overseas Syrian refugee research industry. Antipode 51 (2): 664–680.

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Tegli, J.K. 2019. The experience of conducting ethical review during the Ebola virus disease emergency in Liberia. Conference paper delivered at Ethics and Humanitarian Research: Generating Evidence Ethically conference, 25–26 March, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. The New Humanitarian. n.d. Website. https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org. Last accessed 6 November 2019. Tucker, J.E., and L. Brand. 2018. Acquisition and unethical use of documents removed from Iraq by New York Times journalist Rukmini Callimachi. Open letter in Middle East Studies Association website, 2 May. https://mesana.org/advocacy/committee-on-academic-freedom/2018/05/02/acquisition-and-unethical-use-of-documents-removed-from-iraq-by-rukmini-callimachi. Last accessed 6 November 2019.

CHAPTER 9

Researching ‘Militant Groups’ James W. McAuley

I have been asked to write about a first-hand account of doing fieldwork in a conflict area, and to present to the reader a ‘warts and all’ version of my experience in researching in a society riven by political and physical conflict. A book with this focus has long been called for, and prospective researchers are largely only presented with textbook accounts of how to research and an uninterrupted line to research success. Research life is rarely like that and as King points out, all too often researchers ‘are left to their own innate sensibilities, talents, and skills’, which must be used to ‘resolve a range of ethical, social, and political challenges that inevitably arise in the field’ (King 2009: 8). This chapter seeks to provide something of a balance to that and to give some indications of what it is to conduct real-life research in a conflict zone. In my case, the region for fieldwork was Northern Ireland and my comments largely concern my experiences during the early to mid-1980s involving my initial attempts at fieldwork. I was in retrospect, a rather enthusiastic, if sometimes naïve Ph.D. student, let loose in the complex matrix of social, political and paramilitary confusion that was Northern Ireland, then well into the second decade of intense conflict, indeed, what some have called ‘civil war’. What follows is by no stretch of the imagination a ‘how to’ guide to undertaking research, rather, it draws on some personal recollections of turning points during the research process.

J. W. McAuley (*)  University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_9

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Research Memories My main memories of the time are of transition, from undergraduate to ­postgraduate, from a (reasonably) well-read and well-guided undergraduate, to first-time researcher drawing largely on my own resources, in the field. It very swiftly dawned on me that this was very different to anything I had ever done before, and that even a first-class knowledge of all the research textbooks in the world was not going to help in some of the situations in which I found myself. That is not to say that I hadn’t read much of the literature on social research and I had a more than solid training in research methods, studying for a degree in Social Anthropology and Sociology, but it was to prove inadequate in several ways. As an undergraduate I was taken by the ethnographic approach, involving fieldwork through which the researcher looks to both depict and interpret ‘the shared and learned patterns of values, behaviours, beliefs and language of a culture-sharing group’ (Creswell 2009: 68). So, as a Ph.D. student, I was determined to utilise the core ethnographic belief that the actions and interactions of people are best understood and studied in real situations, or to put it in anthropological terms, that to gain a fuller understanding of what people did, and why they were doing it, individuals should be observed ‘in their natural settings’, undertaking normal daily activities rather than in any artificial environment (Gold 1997). There were other issues concerning ethnography that were clear, namely that the analysis should be as far as possible inductive and that the researcher should not impose any conceptual framework of their own (Eriksen 2015). Ethnographers, I had learnt, should develop an emic perspective (from within the social group and from the perspective that group) in their research; rather than, an etic perspective (the perspective from outside), developing the view of the observer, rather than the observed (Macclancy 2002), to develop, in what Clifford Geertz (1973: 6) has famously called ‘thick’ description. Developing this thick description, of course, means moving beyond any simple description of what is observed, to seek an understanding of the reasons and purpose involved and how these observations may be related to context. It can also open the researcher up to accusations of bias and becoming too close to the subject, of which more below. So, having some notion of some of the methodologies I wished to employ, my thoughts turned to confirming the topic that I wanted to explore. I had been told many times that it was important to choose a topic in which you have a keen interest, that my topic should be driven by curiosity and one that I could reasonably assure would hold my attention for the full span of a Ph.D. candidature. It was good advice and something I still repeat to my own students today. At the time, I was particularly interested in working-class lifestyles and culture. I was interested in the construction of community, the different ways in which they expressed their sense of identity, understand their

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own history, or to see themselves as belonging to part of a wider social movement. In other words, to consider the ways in which they expressed a discernable cultural and social identity. All of this, of course, was brought into sharper relief with the election of Margaret Thatcher some years before and the concerted attack on working-class communities that followed. My research was orientated by a theoretical interest in political beliefs and attitudes and the ways in which political and social actions are understood and sanctioned within identifiable communities. My initial focus was the shipyard community of Belfast, which, I intended to examine in the context of sociological community studies of important industrial centres of the time, such as Clydeside, Liverpool and Tyneside. This focus was quickly changed, however, because as I discovered, all social life in that part of Belfast was highly politicised and very little political life happened outside the remit of loyalist politics, or without the overt or tacit clearance of the loyalist (pro-UK) paramilitary groups operating in the area. Put straightforwardly, many of the activists in community-based organisations, such as housing and welfare rights, had close links with the paramilitaries, or contained paramilitary members, or both.

Ulster Loyalism and Community So, while recognising the strength of community in Belfast was of central importance, the research took a different form than I first envisaged. As Northern Irish society physically fragmented, following the outbreak of overt conflict in 1969, East Belfast was confirmed as a predominately loyalist area. Loyalism as an ideology finds expression through a sense of common political purpose at the macro-level, and at the micro-level, through what are often very localised senses of belonging and experiences. This finds form through commitment to a broad ideological position and through responses to experiences at a regional or even neighbourhood level, the significance of the loyalist sense of community, was itself constructed by social actors and mobilised through collective actions. Loyalist interpretations are located in communal perceptions of events and how these are continually reproduced through behaviour on a daily basis, for example, through the engagement with collective memory, which remains core in forming and sustaining identity, linking past and present in ways that reinforce identity, difference and common history. The concept of community was, and remains, central to loyalism, particularly intertwined with distinct ideas of place, a sense of belonging and form of class expression, seen to create a separate sense of identity (McAuley 2016). This manifested in several ways: the interface between physical and social boundaries; the construction of loyalist memory and popular culture and its subsequent impact; competing memories and the role of memory and commemoration. It was also within this context that paramilitary groups grew up and became organised.

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I later came to realise that within loyalism it is important to recognise how a sense of community is used not just to focus identity, but as a site for social organisation and political action. A sense of belonging, experienced as an everyday awareness of identity, expression of ideological belief, common political desire and emotional attachment is central to understanding contemporary loyalism. This involves family and friendship networks, alongside various religious and community associations, as well as paramilitary organisations, fraternal organisations, formal political groupings, marching bands, pressure and protest groups, and other social groupings. This was all rich material for an ethnographer, such alliances (and more) were framed by a resilient sense of identity, and bonded by a narrative endorsing and bolstering what is seen as the distinctive cultural and political history of loyalism. Indeed, Cavanaugh (1997) suggests (following ethnographic work in both republican and loyalist districts in Belfast), that community in Northern Ireland is best understood, not in passive terms, but rather as something which is integral to the evaluation of political life and political violence. If, in the 1980s, there was precious little by the way of guidelines to ethnographic study in Northern Ireland, there were even fewer guidelines on researching the paramilitary groups, which were to become a focus for my subsequent work. The lack of research into paramilitary groups was noted, amongst others by Taylor (1988: 137) who went on to note that, ‘surprisingly few researchers have penetrated (or wish to) the area of political conflict on-the-ground through field research’. One key text that was available was Frank Burton’s, The Politics of Legitimacy (1978), in part ethnographic, it was partially based on his experiences with Irish Republican Army (IRA) activists during his time in the Ardoyne district. Within the loyalist community, Richard Jenkins (1983, 1984) provided an ethnographic study of Rathcoole (‘Ballyhightown’), during which he noted, ‘there was simply no way I could have carried out intensive research in Ballyhightown without establishing a comfortable working relationship with people I believed to be members of paramilitary organisations’. This reflects my own experience and I expand on this below. Elsewhere, although neither was fully ethnographic in approach, Ron Weiner (1980) had provided some groundbreaking material on the Shankill community in West Belfast, while Sarah Nelson (1979, 1984) undertook some highly original fieldwork in the mid-1970s, and although not truly ethnographic in approach, it was groundbreaking in interviewing members of loyalist paramilitary, political and community groups.

Gaining Access One of the seen strengths of ethnographic field methods is that they are flexible and built on relatively unstructured processes developed throughout research (Hammersley 1998: 2). Kumasi (1992: 1) describes the process, rather more accurately in my experience, as a method often involving

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a ‘brash, awkward, hit- and-run encounter’. Whatever, the most accurate way to describe this form of research, it was undertaken, at least by me, as a researcher acting as a participant-observer, for a prolonged period of time, within a defined community. Within the geographical confines of East Belfast, my plan was to undertake such research and take part in first-hand informal conversations over a reasonable elongated period. In all, I spent a total of nine months undertaking ethnography in the field, over a four-year period. While from the outset, I had some concern about the perceived objectivity of what I was about to do. I was worried that my personal biography (I am from Belfast, and was raised as a Protestant and from a working-class background), and these features of my identity could be seen as inappropriate by some for conducting this research. A fuller discussion of such issues can be found in Jenkins’ (1984: 152) account of his fieldwork on public housing in Belfast, which highlights the importance of the identity of the researcher in the eyes of his/her research subjects and how this can impact on access. This dovetails with other important debates relating to the distinction between the ‘insider’ versus ‘outsider’ researcher and the identity of the researcher. Initially, I was faced with the classical problem of many wishing to employ such methods, that of making contacts in a community which, at best, is semi-closed, geographically, socially and culturally (Shaffir 1991). So, my immediate concern was how to implant myself successfully in the local community, in a way that did not raise any hackles (as an outsider) or suspicion (as a spy or someone with links to government) with the local community. In broad terms this problem of gaining entry seems to me is always one of the key challenges in ethnographic research and one which does not always gain the attention it deserves. Gaining access involves four major dimensions. First, and most obviously, there are those issues surrounding the gaining of entrance to a physical location. Second, there is also access to be negotiated to the central activities within the study area and to the people involved in those activities. This if anything is often more difficult and involves many sensitivities. Meaningful access to the mindset of people involved, or at least to the key individuals who can give an indication of this, is core to ethnography, but it is never easy. Third, for fieldwork to be successful, access is needed for an extended period and so it is important to ensure that such contacts can be maintained throughout the fieldwork period. Fourth, gaining access, particularly to hidden or sensitive areas of research, raises ethical challenges, some of which I shall discuss later. All this meant that it was crucial, not only to identify appropriate ‘gatekeepers’, but to establish a positive relationship with them in the hope that they would convey a message of openness and my willingness to meet other individuals and groups—no easy task. My research involved several key individuals whom I regarded as gatekeepers, operating at different levels (notably paramilitary, party political and community) and in different organisations (all of

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whom were needed to endorse to my research activity). In terms of gaining access to relevant networks, the importance of introduction by key persons cannot be overestimated. In conflict situations, where access is at best problematic, reliance on key gatekeepers and consent from important stakeholders is vital. There were particular problems with access to do with Northern Ireland, concerning fears of reprisals for being seen speaking openly about sensitive issues, and how to penetrate what can best be described as a culture of silence. One of my main problems was how to set things in motion. I adopted two major routes. First, I wrote to all the local councillors for the area (regardless of political party affiliation). Second, I re-established some contacts I had made the previous year while working on a research project studying the work of community groups. I decided not to make any formal approaches to the paramilitary groups, but hopefully to make contacts through personal introductions and snowballing interviews. I then sat back and waited, and waited. The strategy seemed to be failing; although I had some success in contacting community workers (which were to prove of great value to the project), there was no response from the politicians. Then, after several weeks, a councillor agreed to meet (he actually phoned me). He proved invaluable, extremely well-known and respected in the local community he directly set up several interviews for me and thereafter I had little problem setting up interviews. It turned out that he also had very good relations with some local paramilitaries (although he was overtly opposed to violence) and was able to ease contact with them. Overall, my experience seemed to mirror others, as Jenkins points out any researcher coming into contact with the paramilitary groups is bound to be ‘checked out’ (Jenkins 1984: 150). I became aware that access to informants and their propensity to provide useful and relevant information was influenced by how trustworthy I as the researcher was considered to be, alongside the sensitivity of the research topic. In my case, after the initial period of tranquillity, access to informants (not a term I tended to use in Belfast!) was facilitated by local political party and other activists, such as community or housing workers (McAuley 1994). Later, many within or who had contacts with key individuals or groups helped me as a researcher. But such affiliations were not always straightforward or without problems. Engagement with situations involving political violence can often mean the researcher is subject to claims of being an ‘apologist or propagandist rather than an objective social scientist’ (Sluka 1989: 15). Further, at the time loyalist street politics in Belfast was rife with personality differences, splits and jealousies, often manifest in clashes over territory or group affiliation within paramilitarism.

Trust Me (I’m a Sociologist!) Inpolarised Belfast, as in many conflict situations, there are few politically or socially active actors who are seen as neutral, or not carrying ideological baggage with them. The conflict broke-up and separated communities, turning

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their gaze inward and breeding suspicion and hostility. To be seen in the company of certain people or working with certain groupings, was immediately to raise the hackles with other individuals or organisations. I was aware that overt affiliation with one local grouping could strongly influence perceptions about neutrality and while it could open access to some groups or individuals, it could radically prevent access to others. More broadly, if the researcher is seen to be too close to certain people on the ground, the objectivity of their analysis is brought into question, and inside researchers may also be mistrusted by the community for their allegiance to outside agencies. In my experience, trust was created through an unquantifiable combination of personality, perseverance and luck. It is often the piecemeal, ad hoc, activities in which the researcher engages and an awareness of local rituals that are of vital importance in creating trust and generating an understanding and an affinity with research participants. During the time of my research, suspicion of ‘outsiders’ and the ‘Other’ was ever-present and often intense. The perceived social background of the researcher was a key factor, and upmost in the minds of interviewees. Although in almost 35 years of active research in Northern Ireland I have only been asked my religion once (and that by a Canadian member of the Orange Order), I am aware that this was a constant issue in the background. Rarely then does a person’s background become an overt focus, rather interviewees looked for ‘clues’, or indicators to my affiliation. This had become an everyday intrinsic reaction to social interaction in Northern Ireland. However, most people, because of my Belfast accent and willingness to move around the area with some freedom, assumed I was from the same ethnic background. It should also be remembered that this research was conducted at the height of the three-way conflict between the British Army, and the forces of pro-united Ireland republicanism and pro-UK loyalism. The construction of the ‘Other’ was paramount, and on the one hand, some interviewees were reluctant to say anything to me that they thought may be used by the other side, or to show them in a bad light. It was these feelings, which took some time to break down and for a reasonable level of ‘trust’ to develop (partly through being seen and participating in community events). There is, of course, a balance to be found here, because while overt participation may benefit the researcher in getting closer to the subject and ultimately understanding what is going on, there is always the risk of ‘over identification’ and perhaps of losing ‘intellectual distance’ from those being studied (Hammersley and Atkinson 1995: 90). If I was to pinpoint the point when I felt trust had been established, it was one day when I was on the Shankill Road in Belfast, having interviewed local community activists. Walking down the road I spotted a known paramilitary, nodded to him and he stopped me for a chat. After we exchanged the time of day, he enquired as to how my research was going. He then asked if I would

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like to meet someone who would be helpful to my work, somewhat intrigued I responded in the positive. He then took me to a backstreet office, where I was asked to wait. After some time, I was shown upstairs and ushered into a small backroom office where I found myself face-to-face with Gusty Spence. I was somewhat taken aback, Spence had an awesome reputation in loyalist circles as one of the founder members of the Ulster Volunteer Force. Indeed, some lay blame for the outbreak of the conflict at his feet with the murder of a Catholic barman in 1967. I was totally unprepared for the interview and struggling to get some suitable questions together in my head. In actual fact, it was an extremely long and fairly intense interview. About halfway it was apparent that I was about to run out of tape—I’m afraid that the interviews with the community workers never saw the light of day—as Spence was too important a figure to miss—I recorded over the interviews I had made previously! One other question I have often been asked was why my research was restricted to one community (it is largely asked by those who have never been active in researching Northern Ireland!). To me the answer is simply that it would have been impractical, and dangerous, to do other than what I did. As Feldman (1991) argues, the ethnographic approach prevented research that involved work across the Protestant/Unionism and Catholic/nationalist communities in Northern Ireland. It would have been all too easy to become identified with one side, resulting in a lack of legitimacy in the other, practically the moving into and out of these communities on a regular basis would have been noticed by both the security forces and respective paramilitary groups and would have aroused suspicions and in the case of the paramilitaries the consequences could have been life-threatening. At a minimum, perceptions of coming from, or simply being too closely affiliated with the ‘other’ community, would probably taint the response of interviewees.

Doing It for Real—Gathering Data Ethnographic studies exhibit a number of common characteristics, but at their core rests an approach involving the researcher overtly or covertly participating, for an extended period of time, in people’s daily lives. During this time the researcher should record everyday happenings by eavesdropping, notetaking, asking questions through formal and informal interviews, collecting information and artefacts, and broadly gather whatever material is available to them: ‘to throw light on the issues that are the emerging focus of inquiry’ (Hammersley and Atkinson 1995: 3). At least that is what the textbooks said, what I had learnt and what I was prepared for. The amassing of material became central to my periods doing fieldwork. I also had to consider the practicalities of how to record data collected in the field. Sometimes this was fairly straightforward, sometimes less so. Primarily, I used well-trodden methods using audio recordings, photographs and field

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notes (other now established techniques such as video recording was in its infancy in the mid-1980s). I collected extensive field notes, recorded everyday events, noteworthy incidents, personal and organisational relationships, and my emerging thoughts. Largely data collection and analysis proceeded in parallel. But this makes it all sound very straightforward—it wasn’t. There were many considerations—the traditional technique of nipping into a back room to make notes—or to be found with the names of political and community activists—was certainly not a good idea. Notes were usually made in the evening rather than in the contemporary. Writing up field notes in this way relies on the frequently faulty device of memory (certainly it is faulty in my case). It did not help that many interviews took place in pubs or other drinking shabeens chosen by interviewees. I found myself quickly surrounded by a somewhat chaotic collection of field notes, including personal reflections, rough sketches, lists of people who knew each other and possible social networks, relationships between them, formal documents and locally collected items, such as news-sheets, election posters and cartoons. The amount of material being produced at a community level at the time should not be underestimated and while some people held on to copies of material for me, often it was a case of luck as to whether I obtained a copy of such material. Most fieldwork involving ethnography involves two major facets. The first concerns the magnitude to which the researcher is participating in events, rather than simply observing. During my time in Belfast, I helped pack election leaflets for a political party, acted as ‘secretary’ to a housing association meeting (I was asked to do so when the incumbent do not turn up), helped delivery copies of a paramilitary magazine and helped out with enquiries at an advice centre. My presence was legitimised if queried (thankfully, it seldom was) by gatekeepers who presented me as a ‘teacher’ or simply as someone who was writing a book about East Belfast. The second key issue is whether the observation undertaken should be covert or overt. The prime reason is choosing covert study is that it makes it easier to get access and the data collected will be more meaningful, furthermore it is argued that it allows more credibly to the researcher in adopting the participant role and reduces disruption to the research setting. But, there is a fine line to be walked here. Concealing that research is being undertaken, however, is clearly a form of deception and raises important ethical questions. But to be honest, for me such ethical questions were secondary, my main contemplation was that I thought it far too risky to participate in covert research. Finally, a large part of my research also rested on set interviews. These broadly followed what Horgan (2013: 196) later outlined as the four main targets for interviewing in conflict zones: first, formal contact with overtly political organisations (this I interpreted in its broadest sense), second, contact with ‘gatekeepers’, third, informal meetings and introductions during set

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events, such as public marches, commemorations, funerals and public meetings, and fourth, informal approaches to people who had become known to me (these usually carried the most risk).

Militants and Personal Security Available resources on Northern Ireland politics and society is now extensive, indeed it has been claimed, with some justification, that for its size it is ‘one of the most over-researched and over-studied places on the planet’ (Rekawek 2013: 169). From the late 1980s, material on the Northern Irish conflict had grown considerably, although still notable by its absence, was research on the composition of paramilitary membership and the relationship between paramilitary groups and the community, where they existed between being seen as defenders and being organised to exert social control. Partly, it was these relationships upon which my thesis rested. Certainly, I was unhappy to describe the relationship between paramilitaries and local community as one forged merely through physical force and fear (as was commonplace in many journalistic and official accounts of the time). My findings supported those of Burton (1978) who saw paramilitaries and their communities having something of a ‘see-saw’ relationship, and that to describe it as one involving control by sinister godfathers was too simplistic an understanding of the relationship. Some of the complexities of the connections between community and paramilitary are drawn out by Brewer et al. (1998). Further, Silke (1998, 1999) suggests that the activities of paramilitaries often revolved around a practical need, on the one hand, to demonstrate themselves as defenders of the community, while, on the other, displaying the need to control those within the community that challenged them. The thought of a student wandering round the streets of Belfast with a notebook and a tape recorder, often in the company of community workers, and/or know paramilitaries, trying to make some sense of this, is something which would make the Chair of most university ethics committees, feel rather anxious, to put it mildly. Moreover, it was not always possible to tell who was and who was not in paramilitary organisations. Even being a young male, walking around areas of Belfast during the mid-1980s brought with it inherent risks and the likelihood of unwanted attention from paramilitaries or security forces. The personal security risks associated with my research were sometimes overt, sometimes less so, but always they were ever-present. I doubt if many, or even any, Ph.D. student would get clearance to behave in the way I did, or to undertake the research in the way I did. In undertaking my fieldwork, it was, therefore, only prudent to observe some caution around personal security. Today a detailed outline of such issues is a standard part of any university ethics protocol, but at the time such issues were much less developed and codified—I was merely told by my supervisors to be ‘sensible’. For my part sensible self-security planning involved opting

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for public locations to conduct interviews or party political or NGO offices. In reality, when it came to the paramilitaries this was rarely possible, preferring as they did places where they felt safe, which usually meant pubs or clubs deep in loyalist territory. While the paramilitaries were not the direct focus of my research, it was impossible for me to conduct the research I did, without their compliance and while I never directly asked questions concerning political violence, such issues were always in the background. My major lines of enquiry were examining motivation for membership of the paramilitaries and the full range of activities, including social and political activity that members undertook. This marked a real gap in the then knowledge. Since I undertook the research I have often been asked if I felt in danger during my fieldwork trips. The answer is not straightforward. Lee (1993) describes two main types of danger that can occur during research, which he terms the ‘presentational’ and the ‘anonymous’. The former can be seen to occur when the researcher’s presence or the action they undertake evoke aggression, even violence within the research setting. The latter occurs when the researcher is exposed, simply because of the dangerous research environment in which they are operating. Both kinds of dangers were present in my research, but the real question is the extent to which these were manageable. Only once did I feel that I was in real ‘presentational’ danger. I had arranged to meet a paramilitary leader in his local pub. I turned up five minutes early and ordered a drink. After around 15 minutes I was still on my own and the scene began to resemble the classic Western scene when silence fell over the bar, and the eyes of the clientele gradually turned towards me. After a few more minutes, several men ‘invited’ me into a backroom for a chat. This was long before the mobile phone was ever-present. Luckily, I knew enough names of local actors to get me out of immediate danger and those questioning me seemed reasonable convinced when I told them I was writing a book (although I felt the need to make clear that I wasn’t an undercover journalist). The situation was finally alleviated when my contact turned up and vouched for my bona fides—something that wasn’t questioned by anyone in the bar. Much of my research was conducted in an environment where circumstances of anonymous danger were ever-present. That danger was ultimately manageable and anyone involved in research at the time had to become fairly streetwise quickly. That said, such instincts sometime let me down. Once I came upon a reasonably large protest in support of loyalist prisoners. Naturally I was drawn to this and hung around the fringes to watch what was happening. After some time, I was approached by someone I knew from my research who almost forcibly bundled me through his front door. Moments later a full-scale riot had broken out between supporters of the protest and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (which I was able to watch through the relative safety of a front window!).

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Research Stress There were points of stress throughout the research process (some of which I have identified above) but one underdiscussed period is when fieldwork comes to end and the researcher needs to leave the field. While I do not wish to over-romanticise this, the end of prolonged contact may prove somewhat traumatic for both participants and researcher (Gallagher 2011). There is much existing evidence suggesting that exiting is not always straightforward. It is at this time that any sense of being mistreated by researchers, or a lack of trust between research and researched may manifest and reluctant to participant in any further research can come to the fore. Certainly, there is a case for the researcher returning to present to the community his findings over to have what they have written validated. In my case, I have maintained contact for over 30 years, both with the area and people within it. Many of my original cohort are now deceased (either through natural circumstances or as a result of the conflict), but in some cases I am now in contact with their offspring. Taking part in research of this nature may be a stressful experience for both the researcher and the researched. This is an important consideration for researchers studying topics involving those who may operate on the margins of society or legality. As Lee (1993: 74) clearly states, ‘research which might bring to light that which was formerly hidden’ can be problematic for those taking part. There are also crucial moments of stress that the researcher may suffer. According to Lee (1995: 13) even in relatively straightforward fieldwork the researcher can be subject to periods of isolation, anxiety, stress and depression.

Timing and Research Fatigue Much of my account of this research is time specific. Wider interest (and the availability of research grants) in any conflict situation is often dependent on where in the cycle the research is carried out. It can also radically affect the quality of data gathered, at a basic level the willingness of people to talk and what they are prepared to say. With the passing of time, the sensitivity of many research topics can change with the result that people are more willing to speak about what has unfolded in the past. For instance, in the midst of, or following a successful peace process, the reduction of tensions and the creation of momentum often make the research pursued less of a ‘hot’ topic and facilitates access to relevant informants. This can prove advantageous, but a word of caution is also necessary. Given the ‘success’ of the peace process, Northern Ireland is subject to growing attention from researchers, many of whom focus on also can suffer what has been termed ‘research fatigue’ (Clark 2008)—the overidentification of some groups of people as worthy of interest, or the ready availability of others may see some to become over-represented as research subjects in a particular discipline, or in research generally have been over-researched.

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Ethics and Teaching Debates about ethics and ethical research have undergone much transformation in recent decades. Often taking a lead from medicine (or medical sociology) all of social science has increasingly been subject to tightened ethical regulatory frameworks, with the application of prescriptive ethical codes to social research, at the same time that higher education has undergone a process of the neoliberal marketisation (Brewer 2016). Such regulatory codes have become enshrined in the overarching principles of various institutional review boards and ethics committees. I am under no illusion that a proposal for the work I have discussed above would today be thrown out of court (albeit for some justifiable reasons). Brewer (2016) also reminds us that there is still some resistance towards the regulatory frameworks and the tougher restrictions they bring, which has resulted in an expression by some proponents to ‘cut loose, hang free and disregard the law approach under the impulse of protecting academic freedom’ (Brewer 2016: 1). Anyone teaching a methods class at university who claims that you can plan out a complex piece of work in the field, and it will all (or even mostly) go according plan, and will be neatly sequenced in order, is either deceiving you, or, simply hasn’t carried out any such research themselves. As Burgess (1982) once put it, the only certainty about fieldwork is its uncertainty. Too many university ‘experts’ have learnt almost all they teach from books, or have little or no, experience in the field. Consequently, they have little feel for the dynamics or pace of real research, which in my experience does not come sequentially as found in methodology books. They also have little feel for the unpredictable nature of fieldwork, or how to overcome such problems as do arise. While Browne and Moffett recognise that preparation can mitigate against fieldwork disasters, they are forced to conclude that the success of such research ultimately rests on the: ‘unscientific and unsatisfactory subjective attributes of perseverance, personality and luck’ (Browne and Moffett 2014: 224).

Some Conclusions Much of the experience gained in undertaking research for my Ph.D. has remained with me. Difficult-to-access research and subjects, and research involving ‘sensitive’ research subjects, in my case particularly paramilitar­ ies and other militant loyalist groups, presented challenges that were ­situation-specific, but also raised a more general awareness of the need for flexibility in approaching problems that present themselves in the field. The rate and direction of ethnographic research are never easy to predict. Gaining access can prove time-consuming and there are relatively few individuals in any situation that can act as gatekeepers upon whom success depends. This remains at the core of ethnographic fieldwork, and one that must be worked on throughout research. None of these issues is to say that you shouldn’t

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undertake such research. All ethnographic fieldwork encounters problems, most of which are surmountable, some of which may not be, but the strength of an ethnographic approach is that it is flexible enough to overcome most of these glitches. Things change and the ‘new’ post-conflict Northern Ireland creates new roles for the actors who took part in the war and for those who have followed them. Ethnographic methods have themselves moved on, but it remains central to understanding the motivations of those involved.

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Jenkins, R. 1984. Bringing it all back home: An anthropologist in Belfast. In Social researching: Politics, problems, practice, ed. C. Bell and H. Roberts. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. King, J.C. 2009. Demystifying field research. In Surviving field research: Working in violent and difficult circumstances, ed. C.L. Sriram, J.C. King, J.A. Mertus, O.M. Oreta, and J. Herman. London: Routledge. Kumasi, K. 1992. Research methods in library and information science. Delhi: ­Har-Anand Publications. Lee, R.M. 1993. Doing research on sensitive topics. London: Sage. Lee, R.M. 1995. Dangerous fieldwork. London: Sage. Macclancy, J. 2002. Exotic no more: Anthropology on the front lines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McAuley, J.W. 1994. The politics of identity: A loyalist community in Belfast. Aldershot: Avebury. McAuley, J.W. 2016. Very British rebels? The culture and politics of ulster loyalism. London: Bloomsbury. Nelson, S. 1979. Ulster’s uncertain defenders: Protestant political, paramilitary and community groups, and the Northern Ireland conflict. Belfast: Appletree Press. Nelson, S. 1984. Ulster’s uncertain defenders: Protestant political, paramilitary and community groups and the Northern Ireland conflict. Belfast: Appletree. Rekawek, K. 2013. Conducting field research on terrorism in Northern Ireland. In Conducting terrorism field research: A guide, ed. A. Dolnik. Abingdon: Routledge. Shaffir, W.B. 1991. Managing a convincing self presentation: Some personal reflections on entering the field. In Experiencing fieldwork: An inside view of qualitative research, ed. W.B. Shaffir and R.A. Stebbins, 72–81. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Silke, A. 1998. The lords of discipline: The methods and motives of paramilitary vigilantism in Northern Ireland. Low Intensity Conflict and Law Enforcement 7 (2): 121–156. Silke, A. 1999. Rebel’s dilemma: The changing relationship between the IRA, Sinn Féin and paramilitary vigilantism in Northern Ireland. Terrorism and Political Violence 11 (1): 55–93. Sluka, J. 1989. Hearts and minds, water and fish: Support for the IRA and INLA in a Northern Irish ghetto. London: JAI Press. Taylor, R. 1988. Social scientific research on the “troubles” in Northern Ireland: The problem of objectivity. The Economic and Social Review 19 (2): 123–145. Weiner, R. 1980. The rape and plunder of the Shankill: Community action—The Belfast experience. Belfast: Farsnet.

CHAPTER 10

The Ethics of Ethnographic Peace and Conflict Research Gearoid Millar

Introduction Research ethics procedures often seem concerned more with issues of ­insurance and accountability (small “e”) than they are with ethics in a more substantive sense (a capital “E”). But researchers working in post-conflict contexts have very good reasons to consider Ethics more fully, and to reflect deeply on the things we do and don’t do and how they impact, or fail to impact, on the communities in which we work. Where do our responsibilities lie and how should we attempt to meet them in deeply unsettled and often impoverished and unequal societies? This chapter examines what I have come to see as the ethical shortcomings of my own extensive ethnographic research conducted in rural Sierra Leone over more than 18 months spread across six years. Through an extended narrative describing the context of my research that also seeks to provide some insight into the lives of my interlocutors, the chapter eventually explores my own responsibilities above and beyond those stipulated by formal ethical requirements and, sadly, reflects on my failure to meet these responsibilities. If I had known then what I know now, my research would have been substantially more engaged, proactive, and relevant to socio-economic problems in post-conflict societies.

G. Millar (*)  University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_10

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June 2012: Witnessing Worrying Trends No matter how many times I visit Sierra Leone, the heat never fails to shock me. I have never gotten used to the sun’s sizzling white intensity reflecting up of the concrete and dazzling my sight and I’m always unprepared for the way the sweat burns into the corners of my eyes. It is the persistence of the heat that really gets to me; the way it saps my strength and exhausts my enthusiasm. The heat in Makeni, in the capital city of the northern Bombali District where I have based myself again for my new research project, is particularly hot, partially because of its inland location and partially because of Wusum hill, the large table-top mountain which sits just to the north of the centre of town and, as locals will tell you, sucks up the warmth of the sun’s rays all day, only to radiate heat for much of the night. Respite from the temperature comes in a variety of small miracles. It comes in the cold air pumped noisily into the Internet café visited for an hour or so every few days, and it is found hiding in that little window of time in the early morning, after Wusum has given up all its heat and before the sun has again risen, when you might find yourself reaching down in bed to pull a thin sheet over your legs. But it is found most easily and most readily on the back of an Okada, when the little motorcycle taxi gives you enough speed to simulate the relief of a cooling breeze. Okada’s are everywhere in Makeni, beeping and bumping their way around town, the main form of public transport in a town which, even now 10 years after the war ended in 2002, boasts only four roads appropriately surfaced for four-wheeled vehicles. It is also by Okada that my research assistant, Mohamed, and I are getting around during this new project examining the local experiences of a large bio-energy project growing 10,000 hectares of sugar cane in a large land-lease area some 30 minutes outside Makeni. At this point in June, almost three months into the research, we have already spent time in many of the sampled villages within the land-lease area, starting with those which were closest to the project’s initial work in the area—the site of its nursery—and then working our way out towards more remote villages. The early villages, close to the initial operations, had clearly seen some tangible benefits, and in each, there were new mud brick homes, new zinc roofs, and a sample of both men and women who had worked for the company. In recent weeks, however, we have been travelling to more and more remote locations, getting lost on tiny mud tracks and within the swirling new roads the company has scratched into the earth which meander confusedly around the region as they circle the wide new “pivots” ploughed by the company’s engineers (circular fields which allow efficient irrigation via a centrally pivoting mechanical arm). On a few occasions, we have had to leave the bike behind and hike through paddy fields to find the village we had selected earlier via our multi-stage cluster sampling technique using satellite imagery of the land-lease area.

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Today we are looking for another small village, but we know that this one is not isolated by paddy fields as its location on the map is clearly adjacent to the new road the company has built to bring construction materials to its factory site, and which will eventually be used also to transport ethanol out to the port. But we still have trouble finding it. We had turned off the Freetown-Makeni highway much earlier, knowing that if we followed the road towards the factory we must surely come across the village. The new “line” (as locals call it) is a wide swath of red earth snaking its way south and then southwest, through the project area, around pivots, and past villages. It is wider than the highway itself, but without the tarmac, and along its length there are sections with deep rutted pot-holes and cavernous puddles. But we make good time and are surprised when we arrive at the factory site—which in 2012 is still very much a work in progress—without finding the village. Since we are there anyway we stay a while at the factory site, enquiring about the building process with some local people who have set up an impromptu market across from the gate to cater to the food needs of those working on the site. We then ask them how we might find our missing village and are directed back the way we came, back up the line and past the dam that is being built over the river. Sure enough, as we slowly retrace our route and pass the dam we spot the thatched roofs of a village among the trees off to the left, but no clear path into it. We pass back and forth a few times, before we see that the old path into the village has been cut off by the mounds of red earth piled up on both sides of the new line, and we have to manoeuvre the Okada up onto the bank and then down onto the small trail barely wide enough for the bike. Finally, we push through into the village. This, we know already, is very odd. As described above, we have been in other villages that are close to company operations and they have all benefited in some quite evident ways. There is usually some new construction or at least new zinc roofs on old houses. In others, the land-lease payments paid to landowning families have been used to construct a new well, a community centre, or a dry floor (the wide concrete platforms used to dry rice and beans). But here there was no evidence at all of the company’s presence. The centre of the village, a few metres in from the small circle of thatched houses, is occupied by a traditional village “mosque”—an oval ring of thigh high posts which is used for prayer by the community—through which the ducks and chickens run amuck. As we climb off the Okada and blink in the bright sunshine of the clearing, we notice also that this village is Spartan in comparison with any others we have visited in such close proximity to the company’s operations. There are only eight houses, all with thatched roofs (lacking any zinc) and all constructed of wattle and daub or bare mud brick (without even of the plaster that usually accompanies village “improvements”). There would be nothing surprising about any of this if we were in a remote village, but this village is located within just a short walk of one of the largest infrastructure projects in the country.

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Following standard ethical procedures, the first thing we do when we enter any village for the first time is to explain the purpose of our visit to the village headman. This we do slowly and in as simple a narrative as possible and in this instance, as is true in almost every village we visit, the headman nods along, switching his gaze between Mohamed and I, as Mohamed describes the project and my interest in the village, explains that I have been to Sierra Leone in the past, that I do not work for the company, and that I want only to understand how the local people in villages are experiencing the effects of the project. Mohamed explains that I would prefer to speak to people individually, including the headman himself, that I will ask each person some basic questions about what they think of the project, but that nobody is required to talk to us if they don’t want to. The headman in this case is very happy to welcome us, and he agrees that we can speak to whomever in the village we want to. After a short tour—during which he also points out the village’s gardens and farms—we choose a shady porch at the front of one house in which to conduct our interviews. It is there we sit most of the day, talking to people about their lives and their families, their farms and their work, but primarily about their understandings, expectations, and experiences of the company’s operations. In this village, it is our very first interviewee who really captures my attention. He is a 35-year-old farmer who has come back in from the fields when he hears that we are visiting, and he still has dried mud caked onto his bare feet and hands and a deep circle of sweat on the stretched out grey t-shirt that covers his upper body. The porch we are sitting on is similar to many in rural villages. It is a small area of packed earth under the roof overhang, held up by a couple of stout old wooden boughs, smoothed of their bark. It is perhaps one metre in depth and three metres wide, with a low hard-packed mud wall running along much of the outside at about knee height. But this porch also boasts a stout old cast iron cauldron which oddly reminds me of my Mother’s grandparent’s house in rural Ireland as I recall them having a pair of very similar black pots when I was very young. In this pot, however, sits a horde of dried black oil palm kernels, which are often kept in villages as a form of semi-liquid currency, to be processed during hard times. It is filled right up to the brim, and instead of sitting with Mohamed or I on one of the benches that have been brought out of the house or on the low packed mud wall of the porch, this young man sits squarely on top the pot of oil palm kernels, his legs dangling over the edge and causing him to slump sadly forward. I am struck immediately by the irony of this; a young farmer from a clearly impoverished village literally sitting on a resource which is today at the centre of global capital penetration and environmental destruction in various tropical regions of the world. But, after we again follow procedure by describing as simply as possible the purpose of my research, the kind of reports I will write, and the way I will anonymize any information he provides, the story he tells adds substantively to this irony. As he sits, with his clearly powerful

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body hunched over and his chin resting on the sweat-drenched shirt, he tells us that he is a father of three, and looks up briefly to point out his children in the village, two of whom (young girls) are playing nearby. He describes for us how the company had approached the village, had promised that everyone who had land would benefit from the project, and how even some of his peers in the village had been able to secure jobs on the factory site. But he had not taken such a job. As he says, “we discovered that this kind of job have no benefit, you can’t take care of your family and even to send them to school you will have different problems” … “at the end of the month the money they pay you is not up to 500,000 Leones, so that is why some of us are doing our farm work”. He realized that even a job with the company, which did indeed usually pay about 350,000 to 500,000 Leones per month (£50 to £70 in 2012), would not have been enough to support his family. He goes on to tell us that “when they came at first they say they are coming to develop our villages, build water wells, and even make our houses. These are all the things they say in the meetings. But they don’t do it at all as you can see. When they come they talk a lot”. As he sits telling us this story his eyes are downcast, settled on his large wide hands as he unconsciously works the dried mud from his callouses. We ask, if the company were to offer you a job, would you want it? And he replies: No, those that they first employed, we see the way they are treating them, and even the way we hear their cry. That makes us not be happy. At times when they employ them, they will just allow them to work for one or two months, and they sacked them. Is that a good employment? So if you worked there but you have your family, don’t you think it is a trouble? Well, that is why some of us decided not to work for them.

Our interview process is designed in such a way that we always begin with big broad questions (“tell me about the company, why are they here?”), and then we progress to examine more difficult or controversial matters either as they are brought up by the interviewee, or nearer the end of the interview when such questions will not bias later responses. In this case, as the interview seemed to be coming to a close, and after a lengthy discussion in which the young man complained about the lost level of compensation for lost crops, I ask who they have in their village who can represent them, who can look out for their interests? To this, he quietly, dejectedly responds, “we don’t have him, yet” … “all the peoples that they are bringing to us, they are on the side of [the company]”. This simple statement echoes so much of what I have seen and heard already regarding how the company interacts and communicates with the people living within the land-lease area. The manner in which the company officials speak at but never with local people in community meetings. The strange arrangement by which the company itself has hired a law firm

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to represent the interests of the villagers, most of whom, when asked, say they have never been visited by or spoken to these lawyers who come out to the land-lease area from Freetown only at the behest of the company. The consistent pattern by which customary chiefs—receiving substantial cash payments from the company in the form of land-lease payments, acknowledgement agreements, and travel expenses—praise the company for doing so much and for bringing development to Sierra Leone and then urge those they supposedly represent to bring any concerns only to them (the chiefs) instead of causing any disruption to the operations of the company. By the time of this interview in June 2012, having only arrived in April, I have seen already the fear resulting from the intimidation of village headmen who took such complaints to their chief and were told not to complain to anyone about the company. I have witnessed those same chiefs forcefully remind village communities that the company was brought by “Pa Koroma” the president of Sierra Leone, and that anyone speaking or acting against the company would be arrested as the company had the full protection of the law (Millar 2018a). Who, I wondered even then, did represent them? Who is looking out for their interests?

November 2013: Returning to the Project The old-style hand-rung bell from the elementary school rings in my ears, signalling the beginning of classes. One of the older girls waves it freely in her hand as dozens of younger children come running down the dirt road from the main street, legs pumping and arms waving, screaming and laughing as they race to class in their green, white, and blue uniforms. The sun has been rising into the sky for some time now, warming the air and burning off any morning dew that settled on the deep green leaves of the mango trees in the compound. The heat of the day to come threatens in the intense bright light bouncing of every surface, but for now, my room is still cool. It is one of four that make up the guest house run by St. Joseph’s School for the Hearing Impaired, which sits on the west side of the large compound and is shaded from the rising sun by the bulk of the big concrete buildings which make up the rest of the school. The room is on the first floor and looks out further to the west, directly across the dirt road separating St. Joseph’s from the elementary school and the squeals of the children accompany me as I go about my morning, preparing for another trip to the field. Mohamed arrives shortly on his Okada. It is another day returning to the land-lease area, where we have been returning to the villages and following up on last year’s interviews, hearing about lost hopes. But today we are returning to the factory site. The nearly completed factory, with its many interconnected buildings, offices, and paved walkways, seems massive. It is visible from quite some distance away and seems to rise up towards us as we get closer; a strange island of industrialization against the greens and browns of rural Sierra Leone. On

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arriving, we are both ushered into the compound through security but only I am invited inside, to sit in an air-conditioned waiting area with cold white tile and black plastic chairs; less than a mile but a world away from the village described above. I am meeting today with the new head of social and economic assessment within the project, an Englishman with more than 15 years of experience in land-tenure reforms in sub-Saharan Africa (particularly in Rwanda), who has replaced the South African in that position in 2012. At this point in late 2013, returning after more than a year and following up with so many of my 2012 interviewees, I have really become concerned about the trends I am seeing, and particularly with the issues of power and representation. My interviewee knows that I conducted more than 6 months of fieldwork here in 2012, but states from the outset that he is “not that bothered with what’s gone on in the past”. When, sitting in his nicely cooled office, I start to describe the many problems that I have identified, and the many ways in which the project is having unintended and potentially dangerous impacts. He says that he recognizes that there are both “individual grievances” and “collective resentments”, but that there are too many actors with something to gain by inciting resistance to the project. He argues that there is “so much background noise” that it is “far too easy for people to hijack the program”. There are too many local elites who are interested not in representing but in disenfranchising the local people, he says. It is certainly the company’s responsibility to continue to pay the ­land-lease payments and follow through on its other economic commitments, but it is also very “hard to quantify” how much of this has gotten through and how much has been siphoned off by corrupt elites. But there is also little, he says, that the company can do about it. “Things are moving so fast”, he says, “it’s like herding cats” and “the tensions within the villages are numerous” … “The complexity within the village is now quite high” he argues, “the change is rapid. The system is going to break down”. Although none of this is very positive, throughout the interview I am at least encouraged by his apparent ability to recognize the difficulty of the situation, the failure of the land-lease payments to trickle down, and the anger that is growing. But in the end, he sticks to the same line that I have heard from company staff since early 2012, that “the country must have investment to grow”, that formal land titling and modernization are key to such investment, and that he believes in this project and its purpose. The lack of representation for local people is, in the end, not a concern so great as to undermine the momentous work they are doing; the noble project of Development. But at this point in late 2013, the cracks are already starting to show. The tensions between the marginalized and disempowered residents of villages and the chiefs who signed the original agreements with the company have already led to a legal challenge between dozens of families (assisted by a US-based legal aid NGO) and their chief, while disruptions of company work due to strike action, road blockages, and other forms of sabotage by

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local youth have become regular occurrences. Company executives claim that they are losing millions of dollars every year due to the theft of property ­(primarily fuel), and concerns about eventual profitability hang in the air. All the ­promises—of jobs, schools, clinics, “Development”—were made with the caveat that the company would first need to be profitable. As I was told in 2012 by a company employee directly involved in the very first interactions between the firm and many of the communities, this was communicated to village residents as a parable about the development of a child; just as the parents must support the child when it is young and then the child provides for the parents when they are old, so the community must support the company until it is profitable and then it will be able to provide for the community. But nobody was held to these promises. There was nobody with the power, influence, and will to represent the interests of these communities, to hold the company to account. Instead, the powerful made their plans, signed their agreements, and shared the spoils. What I was witnessing was just another extension of a long history of such expropriation in Sierra Leone. Indeed, the predatory nature of patrimonial politics, when combined with globalized economic liberalism, has long been recognized as a primary driver of the conflict that raged in this country between 1991 and 2002. It was exactly such dynamics which undermined the state via corrupt one-party rule throughout the 1970s and 1980s (Kandeh 1999; Archibald and Richards 2002), and which spurred on the conflict once it started in 1991 (Zach-Williams 1999; Gberie 2005). Via such dynamics the mutually beneficial relationships between patrons (Big Men) and their clients (Shaw 2002; Jackson 2004) became a means for elites to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of society, undermining relationships that had traditionally formed the bedrock of Sierra Leonean sociality and serving to cut young men off from acceptable paths to independence (Peters 2011). Such dynamics have not been remedied in the post-conflict period. On the contrary, the same dynamics that led to the war are in many ways being recreated (Hanlon 2005). Indeed, since the end of the war poverty, inequality and elite predation has continued unabated (Shaw 2010: 111–112; Millar 2016), and it is this which forms the context of people’s lives, their experiences, their hopes and aspirations.

Poverty, Privilege, and Ethical Responsibilities I initially went to Makeni to examine the local experiences of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Such processes claim to promote peace among the broader population of post-conflict societies by catalysing reconciliation (Rushton 2006) and creating a shared national narrative (Chapman and Ball 2001: 15), and I wanted to test these claims. To accomplish this I needed to engage with people in Sierra Leone, and, as I was firmly instructed by my Ph.D. supervisor, an Anthropologist who had kindly agreed to

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supervise a dissertation by a non-Anthropologist, engagement required more than just sampling and interviewing individuals. It required that I come to understand the context of people’s lives, the social space into which this project of reconciliation was inserted. In short, I went to Makeni to experience what it was to live Makeni; to live alongside, talk to, and empathize with the residents of this mid-sized town that is both urban and rural, traditional and contemporary, isolated and interconnected. As such, much as is traditional in Anthropological research, my own approach assumed that “being there” in “the field” was essential for an interpretation of my interview data. But being there, I discovered, is not so ethically simple. I recall one morning in 2008 when I left the small house I occupied for much of that time on Teko Road to take the ten-minute walk into the market at the centre of town. In the course of that short walk I passed, first an old man dressed in rags, and sitting in the kind of wooden hand crank wheelchair used primarily by Polio victims, on the side of the road outside the “Our Lady of Fatima” Cathedral begging for change. Just a few hundred metres away I passed an old woman, sitting on one of the massive roots of a large tree, suffering from what looked like Elephantiasis in the legs; again, begging. And a few minutes later, as I approached the market there were, as there very often were, a number of blind men and women begging again for change from any who passed by, some with their hands on the shoulders of a young child serving as their guide. While I have always remembered this morning as a striking example of the level of poverty in Makeni, this was not really such a unique experience. I tried to walk around Makeni as much as possible during that first period of fieldwork, when the experience of the place itself was so important, and I doubt there was even a single day when I was not approached by at least a handful of people begging for change, whether blind, sick, an orphan, polio victim, suffering from some unnamed psychological condition, or just simply hungry. I could write all day about the labours people around Makeni engage in with the hope of earning just a few thousand Leones a day. The women, for example, who carry three or four long wooden poles used for scaffolding or construction on their heads into town from villages miles distant, or the porters who pull wooden carts loaded with any number of articles by hand along the streets of Makeni, straining against the weight and the traffic, dripping with sweat and exhaustion. The children who populate the crossroads and intersections desperate to offload their bananas, oranges, sodas, and crackers, or the market traders who sit, hunched over their baskets of beans, grains, greens, or fish and waving a lethargic hand at the flies in the market, eyes yellowed from malaria, too tired to call their wares. All are examples of the poverty that is evident in this the most impoverished region of one of the most impoverished countries on earth, with a gross national income per capita of just $420 per year in 2008 and $480 in 2016 (World Bank 2018). But it is important to recognize that this poverty contrasts with the great privileges enjoyed by others.

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There is money in Makeni. As has been written about in the literature, Sierra Leone has hosted a diaspora community of Lebanese traders for more than 100 years, and these traders today represent one of the axes of wealth and privilege in the country. They have dominated the diamond industry for many decades (Gberie 2002), and today also control much of the import–export business and the related retail and grocery sectors. The Lebanese community is one of the groups which has been able to consolidate its economic position over time, harnessing its social and economic capital in such a way as to capture a great amount of the benefits accruing from Development. Another concentration of wealth is found among the chiefly families who are, in theory, the most direct representatives of the rural peoples who were excluded by design from the initial historical period of Krio influence in the British Colony of Sierra Leone, which was limited to the Western Region (Webster and Kramsky 1970). These chiefly families, represented by the Paramount Chiefs, control large areas of land, gain revenue from taxes from their constituents, and in the present period of extractive global capitalism, benefit disproportionately from international investment. Finally, there are also those who come to power and privilege via more formal routes (many of whom are of course also of chiefly families), such as politics, law, business, and religion. Given their education, skills, and access such actors are perhaps everywhere likely to benefit disproportionately from Development interventions, but this is only more so within the environment of endemic corruption that is Sierra Leonean politics and business (Archibald and Richards 2002). All of these actors control enormous wealth generated in and around Makeni today, but it simply does not trickle down to local communities and power and privilege instead pool among those with influence and access, or sababu, as it is called in Temne. Since at least the consolidation of o ­ ne-party rule under Siaka Stevens in the early 1970s Sierra Leonean elites have engaged in a systematic expropriation of the country’s wealth and marginalization of its wider population, a process which has only been enhanced and further encouraged by the massive economic incentives related to global capitalism (Keen 2005). But if these actors, both the customary and formal authorities, are not motivated to represent the interests of their less privileged countrymen, who should or who can play this role? Should this be the concern of expatriate academics temporarily conducting research in the country? Would it not be yet another form of patrimonial imposition for academics, of all people, to claim to represent the underprivileged or to be acting in their interest? In the case of the land-lease project, at least, and while I am extremely sensitive to all of the usual concerns regarding the condescending tendencies of well-meaning interventions, I have come to feel in hindsight that a more engaged and active research process would have been far more ethical than the largely extractive process of data collection represented by my own project.

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If I Knew then What I Know Now: The Need for Active Research If I knew then what I know now, I would have designed a project with a built in process by which to facilitate the communities themselves developing remedies for the disempowered situation they found themselves in. I do not feel that I would have been able to design such remedies myself. Certainly, such foresight would have been impossible when writing the original project proposals which eventually provided the funding for the project; very simply, I didn’t know enough at that point to imagine accurately the socio-economic problems I would eventually observe on the ground. But, critically, even after observing these problems, I would still not be able to design processes to solve most of the problems I identified as they are complex problems with many interacting social, cultural, economic, political, and even spiritual elements. Developing feasible ways to tackle such challenges can only ever be achieved via bottom-up processes whereby the people themselves are provided with the necessary resources to examine the situation and then respond. But while I could not have designed into the initial project any “solutions”, I feel now that I should have incorporated processes to encourage the communities themselves to respond to the various challenges they faced. At the same time, while this sounds like an obvious way to develop a more substantively Ethical research process—and indeed it echoes many arguments regarding the value of “action research” over the years (Tax 1975; Rubinstein 1986; Lederach and Thapa 2012)—there are also huge challenges to this kind of facilitative process. First, just as the peacebuilding literature has been debating what we mean when we talk about “the local” (Paffenholz 2015), so I have found it difficult—even now—to think of practical ways to engage “the communities” among whom I conducted my research in 2012 and 2013. While I conducted my research in 12 villages within the land-lease area, there are actually more than 90 villages and more than 30,000 people within this area. These villages are spread over three chiefdoms and are themselves divided by conflicts between families within single villages, between villages, between the young who feel their land has been sold out from under them and the elders who have benefited from the land-lease agreement, and between the young who have found employment with the company and those who have not (Millar 2016). Further, as is true of Sierra Leone generally, there are huge difficulties in including and empowering women in such matters, both because to some extent even women themselves would not feel they are knowledgeable enough to participate in such processes (Millar 2015), but also because women are far from a united or heterogeneous group themselves, with some benefiting hugely via their relationships to powerful men while others are marginalized entirely. In short, I am unsure who would be included in facilitative problem-solving endeavours within an action research framework.

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In addition, if the above challenge was overcome, then even more practical challenges of time, distance, and representation come into the frame. One of the greatest limitations to any kind of consultative process across a large rural area is simply the cost of assembling representatives of communities. The bio-energy company itself spent hundreds of thousands of dollars arranging “five man committees” to represent each village (which by design were required to include at least one woman and one youth) and then holding regular centrally located meetings for all of the concerned villages within each of the three chiefdoms. These were held every couple of months and cost an enormous amount of time and effort in communication, organization, and then actually carrying out meetings which required that all attendees have their transport funded and then be fed at a community meal. It is very doubtful if any traditional research funder would consider supporting such events for the purpose of facilitating bottom-up responses or resistance to a large Development project. Further, it is doubtful to what extent such meetings would inspire creative solutions to identified problems, as communities are likely to be “represented” by exactly those who are benefiting from the project via land-lease payments (the heads of landowning families, their wives, and their sons). Alternatively, if there were a way to structure a more representative sample of village residents, it might prove very hard to ensure that those representing their village have the authority and capacity to carry forward any initiatives or plans decided upon in the facilitated meetings. These are the kinds of challenges which face anyone wanting to engage in action research in rural Sierra Leone. However, even with these daunting challenges, knowing what I know now I would still try to design a project that would include some funds to foster creative solutions for community empowerment. Knowing what I know now, for example, I know that at the very least the communities needed some assistance to gain access to the documents, agreements, and reports regarding the project. One of the key problems was that normal local community members had no knowledge of and nobody to inform them about the actual contracts their elite representatives had committed them to. Various promises had been made and communicated to them through easily confused parables and metaphors, but nobody without a clear interest in their acceptance of the project had communicated in clear language what they were and were not committing to when they signed or provided their thumbprint on various documents with which they were presented. Hence, I have often reflected since leaving the field in 2013 that one of the most pertinent services that might have been provided by an action research project, and which might have facilitated community empowerment, would be the translation and then widespread communication of the contents of the contracts regarding the land-lease agreement. Something as simple as hiring a handful of translators to translate all of these documents into Temne and then read the Temne version of the documents aloud, which could then be recorded and played, using

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a generator and sound system, in small passages over perhaps a full day to communities who could then take time to digest and discuss the meaning and implications of the entire document among themselves. Similarly, since leaving the field and reflecting on my field notes and interviews I have often thought that simply connecting individuals from different villages would have been a useful way to transmit and share experiences of the project and thus undermine the influence both of the ­miss-communicated promises from the company—and from local elites incentivized to support it—and of rumours regarding the benefits of accepting its agreements, of employment, and of land-lease payments. Those villages, for example, located within the land-lease area but at a distance from the project’s core operations (the nursery, factory, and pump-stations) could have benefited enormously simply from speaking to some of those who had already experienced much of what the project had to offer. As it was, when you talked to people in these more remote villages, they had heard only rumours about the positive and negative impacts of the company. Given their impoverished position, they always put more faith in the positive rumours and therefore built up hopeful expectations that were beyond what any of the villages that had already been impacted by the project had experienced. As such, a project to connect individuals from villages with extensive experience of the project and those with little to no experience might have been relatively inexpensive, but might have led to substantial reconsideration of the project in those latter villages. A third relatively simple, but in this case probably more expensive action research endeavour would have been to focus on a handful of the underlying social phenomena that facilitated the manipulation of local individuals and communities. The lack of basic knowledge within villages regarding the value of their own agricultural products, for example, was striking and points to the need for basic education in rural economic numeracy. Similarly, while widely broadcasting Temne translations of the contracts and related company documents and plans to the villages would itself be a significant process, such a project might also require that individuals and village communities be provided with some basic knowledge of rural land rights under customary, formal, and international law, and particularly their rights vis-à-vis the company. While some of the basic premises of women’s rights, children’s rights, and human rights are communicated via NGO activities and the radio, the subtleties of such rights are often misunderstood and certainly the pertinence of such rights in the face of a project brought by “Pa Koroma” were lost on those I interviewed in 2012 and 2013. As such, without the provision of more basic capacities—knowledge regarding economic numeracy and land rights—it is hard to see how these communities could understand the processes of the company and react accordingly for themselves. Fourth, it has often struck me that one of the primary tools available to the company, but not to the people in the villages, was the means to communicate both with the outside world, and among themselves. The company is

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a subsidiary of a large energy firm, with offices in London and Zurich, operations throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and employees from many different countries. It can use its connections, facilitated by twenty-first-century digital communications technology, to leverage information and support, human and social capital, political and legal influence from across these networks. The communities, on the other hand, are largely isolated. While individual residents (usually young males) often have phones, they cannot mobilize networks of support sufficient to counterbalance those of the company. In 2012 and 2013, unfortunately, these communities were cut off from outside resources and representation; indeed this was one of the reasons so many asked who I was there to help (them or the company) and why I too came to ask this question of myself. But in response, and as I would certainly try to do if I were starting this project now, I believe it would have been enormously helpful to connect local communities not only with each other, but with other communities undergoing similar problems in other places in Sierra Leone, across Africa, and elsewhere. Networks of rural peasant’s initiatives and indigenous empowerment movements do exist, and if I knew then what I know now, I would have made connecting some subset of my interviewees in Sierra Leone with such networks a central goal of the project. In short, when I reflect on my project examining the local experiences of the bio-energy project I am left with a deeply embarrassing shame at leaving it much as I found it. Unlike with my study of the local experiences of the TRC (which was conducted four years after the TRC report had been submitted), the bio-energy project was ongoing. Communities were being disempowered as I conducted the project. People were being lied to (in effect if not on purpose) and their land was being taken even between my two periods of fieldwork. But my project, my funding, and the usual ethical standards by which social science research is conducted allowed no action to countermand these dynamics. There are structural reasons for this. I conducted the entire project, including seven months of fieldwork, for less than €10,000 and surely to attempt any of the above more action-oriented processes would have been substantially more expensive. Similarly, the project was completed in the first hectic years of my career after completing my Ph.D. I completed the fieldwork between periods of teaching, funded the two periods of fieldwork with different grants, and even switched between institutions between the two fieldwork elements (also moving from the Netherlands to the UK). There was, therefore, none of the institutional support or consistency of funding that might be needed for a sustained action research project and campaign. Even if I had wanted to incorporate some basic community meetings, to connect individuals across the land-lease area, or to incorporate some basic rural economic numeracy or human rights education trainings, support would not have been available. Indeed, since 2015 (after Ebola forced the company to postpone production and then later to hand off the land-lease to another company) I have written various grants to return to the project and conduct

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follow-up research, but funders have not been interested in supporting such ongoing research. But this, perhaps, is why it is so important to plan ahead and to build in, from the beginning, long-term engagement with communities. I have long been an advocate of Ethnographic Peace Research (Millar 2010, 2014, 2018c) and particularly long-term fieldwork to produce grounded assessment of local experience of intervention (2018b), but I have realized in writing this chapter that this is not enough. If you spend seven months over two years (as I did) identifying the problems, then you need even longer to identify potential solutions, work closely with communities to develop creative options, and then work to acquire the resources to facilitate those options. While each case is different, a long-term approach might require two or three years of engagement with local communities and the challenges they face, which would then allow two or three more years working to facilitate some form of solution to those challenges, as designed and planned by those communities. My biggest regret, therefore, is in not realizing this and in planning a two-year project which, perhaps by design, could not provide anything like the help communities on the ground needed to overcome their own disempowerment.

References Archibald, Steven, and Paul Richards. 2002. Converts to human rights? Popular debate about war and justice in rural central Sierra Leone. Africa 72 (3): 339–367. Chapman, Audrey R., and Patrick Ball. 2001. The truth of truth commissions: Comparing lessons from Haiti, South Africa, and Guatemala. Human Rights Quarterly 23: 1–43. Gberie, Lansana. 2002. War and peace in Sierra Leone: Diamonds, corruption and the Lebanese connection. Occasional Paper No. 6, Partnership Africa Canada. Gberie, Lansana. 2005. A dirty war in West Africa: The RUF and the destruction of Sierra Leone. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hanlon, Joseph. 2005. Is the international community helping to recreate the preconditions for war in Sierra Leone. The Round Table 94 (381): 459–472. Jackson, Michael. 2004. In Sierra Leone. Durham: Duke University Press. Kandeh, Kimmy D. 1999. Ransoming the state: Elite origins of subaltern terror in Sierra Leone. Review of African Political Economy 26 (81): 349–366. Keen, David. 2005. Liberalization and conflict. International Political Science Review 26 (1): 73–89. Lederach, John Paul, and Preeti Thapa. 2012. Staying true in Nepal: Understanding community mediation through action research. Occasional Paper No. 10, The Asia Foundation. Millar, Gearoid. 2010. Local evaluation of truth telling in Sierra Leone: Getting at ‘why’ through a qualitative case study analysis. International Journal of Transitional Justice 4 (4): 477–496. Millar, Gearoid. 2014. An ethnographic approach to peacebuilding: Understanding local experiences in transitional states. London: Routledge.

162  G. MILLAR Millar, Gearoid. 2015. “We have no voice for that”: Land rights, power, and gender in rural Sierra Leone. Journal of Human Rights 14 (4): 445–462. Millar, Gearoid. 2016. Local experiences of liberal peace: Marketization and emerging conflict dynamics in Sierra Leone. Journal of Peace Research 53 (4): 569–581. Millar, Gearoid. 2018a. Co-opting authority and privatizing force in rural Africa: Ensuring corporate power over land and people. Rural Sociology 83 (4): 749–771. Millar, Gearoid. 2018b. Ethnographic peace research: The underappreciated benefits of long-term fieldwork. International Peacekeeping 25 (5): 653–676. Millar, Gearoid. 2018c. Ethnographic peace research: Approaches and tensions. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Paffenholz, Thania. 2015. Unpacking the local turn in peacebuilding: A critical assessment towards an agenda for future research. Third World Quarterly 36 (5): 857–874. Peters, Krijn. 2011. War and the crisis of youth in Sierra Leone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rubinstein, Robert A. 1986. Reflections on action anthropology: Some developmental dynamics of an anthropological tradition. Human Organization 45 (3): 270–279. Rushton, Beth. 2006. Truth and reconciliation? The experience of truth commissions. Australian Journal of International Affairs 60 (1): 125–141. Shaw, Rosalind. 2002. Memories of the slave trade: Ritual and the historical imagination in Sierra Leone. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shaw, Rosalind. 2010. Linking justice with reintegration: Ex-combatants and the Sierra Leone experiment. In Localizing transitional justice: Interventions and priorities after mass violence, ed. Rosalind Shaw, Lars Waldorf, and Pierre Hazan, 111– 132. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Tax, Sol. 1975. Action anthropology. Current Anthropology 16 (4): 514–517. Webster, James Bertin, and Jiri Kramsky. 1970. History of West Africa: The revolutionary years 1815 to independence. New York: Praeger Publishers. World Bank. 2018. World Bank Databank. https://data.worldbank.org/country/sierra-leone Accessed Online 13 July 2018. Zach-Williams, Alfred B. 1999. Sierra Leone: The political economy of civil war, 1991–98. Third World Quarterly 20 (1): 143–162.

CHAPTER 11

Solitary Decision-Making and Fieldwork Safety Max Gallien

In the past decade, an increasing administrative interest in safety and ethics in qualitative research has drawn a range of new actors into d ­ ecision-making processes around risks during fieldwork, generating a growing number of administrative procedures, forms and guidelines. This chapter argues that despite these processes, and unacknowledged by them, researchers are still fundamentally alone in most security-relevant decisions. This is neither surprising nor necessarily a bad thing. Many decisions—whether to get into a certain car or not, whether to go to a meeting you have a bad feeling about— need to be made at a moment’s notice. As researchers, we are frequently better placed than our supervisors or insurance providers to judge the situation that we are in. And in the end, it is our own bodies and our own health that we are considering. Starting from the acknowledgement that solitary decision-making by researchers is still central to safety in the field, however, provides an important corrective to contemporary discussion on risk and research, which tends to over-emphasise regulation over empowering researchers. Recognising solitariness stresses the need to identify the biases, pressures and expectations that affect researchers, and especially junior scholars, as we make decisions about our health and safety. And, as a result, it asks what changes in how we conduct, monitor and administer fieldwork are necessary in order to curb toxic discourses and reduce structural pressures that may lead researchers to make decisions that put us into danger. In order to illustrate these arguments, I am drawing on experiences from my own fieldwork. For a project on the political economy of smuggling in M. Gallien (*)  Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_11

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North Africa, I conducted about 14 months of fieldwork between 2014 and 2017 in the borderlands of Southern Tunisia and Northern Morocco (Gallien 2019), conducting interviews with smugglers, street-level bureaucrats, civil society activists and politicians, and supplementing these with ethnographic observations of border crossings, city markets and community meetings. I was interested in the relationship between smuggling and state-building, in how informal cross-border trade was organised and regulated, how rents were distributed and how the relationship between states and smugglers in the region had changed in the past years. My fieldwork was by no means exceptionally risky, and in no way represented a comprehensive education in research risk. At no point during my research was I physically harmed, detained by non-state actors or explicitly threatened. However, I think my fieldwork and both its preparation and aftermath present a fitting case of a research project that was feasible to conduct, but involved some forms of safety concerns, some decision-making in the field, and fell under university regulatory processes around health and safety. Both the security situation on Tunisia’s border with Libya and the fact that I was researching actors engaged in illegal activities warranted some caution, some additional procedures, and brought me into contact with the world of academic risk assessment. Coming back from the field, I was increasingly interested in these procedures, and sought out workshops, discussions and conversations particularly with other junior researchers doing fieldwork in environments commonly associated with risk. While this chapter is informed by these conversations, particularly with other Ph.D. students, and aims to speak beyond my own experience, it is also shaped by the context of my own research and institutional home. I am writing from the perspective of a political scientist working on a qualitative project, and based in an interdisciplinary department. I cannot claim that my institutional context is entirely representative for how other universities engage with risk-assessment processes, but I think that there are patterns here which are increasingly relevant beyond my institutional context. Finally, I focus in this chapter on the situation of early career researchers, and particularly Ph.D. students. This is not to imply that more senior scholars don’t face risks, are not influenced in their decision-making by discourses and professional pressures, or that they are generally part of the ‘problem’. I focus on early career researchers because they face a situation that is worth discussing in itself, and because it is this situation that my own experience speaks to. The remainder of this chapter is made up of three sections. The first section recalls some of my own experiences in the field and reflects on my ­decision-making around risk. The second tries to examine and categorise different pressures and discourses that are currently prominent in academia or affected either my decision-making or that of friends and colleagues. In particular, it names four archetypes—‘Indiana Jones Researchers’, ‘Suffering Researchers’, ‘Data-Gathering Robots’ and ‘Career Risk-takers’—that exemplify ways of

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approaching safety and fieldwork. The final section asks what can be done against the more toxic of these influences, and how processes around risk and fieldwork in academia need to change in order to not just bring in more actors, but to strengthen those who are ultimately left with both decisions and consequences: researchers.

In the Cracks of Risk Assessments With one of my field sites bordering Libya and containing a part of Tunisia that had generally been flagged as ‘risky’ by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I was advised to think about safety early on as a Ph.D. student. This was shortly after the 2016 murder of Cambridge University Ph.D. student Giulio Regeni in Egypt, and safety, particularly in North Africa, had suddenly become an ever-present conversation. This was exacerbated when, in early 2016, Islamic State fighters crossing the border from Libya attacked one of my field sites, again raising the threat perception of outside observers. From the very start, that conversation felt like it primarily revolved around institutions: around health and safety administrations, insurances, forms and committees. At that point, my primary concern was that my university or my funding body would not allow me to go to my field site—I had made some attempts at identifying alternative sites, but all of them would have delayed and complicated the project. This somewhat matched a frequent discourse around these procedures on campus: risk assessments as a hoop to jump through, as a process of negotiating with an institution’s economically motivated risk aversion. And so, out of consultations and negotiations with various institutions at my university, my supervisor, and my own eagerness to present a plan that would ensure that I would be allowed to go, emerged my security strategy. It took the form of one of those lengthy documents which have now become commonplace, outlining various risks and responses, points of contact, procedures, precautions. I think what we ended up with was a sensible strategy, probably erring somewhat on the side of caution, but most importantly not interfering too much in my research itself. I was fortunate here in multiple aspects: I had both a supportive supervisor and a university health and safety team that understood that for the type of research I was doing, keeping a low profile was important, and should not be compromised through overly visible or heavy-handed security measures. What we agreed on was a two-tier procedure, where more extensive precautions such as tracking my phone or checking in every three hours, both precautions against kidnapping, would only be necessary in selected higher risk areas. I remember that throughout this process, I felt that—for better or for worse—my security was not primarily going to be a result of my own decisions, but a negotiation, the result of procedures and regulations. However, once I had started my fieldwork, that quickly turned out to be a

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misconception—once again, for better or for worse. As comprehensive as any pre-fieldwork safety and risk-assessment plan might have felt, almost every decision that I made during my research that related to my safety was outside of the plan—or perhaps more fittingly, in its cracks, in the realm of interpretation and judgement calls. Those decisions were left to me alone. Most decisions that I more consciously weighed up were about which meetings to agree to, meeting times or meeting locations. Doing research on smuggling networks involved doing interviews with members of networks involved in illegal activities, many of which I had not met beforehand, and some of which took part in rural or secluded locations outside of the towns I was living in, occasionally at night. Again, these were decisions that largely needed to be made spontaneously and by judging things that would have been hard to evaluate for anyone from the outside—the trustworthiness of certain intermediaries, the atmosphere or tone of a meeting. Other decisions were even more quotidian—one of the provisions in my security plan included maintaining an irregular pattern of movement in certain areas so that I would not be taking the same routes or means of transport too frequently. Irregularity came with trade-offs in terms of convenience or speed— decisions that needed to be made every morning, and that would have been unhelpful and excessively onerous to clear with anyone else. While the solitariness in which I ended up making these decisions did come as somewhat of a surprise, it was not necessarily a negative one. I was better placed than anyone outside of the project to assess the situations around me, and anything else would have been absurd. There are a range of situations, after all, which would have sounded rather terrifying from the outside—such as walking into the local Islamic State hangout—which turned out to be relatively manageable locally. At the same time, some issues that we had not foreseen in preparing the project—such as driving at night in certain areas—presented more serious challenges. I was fortunate in that not only did none of my decisions lead me into any danger, but also that to the best of my knowledge I was always more than one bad decision away from any harm. Maintaining a low profile, communicating clearly and moving relatively frequently between field sites all proved to be sensible strategies. And yet, the solitariness of these decision makings was frequently on my mind—as a notable change between the discussions of risks in the lead-up to my fieldwork and its reality, as an additional piece of work and pressure during the research process, but most importantly as an opportunity to question and examine how I was thinking about risk.

On Our Minds: How We Talk and Think About Risk If we accept that it is both sensible and somewhat inevitable that we as researchers end up making the vast majority of our safety-related decisions solitarily, this should give new reason to think carefully about the context of

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those decisions, More specifically, it gives reason to think about what weighs on the mind of researchers as we think about our safety, our influences, the benchmarks that we measure ourselves against, the pressures that we are under. This becomes even more important if we assume that many of these decisions are made quickly or on instinct. Thinking about a particular decision in a safety context involves not only an estimation of how high the risk in a particular situation is, but also what an acceptable level of risk is in a particular situation—this is what I want to focus on here in particular.1 This section provides a brief survey into some of the discourses around fieldwork and risk that currently exist within academia and their potential effects on our expectations and judgement of what is a reasonable level of risk. This is neither a complete nor a fair listing—there are an increasing number of healthy discussions around risk, driven particularly by junior scholars.2 But with a view to changing practice, highlighting the most harmful examples appears more useful. This section highlights discourses that directly or indirectly propagate an unhealthy or unreasonable idea of risk-taking in fieldwork. I have grouped them under four archetypal caricatures of research personas—the ‘Indiana Jones researcher’, the ‘suffering researcher’, the ‘data-gathering robot’ and the ‘career risk-taker’.

The Indiana Jones Researcher Naturally, fieldwork experiences aren’t just shared in seminars and l­ectures. As stories are exchanged in the pubs and cafes between students and researchers back from fieldwork, virtually every researcher has experienced how fieldwork experiences become social currency once they’ve returned to their universities. This arena is naturally dominated by researchers with a particularly high tolerance for risk, an inability to recognise risk or a talent to embellish and dramatise their feats of heroism and danger. Everyone, it seems, has met some specimens of this species—they appear to be quite frequently male and found scrolling through Twitter in the local expat bar. Their stories may not always be true, or represent the wisest or most ethical decisions they made in the field, but they are colourful and memorable, and are hence more likely than others to stick in the back of our minds as examples of dealing with risk. When taken at face value, the stories of the ‘Indiana

1 Of course, many decisions also include questions of risks to other people, including participants and sub-contracted researchers/‘fixers’. This is a crucial issue for both fieldwork safety and fieldwork ethics, that has been taken up in other sections of this book and has been addressed in a range of recent publications, such as Sukarieh and Tannock (2019) or Peter and Strazzari (2017). Within the scope of this chapter, I focus on risks to independent researcher and particularly Ph.D. students. 2 Alongside a rapidly expanding academic literature, I would recommend the discussions on the platform ‘The New Ethnographer’.

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Jones Researchers’3—usually served with a dismissive attitude towards safety and research administration in general—can shape how we think about risk in the field. Through the sheer selection bias of being stories worth telling, they normalise higher levels of risk-taking. In addition, they may even create a pressure for researchers to come back from the field with stories of risk and daring, and make it more difficult to have an open discussion about what is an acceptable level of risk in the field. It is also worth noting as well that this is not necessarily contained to pubs and storytelling, but can also feed into ethnographic writing, further normalising unrealistic or unreasonable levels of risk-taking in the field, especially if those works feature in Ph.D. seminars and are not accompanied by critical discussions on the risks that researchers may have encountered or managed in order to obtain certain data.

The Suffering Researcher While the pub-based storytelling and ‘Indiana Jones researchers’ turn fieldwork risks into currency without directly connecting them to the value of the research itself, others draw this link more explicitly. Despite significant counter-movements and counterarguments, there is still a discourse that ­ relates the value of field research to its length or intensity, and, as this is impossible to measure or observe, the physical and mental exertions of fieldwork as a proxy. This can be particularly serious in the context of fieldwork in conflict or post-conflict environments, and if harm or the proximity of harm is presented as evidence of genuine embeddedness in a difficult research context. ‘Good fieldwork needs to hurt’, the discourse goes, or ‘researching war should fuck you up’. Here, too, this discourse is not just communicated orally through supervisions or conversations in a department, but is also re-enforced if ethnographies involving high levels of risk, difficulty or trauma are read and taught uncritically, or praised for this very reason. To highlight this as a problem is not to downplay the difficult decisions that research on these topics involves, to imply that it can or should be done entirely without risk, or to uniformly critique outstanding scholarship that has been conducted under difficult circumstances. The concern here is around the normalisation, expectation or fetishisation of higher levels of risks, or their equation with research quality. This then comes at the direct expense of empowering researchers to make informed and careful decisions about the risks they are taking. Even worse, researchers who opt for a lower level of risk, who choose to remove themselves from a situation that involved more risk than anticipated, or that includes risk that is not visible or obvious to some 3 While I wish I could take credit for this expression, it has a longer history. Lee (1995) refers to ‘Indiana Jones Imagery’, which is r­e-formulated as an ‘Indiana Jones class of ethnographers’ by Nilan (2002), before appearing as ‘Indiana Jones Researcher’ in Meyer (2007). I saw one of its most recent and insightful discussions by Laryssa Chomiak on a panel discussion on fieldwork and safety at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association in San Antonio in 2018.

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of their peers, may fear their reputation as researchers would be negatively affected when back in their department. Similarly, the approximation of fieldwork quality through length and exertion supports the dominance of one particular conception of long-term ­fieldwork that is done en bloc and in one location. While this may be the best strategy for some projects, it can4 also directly interfere with safety strategies that necessitate a low profile or frequent movement, in a world in which the nature of risks to researchers can also change rapidly. Especially in difficult or risky research environments, this can also pose severe pressures on researchers’ mental well-being as well. But even without the context of a particularly hostile environment, there is a real need to contextualise risk in classical works that inform fieldwork practices. To cite a colleague in anthropology, ‘reading about Malinowski landing on far away beaches and staying there with no contact with family or friends for years does not help in highlighting the small, everyday ways in which we would normally take care of our own safety’.

The Data-Gathering Robot Recent years have seen an expansion of critical discussions of fieldwork safety and risk in a variety of academic disciplines, many of which already have long-standing discussions on safety, positionality and the role of the researcher. However, it is important to note that this has been heterogeneous among disciplines. As more traditionally quantitative-minded disciplines and literatures have begun to engage more with qualitative research, mixed ­methods and nested analysis (Lieberman 2005; Moller and Skaaning 2015), this has brought more researchers into engagement with sometimes risky fieldwork who haven’t been extensively exposed to extensive training on qualitative methods. In some of the more technical literature on the intersection between ­quantitative and qualitative methods, however, the researcher is once again conceptualised somewhat as a data-gathering machine without personal needs, fears, and mental or physical health and safety concerns which need to take a central place in the conception of fieldwork. This is not primarily a fault in interdisciplinary literature, which primarily aims to establish frameworks that integrate different methodologies rather than provide a full introduction to qualitative fieldwork. Instead, it may result from a lack of qualitative training in some departments, or simple ignorance around positionality and ­conflict-sensitivity. On a more fundamental level, it reflects a frequent approach at qualitative training that prioritises its epistemology over its practicality, and its efficiency over its sensitivity. As discussed further below, these issues are aggravated through structural pressures on early career researchers. 4 Again,

the emphasis here is on the possibility of this, not its generality.

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What remains is a real risk that researchers who are first approaching ­ ualitative research or are not placed in departments or supervised by scholq ars who don’t have any experience in qualitative research, are not also being exposed to discussions on risks and fieldwork. A tendency to underestimate risks and the importance of self-care could here be exacerbated by pressures to conduct fieldwork ‘rigorously’ enough to conform to the standards of a discipline not typically familiar with it. The challenge for furthering a discussion on fieldwork and safety that can help researchers make better decisions in the field hence does not only lie in advancing the quality of this conversation, but also in making sure that it reaches a broad audience beyond those research communities already accustomed with ethnographic work.

The Career Risk-Takers Finally, considering the different discourses, assumptions and pressures that influence how researchers evaluate what are reasonable levels of risk while in the field, perhaps no single factor is as important to note than the career pressure that particularly Ph.D. students are under as they conduct their fieldwork. There is a very clear expectation for Ph.D. student s and junior researchers5 that fieldwork time needs to result in data and observations that are interesting, novel and relevant enough not only to support articles and theses, but to make them strong enough to sustain us in an increasingly competitive job market. At the same time, there are serious time constraints imposed through funding and submission deadlines, which can easily make fieldwork appear like a ‘one shot’ situation, on which an entire academic career depends. Frequently, there is a natural trade-off between taking larger risks and gaining more access, more interviews or more time in an interesting environment. As a result, we become professional risk-takers, as we balance the risks that we subject ourselves to with the potential research outcomes, and the future publication or employment opportunities they may afford us. There is a direct relationship between fieldwork safety and the structural pressures on junior academics, and particularly of the academic job market, that is woefully neglected in contemporary discussions on research and safety. Of the pressures outlined here, this is the one that was on my mind most frequently and most forcefully as I was making decisions about my safety during my own fieldwork. While I had left for fieldwork early in my Ph.D. and had some time left until my funding deadline, it was constantly unclear how long Tunisia’s police would tolerate my research in the borderlands, as I had to continuously negotiate my presence. As a result, time pressures frequently felt heightened. At the same time, doing research on informal and illegal

5 As

mentioned above, this is not limited to Ph.D. students and junior researchers, but is particularly prevalent here.

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economic activities in a new environment brought with it significant uncertainty, as to what kind of access I would be able to manage, who I would be able to talk to, and if all of that would add up to support a coherent argument. And, hoping for an academic career, a coherent argument was certainly needed. As I mentioned above, I don’t think these pressures ended up leading me to make any decisions that brought me into any serious danger. But I am certain that I would have thought about the risks that I was taking differently, and would have approached, and likely made, some decisions differently, if an academic labour market somewhere down the line hadn’t been so presently on my mind.

Solidary and Solitary—Dealing with Risk in the Field Thinking about how these issues can be addressed, and how we can support researchers making decisions about their safety in the field, this section is made of three parts. The first reflects on what helped me navigate these issues during my own fieldwork. The second asks what we as researchers can do in the current structural context of higher education and the academic job market. The third points to the relationship between fieldwork risk and wider calls for structural change in higher education, and especially Ph.D. programmes. In dealing with both the solitariness of decision-making about risk and the different pressures associated with it, I was, as mentioned above, in a privileged position. I was funded through a four-year research council studentship and had left for fieldwork early in the duration of my Ph.D. programme. This gave me a time horizon that was less restrictive and stressful than many other junior researchers. Adjusting to a changing fieldwork situation, and even switching field sites would have been a cause of delay, frustration and additional work, but not necessarily thrown the project entirely off the rails. As I was doing a comparative project with multiple field sites, it was also easier to think about alternative plans in case the trade-off between risks and relevant research would become untenable in one of my fieldwork locations. One of my central ways of dealing with this possibility, and escaping the feeling of having only ‘one shot’ at my fieldwork, was thinking through alternative field sites, comparisons and scenarios. This was helped by another privilege— having the benefit of a supportive and practical supervisor, who had personal experience with fieldwork in different environments, and helped me feel that if I decided that something wasn’t feasible, she would have my back. I am highly aware that these have been privileges that not all my colleagues shared, and that not having them would have likely changed both my perception of risk and my way of engaging with it. Looking back, the most difficult part of this process for me wasn’t the results of these decisions, or structural pressures to take on more risks than I wanted to, but the emotional challenges that came with the solitariness of

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these considerations, and with handling risk for a long period of time. Even if no serious dangers materialised throughout my fieldwork, the precautions necessitated by my ‘safety plan’ served as a constant reminder that risks existed, and these built up as tension and exhaustion that was difficult to release, and began to affect my health towards the end of my fieldwork. It felt too subtle, quotidian, borderline embarrassing to bring up with my supervisor, and unwise to bring up with friends and family, because, unfamiliar with the local context, it would unnecessarily worry them. Working in a peripheral location without a local community of researchers or NGO workers, I was mainly surrounded by locals who made every effort to make me feel safe, and who I didn’t want to offend by noting when I didn’t. This changed during the last weeks of my fieldwork, when I learned that another Ph.D. student from my university had been conducting fieldwork nearby for over a year. While our university had failed to make us aware of that fact, the local police later did that job for them, when they reacted to my claims that I was working alone and was the only researcher from my university in the area. Meeting up with the other researcher locally, although late, provided an important relief, not just through exchanging information on how to navigate the local environment, but as a source of moral support, as someone to check in on decisions made, as a source of solidarity. Having known about each other’s presence earlier on in the fieldwork would have been a significant asset, both intellectually and emotionally. Based on the experiences and dynamics discussed here, I argue that within the current structures of higher education, supporting researchers working in risk-affected contexts requires engendering more open discussions about risks, and building structures of support and solidarity. The aim of new discussions around risk-taking in research should not only be to avoid, tackle and call-out unhealthy discourses as described in the sections above, but also to critically address the way that these discourses are connected to prestige and reputation in academia. Here, the responsibility falls particularly to those already well-endowed in prestige and reputation to foster an open and inclusive discussion, and to highlight the difficulties and compromises that were a feature of their own data collection. This should include—as this volume aims to do—a more open admission of the messiness of fieldwork, and— as this chapter has aimed to do—an outing of unhealthy discourses as discourses, rather than accepted fact or common wisdom.6 Not only should pre-fieldwork trainings include a discussion on the solitariness of much decision-making around risk, as well as its potential mental health dimensions, but also should be geared towards transferring skills that help researchers navigate these situations, rather than just a priori identify risk assessments that

6 Again,

this is not to imply that this does not exist at all, but to emphasise its importance. This book is an example of this type of writing, as are some of the sources quoted above.

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avoid them altogether.7 Furthermore, connecting students, researchers and alumni who are or have been researching in similar environments would be a relatively easy procedure for universities to adopt, but would be incredibly helpful in fostering conversations and solidarity beyond issues of risk alone. However, beyond this, I think it is important to recognise that wider calls for structural reform in higher education are not entirely separate from concerns about field safety and risk-taking. As I have argued above, there are strong reasons to suggest that both the time pressures that can be embedded in Ph.D. programmes and the expectations and hiring practices of the academic job market directly incentivise Ph.D. students and junior researchers to adopt higher levels of risk during their fieldwork. If we assume that most decisions about risk are also made outside of the formal structures and constraints of risk assessments and safety plans, that also means that this additional risk-taking by vulnerable researchers most likely cannot be contained through an additional bureaucratisation of the risk-assessment process. Consequently, wider reforms within higher education that strengthen the independence and financial security of students and junior researchers also directly contribute to the safety of students and researchers, by decreasing the pressures that they are subject to while conducting risky fieldwork. Revisiting Ph.D. funding structures in order to make it easier to extend and adjust them, or even increasing the availability of writing up grants would also make it easier for students to formulate a ‘Plan B’ in case the situation in a field site changes, hence having to take on less risk. Any reduction in the vulnerability of junior researchers on the academic labour market also decreases the pressure on researchers to expose themselves to risk in order to land a job. Expanding the provision of mental health support in higher education, as has been increasingly called for in recent years,8 would also directly increase the resources available for students struggling with experiences around risks and violence. And crucially, the facilitation of more collaborative and team-based research, and particularly collaborative ethnography, not only opens new methodological opportunities, but also reduces the feeling that the success of a project is a function of the risks taken. As this chapter has argued, most security-relevant decisions in the field are still made by researchers, solitarily. The goal of university departments, training and supervision should be to protect researchers by preparing and empowering them to make conscious and healthy decisions that are right for them. This should include fostering a more open and honest discussion around risks in the field, countering toxic discourses, and providing points of contact, of mental health support and solidarity. However, it also needs to

7 These

notes are to highlight the importance of these topics, not to imply that they don’t currently exist in a variety of departments or contexts. 8 Raddi (2019).

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recognise that structural pressures on Ph.D. students and junior researchers in higher education can directly affect the choices researchers make in the field, and, as a result, should be recognised as affecting fieldwork safety as well.9

References Gallien, Max. 2019. Informal institutions and the regulation of smuggling in North Africa. Perspectives on Politics. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ perspectives-on-politics. Lee, Raymond M. 1995. Dangerous fieldwork. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Lieberman, Evan S. 2005. Nested analysis as a mixed-method strategy for comparative research. American Political Science Review 99 (3): 435–452. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0003055405051762. Meyer, Scott D. 2007. From horror story to manageable risk. Formulating safety strategies for peace researchers, June. https://munin.uit.no/handle/10037/1033. Moller, J., and S. Skaaning. 2015. Explanatory typologies as a nested strategy of inquiry: Combining cross-case and within-case analyses. Sociological Methods Research 46: 1018–1048. Published Online Before Print. Nilan, Pamela. 2002. ‘Dangerous fieldwork’ re-examined: The question of researcher subject position. Qualitative Research 2 (3): 363–386. https://doi. org/10.1177/146879410200200305. Peter, Mateja, and Francesco Strazzari. 2017. Securitisation of research: Fieldwork under new restrictions in Darfur and Mali. Third World Quarterly 38 (7): 1531– 1550. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2016.1256766. Raddi, Gianmarco. 2019. Universities and the NHS must join forces to improve student mental health | Gianmarco Raddi. The Guardian, February 15, sec. Education. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/feb/15/universities-andthe-nhs-must-join-forces-to-boost-student-mental-health. Sukarieh, Mayssoun, and Stuart Tannock. 2019. Subcontracting academia: Alienation, exploitation and disillusionment in the UK overseas Syrian refugee research industry. Antipode 51 (2): 664–680. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12502.

9 It is worth noting that there is a parallel argument to the one made in this chapter that applies to research ethics, however, discussing this in full goes beyond the scope of this contribution.

CHAPTER 12

Making Contact: Interviewing Rebels in Sierra Leone Kieran Mitton

Introduction Since 2008 I’ve spent much of my time speaking with people who have ­committed brutal violence. I began with fourteen months of fieldwork in Sierra Leone as a Ph.D. student, interviewing ex-combatants who had perpetrated atrocities during the civil war of 1991–2002. Later as an academic, I continued to visit Sierra Leone regularly for extended fieldwork, but expanded my focus to include urban violence, with a comparative project spanning cities in Sierra Leone, Brazil, South Africa and the UK, where I interviewed current and former gang members. Throughout this research, I’ve had to find ways of contacting individuals and groups that many would consider difficult to reach. Those who might seem to have few reasons to want to talk to outsiders about their involvement in criminal violence; those who live in ‘dangerous neighbourhoods’ and so-called no-go zones, and who are often themselves (in)famously dangerous. In this chapter, I consider how I first contended with the challenge of making contact with ex-combatants in my doctoral research, and what ‘contact’ actually means in different contexts. I provide an account of my initial approach to fieldwork in Sierra Leone in 2008, explaining how and why I later adapted my methods to fit the local context and my particular research aims, concluding with some of the broad lessons I learned along the way. Before going further, I would like to make several points to frame my discussion. Firstly, my fieldwork has always been a collaborative experience K. Mitton (*)  King’s College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_12

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underpinned by the generosity and help provided by others, including informants, and whilst I wouldn’t wish to diminish the importance of researcher-skills, it is important to keep this in mind. Any success in contacting informants in insecure environments is unlikely to result solely from the skills of a researcher. Secondly, the size of the challenge is often exaggerated. Although risks vary across contexts and are often very real, over the years I have found the idea of ‘no-go zones’ to be frequently misleading, and prohibitive (perhaps intentionally so) of removing the harmful stigmatisation that surrounds these areas and their residents. In Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town, I have gone to neighbourhoods many outsiders told me I could not access and spoken to gang members they told me I could not reach. Although there certainly are places where researchers would be reckless to tread, placing themselves or research participants at unnecessary risk, there are also places where it is only through on-theground research that certain ‘outsider’ myths concerning ‘bad hoods’ or ‘bad’ people can be dispelled or challenged. Just as researchers should prioritise safety and avoid unnecessary risks, they should also be wary of uncritically accepting preconceived ideas about who and where is dangerous or unreachable, not least because such ideas may be intended to silence, marginalise or dehumanise, and may become self-fulfilling the more they are reproduced. Thirdly, context is crucial. This discussion does not argue that there is only one right way to conduct research, but hopefully highlights where certain forms of ‘making contact’ are more appropriate than others, particularly when the topic of research is violence and the approach is qualitative. The locations and sociopolitical climate in which research takes place, the nature of the research itself, and the identity of the researcher and the researched, naturally determine the challenges and the most appropriate methods to meet them. What has worked for me, a white British male, in research in Brazil, Sierra Leone, South Africa and the UK, will not apply in all cases, though I believe there are some key lessons that are generally useful. Finally, this chapter is not presented under the delusion that I have it all worked out, or that I have been entirely successful in my efforts. In fact, perhaps some of the most useful lessons I can offer come from my mistakes. One key lesson of this chapter (and volume) is that fieldwork in practice is often far messier than it might appear in theory, and this isn’t a problem—it’s an important part of the learning journey. By recognising this, I hope students and early career researcher might be relieved of some of the pressures to meet unrealistic fieldwork ideals.

Talking to Former Rebels in Sierra Leone My Ph.D. proposal argued that academic studies of civil war atrocities tended to obscure the emotional, human realities of violence by d ­ escribing it in removed, instrumental and almost clinical terms. These ‘bloodless

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conventions of social science’ (Kaufman 2001: 3) had arguably left us with an incomplete and misleading understanding of what drives individuals to commit brutal violence (see also Kalyvas 2006: 34; Slim 2008: 8). In part, I argued, this dimension was missing because so few scholars of conflict had actually spoken to perpetrators themselves, for various understandable reasons which included the sensitivity of the topic and the presumed difficulty of making contact. Using the Sierra Leone civil war of 1991–2002 as a case study, my proposed solution was to seek out former combatants’ stories of how and why violence unfolded as it did. This kind of research would rely on in-depth life-history interviews and, since I assumed it would take time to locate willing interviewees and even more time to get to a stage where they felt comfortable sharing their stories, it would require long-term fieldwork. As such, although much of the literature I was responding to came from political science, the methods I would rely upon had more in common with anthropology and sociology. But I was keenly aware that I had no training in either discipline. In fact, given that my department, the Department of War Studies, was defined solely by the subject of study (as opposed to being a Department of Political Science, for example), in a very literal sense I had no academic discipline. Prior to fieldwork, I completed a course in research methodologies that confirmed my basic innumeracy and limited love for statistical terminology. The course usefully stressed analytical rigour and vigilance in identifying unreliable data; it less usefully gave the distinct impression that ‘good’ research was essentially a controlled scientific experiment that goes neatly to plan. I looked for inspiration in the work on Sierra Leone (e.g. Gberie 2005; Ferme 2001; Keen 2005; Richards 1996; Utas and Christensen 2008), from those who had sought the voices of perpetrators (e.g. Arendt 1963; Hatzfeld 2008; Peters and Richards 1998; Sereny 1995), and from those writing about ethnographies of violence (e.g. Nordstrom and Robben 1995; Kovats-Bernat 2002; Rodgers 2007; Sluka 1990; Whitehead 2004). Yet if the quantitative methods were impenetrable to me and ill-suited to my aims, many of the qualitative ethnographic methods seemed unachievable. The ideals of ‘embeddedness’ and ‘deep hanging out’ (Geertz 1998) seemed to require prolonged immersion in a society, not to mention fluency in multiple languages and cultural repertoires, that seemed beyond my limited resources as a Ph.D. student. A life-history approach appeared most realistic, but I remained stuck at the first hurdle: even if ex-combatants proved willing to share their stories, how could I connect with them in the first place? Before beginning my fieldwork I was fortunate to benefit from the advice of experienced fieldworkers. I was quickly disavowed of any notion that in order to be valid, my research needed to conform to impossible ideals of coverage, depth and disciplinary purity. I was able to obtain a handful of very promising contacts, including former rebel combatants with whom I hoped to use the ‘snowballing’ technique to access others. Additionally, I was offered the chance to piggyback on the work of a UN agency that was

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dealing with reintegration and youth employment programmes. This seemed a rare and invaluable opportunity to learn about that aspect of international involvement, and another good way to reach ex-combatants. Nevertheless, a common piece of advice was to plan not to have a plan. In other words, to leave space for research to take its own course, rather than trying to force it along a predefined path. My thesis supervisor, keen that I should try to locate former rebel commanders, provided me with some lasting advice: some of the most useful leads may come from casual conversations in bars, in taxis and in the streets. In fact, he gave much greater emphasis to getting a general sense of Sierra Leone at a relaxed and natural pace than he did to conducting formal interviews. Although I wasn’t exactly lacking in motivation to head to the bars, this was liberating, being a more instinctive fit for how I wanted to go about things than how I’d thought I was supposed to do research. It stood in stark contrast to much of what had been taught on the methods course. My attempts to contact perpetrators of atrocity in my first visit to Sierra Leone began along two very different tracks. One followed the informal contacts made through friends and fellow researchers, supplemented by serendipitous day-to-day encounters as I navigated around the country. A second, short-lived track, was the more formal approach defined by the attachment to the UN agency. Through the second, several experienced and passionately committed youth experts provided helpful insights and I had the chance to meet ex-combatants engaged in rural work programmes. However, unsurprisingly, the association with the UN skewed those conversations with former fighters. Although I emphasised that I was an independent researcher, the distinction was confusing and understandably suspect. Village elders and those in leadership positions invariably saw a potential opportunity to secure investment, or to remonstrate over the UN’s failure to deliver on promises. They acted as gatekeepers to ex-combatants, who were under pressure to say the ‘right’ things in what became formal and stilted conversations. Former fighters were likewise keen to present themselves in a way that might be favourable to international donors (see Shepler 2005: 199), and in situations where I was able to speak with them alone, the official feel of the interactions made things feel uneasy and closed. Quite obviously, this was an inappropriate context in which to talk with people about their role in wartime violence, and the wrong foot on which to begin a relationship that might eventually lead to recording life histories. The UN experience was enlightening in many respects, not least about the problems of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programmes, but in terms of ‘making contact’, it resulted in superficial ­ relationships. For my thesis I could now list an impressive number of interviews, but I knew these figures belied their limited substance. Ultimately, the position had helped me contact ex-combatants in a technical sense, but at the same time, it had typecast me in a way that prevented any deeper form of interaction. I had now learned the importance of gaining trust as an

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independent researcher, and to some extent, the value of ‘flying below the radar’ of some elites and gatekeepers. Another lesson was the importance of recognising and actively resisting research ‘bubbles’, a problem strongly related to peacebuilding ‘bunkerisation’ (Autesserre 2014: 55; Duffield 2010; Fisher 2017; Higate and Henry 2010; Smirl 2015). ‘Fieldwork’ conducted within the confines of these bubbles could ensure a researcher had minimal contact with surrounding society. During my first weeks, it was clear that life for some peacebuilders was pervaded by a distorted sense of risk associated with the world outside the guarded compound. Short distances in Freetown were traversed in air-conditioned SUVs; drivers warned new staff to keep windows wound-up and to maintain perpetual vigilance against thieves and thugs. I was regularly cautioned against setting foot in ‘dangerous’ slum communities. In my early interviews with international staff, several lamented that colleagues were rotated into Sierra Leone with next-to-no knowledge of the country, rarely stepping outside of the Toyota, the compound, the expat bar or beach, before moving to their next assignment. For international researchers, attempts to reach local informants could be undermined by the invisible (and visible) boundaries of this bubble. Researchers visiting for a short period could spend their entire time within this world, producing reports and theses on the country based solely on experiences within ‘safe’ zones of the capital—a bubble within a bubble. There is much more that can be said about the neo-colonial mindset and structures that sustain the bunker mentality, the ‘us and them’ distinction between ‘expats’ and ‘locals’, and the superficiality of fieldwork that entirely bypasses indigenous knowledge and local researchers. Of course, there were real risks requiring sensible precautions, and those were different depending on gender and various forms of privilege. But in general, the portrayal of lurking danger in Sierra Leone was evidently exaggerated for a country that by 2008 was largely peaceful and could not be compared to active warzones as a ‘high risk’ posting. Fortunately, there were also many international and Sierra Leonean workers and researchers who actively sought to burst the bubble. My other research track, which relied on informal contacts and introductions given by academics, friends or chance encounters that came from walking around or taking taxis and motorbikes, was very helpful in moving outside the bubble in those early weeks. The illusion of ever-present danger was quickly dispelled as I got to know the country, and I found it much easier to find people willing to talk than I had expected. Many of those driving okada motorbikes and taxis were former combatants. Known somewhat derisively as ‘DDR drivers’ and famous for their casual disregard for road safety, they liked to talk. Most spoke English or Krio, a creole language relatively easy for English speakers to pick-up. Taking these taxis around the country and riding in bustling poda poda minibuses, chats with passengers curious about my work proved some of the most enlightening research moments. I was quickly inundated with people volunteering their own

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views and putting me in touch with friends and family who had stories to tell. One of my first conversations was on an okada driven by a former soldier who claimed to have taken part in a recent armed robbery. He told me about his disillusionment with DDR, his struggle to feed his family and the reasons behind his desperate turn to crime. He put me in touch with the rest of his crew. Another early conversation took place in a poda poda travelling from the capital to the countryside. It began as a discussion about love and marriage with a heartbroken off-duty soldier. Soon another passenger joined in on the theme of friendship, recounting her surprise when during the war she had confronted the commander in charge of rebels who were burning down her business, only to find it was her old college roommate—a woman she later discovered had done terrible things during the war and was now in hiding. Eventually, the entire minibus became engaged in a discussion of the war, debating who was to blame. These were among the first of countless impromptu conversations that grounded my fieldwork and provided useful contacts. Jotted down in fieldwork notebooks and diaries, they demonstrated one easy way to get outside of the bubble. Take the bus. As a means of meeting ex-combatants, the less formal ‘snowballing’ approach, building on referrals by academics, friends and chance encounters, was effective. I was able to build up contacts in various groups of former Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, military and civil defence forces across the country with relative ease. However, interviews about wartime violence still tended to be stilted or overly performative, with informants presenting themselves exclusively in sympathetic light. It was through discussion about this with one former RUF combatant, Issa,1 who became a close research collaborator over the years, that I decided to take a different approach. Issa had a wealth of connections with former rebels who we would meet in the streets, in their neighbourhoods or at ghettos—social hangouts. After each initial introduction, it seemed expected that I would conduct an interview then and there. Since I was grateful for their time and didn’t want to be rude, I usually obliged. We’d go somewhere private. The notebook or audio recorder would come out, we’d talk about the war, I’d ask some questions, and the job was done. Some interviews were better than others, but for the most part, they were of little depth. They weren’t the kind of interactions I wanted. It all felt very transactional, even though no payments were on offer. There was a small industry built upon post-war research, within which Issa was a key node. He had carved out a role as fixer for academics: he knew the kinds of people they wanted to meet, and he had the connections to make it happen. Over time, members of Issa’s diverse network become adept at retelling their stories, some with more than a little embellishment. As Issa once explained, the stories served a purpose in their daily struggle for survival. They were tailored to give researchers what they thought they wanted 1 The

names in this chapter have been changed to preserve anonymity.

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to hear, and they were usually successful in eliciting generous compensation for their telling. One sweltering afternoon, in the haze of Saharan dust brought by the Harmattan, I was conducting an interview with Moses, a former rebel and friend of Issa’s. We sat close to a busy central street-corner surrounded by traders hawking second-hand shoes, mobile phones and various stolen goods. It went the usual way, resulting in a story that was vague, impersonal and largely off-topic. When I turned off the recorder, and Moses was satisfied that I was satisfied with his performance, we shared a cigarette and began to chat about other things. Issa and his friends joined us, and everyone relaxed. The conversations in those months were invariably about Sierra Leonean politics, Barack Obama or Premier League football. Issa was a Liverpool fan, Moses was Manchester United, and I was the butt of many jokes for supporting my hometown club of Bradford City. On this occasion, unprompted by me, the conversation found its way back to wartime experiences. Moses began to talk in candid detail about his involvement in violence, and when I showed interest, he encouraged me to take notes for my research. It was the kind of conversation I had wanted with him all along. It turned out Moses had wanted this kind of conversation too, but by holding an interview, I had sent a different signal. I had made things transactional: I needed something for my work, and so I got the standard product. I later discussed this with Issa, explaining why I disliked the formal interviews and the audio recording, particularly in situations where I’d only just met participants. I wanted to get to know people first, more naturally and off the record. Later if they were comfortable enough, we could record their stories in real depth, at a gentler pace. His response was essentially: of course! It immediately dawned on me that the only reason this hadn’t happened was because I’d never really asked. In what sounds ridiculous with hindsight, I’d just gone along with what seemed to me and my informants to be ‘proper’ research protocol. Issa was relieved. The more he’d learned about my aims, the more he wanted me to get what he called the ‘real’ story of the war, and he knew these formal interviews wouldn’t reveal much. He suggested we change tack. ‘I want you to come and sit with us on the street at night, and I don’t want you to ask questions. I just want you to listen’. I should have started that way. I had never wanted to approach such a sensitive and personal topic as violence so directly and head-on. Interviews were far too clumsy in that regard. And it was unrealistic to expect individuals to confide difficult, intimate details of their past to someone they’d just met, who for all they knew was just here to profit from their stories. I began hanging around the streets where some of the ex-combatants spent time hustling and socialising. I still wanted to record in-depth interviews at some stage, but I could leave this until much later, when the time was right. First I could take time to get to know interviewees properly, and allow them to get to know me, and to speak candidly and off-the-record. I was careful to

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be upfront about my purpose, and in practice, it would have been difficult to conceal. The tables were turned and I was the one who had to regularly give my story. I got to know ‘informants’ as peers around my own age, with many things in common. To the detriment of my health, sharing cigarettes and beer was a great way to bond. We’d often sit at the kerb of one street and buy them from a street vendor. I was never allowed to pay for more than others, despite the gulf in our circumstances. In a similar dynamic to the ghettos where people would go to smoke and drink palm wine, in this place everyone was meant to be on the same level. It was a place where lots of ex-combatants would gather and talk, usually about football. I once earned myself a small amount of local fame by successfully predicting the score in Chelsea’s unlikely victory over Barcelona. For one glorious day, I was a legend. As the weeks and months went by, I spent time getting to know other groups around Sierra Leone without the agenda of being there for an interview. People were generous. One street trader wanted me to learn about his trade through hands-on learning. I sat with him as he showed me how he fixed mobile phones, and his customers found a lot of amusement in my own clumsy attempts. I was not a stellar apprentice, but he was patient because that was never the point. He wanted me to better understand life from his perspective. Others in the same area began a tireless campaign to improve my Krio language skills, testing me daily. Again, I wasn’t the best student, but their investment of time and patient teaching was typical of the research dynamic. It was rarely a case of me retrieving information; more often it was a case of being led to it by those who wished to help. When the time came to talk about wartime atrocities with those I had gotten to know well, the depth and candour of those conversations were far greater than I found in the earliest days. Interviews were not short, nor were they one-offs. They became closer to collaborations as we worked together to document their difficult pasts. Life histories often had a confessional feel. Few had ever really been asked about themselves beyond the superficial. Many interviewees seemed to have been waiting for the right opportunity to put the dark aspects of their past on record, in full, as if doing so might help make sense of them. In contrast to the earlier interviews, accounts seemed less skewed by a desire to present sympathetic narratives, bringing to the surface disturbing but important details about the sense of pride and power some derived from killing. I remained wary of the risk that stories were designed to meet my interests, particularly given the greater closeness formed by a ‘deep hanging out’ approach, but in general, my experience echoed that described by Mats Utas in his Liberian research. He had initially recorded close to a hundred interviews with ex-combatants as part of an NGO project, then later spent four months with ex-combatants in their own place, with the recorder off. According to Utas, the recorded interviews had resulted in material that complied with ‘pre-set frames of victimhood’ and were ‘almost entirely a wasted effort’ (Utas 2003: 80). By contrast, the later conversations with

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former fighters were less guarded and ‘closer to their own honest versions of their experiences’ (Utas 2003: 81). Trust and by extension empathy were clearly important in making the difference. Over the weeks and months, people had gotten to know what I was about. They could better judge what motivated me, whether they could trust me, and whether they wanted to help me out. The jokes, the small talk, and the ordinary, mundane moments we shared were part of overcoming formality and distance, of building a more human connection. Being willing to sit on the streets for hours, to visit hangouts and neighbourhoods stigmatised as dirty and dangerous, and as Issa advised, willing to just listen to what the marginalised had to say meant something. It perhaps showed that I was alright. That I was not solely there to exploit war stories for my selfish ambition. That perhaps I was actually concerned, and that I was actually listening. Switching to a more informal approach resulted in a more meaningful form of making contact that helped me to conduct the interviews I wanted. But although I ceased to be a stranger to some ex-combatants and could believe I had gained greater insight into their violent pasts, I was under no illusion that I had suddenly become an insider, or that all thereafter would be smooth-running. It would have been the height of researcher naivety to believe that the huge gaps between us had somehow been closed. When I was finishing high school, Issa—who had joined the rebels as a young boy— was in the bush hoping to start school, provided he could survive the militia attacks and register on the DDR programme. After the war, those I spent time with continued to face huge struggles just to survive. Some did not survive. Ex-combatants on the street had to be innovative and smart in locating strategies to get by, and to some extent, I was part of one. Once, some months into my fieldwork, a trader in Freetown took me aside and told me that many people in the area wanted to tell their stories, but were being prevented by the guys around me. At first doubtful, I subsequently discovered that Issa and the group I’d been spending time with in the area had warned people they could only speak to me by coming through them. Apparently, I was a resource, and they were the gatekeepers. Issa had also encouraged rumours that I had given him lavish gifts, including a jeep. Entertaining as the idea of me as a wealthy bigshot was, I was concerned and a little annoyed about the impact on my research. I confronted him. He admitted all of it, but the reasoning was sound, and I felt naïve and guilty. They knew they weren’t getting those things from me, but it boosted their social standing in the area if people believed they were. As I was well aware, Issa’s survival was strongly linked to his social standing and the perception that he had important connections and sponsorship. And since he wouldn’t be getting money from me, he creatively made the most of the situation. Without fully realising my impact I had become part of a patronage-based social economy that I had long studied, and this in turn had served to constrain the contacts that I might make in that area of the city. It was, in effect, another version of a

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research bubble, and I had failed to recognise and step outside the invisible boundaries of Issa’s influence. I learned once again the importance of ensuring that the kinds of contact I made, and the networks I used, didn’t preclude others. In the end, I was easily able to work the issue out with Issa, and though I remained associated with him in that area, thereafter I spent time with other groups independently. Many researchers are not so fortunate to have the luxury of unhurried time. For those who may only have a matter of weeks to conduct interviews, challenges of building trust and making meaningful contacts can seem too great. However, some of my experiences in Sierra Leone and elsewhere have shown that in some situations, having limited time for interviews, and being a stranger, can actually be an advantage. One example was in 2010, when I was in the east of Sierra Leone for several months. Right at the end of my stay, I had the opportunity to interview Ibrahim, a former rebel. I wasn’t expecting much, given that we only had three days to work with. On the first day, we were introduced by my local research assistant Joseph, who knew him well. Ibrahim listened carefully as I explained the aims and purpose of my research and tentatively raised the possibility that he might allow me to record his wartime experience, including his involvement in violence. When I was done, he explained that ordinarily he didn’t talk about these things. In fact, his family didn’t know about his true past. But he had been told I was trying to understand what happened in Sierra Leone so that it wouldn’t happen again. If I was serious about that, he felt it important that I hear his story. And since Joseph vouched for me, he trusted I was serious. Over the next two days, we talked non-stop from dawn to dusk. Over hours and hours of conversation, he relayed his life story in painstaking detail. His candour about his participation in violence was surprising, even by this point when I had spoken to many others about their past. I spent a lot of time over the following months, cross-checking the details of his exhaustive account, corroborating what I could. I believe it is one of the most honest, detailed personal histories of the conflict I recorded. Ibrahim was afraid to tell his family the full truth of what he had done in the war. He didn’t want that past hanging over him as he built a new life. But he knew Joseph well enough to trust him with his secrets, to trust his vouching for me, and he knew that I would be leaving the country and keeping his story anonymous. We were perhaps among the few people he could confide in, and by the end, it was clear that it was important for him to share a story he had never told. I learned the lesson that it isn’t always necessary to have abundant time, or to build up relationships with the those being interviewed, in order to reach substantive depth when discussing sensitive topics. Each situation demands sensitivity to context. But trust, whether invested directly in the researcher or in an intermediary, does seem essential. In this way, years later when conducting gang research, I was able to work with trusted intermediaries—particularly ex-gangsters—to overcome the challenge presented by more limited time.

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Conclusion The early weeks of my doctoral research taught me that there are different kinds of making contact. My initial association with the UN had some advantages and technically helped me contact ex-combatants, but it also acted to socially distance us from each other; in essence, it wasn’t really the contact I was after. I also learned the importance of stepping outside of social and research bubbles that if not recognised and challenged could ensure minimal contact between research and the supposedly dangerous people and ‘no go’ areas with which it was concerned. These bubbles were not just about paranoid peacebuilders and isolated expats. Networks of contacts, though valuable in themselves, could also serve to exclude others and skew what stories are told. Snowballing can be effective, but it can also keep a researcher on one particular path that may bypass other perspectives and networks. The straightforward solution was to always seek out multiple entry points for research that were independent of each other. For my purposes, I had needed to build a degree of trust with informants and avoid the kind of stifling formality an interview could entail. In the end, achieving this was not particularly complicated. It came down to being upfront and honest about who I was and what I was doing, using the basic social skills that we all employ in building deeper relationships. Listening, empathising, sharing and even laughing together. Getting to a point where the interviews could be relaxed, and would likely be more honest, was essential, and this usually took time. But in some instances, it didn’t need so much time: where an intermediary had an existing relationship with an informant, their vouchsafing was often enough to get us there. In this regard, fieldwork was also a useful lesson in humility. I learned that success is not solely reliant on the researcher’s intellectual prowess or ability, but on the goodwill, skill and social capital of many other people. I benefited from the goodwill of ex-combatants deciding to invest their time in helping me to understand their lives, connecting me with their friends and wider networks. I benefited from the skill and friendships of people like Joseph, who knew how to reach those I could not, and were trusted enough to be able to transfer that trust to me. Humility was also taught by mistakes. As I later transcribed my interviews I would cringe each time I heard myself interrupt an interviewee who was saying something fascinating, just for the sake of clarifying an entirely unnecessary detail. Every field researcher I know has stories of embarrassing mistakes. They may not make it into our publications, but they are a very human part of a very human endeavour, and so invaluable. That human dimension, and having a degree of empathy, may often be important in making contact with hard-to-reach individuals and communities; people and places that may have been written-off, prejudged or entirely ignored. Showing a willingness to really listen, or to step into a world that others do not, can be enough to invite a deeper form of contact from the start. It is in many respects a humanising approach that pushes back against the academic terminology that

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sometimes distances us from the very human reality of what we are researching. That reality is something a researcher in an insecure environment will likely confront. Writing this chapter has been difficult when reflecting on those I worked with who died, many due to causes that are eminently avoidable, or curable, in the life I inhabit. Issa was one of those people. On the eve of my first stint of fieldwork, I saw myself falling short of two research ideals: the systematic accumulation of bountiful, robust data through methods favoured by political science, and the deeply embedded, culturally and socially informed accumulation of knowledge obtained through ethnography. But the more I learned about the realities of fieldwork as I lived them, the more I relaxed. In practice, my research was fluid, not ethnography but not so far removed from the deep hanging out or life-history approaches. I still wouldn’t know exactly what to call it, or to call my discipline, and I’m not sure it really matters. This lack of methodological purity is arguably a benefit in the study of violence (see Collins 2008: 32). Although I relaxed, I sometimes still worried about not having enough ‘good’ interviews, and I found that many other doctoral researchers were haunted by a sense of not measuring up to some of these methodological ideals. For some that anxiety proved crippling. It never fully left me until the examiners delivered their final verdict. Earlier, during the writing-up stage, I had made a comment about having some incoherent sources and accounts which contained inconsistencies I was trying to resolve. An experienced anthropologist friend replied: ‘Why this striving after coherence?’ He then quoted Leonard Cohen, a favourite of mine: ‘There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in’.

References Arendt, Hannah. 1963. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. New York: Viking Press. Autesserre, Séverine. 2014. Peaceland: Conflict resolution and the everyday politics of international intervention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Collins, Randall. 2008. Violence: A micro-sociological theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Duffield, M. 2010. Risk-management and the fortified aid compound: Everyday life in post-interventionary society. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 4 (4): 453–474. Ferme, M. 2001. The underneath of things: Violence, history, and the everyday in Sierra Leone. Berkeley: University of California Press. Fisher, Jonathan. 2017. Reproducing remoteness? States, internationals and the co-constitution of aid ‘bunkerization’ in the East African periphery. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 11 (1): 98–119. Gberie, Lansana. 2005. A dirty war in West Africa: The RUF and the destruction of Sierra Leone. London: C. Hurst & Co. Geertz, C. 1998. Deep hanging out. The New York Review of Books 45 (16): 69. Hatzfeld, Jean. 2008. A time for machetes: The Rwandan genocide—The killers speak. London: Serpent’s Tail.

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Higate, P., and M. Henry. 2010. Space, performance and everyday security in the peacekeeping context. International Peacekeeping 17 (1): 32–48. Kalyvas, S.N. 2006. The logic of violence in civil wars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kaufman, Stuart J. 2001. Modern hatreds: The symbolic politics of ethnic war. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Keen, David. 2005. Conflict and collusion in Sierra Leone. Oxford: James Currey. Kovats-Bernat, J.C. 2002. Negotiating dangerous fields: Pragmatic strategies for fieldwork amid violence and terror. American Anthropologist 104 (1): 208–222. Nordstrom, Carolyn, and Antonius C.G.M. Robben (eds.). 1995. Fieldwork under fire: Contemporary studies of violence and survival. Berkeley: University of California Press. Peters, Krijn, and Paul Richards. 1998. ‘Why we fight’: Voices of youth combatants in Sierra Leone. Africa 68 (2): 183–210. Richards, Paul. 1996. Fighting for the rainforest: War, youth & resources in Sierra Leone. Oxford: James Currey. Rodgers, D. 2007. Joining the gang and becoming a broder: The violence of ethnography in contemporary Nicaragua. Bulletin of Latin American Research 26 (4): 444–461. Sereny, Gitta. 1995. Into that darkness: From mercy killing to mass murder. London: Pimlico. Shepler, Susan. 2005. The rites of the child: Global discourses of youth and reintegrating child soldiers in Sierra Leone. Journal of Human Rights 4 (2): 197–211. Slim, Hugo. 2008. Killing civilians: Method, madness and morality in war. London: Hurst. Sluka, J.A. 1990. Participant observation in violent social contexts. Human Organization 49 (2): 114–126. Smirl, L. 2015. Spaces of aid: How cars, compounds and hotels shape humanitarianism. London: Zed Books. Utas, Mats. 2003. Sweet battlefields: Youth and the Liberian civil war. Doctoral thesis, Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University. Utas, Mats, and Maya M. Christensen. 2008. Mercenaries of democracy: The ‘Politricks’ of remobilized combatants in the 2007 general elections, Sierra Leone. African Affairs 107 (429): 515–539. Whitehead, Neil (ed.). 2004. Violence. Oxford: James Currey.

CHAPTER 13

Participatory Action Research: Challenges and Rewards in Fifteen Field Lessons Georgina McAllister

Introduction My angle on peace research comes via a somewhat circuitous route, stemming from a long-lapsed peace studies background. This was followed by almost two decades working in the development sector applying various aspects of agroecology to foster social-ecological resilience, albeit in some pretty fragile environments. Yet I had long-harboured an interest in marrying the two. ‘Participation’ often appeared as a box in funding applications; often little more than a veneer to reduce costs or facilitate an ‘exit strategy’. Scant resources rarely afforded any meaningful engagement with the very people in whose lives we were intervening, be it through the co-design,—planning or—evaluation (Pimbert and Pretty 1997). Of course, I sensed that our work could be invigorated, and its outcomes made more durable, by e­ngaging with a range of participatory approaches, but had rarely had an opportunity to experiment with the myriad tools and techniques that have emerged over recent decades. When offered a research opportunity at a centre that emphasised the value of transdisciplinarity, I jumped. What followed was a hugely enriching process that nonetheless began with my regression as an ­over-enthusiastic child-in-a-methodological-sweetshop. Here I distil a series of fifteen lessons into five broad themes: Remaining true to emancipatory PAR considerations; Being mindful of any unintended consequences of your research; Being alive to your own assumptions and expectations, while understanding the complex relationships between co-researchers and G. McAllister (*)  Coventry University, Coventry, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_13

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the networks they form; Respecting the time participants give to the research process in the midst of their already busy lives; and some Practical workshop essentials. In doing so, I share my research expectations, the approach and tools I selected and adapted, the dawning realisation of its limitations (and my own), and the gradual acceptance that, while this opened up areas for further research, it could never be, in and of itself it, my entire life’s work in a single manuscript. This was my first salutary but liberating lesson. The second was that, as systematic as the analysis was and needed to be, the messy reality of fieldwork was where it really came alive, much of it only making sense long after I returned, with new insights emerging even now.

Research Background A grounded and multi-site research approach was agreed early on and, having been fortunate to have worked with pioneering agroecological NGOs in Zimbabwe since 2008, I was invited to undertake my research in three rural areas, with ‘communities of agroecological practice’. Each is located in different productive regions (defined by rainfall and soils), with a different spatial and temporal proximity to conflict, and exposed to a range of internal and external power dynamics. Less of a post-conflict environment, Zimbabwe’s situation represents something of a continuum—with its ebb and flow of tensions repeatedly crossing between types of violence and the many gradations in between. Of the communities contributing to this research, all sit within administrative wards of approximately 4000 people that are at the margins of state service delivery, or are actively marginalised, and all are exposed to compound stresses and shocks of increasing severity. With the unresolved national question intrinsically linked to agrarian change (Moyo and Yeros 2011; Moyo 2015), a succession of protracted crises continues to foment political violence and power asymmetries that run through the centre of every community. Indeed, the political ecology of violence that surrounds entitlements (Peluso and Watts 2001), such as control over the distribution of, and access to, natural resources, farming subsidies and welfare, remains a powerful driver of diverse national and local struggles for power. These are mediated through complex patronage networks in the search of legitimacy, consent and control (McAllister and Wright 2019). My research set out to investigate the transformative potential of agroecological processes in these rural farming communities, rooted in relationships of dynamic responsiveness between people, culture and place. I was particularly interested in the extent to which agroecological practice-led (and inherently social) farming processes may have contributed to the resilience and agency of practicing communities, and how this might inform the experiences of everyday peace in all their diverse expressions. In direct contravention of the highly technocratic and developmentalist state dogma, where even creative deviation from farming norms may be considered seditious, was

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there evidence of a ‘bottom-up culturing of reflexive social action’ (Stirling 2014:21) that expresses plurality and incrementally tests the boundaries of these rigid and often coercive structures? Was it possible that, in these new spaces, a shared world of understanding and common meaning was emerging to form the basis of alternative sources of power and identity underpinned by principles of solidarity, reciprocity and trust? And, if so, to what extent was a re-forging of social-ecological relationships resulting in changing social processes, attitudes and relations? With the literature review having crystallised some skeletal concepts, followed by some carefully constructed, if imperfectly framed, research questions, I set out to explore the relationship between people and the landscape they depend upon; between the past-present-future; and between resilience, agency and peace in context. With more questions emerging, my study would need to unfold inductively, and I would need to capture whatever data might fall my way. I felt like I was flying blind, but with a plan, and I would need to remain on my reflexive toes throughout.

Why Participatory Action Research? Mirroring the participatory and heuristic nature of agroecology, p ­ articipatory action research (PAR) was selected from the outset with a view to ­co-creating a process that was of intrinsic value to those investing their time in a collective exploration, rather than being purely extractive. PAR is a branch of action research with a strong focus on decolonising the relationship between researcher and research subject, with a commitment to disrupting conventional knowledge hierarchies by creating alternative pathways for its ­co-production. PAR, like agroecology, has a strong tradition in Latin America and is connected to the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire (1970). As such, its participatory feature involves working closely with practitioners within communities as co-researchers. The action involves surfacing themes related to challenges and/or opportunities that connect the social to the ecological, such as soil or water conservation, recovering ancestral knowledge, and understanding social tensions or pathways for innovations (often in complex combination). This ‘surfacing’ requires employing methods that stimulate a heuristic process of observation, reflection and action (Argyris 1976; Argyris and Schön 1978) through discursive practice that aims to reveal the emergent properties of the social-ecological whole. Integral to this transgressive approach is an iterative process that engages research subjects as co-researchers in the co-generation of meaning related to: why things are the way they are (current state); what prevents change (maladaptive resilience); and how things could be (more desirable state). While from an agroecological standpoint this calls for a co-formative exploration of relationships between people and the natural world, it has the potential to be disruptive in calling structural boundaries into question (be they ecological, social or political), opening up the

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unknown, experimenting with new ways of doing things, and learning from the re-valuation of own knowledges and experiences. Ultimately, laid against normative research approaches, PAR strives to be emancipatory. For the purposes of academic research, however, where questions need to be predefined and agreed for ethics clearance, this calls in to question how participatory such research can be. Furthermore, given the structured dependence of centre-periphery relations and elite control, in which we in the academy are also embedded, how realistic is it to truly decolonise knowledge in terms of any given ‘community of practice’, not least the expectation that an external researcher can single-handedly facilitate the change that ‘community’ fervently seeks? Here lie deep-rooted contradictions and structural dependencies that need, at the very least, to be acknowledged. And then there are more immediate questions about the ethics of inherently disruptive methodologies when applied in already fragile environments. I offer no explicit answers to these complex questions, but instead present some of what my research entailed, and the very human responses that emerged.

Co-creating Pictures and Reflections With these considerations weighing heavily, my fieldwork took place over two months in each of the three research sites during 2016 and 2017. Living within each community, the first month was set aside for PAR activities, and the second spent conducting semi-structured interviews. A third lesson was found in investing in local translators. Not only will they help you to navigate local relationships and norms, they will be invaluable in making arrangements with participants, co-facilitating where necessary, and in providing cultural guidance as well as a sounding board for shared observations while walking over many hours and kilometres between villages. The PAR activities, lasting one to two days each, were arranged a week apart in order to fit between farming activities on chisi.1 This provided time to translate and transcribe PAR output, and to analyse data in order to iteratively and systematically test any emerging insights to inform the next layer of activities (Charmaz 2014). Research interactions took shape around a series of focus group discussions (FGDs). These consisted of arts-based tools to map social and physical landscapes in order to explore changing social boundaries and practices; storytelling for narrative enquiry; and participatory indicator development. Drawn from practicing agroecological farmers in each community, FGDs were attended by between 25 and 38 participants, fairly equally by men and women, up to one-third of whom were ‘youths’.2 These were followed by

1 Chisi

is the traditional rest day which ordinarily falls on a Wednesday when working in the fields is prohibited to allow the ancestors that reside in the soil to rest. 2 Youths are defined across the region as 35 years or below.

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a survey containing the co-developed indicators and carried out with a local survey team, survey data feedback to the wider community, and an action planning workshop. The selection and sequencing of these processes had five key purposes: (1) to act as an introduction to particular issues and focus group participants for the duration of the research; (2) to elicit responses and stimulate discussion between participants in ways that could extend what is already known and understood (by them and myself); (3) to provide an opportunity for different groups of participants to express themselves freely in a non-confrontational manner; (4) to provide more textured data for triangulation; and (5) to tailor subsequent sessions according to emerging insights and group dynamics. All focus group output was left with the host NGOs for ongoing engagement. Participatory Mapping (a) Landscape Mapping Landscape mapping aimed to create visual representations of interests, through which the physical features in whose landscape could be explored, depicting areas of social and cultural importance as well as points of ecological interest or concern. As group discussions unfolded, some began to identify boundary disputes and areas of ecological concern, and to consider interconnections and downstream impacts of resource management decisions. (b) Body Mapping Working in groups of men, women and youths, body maps were used to depict issues of importance to emotional, developmental and physical needs, to explore relationships, and elicit a discussion on whether, how and why these might have undergone changes over time. (c) Timeline Mapping A timeline activity aimed to capture perceptions of change through the lived experience, and to encourage groups to discuss memories and insights, particularly between the generations, and to begin to organise these to create shared meaning. Each community selected the decade they wanted to reach back to, the earliest being the 1940s. With flip charts depicting each decade, rope to represent the passage of time, and rocks and foliage they selected for ranking, participants set about creating a visual display of events affecting them and their community (Plate 13.1). In each case, I added a further sheet at the end to suggest ‘turning the corner’ towards the future where participants could propose events that they wanted to see and/or could exert some degree of control over. The community exposed to the most extreme forms of violence found envisaging such a future the most difficult. In theory, each of these mapping activities could take days or months, with a full complement of paints and other art materials, interspersed with discussions and interrelated activities (Belay Ali 2015; Marnell and Hoosain Khan

194  G. McALLISTER Plate 13.1  Capturing their event timeline (14 October 2016) (© Georgina McAllister)

2015). While our process was truncated, it nonetheless proved informative to the following sessions, surfacing tensions around patriarchy, polygamy and power, and between culture and equality. And while recollections of dates varied, mapping processes connected the national to the local, such as mass arrests, curfews and school closures, and the disappearance of family members. Events of significance to farming were also prevalent, such as droughts, forest fires, cyclones and landslides that shaped the physical environment and the community’s response to them. Events leading to economic hardship were consistently highlighted, ‘elections’ did not initially feature on any timelines. This proved at suitable challenge to my early assumption; that election periods represent static focal points around which local political allegiances are formed and framed. When in fact the reality is far more fluid, with ongoing tensions more likely to be driven by intra-party factionalism. This lesson, number four, was to become a regular reminder to remain alive to my own assumptions and expectations. The body mapping activity perhaps proved the most difficult to facilitate, with some mens’ groups interpreting needs in purely physiological terms,

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often associated with the senses (‘to have food to be strong for farming’), while women focused primarily on their emotional needs and beauty regimes. Had I failed to appropriately frame ‘needs’? Quite probably. However, on closer inspection, I realised that, because this session had not resulted in what I had anticipated, the meaning behind the more gendered responses was obscured by my interior frustration. In one location, for instance, the men’s needs were to provide solutions for practical interventions driven by a highly purposive rationality.3 The problems and solutions were mapped in considerable detail, revealing expressions and tactics with a long lineage connected to colonial epistemologies that continue to influence peoples’ actions and attitudes today. Yet, when seen together, these mapping encounters highlighted the dynamic and emergent properties through which perceptions, interests, relationships and goals were continually being shaped, as well as how structure itself is conceived. For me, and my lesson number five, it also highlighted the changing nature of the research encounter itself and what structures it shapes, and is shaped by, through the ongoing process of reflection and self-reflection. Participatory Survey Development (a) Indicator Discussion Groups The second FGD was designed around the development of each community’s own survey, and centred on the exploration of intrinsic values and meaning attached to perceptions of the core research concepts of resilience, agency and peace. This involved groups co-developing a series of bottom-up indicators,4 moving beyond simple binaries, and beneath learned NGO jargon, by unpacking these concepts according to the lived experience. Designed around an adaptation of the Firchow and Mac Ginty’s (2017) Everyday Peace Indicators ‘+’ groups of men, women and youths rotated around the three themes, facilitated by myself and two colleagues from the host NGO. From the outset, I began by offering a broad definition of resilience, agency and peace, so as to guide but not dominate discussions. Yet, facilitation of the agency theme, for instance, often required a negative being posed as an entry point—allowing a process to unfold from when one might have felt powerless. For the purposes of transformative action-oriented

3 A

positivist ends-means approach to arriving at fixed outcomes based on predefined value preferences within which technocratic assumptions related to, i.e. growth and development are embedded. 4 The development of bottom-up indicators provides an emic analysis using indigenous or local measurements to overcome the imposition of unilinear concepts and definitions. This approach is well established in development and agroecological research (Pulido and Bocco 2003; Astier et al. 2011; Rogé et al. 2014), with formal metrics being questioned in relation to difficult-to-measure concepts such as peace in Sri Lanka (Holt 2013) informing the Everyday Peace Indicator (EPI) project (Mac Ginty 2013; Firchow and Mac Ginty 2017).

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co-learning it was important that this process was built around surfacing alternative constructions of power and identity, and collectively agreed representations of what positive change may look, sound or feel like. But this may be challenging for people who have been disenfranchised, either through threats of violence, coercion or socialised consent. Creating safe spaces for rich exchanges, where stories can be woven to explore changing attitudes and practices, highlights how the important use of idiom continues to inform and describe complex relationships around which interests and needs are framed and negotiated in the everyday. I will pick up on this again shortly. The role and understanding of co-facilitators were critical to the expansive learning process, and sometimes challenging. In one instance, an NGO officer more used to extracting practical outcomes (part of that purposive rationality again) instead treated the FGD as a technical exercise. This resulted in more of a shopping list of funded inputs and activities (‘more workshops’), than indicators for measuring changing resilience. Being focused on facilitating another theme at the time, this only became clear to me at the end of the day. After much consideration, it was agreed to re-run this the following day, this time together as a wider group. This took time from indicator feedback and ranking, but was invaluable. Lesson number six was the need to respond to potential problems quickly and to build in time for re-boots to make the most effective use of participant’s time, and to leave them feeling that each session builds towards a satisfactory conclusion. (b) Indicator Shortlisting and Ranking When groups came together to discuss their findings, and to agree upon and rank their final indicator shortlists (seen in Plate 13.2), the line between themes and indicators was sometimes blurred, reflecting the fluid relationship

Plate 13.2  Collective indicator ranking (9 February 2017) (© Georgina McAllister)

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between the themes themselves. In such cases, I encouraged participants to reflect on these interconnections and to agree on where an indicator belonged. In other cases, FGDs around a single indicator reflected diverse positions, particularly different aspects of ‘culture’ such as dress code and lobola (or bride wealth/price). These were found to be: (a) important to preserve (men), (b) a cause of family tensions and domestic violence (women) or (c) ripe for re-evaluation (youths). In these cases, a survey question was devised to reflect these positions within the response range. Lesson number seven was therefore the need to weigh up considerations of what would make life easier while remaining true to my PAR ethic. So, while the alignment of indicators (and thus identical survey questions) would facilitate a direct comparative analysis between sites, I considered it a reasonable trade-off that each survey instead represented the issues that participants themselves were keen to explore. The what, why and how indicators were arrived at, then formed an important qualitative unit of analysis. My lesson number eight came in the form of gatekeepers. In two sites, peace indicators were selected that were later considered could expose the groups (and host NGOs) to negative repercussions from local powerholders and/or security services: the first on rule of law, and the second (from a youth group) related to forced youth involvement in political intimidation and election violence. While discussed openly during FGDs, its explicit selection as an indicator presented an interesting group dynamic, when the choice of the youths was vetoed by a group of more powerful men as ‘being too sensitive’. However, during the discussion, I was acutely aware of the proximity of those same men in mobilising the violence being referred to. In both cases, the risks were discussed, before reaching a decision to select a replacement indicator. Nonetheless, at this stage, the role of my NGO hosts and their associated powerholders as gatekeepers was becoming clear—either to protect ‘their communities’ or to protect their own interests. The reality of these interwoven relationships is not always easy to navigate, but it is important to acknowledge and document. Its negotiation, however, needs to involve all the parties to a focus group in order to seek an accommodation, however uncomfortable. (c) Surveying Each of the ranked indicators was developed into a survey question, agreed by the survey team. As central to the PAR approach and ethic, the intention was to build a team of interested individuals derived from the FGDs for the process of co-learning and co-creation to be continued beyond my research. For this reason, one participant from each village was identified and invited to become a survey enumerator (and paid a daily rate), and to present the survey data back to the wider community. A day of survey and ethics training was held, and survey tests provided a quality check for me, while familiarising the survey team with the questions and process.

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In the case of one enumerator, respondents had unanimously positive responses on local leadership, in contrast to the respondents of other enumerators on the same team. Was it possible that he had filled out all of the surveys himself? I considered this possible, but unlikely—he was a man committed to transformative social change through innovative agroecological means. What may have happened became clearer when I put this to him in a later interview. His brother was the ZANU-PF ward councillor, and respondents may have been concerned that their responses would be conveyed. My learning (related also to lesson eight) was to enquire with enumerators about any such relationships that may compromised the process, to analyse the data for any anomalies and, if found, to acknowledge them. What this experience did not do, was to devalue the role of engaging local enumerators, all of whom are invariably embedded in networks that are nonetheless important to understand. Telling Stories Stories of Most Significant Change (MSC) (Davies and Dart 2005; Wrigley 2006) were used as a form of sharing between the storytellers themselves, while simultaneously allowing me access to an extraordinary range of experiences. With storytelling focused around any changes (positive and negative) that had taken place since the communities had become involved in agroecological initiatives, this was intended to capture the dynamic processes, providing more freedom and texture to that of the rigid survey/questionnaire process. Some stories were captured on the three audio devices I had. But where around eight themes were selected, others were captured in written form by a group member or colleague. The written stories tended to be more mechanistic, whereas the recorded conversations were rich with feeling. The intention had been to code stories to analyse the inter-thematic linkages and relationships. However, in the rush to make the often-long walk home before the hyenas emerged at dusk, many of the written stories were taken away in a hurry and were not always recovered. Added to which many stories did not relate to change in the agroecological context. As with lesson seven, having considered the value of this activity after the initial research site, with a view to removing it entirely, I decided to retain it given its intrinsic value as a way of understanding and signifying collectively agreed representations of change. For participants, the process reinforced not only that change was happening, but how it was happening, encouraging an exploration of the processes that had enabled it (Plate 13.3).

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Plate 13.3  ‘Cultural ritual’ group share their stories on managing conflict and environmental change (22 February 2017) (© Georgina McAllister)

Returning Data for Reflection and Action Presentation day was treated as a celebration of co-learning, taking place at a central location with available electricity for projections, often a school. Survey data was co-delivered to the wider community of up to eighty ­people,5 providing a public forum for the collective identification of where strengths and weaknesses lay, and what each community wanted to address and build upon. Women and youths from the survey teams were asked if they would present, and were coached by myself and the team to build confidence. Community elders were particularly surprised, with one village head announcing that he had ‘never thought that a simple woman farmer could make such complicated presentation’. At the end of the presentations and interim discussions, participants selected a number of emerging ‘matters of concern’ and were invited to group themselves into those they felt most equipped and committed to resolving, before tackling a series of exercises aimed at fleshing out potential obstacles and opportunities. Consistent PAR lessons number nine and ten relate to time and priorities of the different PAR parties. I had originally intended to undertake both the data feedback and action planning sessions over a single day. This not only proved physically impossible (people are always late, in one case three hours late), but it soon became clear that these processes needed more time to breathe before developing action plans that would form the basis of ongoing

5 Those

invited included people participating in focus groups, all survey respondents, the host NGO, traditional leaders, ward councillors and district authorities.

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work by self-mobilised village groups. Besides, this is likely to require the support of the host NGO, and thus having them engaged in the research ­process from the outset is important. I soon realised that this can be fairly hit and miss due to a combination of staffing constraints, organisational habitus and funding hiatus. This therefore informed my rationale for selecting a simple framework planning approach. Firstly, as this (somewhat frustratingly) remains the preferred format for the majority of donors (deeply embedded in, and driving that purposive rationality), it would provide host NGOs with a tangible means through which to elicit donor funding. And secondly, I was keen to encourage participants to engage with a format that, while used by those making decisions on their behalf without their consent, could instead be defined and designed by them. And perhaps most importantly, this process simultaneously allowed the NGOs to come to grips with how to engage people in an entirely front-loaded process of participatory project design, planning and evaluation, capable of taking on an unscripted life of its own thereafter.

Women’s and Young People’s Participation In all cases, during gender-disaggregated FGDs, women noted that it was a revelation to have had an opportunity to express themselves and discuss issues separately, participating fully throughout. This created space within which very different layers of experience could be articulated and shared. For women at one site, for example, the level of agency in the household was defined, later becoming an indicator, by their ability to make decisions on land-use and crops, as well as the slaughter of livestock of differing asset value with or without permission (with poultry and cattle at opposite ends of the scale). At another, however, the young men in the youth group also commented that they had learned a great deal from the young women in their group about their respective challenges, needs and strengths. This underscored the value of bringing groups back together to present their findings, stimulating interconnected discussions for co-learning and meaning-making. But it is also where power dynamics, such as those associated with gender and generation, come back into play as an observable feature of research interaction. Nonetheless, as a woman from a secular tradition, I sometimes found these discussions difficult, particularly when biblical references were used as justification for women knowing their place, often by elderly women seen as cultural gatekeepers. This brings me to lesson number eleven, related to unintended research outcomes. From the outset, the issues I anticipated included everyday forms of resistance but not violence beyond the sociopolitical. Yet, perhaps due to my being a woman amongst so many women farmers, the unfolding process exposed persistently high levels of gender-based violence (GBV) and child sexual abuse (CSA). This was particularly high where women have been more

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able to engage and prosper within the informal economy that has flourished, and where men, on the other hand, have been disenfranchised as the formal economy has withered from view—and as the constitution has enshrined the rights of women. Here, cases of statutory rape were significant, often shared for the first time between the majority of women attending FGDs, and reported as part of their everyday experience. Without exception, ‘gender equality’ and rights-based discourse repeated by NGOs and government workers were interpreted as empowering women over men, forming an almost tangible sense of moral panic. My approach during sessions was therefore to consistently engage with a far less threatening narrative framed around mutual care and respect, and, ethically, to point out that statutory rape is punishable by law in Zimbabwe, which came as a surprise to all participants. However, that the burden of cultural blame was regularly placed at the door of women and even the children ‘in search of sweets’, admittedly stretched my ability to calmly pose questions to encourage a re-evaluation of these all-too-common perceptions.

Communicating in the Everyday Peace research in Zimbabwe will inexorably reveal deeply held concerns about security. And any researcher needs to be aware of this, for their own safety and that of their participants. Important lesson number twelve is to remain alert to the ebb and flow of violence in its different forms, and to listen and learn the subtle art of vernacular communication. Just as there have been recent periods of relaxation in Zimbabwe, so a reassertion of power by the centre has once again seen dissenting voices hushed and relegated to back offices or the privacy of one’s own home. People are reminded of the seriousness of ongoing political sensitivities by the menacing appearance of officials or other seemingly casual observers at public meetings or NGO workshops— signalling the government’s clear intent to close down any remaining civic space. In rural areas, this pervasive sense of insecurity comes in the form of genuine FGD participants, nonetheless aligned with local patronage networks invariably connected to the ruling party. The creative use of idiom points to the need to avoid direct criticism of local leadership connected to the ruling party, lest one be accused of being an opposition supporter, thereby forfeiting access to any ‘state’ entitlements, or worse. Here, I found the use of bus analogies particularly enlightening, and useful. My favourite, by a wise elder, being that ‘You can’t board a bus just because it’s idling loudly – you must know where it’s going’. As I paid for and boarded just such a bus in preparation for a fourteen-hour journey, I had pause to reflect on the glint in the old man’s eyes as the bus sat belching diesel fumes for a further two hours. And as my own experiences of local transport operators increased, so I found myself forming far less elegant bus-related analogies during FGDs or workshops (what happens when we lack

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trust in a reckless driver; what do we do when we pay our fare only to arrive at a different destination; when the bus is poorly maintained and the wheels fall off, or we get stuck in the mud, who has to do the heavy lifting?). What were once blank faces as I attempted to explain social change processes soon turned into receptive, knowing and laughing faces as I learned the salience of this new language rooted in our common experience.

PAR Challenges and Rewards Much of the above raises serious questions (particularly related to lesson eleven and twelve) for a researcher neither prepared nor qualified to respond to high levels of GBV or Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA), particularly within a process that alludes to, albeit participatory, change. Is ‘change management’ the role of the researcher, or is our role to surface absented issues through which change management might be facilitated with/by participating groups? While the answer surely lies somewhere towards the latter, critical lesson number thirteen is that this line is not always clear in PAR practice, and the attendant risks to emboldened participants rarely discussed in the literature. What are the ethical implications and repercussions of setting power shifts in motion without eliciting or proposing suitable strategies? While remaining aware that your research represents only a snapshot in others time, PAR has the potential to surface deep-rooted matters of concern that may result in some brave questions, discussions and solution framing. And, despite the seriousness of these, lesson fourteen is that the use of humour emerged as an indispensable tool for all involved, highlighting an important mechanism for maintaining everyday civility and peace.

Co-producing Alternative Pathways The presentation or return of each community’s own experience of interlinking resilience, agency and peace, in quantitative terms, was of singular importance in shifting perceptions of how each community, and in some cases individuals, reflected on their own experiences. These subsequently played out at individual, household and community levels. The common refrain of ‘without food there is no peace’ is a reality that extends far beyond household relations into the political sphere. Productive diversity, as an important social-ecological resilience strategy, was also cited as enabling greater autonomy, particularly in the run-up to elections. During a discussion on resilience, the comment of one innovative farmer made clear the links between agency and peace, saying: ‘Myself, I know I always have food in my granary. I don’t have to elect a particular party because I’m hungry and need inputs. If I’m in control I can vote for who I want. So it gives you power’. Following this discussion, a number of farmers reported that they had been spurred on to increase their productive diversity.

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Levels of child abuse and domestic violence (and its definition) shocked communities. By stimulating discussion around different forms of violence which impede everyday peace, during the data feedback day, it was surprising and inspiring that a group of motivated younger men stepped forward to form an action plan to tackle GBV and CSA. This included the development of a series of interlinking strategies to question norms and practices through drama and other activities,6 while engaging different actors (including police and schools). No women initially elected to be part of this group, suggesting ongoing power disparities, but were later encouraged to join. The presentation of evidence that women had increasing autonomy over farming decisions in one location led to much excited discussion. It transpired in a later interview that when one couple returned home, the husband apologised for ‘oppressing’ his wife and they sat down to discuss areas over which she wanted decision-making powers. An understanding of how other households were sharing decision-making and responsibilities, they said, had transformed their relationship. In another case, soon after data feedback to the community, the formation of the action planning group on ‘leadership and transparency’ was led by four progressive village heads. Within six weeks they had mobilised all forty-three village heads to visit the chief, leading to the corrupt councillor’s committee being dissolved, and a new committee democratically elected. Furthermore, ‘corruption watch’ teams were formed in each village. Accordingly, confidence in leadership was reportedly being ‘restored’, as was the confidence of the village heads themselves to implement positive changes less dependent on punitive measures. In this way, a positive story of change resulting from the PAR process resulted in great enthusiasm for forging ahead with the other tasks on their action plan. In another community, lively discussions during feedback resulted when the research revealed latent tensions between the agroecological community and the ‘conventional’ survey control group that were in fact migrants. This exposed resentment and mistrust between the longer standing residents due, in part, to assumptions that migrants’ land-use practices were responsible for soil erosion and river siltation. This has since stimulated further research by the host NGO to develop inclusive mechanisms for agroecological skills sharing to both reduce land degradation and promote understanding. The experiences that emerged from the PAR processes across my own research sites highlighted the responsibilities, not only of gathering data for one’s own research, but of sharing it back in order for one’s co-researchers to effect change on their own terms.

6 A gender swap day was planned for international women’s day—with men and women swapping chores for the day to stimulate mutual understanding and respect for one anothers’ roles and contributions.

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Summing Up: Lesson Learned and Other Disparate Thoughts Your PAR is unlikely to rock the wider world—besides, its very intention is to work on an almost vibrational level. Yet surfacing peoples’ collective powers of critical reflection and interconnected action, through which the emergent properties will form a central observable feature of your research, it may well prove disruptive to their world. The lessons shared from my own fieldwork can therefore be broadly summarised under the following five themes, relating to both academic and practical experiences. Remaining true to emancipatory PAR considerations: as a complement to the emancipatory ethic of both agroecology and conflict transformation, the selection of the PAR approach, and its application through a selection of adapted methods and tools, was a central methodological design consideration. Fundamentally, PAR is process—not outcome-based—and aims to be transformative, with a focus on social justice through discursive practice to build consensus for change. This process of consolidation and ­meaning-making aims to elicit new ways of looking and seeing the world, and one’s place within it. The trick to PAR fieldwork is to emerge with the data you need, while considering which processes are of most use to your co-researchers ongoing exploration. Being mindful of any unintended consequences of your research: of course, any researcher must be acutely aware of setting in motion a chain of events as a result of their enquiry, but this concern is particularly heightened when facilitating interventionist PAR in fragile environments. For this reason, a reflexive and inductive approach to research, at a human scale, proved invaluable in surfacing insights for co-learning, creating engaging processes which build confidence and trust in collective research and co-action, and in navigating any unforeseen challenges. Being alive to your own assumptions and expectations, and understanding the complex relationships between co-researchers and the networks they form: fieldwork can be tough, not least in drawing on your powers of reflection that constantly call into question your own assumptions rooted in positionality. Digging deep can be hugely enriching, revealing the intersections that you may have overlooked, and that make up the textured relationships to produce analytical depth. Respecting the time participants give to the research process: don’t try to do too much—make time for in-built flexibility. Besides, nothing starts on time—participants (particularly women) have very full lives. And in any case, processes that call on peoples’ powers of reflection need time to breathe (and so do you). Invest in building people’s confidence, allow discussions to unfold and different voices to be heard, emphasise mutualities of care and respect and always facilitate processes with a lightness of care and good humour.

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On a more practical note, bringing me to a belated lesson fifteen under combined workshop essentials, I would say a number of things. Firstly, take gaffer (duct) tape—it can stick an entire flip chart to just about anything. Secondly, take many recording devices—they’re useful and light to carry (then give one to a budding co-researcher). And thirdly, cultivate a reputation for providing great food to encourage timely and generous attendance. Welcome people with sugary tea and biscuits, breads and spreads, and plenty of meat (they will still complain), and always invest in local food and cooks. And do throw yourself into those everyday experiences that reveal idiomatic expressions rich in texture and subterfuge. It may not feel like it at the time, but these hard-won experiences may just provide you with communication gold dust. As academics prone to improbably long sentences laced with incomprehensible terminology, this is a lesson in re-humanising our work in ways that transcend the notion of ‘the field’ as if divorced from our own reality. Tapping into the everyday, wherever we are, reminds us how to communicate our research to each other, and beyond. All things being well, field research will nonetheless be messy and bumpy but, rest assured, it will take shape and all make sense in the fullness of time.

References Argyris, C. 1976. Single-loop and double-loop models in research on decision making. Administrative Science Quarterly 21 (3): 363–375. Argyris, C., and D. Schön. 1978. Organizational learning. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Astier, M., E.N. Speelman, S. López-Ridaura, O.R. Masera, and C.E. GonzalezEsquivel. 2011. Sustainability indicators, alternative strategies and ­trade-offs in peasant agroecosystems: Analysing 15 case studies from Latin America. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 9 (3): 409–422. Belay Ali, M. 2015. Using critical realism to explain change in the context of participatory mapping and resilience. In Critical realism, environmental learning and social-ecological change, 60–81. London: Routledge. Charmaz, K. 2014. Constructing grounded theory. London: Sage. Davies, R., and J. Dart. 2005. The most significant change technique. A guide to its use. Oxford: INTRAC. Firchow, P., and R. Mac Ginty. 2017. Measuring peace: Comparability, commensurability, and complementarity using bottom-up indicators. International Studies Review 19: 6–27. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder & Herder. Holt, S. 2013. The limits of formal metrics during conflict and post-conflict transition: Exploring opportunities for qualitative assessment in Sri Lanka. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 7 (4): 431–452. Mac Ginty, R. 2013. Indicators +: A proposal for everyday peace indicators. Evaluation and Programme Planning 36 (1): 56–63. Marnell, J., and G. Hoosain Khan. 2015. Creative resistance. Participatory methods for engaging Queer youth. Johannesburg: GALA Publications.

206  G. McALLISTER McAllister, G., and J. Wright. 2019. Agroecology as a practice-based tool for peacebuilding in Fragile environments? Three stories from rural Zimbabwe. Sustainability 11 (3): 790. Moyo, S. 2015. Africa: Rebuilding African Peasantries: Inalienability of land rights and collective food Sovereignty in Southern Africa. In The struggle for food Sovereignty: Alternative development and the renewal of peasant societies today, ed. Remy Herrera and Kin Chi Lau. London: Pluto Press. Moyo, S., and P. Yeros. 2011. After Zimbabwe: State, nation and region in Africa. In Reclaiming the nation: The return of the national question in Africa, Asia and Latin America, ed. Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros. London: Pluto Press. Peluso, N.L., and M. Watts. 2001. Violent environments. Ithaca: Cornell. Pimbert, M.P., and J.N. Pretty. 1997. Parks, people and professionals: Putting ‘participation’ into protected area management. Social Change and Conservation 16: 297–330. Pulido, J.S., and G. Bocco. 2003. The traditional farming system of a Mexican indigenous community: The case of Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro, Michoacán, Mexico. Geoderma 111 (3–4): 249–265. Rogé, P., A.R. Friedman, L.M. Astier, and M.A. Altieri. 2014. Farmer strategies for dealing with climatic variability: A case study from the Mixteca Alta Region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 38 (7): 786–811. Stirling, A. 2014. Emancipating transformations: From controlling ‘the transition’ to culturing plural radical progress. STEPS Working Paper 64. Brighton: STEPS Centre. Wrigley, R. 2006. Learning from capacity building practice: Adapting the ‘Most Significant Change’ (MSC) approach to evaluate capacity building provision by CABUNGO in Malawi. Praxis Paper No. 12. Oxford: INTRAC.

CHAPTER 14

Conflict Ethnography Goes Online: Chatnography of the Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions Ilmari Käihkö

Introduction The Ukrainian conflict began in November 2013 when President Viktor Yanukovych suddenly decided to withdraw from an association agreement with the European Union, opting closer relations with Russia instead. The decision frustrated hopes for change and ignited a small demonstration in the Maidan square of Kyiv, the capital. The demonstration was likely d ­ windling out when riot police violently dispersed it on 30 November. This escalation was perceived as an outrageous aggression against peaceful students. An invisible line had been transgressed. The following day, hundreds of thousands came to protest against the government on the streets in Kyiv and other cities. After two months of stand-off, the protests escalated into violence (Wilson 2014; Shore 2017; Onuch and Sasse 2016), and by mid-February, I watched on YouTube how demonstrators were shot by snipers. My reaction was to start booking flights to Kyiv. I never made it to Maidan, which in hindsight may have been a good thing. I was not only in the middle of writing my dissertation about Liberia (Käihkö 2016), but I doubt my university would have been happy to find me among the protestors—and not only because of the real legal and physical risks involved. Time and time again I nevertheless regretted my decision. I. Käihkö (*)  Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership, Swedish Defence University, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_14

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When I received my Ph.D. two years later, this feeling had combined with the belief that I had exhausted the possibilities to discover much new about the war the informants I had spent 15 months hanging with fought in. After receiving a post-doctoral scholarship with virtually no strings attached a few months later, I turned my attention towards the ongoing war in Ukraine. In fact, my new situation almost demanded this. Not only did the scholarship come with insufficient travel funds to facilitate continued field research in a more logistically challenging environment of Liberia. More importantly, the war that had ended in 2003 appeared increasingly distant for Liberians, who were occupied with more pressing daily struggles. By 2016, the conflict in Ukraine had escalated into a war between the new government and Russian-supported separatists. In many ways Ukraine was an obvious choice for a new case to study: a war in Europe between two states, which was in its initial stages fought largely by volunteers (Käihkö 2018). Despite the enormous humanitarian, political and policy consequences of the war and the fact that there was no end in sight for it, there appeared to have been few attempts to study this war in general, and the volunteer phenomenon in particular.1 Existing literature also tended to speak over the Ukrainians, whose motivations were typically reduced to pro-West and pro-Russian views, reminiscent of the Cold War (Matsuzato 2017). It appeared that there was a need for an ethnographic investigation of the war that departed from Ukrainian perspectives. Relatively few ethnographers change their fields of study. It takes years to gain a somewhat good understanding of a context, as well as to build networks, find informants and make friends. Moving on entails both personal and professional sacrifices. The more invested the researcher, the costlier these sacrifices tend to become. My limited funds for travel and the absence of insurance policy nevertheless encouraged choosing a new case. After two months in Liberia where I presented my dissertation and tied up some loose strings, this support was exhausted. In comparison, Ukraine offered a logistically easier and cheaper alternative. My research has always been conducted with and through people. The first problem with the new case was that I only knew one Ukrainian, who unfortunately did not have contacts with the volunteer battalions, the militia groups that largely answered for the early stages of the war and which I wanted to focus my investigation on. Therefore, I initially tried to learn about the phenomenon online, where I soon encountered people involved with the battalions. What I essentially did was to approach them on social media, tell about my project and myself and to ask for help. To my surprise, the responses were overwhelmingly positive. Aside from finding informants—and through them new informants— I also conducted some initial interviews, as well as familiarized myself with

1 In

fact, the only research at that time appeared to have been by Puglisi (2015), Karagiannis (2016), and Malyarenko and Galbreath (2016).

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volunteer rhetoric. Thanks to social media and the Internet, my research was well under way before I had even set my foot on Ukrainian soil. By the summer of 2017, I found myself spending from half an hour to several hours on daily basis chatting with informants in Ukraine. Some of the volunteer battalion members were still on the frontlines. Several times our chatting was interrupted by incoming small arms fire, mortar shells or tank sightings. As tends to be the case in war, the main battle was usually against boredom: the war had largely become deadlocked since the battle of Debaltseve in February 2015, where the combined Ukrainian forces were defeated by separatist and Russian forces. Whereas at least some of the volunteers got respite from the boredoms of both war and peace, for me the resulting ‘chatnography’ offered easy access to wartime experiences from a safe vantage point. This development was exciting but unplanned, as I had never been particularly interested in online research. The turn to online was nevertheless a natural consequence of the way instant messaging has become more pronounced in contemporary communication. While it would be strange if research practices did not follow these developments, I still struggled to find literature that reflected over the methodological consequences of the everyday use of digital means of communication (Barratt and Maddox 2016; Dalsgaard 2016; Caliandro 2018). This chapter discusses how my conflict ethnography went online in my ongoing research of Ukrainian volunteer battalions. The chapter is structured by three revelatory moments I experienced during my work with volunteer combatants. The first moment was when I realized that I had begun to spend several hours per day chatting with my informants. The resulting chatnography—interaction through instant messaging apps and social media—was unexpected and new, and allowed the initial research project to proceed in strides even before I had visited Ukraine. The second moment nevertheless ended this honeymoon period as I realized how the subject matter of conflict poses a multitude of challenges that sets it apart from many other fields of research. In conflict settings, many of the strengths of online methods become weaknesses. This appeared to pull the rug out from under some of the premises of conflict chatnography. The sober third revelatory moment was that even if we wanted to, the fact that communication is increasingly moving online means that chatnography is unlikely to disappear. Yet here conflict settings exacerbate an old maxim that people do not always do what we say we do (Howell 2017). While the investigation of the online dimension is useful and often necessary, in conflict settings this can credibly only work as one dimension of a broader approach that combines the online with the offline. Consequently, this chapter’s argument of the use of digital approaches to study armed conflict is conservative. While chatnography offers great promise, in conflict settings it has to be combined with a broader ethnographic approach. This chapter offers some introspection, self-criticism and concrete suggestions how this can be done in practice.

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The First Revelatory Moment: The Accidental Chatnographer Volumes like this are based on the understanding that methods must be tailored for purpose. In fact, it is difficult to find better case for this than the study of conflict due to its politicized and violent nature. In such contexts, actors with enough governing capacity censor information, while those without struggle to keep records. Non-state actors typically belong to the latter category. Thanks to states’ claim to monopoly of use of force, these actors are generally prohibited. On an individual level, conflict inevitably leads to trauma, which can lead to bias for instance through trauma and ­self-censorship (Käihkö 2020). Faced with these daunting challenges, my solution has always come in the form of conflict ethnography, or ethnography sensitive to the challenges arising from the subject matter: in the absence of written sources, I have simply sought out participants and worked together with them in order to further my understanding of the phenomenon studied. For me, ethnography is thus above all about participation in and observation of the lives of people with whom I have organic long-term relationships, which make it possible to pose difficult questions about conflict-related topics. As Mosse (2006: 937) has argued, anthropological knowledge is ‘essentially relational’ in the sense that ‘what anthropologists know is inseparable from their relationship with those they study’. This raises open-ended relationships to the centre of any ethnographic endeavour. Such relationships also allow for contextualization of my interlocutors and their narratives within a more holistic sociocultural environment. Recent years have witnessed a surge of digital research, which employ methods suited for the purpose (Roger 2013; Pink et al. 2016). This should not be surprising, considering how the Internet has become ‘embedded, embodied and everyday’ (Hine 2015). To give only one example of a service that has become all three outside China is Facebook, which claimed to have 1.73 billion daily active users, and over 2.6 billion monthly users during the first quarter of 2020. The growing role of the Internet in our societies also calls for reflexion of what this entails in practice for both individuals and research. The basic premise of early digital ethnography was that ethnography online was not fundamentally different from ethnography offline (Boellstorff et al. 2012). Yet as argued above, relationships have always been at the centre of ethnography, and their significance only becomes more pronounced in conflict settings. This emphasis of relations immediately questions the notion that some of the new digital methods are in fact ethnographic. While it is true that relationships can flourish even in online communities, the focus on online social life has left the question how the digital changes things for ­studying issues in the physical world with less attention.

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In my study of the war in Ukraine, online means allowed a flying start. Admittedly there are important differences between the Ukrainian and Liberian conflicts. In Ukraine, those who fought against the ­Russian-supported separatists see their actions as legitimate. Few perceive it problematic to be identified as volunteer battalion members. The case is different in Liberia, where former combatants often know that their wartime actions transgressed what is considered legitimate and remain worried of legal consequences of their deeds seventeen years after the fighting ended. This explains why volunteers in Ukraine were never as hidden in plain sight as combatants in Liberia. Neither should the importance of access to the Internet and smartphones, as well as education and literacy levels, be underestimated. The fact that I communicated with informants long before arriving to Ukraine allowed me to prepare ground for interviews. As in Liberia, even in Ukraine I resorted to snowball sampling and chain referrals. Yet in Ukraine I benefited from the structure of social media and especially Facebook. This structure has been described as a ‘walled garden’ and a ‘series of concentric circles’: users typically need to create accounts and receive permissions—typically through access to groups and becoming ‘friends’ with other uses—to access these zones, and hence information (Rogers 2013: 25). These concentric circles often equal to echo chambers, where the structure of especially Facebook encourages like-minded people around the world to build community and connect in meaningful ways. A feedback loop within these circles helps to confirm existing views and prejudices. While potentially dangerous as this can normalize even the most extreme opinions, the circles can nevertheless be beneficial in research as becoming ‘friends’ with one individual often allows observation of a much broader network. The structure of social media also gives these networks a somewhat fixed form, where members often play seemingly fixed roles. Social media thus simplifies finding populations, especially those hidden offline: considering that it was often volunteers who commented each other’s posts in Facebook, interactions took place in bounded communities comparable to those studied in classic ethnography. Observing and participating in these internal discussions in turn contributed to understanding the prevailing narratives and norms of these communities. These discussions also served as a crucial in-group peer review. After accessing a concentric circle, it became easier to connect with new informants. I preferred to refrain from contacting people on my own, but rather asked my acquaintances to make introductions. This felt both practical and fair. Not only did whatever reputation I had carry into the new relationship, but the new people were always informed that they could decline from participating in the study. This also happened. Several informants also began to actively look for new people I could talk with, and connected us through social media platforms. Successively I experienced that the more mutual friends I had with these new acquaintances, the more positive the response. Perhaps common friends were taken as proof of my quality, but there was also

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genuine curiosity about how I knew these mutual friends. With new introductions leading to new friends, new circles with new opportunities opened up. Before I knew it, I was thus combining unobtrusive observation of Facebook posts, Instagram comments and Twitter threads with connecting with informants whom I could chat online before meeting them in person in Ukraine. Using social media as a research tool clearly comes with many benefits. Social media allows research literally without leaving one’s home; unlike with face-to-face interviews, apart from calls on instant messaging systems all interaction was automatically transcribed in a searchable form, and there was a multitude of other media accessible online that could be referred to in discussions, much of which could be immediately translated, as I knew neither Ukrainian nor Russian. The focus on personal relations often means that ethnographers invest much into research, which in the best case becomes less extractive when compared to some other research: the researcher does not appear from nowhere to launch a barrage of questions, only to disappear immediately after. At best ethnography results in mutual exchange and a more symmetric relationship (Käihkö 2019). My overall approach to interviews is that they are ideally more a two-way conversation than an interrogation. This does not mean that I do not have pages of questions with me in such situations. But based on feedback from informants, interaction where they too have an opportunity to learn appears preferable to them. To date, I have not recorded a single interview in Ukraine for the simple reason that this would irrevocably change the interview dynamics. Partly this reluctance also stems from Maksym’s (not his real name) very first questions when we met: ‘are you a journalist’ was followed by ‘are you going to record this’. Not recording discussions about difficult topics also allows my informants a way out in case they later regret saying something. Without recorded evidence they can claim that I have misunderstood something. On a few occasions, my informants have also told me something that they realized I should not write. Such information has either not been written down, or later removed from my notes. I believe this is fair, especially if this allows them to speak more freely about sensitive matters in the first place. The drawback of not recording interviews comes in the form of transparency, but also accuracy due to implicit and explicit biases when constructing data from memory. As it is impossible to write down everything, I have no doubt missed out important details during the process. Chatnography has nevertheless alleviated this problem somewhat, as I have used instant messaging to verify that I have understood things correctly, and to probe certain issues in more depth. I also readily circulate my writings among my informants. I hope this encourages transparency about my intentions, but also works as a sort of peer review of empirical material. By the end of the summer 2017, my research was proceeding at full speed. In only a few months I had succeeded in finding a group of informants, with

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whom I chatted and talked to on daily basis about the war and its effects. At some point, I began to feel that chatnography formed the main method of my research. This hubris did not last long before the whole endeavour became questionable.

The Second Revelatory Moment: Self-Censorship and Propaganda As I was making preparations for my second trip to Ukraine, Maksym invited me to stay at his place. During our first encounter on my first visit in Kyiv, we chatted for hours while weathering a May sleet storm. When I delivered Maksym to his wife she was horrified to hear that her husband had talked about his wartime experiences to a foreigner. She subjected me to a long interrogation about my research, before buying us all dinner. Maksym had promised to pick me up from the airport, but a few days prior became preoccupied with something that he would not speak of. When I took up the issue in his car, Maksym stated that he believed that his communication was monitored by the Ukrainian security services. This revelation was a defining moment in my research, and I felt stupid for not thinking beforehand about this kind of technical surveillance, which reminded me of George Orwell’s dystopia. After other informants too confirmed Maksym’s suspicion, it became clear that online methods alone would not—could not—suffice in my research. It is not an exaggeration to say that the study of peace and conflict deals with matters of life and death. This extends even to the digital dimension of this research. Throughout the world, the Internet and social media have become an important—occasionally the most important—dimension of conflict. From the outset of the Maidan protests in Ukraine, social media and online news sites were used to mobilize protestors to the streets because ‘likes don’t count’ (Shore 2017). Later, many war narratives and propaganda were formed and communicated through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and VKontakte. Virtual warriors also sought to ‘dox’—reveal the identities—of their adversaries, which in the case of volunteers made them vulnerable to legal and other consequences. The revealed identities have been collected by volunteers to public databases, which both Russian and Ukrainian authorities reportedly rely on. These databases and social media have also been used to send threats (and worse) to those doxed, as well as to relatives of slain enemy combatants. Social media has even contributed to investigations of Russia’s role in the conflict. For instance, the Bellingcat website has relied on open intelligence to analyse the conflict, and especially the downing of the Malaysian Airlines MH-17 passenger plane in July 2014 (Bellingcat 2020). This single worst loss of civilian life during the war—all 298 onboard were killed—is currently jointly investigated as a war crime by the authorities of Australia, Belgium,

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Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine. Another example comes from the Vice News reporter Simon Ostrovsky, who used Facebook posts to retrace one active-duty Russian soldier’s journey from eastern Ukraine to Siberia.2 All these efforts serve as powerful rebuttal of continued Russian denials of participating in the war, but also as examples of tracking social media use to reveal sensitive information. All research with living humans necessitates the consideration of ethical dilemmas. While this necessity is exacerbated in conflict contexts, ethical issues connected to social media are hardly limited to conflict contexts alone: in several authoritarian countries, social media posts are enough to land the writer in prison. In war zones, carelessness with digital devices has even cost lives. For instance, air strikes have targeted Islamic State members who left location data on photos they uploaded on social media.3 Ultimately, it may be close to impossible to achieve perfect security through individual action. Even if one is not worried about eavesdropping from state authorities, we also know that companies like Facebook and Google have provided information to third parties without bothering to ask for user consent. Saudi Arabia even cultivated an insider in Twitter, who could access accounts of regime critics, who then faced persecution.4 There is thus reason to be wary. If there was a silver lining with Maksym’s revelation of self-censorship, it was the alleviation— although not complete deliverance—of concerns regarding data protection. Other ethical considerations, such as whether I could use information gleaned from passive observation of one of my informant’s Facebook wall, remained. They were often solved case-by-case. While I too moved on to apps with increasingly better encryption, here I do not want to focus on technical issues like anonymity, data protection and encryption,5 but on how the nature of war influences even researchers’ attempts to investigate armed conflict. Even many in Ukraine identify information as a central dimension of the war. Ultimately, wars of deeds have become increasingly wars of words, with many of the battles waged online. Academics have not escaped the polarizing and politicizing effects of war (Nash 2007; Sluka 1990). This is exemplified by the decline of sociological

2 Vice

News, “Selfie Soldiers: Russia Checks into Ukraine,” June 16, 2015, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=2zssIFN2mso; The soldier had been initially identified in Maksymilian Czuperski et al., “Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin’s War in Ukraine” (Atlantic Council, May 2015), http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/Hiding_in_Plain_Sight/HPS_English.pdf. 3 Walbert Castillo, “Air Force Intel Uses ISIS ‘moron’ Post to Track Fighters” (CNN, June 5, 2015), https://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/05/politics/air-force-isis-moron-twitter/index.html. 4 Katie Benner et al., “Saudis’ Image Makers: A Troll Army and a Twitter Insider” (New York Times, October 20, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/us/politics/saudi-image-campaign-twitter.html. 5 For these, see Sebastian van Baalen, “‘Google Wants to Know Your Location’: The Ethical Challenges of Fieldwork in the Digital Age,” Research Ethics 14, no. 4 (2018): 1–17.

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study of war at the outset of the First World War, as research turned into propaganda (Joas and Knöbl 2013). It did not take long before it dawned on me that at least in some cases the willingness to assist my research stemmed from the twin motives of the strong emotions about the Ukrainian side of the conflict, and the notion that helping me could help in the war effort. It is necessary to be aware of these kinds of motives, and that whatever researchers say can and will be used by different actors for their own purposes. Typically, the initial narratives collected were polarized and followed standardized forms of ‘us’ and ‘them’. While it is essential to understand these narratives, they simultaneously have the tendency to become so dominating that they obscure other dynamics, including minority voices. In both Ukraine and especially the separatist-controlled areas, those speaking against the war risk ending up in the databases discussed above. Polarization often means that if you are not with us, you are against us. As a result, researchers can usually only access one side of the story in any depth. Aside from spy accusations, even psychological processes play a role. This is for instance the case with journalists embedded with military units in recent wars. Dependent on access and security and exposed to only one set of narratives, it may be difficult to resist identifying with one party, and in so doing antagonize the other. Friendship too can have the same effect. As George Orwell observed, ‘all propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth’ (Ricks 2017: 145). These polarized narratives thus tie in with broader and omnipresent ethical responsibility, often boiled down into the maxim of do no harm (Wood 2006). Two Ukrainian examples suffice to make the point, starting with Matveeva’s (2018: 156) uncritical focus on the narratives of the Donbas separatists at the cost of others. The resulting bias is especially visible in her account of the MH-17 incident: she appears to have taken separatist denials at face value while failing to cite the mounting evidence to the contrary. While it is true that ‘what the public believed depended on their attitudes toward the warring parties and interpreted the findings [of the international investigation] in that light’, Matveeva nevertheless then goes on to peddle unverified and conspiratorial accounts similar to those coming from Russian officials and separatist leaders. At the time of writing, a European Union task force has recorded and refuted 240 cases of ‘pro-Kremlin disinformation’ about the MH-17 since September 2015, often presented by Russian media.6 On the other side of the frontlines, Stasyuk’s (2018) Ph.D. dissertation that investigates the volunteer battalions aims to be useful for ‘national and patriotic education of youth’, which too should raise eyebrows from the perspective of scientific objectivity. Especially during the contemporary era of fake news, conflict researchers need to be careful about uncritically repeating, and hence legitimating and strengthening,

6 “Disinformation

Cases MH17” (EU vs Disinfo, May 18, 2020), https://euvsdisinfo.eu/ disinformation-cases/?disinfo_keywords%5B%5D=77107&date=.

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polarized views. The genocide in Rwanda—where extremist ideologies were propped by anthropological race theories (Pottier and De Waal 1994)—offers an extreme example of where this can lead to. In my case, this kind of polarization risked self-censorship. Considering the length to which some of my informants have gone to help me out, it weighs heavily on my shoulders that ultimately they are likely to be disappointed by the results of my research: it is unethical to repeat their views uncritically, as this would reduce my academic role to a mere megaphone that grants propaganda scientific legitimacy. While I doubt that there can ever be a perfect balance between polarized narratives, one way to alleviate the issue is to make it clear for readers what is a subjective narrative, and what is supported by the preponderance of evidence. Ultimately, perhaps one is on the right track if the opposing sides are all somewhat unhappy with the resulting account, but for different reasons. Maksym’s disclosure of self-censorship and the polarized standard narratives combined into significant methodological challenges that faced online methods. This led to the second revelatory moment that chatnography would not be sufficient in the study of the war in Ukraine. Informants would not talk freely online, but neither could chatnography penetrate polarization. The question was whether this meant the end of conflict chatnography?

The Third Revelatory Moment: Wither Conflict Chatnography? During the rest of my second trip to Ukraine, I went through much soul-searching. While my study had largely relied on chatnography, the assumption of digital surveillance and the pervasiveness of superficial polarized narratives questioned the whole endeavour. I stayed mostly with Maksym, but also with a family of refugees from Donbas, who lived in a temporary residence offered to them by a Ukrainian who worked abroad. On returning home, I was uncertain how to proceed. On the one hand, chatnography had offered a shortcut to finding informants and familiarizing myself with the overall context of wartime Ukraine through the eyes of volunteer battalion members. On the other hand, the promise of chatnography could not take me all the way, but had to be combined with other methods. In the end, chatnography became the online dimension of a broader ethnographic study, which focuses on volunteer battalion members. By the end of the summer, a more tangible complication emerged with chatnography, common to ethnographers. With an increasing number of people to talk to I found myself chatting anywhere from half an hour to several hours per day, seven days a week. This reminded me of Mosse’s criticism about the Malinowskian understanding of ethnography as being separated into two places, ‘the field’ and ‘home’ (Gupta and Ferguson 1997). The ease of communication negated this separation and resulted in constant and

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often instant communication, which I sometimes experienced as cumbersome. While proximity inevitably blends the professional with the personal, chatnography led to the feeling that the presence of my informants became omnipresent, and infringed even on my personal life. As I became aware that every ‘like’ or ‘participate’ I would click on might have consequences for my research, it became necessary to re-evaluate my own online behaviour and persona. Like with other friends, I also had to be available, for instance when Maksym wanted to talk about his post-traumatic stress disorder. By Christmas 2017, chatting nevertheless came to an abrupt stop due to a family emergency, when I had to focus on what was immediately in front of me. After some weeks, I resumed my social media activities, albeit in a more limited manner. To my relief, I experienced no negative effect on our relationships. The third revelatory moment came when I accepted that like all methods, even chatnography had its strengths and weaknesses. After first hubris and then nemesis, this revelation was cathartic in the sense that it liberated me from anxiety: while chatnography would not suffice alone, it was likewise impossible to get rid of. With online communication becoming an ever-greater part of our everyday social lives, isolating any ethnographic investigation into an offline dimension alone would amount to at least a degree of isolation from our informants. This is evident even in seemingly peripheral places like Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have experienced a rapid spread of social media use. It is only natural that we use the same means of communication as those we work with, and in doing so use online means for data collection. Yet the reverse is also true, as isolating an investigation into an online dimension alone would only offer only one dimension of a larger whole. It is thus easy to agree with Hine’s view that Where mediated communications are a significant part of what people do, I feel it should be self-evident that the ethnographer needs to take part in those mediated communications alongside whatever face-to-face interactions may occur, as well as taking note of any other forms of documents and recording that circulate amongst participants. (2015: 3)

In fact, it could be argued that it is necessary to make these face-to-face interactions happen. While Maksym’s revelation shows that it is of crucial importance to interact with people in real life where they can speak more freely, there are also many important things to observe offline that go beyond typed words. Meeting people in real life not only helps to establish that they are who they say they are, but also adds new dimensions and nuances to the online personas we perform. Ultimately, all the revelations discussed in this chapter are things that can naturally come through immersion. Here we encounter the main challenge of ethnography: ethnography is a resource-intensive endeavour. It takes time and dedication to come close to those we work with, but also to maintain these relationships after the initial introductions. Here it is important to

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remember that like most of our personal relationships, even many of those formed as part of research tend to be open-ended. One clicks with some informants, while it nevertheless becomes important to prioritize some more valuable relationships over others. All this naturally means that it is difficult to evaluate ethnography through positivist lenses; at best ethnography is an immensely rewarding and mutually transformative experience, for both professional and personal reasons.

Conclusions This chapter has discussed my attempts to study Ukrainian volunteer battalions, and introduced the twin concepts of conflict ethnography and chatnography. Departing from the notion that methods must be tailored for purpose, ethnography ultimately relies on relationships with those we study with. In the end, it is relational depth that leads to understanding of complex phenomena, not least in conflict settings. The new digital communication means have nevertheless widened the possibilities to form and maintain these relationships to the point that it becomes difficult to maintain a separation between ‘the field’ and ‘home’. These means also allowed a flying start in my study of Ukrainian volunteer battalions. Compared to my previous research in Liberia, it was easy to find and interact with informants long before I first arrived in Ukraine. Surprised by the effectiveness of these new digital means, a few months into the research I considered the resulting chatnography my main research method. Despite chatnography’s initial contributions, I wish I had been better prepared for the methodological issues it caused, and the way it exacerbated existing challenges. As a result, in this chapter I advocate caution when it comes to the use of digital methods in the study of armed conflict. If ethnography indeed relies on relationships, it is difficult to see how the digital methods which merely observe online activities can in fact be ethnographic. Even further, in conflict settings many of the main advantages of digital methods become serious weaknesses: digital methods pose a plethora of ethical issues—some of which are beyond our control. The limits of these methods in studying conflict became clear during my second trip to Ukraine. Not only were my informants not able to speak freely online, but many of their narratives online followed standardized forms. In both cases, contextualization required offline participant-observation. As a result, within year into my research I returned to more traditional ethnography. After repeated quips of ‘you should speak Ukrainian by now’ I enrolled on a language course. I also greatly reduced my time chatting online, prioritizing face-to-face interaction with those I work with. At the time of writing, I have been in Ukraine for 117 days during eleven trips (with additional interviews and participant-observation conducted in Sweden, the United States and online), with hopes and plans for many more to come.

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This is also what I would do differently if I would start again: I would be more modest about what I could achieve from afar, and accept that certain things should never be discussed online; I would immediately begin to study Ukrainian and/or Russian (the former to show respect to my informants who fought for a united Ukraine, the latter because most of them speak it as their first language); and I would do as I did in Liberia and find a way to spend months at a time in Ukraine. While I still consider relational depth to be more important for good research than the length of fieldwork, time has a bearing on these relationships. Understanding a particular context—an absolute must—too requires time and effort. My advocation of the necessity to return to basics thus equals to an admission that chatnography does not amount to the shortcut I initially hoped. This said, I would still begin my research with chatnography, as it offers an excellent way to establish initial contacts in a new field. Returning to basics would thus hardly mean the end of chatnography, as online communication continued even with subsequent chain referrals. As much of our social lives have moved online, and as physical distance between us and those we work with are most conveniently bridged by instant messaging, online means will no doubt remain an important part of future studies of conflict. Nevertheless, the main lesson I learned was that instant messaging alone is unlikely to suffice without participant-observation, and hence more traditional ethnographic fieldwork.

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Shore, Marci. 2017. The Ukrainian night: An intimate history of revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sluka, Jeffrey A. 1990. Participant observation in violent social contexts. Human Organization 49 (2): 114–126. Stasyuk, Yuri. 2018. Укpaїнcькi Дoбpoвoльчi Фopмyвaння: Cтвopeння Ta Фyнкцioнyвaння (2014–2015 Pp.) [Ukrainian Volunteer Formations: Creation and Functioning (2014–2015)]. PhD dissertation, National Defence University of Ukraine. van Baalen, Sebastian. 2018. ‘Google wants to know your location’: The ethical challenges of fieldwork in the digital age. Research Ethics 14 (4): 1–17. Vice News. 2015. Selfie soldiers: Russia checks into Ukraine. June 16. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=2zssIFN2mso. Wilson, Andrew. 2014. Ukraine crisis: What it means for the West. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wood, Elisabeth. 2006. The ethical challenges of field research in conflict zones. Qualitative Sociology 29 (3): 373–386.

CHAPTER 15

Negotiating Relationships with Vulnerable Communities Nick Morgan

In August 2019, I was working on a project on imaginaries of conflict and post-conflict in Colombia’s Chocó department. As part of the project, we were showing the Indonesian film The Visit (Bobby Prasetyo, 2014) to a focus group in Quibdó’s Northern Zone, one of the departmental capital’s most deprived areas. With my documentary film-maker, Pablo Burgos, and academic partner Manuel Beltrán from the Universidad Claretiana, we planned to use the film to get responses about how the group, made up of fifteen women, aged between twenty and forty-five, and one young man, interpreted this film about the scars of past violence and the possibility of reconciliation. We hoped that they would engage with the themes presented in the short narrative and be able to relate them to their own understandings of the Colombian conflict. The screening took place in a house in a narrow street running down towards one of the many creeks that make up Quibdó’s system of waterways. On our previous visit, it had been raining heavily, and people had arrived in dribs and drabs, trying to avoid a drenching by zigzagging between the zinc roofs that jutted out above the high pavements. On this occasion, we were between showers, and the group was waiting for us when we arrived. Most of them had not been at the previous screening, eight months previously, so after the usual introductions we explained in detail how we hoped to set out the session. We took some time over this, as the participants had been nervous the first time round, unsure what to think of this foreigner and his mixed N. Morgan (*)  Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_15

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team. This time round the group seemed more confident and we got under way. The projector and speaker system worked well enough and our version of the Indonesian language film had Spanish subtitles. The space was poorly lit, as we expected from the previous visit, but Pablo’s unobtrusive approach to filming, using a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera) rather than a camcorder, allowed him to capture the proceedings in detail, in spite of the difficult conditions. One member of the group left during the showing of the film but this is not an unusual occurrence as people tend to come in and out of screenings and discussions that we liked to keep as informal as possible in order to encourage participation. When we got to the discussion section I asked a couple of warm-up questions, designed to put the participants at their ease in a session which would involve them discussing what they had seen in groups before reporting back. Yet the initial responses struck me as odd. The film is about a young woman whose best friend’s family has links to the Indonesian communist party, the PKI. When the genocide against the communist comes, her friend comes to ask for help to her house but she turns her away, on the instigation of her husband who is in the army and doesn’t want his wife to be affected. When the friend’s family are taken away by the military the husband is present. He feels shame, but is too afraid to do anything, and it’s not clear what he could have done in any case. Years later, the wife discovers that her friend is alive and decides to visit her in order to ask for forgiveness. The husband refuses to go with her, an act that underlines the way they have grown apart in the intervening years. That the couple’s son chooses to accompany his mother suggests something about the younger generation’s desire to both confront and overcome the horrors of the past. In the focus group, however, the first participant started to tell us that the film was about an interfamilial dispute, noting that someone is “kidnapped or something” in the process. Jealousy was mentioned but nothing was said about politics. It took a couple of seconds for me to realise what was going on. The participant, like most of the others in the room, couldn’t follow the subtitles and was guessing, working mainly on the messages supplied by the images. From the perspective of our project, which was designed to explore the social imaginaries through which conflict is understood in these different sites, this was fascinating. The work of the image, uncoupled from dialogue, did indeed elicit some fascinating responses. At the same time, it was a potentially difficult moment as we did not want to make anyone feel uncomfortable about their level of literacy. In the conversation that followed we spent some time working through the narrative and matching it with the participants appreciations of what they had seen. Things went smoothly and the rest of the session was very active, as participants used their mobile phones to interview each other about their experience of watching the film. As we moved into the general discussion at the end, however, one of Manuel’s research assistants, Juan, appealed to the need for reconciliation in a way that

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changed the tone of the debate. The participants expressed strong doubts about whether they would be capable of reconciling with friends who had abandoned them at a time of need. Finally, almost unnoticed in the midst of this debate, a young woman approached me and quietly asked whether the participants would have access to the filmed material, whether they would be able to use it, and who else was likely to see it. The experience of that particular focus group resumed a number of problems that emerge when engaging in ethnographic work with vulnerable communities. The most obvious of them, low levels of literacy, was a crass oversight on our part. When thinking about subtitling we’d previously discussed potential problems with literacy, indeed, they’d become a consideration when we were writing the project case for support. We’d done many focus groups before, in different parts of the country and with different demographics, but in this case, we’d simply failed to understand our participants properly (in the first focus group, we’d used an Argentine documentary, so subtitles weren’t needed). Beyond this particular concern, however, the focus group revealed deeper questions about the nature of consent and the relationship between researchers and researched that typify ethnographic work with vulnerable communities. The question I was asked at the end of the session showed that there was a lack of clarity, at least on the part of this participant, about what the research was for, who was likely to use it, and its value for the local community. This was unsurprising because although we had discussed all of this in detail at the time of the first focus group, and referred to the overall aims of the project at the start of the session, the participants had changed. In any case, for these kinds of questions to be asked more than once is a positive thing, simply because in longitudinal ethnographic studies consent should never be thought of as simply a matter of signing a piece of paper (the literacy problems in this group would have made that problematic anyway) but as an ongoing process. In the pages that follow, then, I will discuss then problems caused in ethnographic work by unequally distributed social and cultural capital, using my own experience in a number of research projects as a point of reference. At the outset, I should say that in my experience the most significant aspect of working with vulnerable communities in Latin America is the generosity of the people concerned. Wealthy people have always proved to be much more suspicious. Indeed, I remember standing outside the chic Farmacias Arocha in Panama City on a Sunday afternoon, trying to do a vox pop on the customers’ understandings of the nation and feeling like a salesman who didn’t quite believe in his product—not an experience I am eager to repeat. In contrast, vulnerable communities have been far more open to engagement with the projects I’ve been involved in, spending time and energy in orienting an ignorant outsider for no immediate reward. We therefore need to ask a number a questions not only about why this is so but also about the meaning of research outputs for the communities involved in the respective projects,

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as well as the ethical questions that inevitably characterise close engagement with real people. One of the first problems that emerges is how best to frame the relationship between researcher and researched. Working out how people see the researcher, and revealing the assumptions the researcher has about them, is an important aspect of any ethnography and poses a set of well known and fiercely debated problems. The most significant of these is the need to recognise the power relationships inherent in the research process, often framed as part of a problem of positionality, a complex notion that needs a certain amount of unpacking (Oslender 2019). First, to think in terms of positionality reminds us of the geopolitics of knowledge production and the dangers of what might be thought of as extractive academic practices (Tucker 2018). A great deal of information has been gathered about the Global South and now resides in university and other libraries in the north. In historical perspective, this accumulation of a particular kind of capital is linked to a colonial imaginary that frames anthropology as the study of the primitive and sociology as the study of the modern, though the latter discipline also revealed a particular fascination with those modern primitives, the popular classes. These ideas, closely linked to subsequently debunked ideas of human development, conjure up notions of anthropologists doing fieldwork in closed communities that “give up” their secrets to the foreign researcher. At the same time, it’s common for romanticised notions to be projected onto these communities as “their” values are seen to reveal shortcomings in those of the metropolis from which the anthropologist comes. It’s also not unusual for researchers to realise that their attempt to extract knowledge from/about the communities in which they are located is really a process of knowledge exchange, and that the cultural patrimony of the community being studied constitutes a form of knowledge that challenges the researcher’s own epistemological presuppositions. Notions such as Orientalism are clearly relevant to this discussion, fraught as it is with notions of othering, and in Latin America decolonial approaches have attempted to effect a shift in how the paradigms used in the humanities and social sciences are understood, in an attempt to undo the colonial habits of thought that have been taken for granted for decades (Castro Gómez 2017). There has also been a significant move towards decolonising the epistemology of disciplines that have systematically ignored the contribution of all but a few chosen thinkers from outside the northern core (Dussel 2009). Working in Latin American studies I’m familiar with these debates, not least the problematic nature of Area Studies, centres of research that emerged in the latter part of the twentieth century to better understand regions of strategic interest for Cold War planners. What stands out in all of them is the power differential between the researcher and the researched, and the ethical problems which emerge when we interrogate the motivation which drives knowledge production. We’ve certainly come a long way since the

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epistemological self-confidence of the early anthropologists of the primitive, and ethnographies these days full of soul-searching and long sections of auto-ethnography, which are often almost apologetic in tone. Be that as it may, to have to reflect on the relationships between researchers and communities, beyond the immediate issue of the project, is important, and the themes mentioned above are certainly present in my own relationships with the vulnerable communities with which I have been working with for over a decade now. In my own case, I have been institutionally located as a researcher in both the Global South and the North, and I can say that the nuances of privilege are more complex than that simple distinction implies. I’ve worked in Colombia’s most prestigious private university and a public university in the UK in a period when the imposition of neoliberal ideology has transformed those institutions almost beyond recognition. Of course, you can’t just read off the political significance of research interventions politics from institutional position, but whether in the north or the south I’ve had the privilege of working with institutions with a great deal of both symbolic and economic capital. Most of my work has been done in Colombia, a place to which my own close ties were formed before I started studying the country. I have a home and a family there and am in the ambiguous position of someone who speaks the language well and has a high level of cultural competence, yet is still clearly a foreigner in appearance and accent. I vividly remember a friend telling me that he didn’t like me “coming down here to study us”, even though I was already living and working in Colombia at the time. What exactly it means to be an outsider, of course, varies according to context. In the mostly Afro-Colombian Pacific coast, I’ve sometimes been described as a paisa, someone from Antioquia and its surrounding areas, who represents the essential version of the exploitative white outsider. For anyone who actually is a paisa, like the people in Comuna XIII, I’m simply a gringo, or else English, whatever that might mean. (I’m actually Welsh but with the exception of Argentina not many people in Latin America know what that is.) In the vulnerable localities where most of my research has taken place, a common first assumption is that I work for an NGO or governmental agency, with a project to promote and resources to offer. Being an outsider, though, has certain benefits, not least many participants’ patience in explaining their perspectives to a foreigner. At the same time, it can be tempting to appear more naïve than one actually is. In 2004, I was part of a project on understandings of the notions of nation, state and democracy in Colombia, funded by the national research council, COLCIENCIAS. This project focused on discourse analysis and involved travelling around a range of location in Colombia, from the urban core to far-flung rural areas, visiting wealthy neighbourhoods, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, public spaces and shopping centres (the latter not being a public space) and just about any site where we thought we might be able to do interviews. Getting data for the project depended, on the one

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hand, on getting people’s attention so that they would participate and, on the other, on being regarded as harmless in places where people might be suspicious of outsiders. I don’t particularly enjoy making overtures to strangers in the street—I dislike rejection as much as the next person—but I find it easy to talk to people, and I like telling jokes, so I occasionally found myself cast in the role of the foreign clown. I played up to this, up to a point, and to this day I can’t help thinking of it as the “Borat” project, as I travelled around the country playing the innocent and occasionally making a fool of myself so that people would explain to me what it meant to them to be Colombian. Of the hundreds of people we spoke to, very few would be met again so there was no way that they could get to know me other than through this fleeting interaction. There are obvious ethical problems inherent in this approach and it produces results that are in some ways dissatisfying. Not letting on about what you know is as problematic a strategy as pretending you know more than you do, after all. A clear understanding of what is at stake, both for researchers and the participants, is surely essential to the design of any ethically defensible research project. In this respect, an incident from the nation project lingers in my memory. When we were in Riohacha, in the department of the Guajira, we went to do some interviews in a marginalised neighbourhood called El Comunitario. Along with the representative of an NGO who had contacts there, a colleague and I got a taxi to our destination. En route, the driver kept on looking at us in the rear-view mirror, fascinated by the two foreigners on their way to a place where foreigners obviously weren’t supposed to go, as far as he was concerned, at least. Something was clearly bothering him and finally he blurted it out. “You’re going to El Comunitario? But they’re going to strip these guys bollock naked out there!” I’d heard this stuff plenty of times in the past but it nonetheless set the mood so we were somewhat edgy when we arrived, clutching our core of questions and wondering whether we’d be able to keep to our interview plan. We met up with a group of young men who’d been playing football on a strip of wasteland. These were precisely the kind of people our taxi driver would have expected to be enthusiastically relieving us of our belongings. In the event, the interview that followed is one of the ones I’ve gone back to most frequently since. The Guajira Peninsula is an exposed place, one of the most arid areas in Colombia, in fact, and you can hear the wind blowing through the sand throughout the interview, a constant background sighing that acts as a melancholy counterpoint to the conversation that ensued. My interlocutor was in his early twenties and what stands out is not our nervousness but his fear of us. He agreed to give us an interview but underlined his concern that “because of something I say here something bad can happen to me”. As the conversation continued he grew more confident, his diffidence turning to denunciation, as he told us about his everyday experiences of police harassment and violence against local young people who felt they had a bleak future ahead. At one point, he

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used the interview to address a wider audience, noting that he wanted the president and an international audience to hear his account. In effect, he was treating us as journalists, a conduit to some imagined civil society he knew he was unlikely to reach otherwise. As I write this I can clearly understand why I go back to that interview. That anonymous young man made me feel ashamed of the role I was playing and of the limitations of our project. I hear his fear, his anger, and above all his desire to be heard and recognise how irrelevant our work was to the concerns of that group of young men and the community they came from. We learnt a lot about how he saw Colombia and its politics but we offered him nothing in return. In part, of course, I’m simply describing what is sometimes referred to as “impostor syndrome”, a rather dramatic label for the researcher’s recognition that a given project is unlikely to have a significant impact on the lives of participants who invest time and energy in the research process. There is nothing wrong in principle with engaging in research that doesn’t provide immediate benefits, so long as that is clear to participants from the outset. Being open about the scope of research, giving feedback and suggesting ways in which the process can further participants’ own strategic goals, if at all possible, is a minimal requirement. Looking back, however, that interview played a significant role in encouraging me to move away from projects based on a discourse analysis approach and towards ethnography. The study itself produced hundreds of fascinating interviews, but they lacked context. Whenever I presented the findings, ethnographers would ask about who these people were and I didn’t know enough about them to be able to situate their utterances in a more refined and intelligible context. In our defence, we were focusing on the discursive resources available to people across the national territory rather than analysing how people lived these categories, and there was a kind of wilful blindness in such criticisms, which were essentially part of a debate over how best to provide sufficient warrant to the interpretation of our data. Beyond that, however, there remained the ethical problems in the relationships involved, the lack of the kind of accountability that might be expected of the researcher to the researched, and the fact that in this project there was no way for our informants to really feel like participants. The complexities of these processes are not lost on community representatives. It’s certainly common in contemporary Colombia for potential participants to be wary of academic practices that further careers and offer nothing to those being studied. Many communities complain about being over diagnosed, as projects designed to assess need come and go without those basic needs ever being addressed. Yet it is often impossible to quantify the returns on the time and effort put in by participants, which in some cases has been the demand on the part of community organisations, partly quite rightly, but also in part by the transmission of the neoliberal culture of targets and measurable outcomes that so often characterises the institutions with which community ­representatives work most closely.

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In all the ethnographic work I’ve done since, I’ve noted that a key ­process in the research experience has been participants’ increasing understanding of who I am as researcher is, of what I know, want to find out, and why. Sometimes that’s uncomfortable because they don’t approve of what they find. On the other hand, others become close collaborators and friends. The point, however, is that the process is mutual. This leads us to a way of thinking about questions of positionality that emphasises solidarity. When I started to work as an ethnographer, I was intrigued by the work of Orlando Fals Borda and Participatory Action Research (PAR), unsurprising, I suppose, given that I was working in Colombia. The PAR project was compelling because it offered a way of negotiating these complicated sets of relationships, and constructing a different way of doing research. Although this is not the place to embark on a detailed discussion of PAR, the notion of the research project as a shared educational experience that can provide conclusions that are meaningful for all participants is attractive from an ethical perspective (Fals-Borda and Rahman 1991; Rowell et al. 2017). Indeed, in the current climate, to approach research in this way allows us to turn the current managerial obsession with impact to our advantage, as the need for research in the social sciences to demonstrate its value to local communities means that greater focus is placed on research outcomes, though the kinds of value recognised by these models may themselves be open to question. Yet this approach too has inherent difficulties, which leads me on to the second part of this reflection which is really about the complex nature of communities themselves. By and large, in Colombia the term comunidad tends to be used to refer to places where poor people live, and it is less common to use the term when talking about wealthy neighbourhoods. Marginalised communities are often seen from the outside as somehow being homogeneous, which is one of the ways, in fact, in which they are marginalised, as the specific agency of the people who live there goes unrecognised. In the face of this, it’s worth bearing in mind that rather than working with and studying communities as self-evident realities defined by place, belief or some other marker of identity, more often than not we are actually documenting the everyday work that takes place in order to bring a community into being and maintain its cohesion. Indeed, for a group of people to think of itself as a community requires work, and we can occasionally witness and describe the moment when a sense of community emerges, as well as those moments when splits appear that threaten that sense of shared identity. At the same time, in political terms, the word itself acquires an aura that can stifle debate. Just like the nation, or the people, the community is often appealed to as a kind of knock-down argument that trumps all others, even though the contours of the community being invoked may be decidedly fuzzy. Thus while it is easy in principle to support the struggle of poor people in one of the most unequal polities on earth for social inclusion and political representation, to be on the side of the subaltern may be complicated than it

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seems. In my own experience, there are political goals that I unequivocally support and there have been occasions when I have questioned whether I have crossed the line between research and activism. But to know where one’s political commitment lies is not always easy, as I’ll try and illustrate with reference to one of my own projects. Between 2012 and 2016, I was involved in extended periods of fieldwork in Quibdó, the capital of Chocó department in Colombia’s Pacific lowlands, researching how the mechanisms of citizen participation functioned in a context marked both by conflict and the possibility of a peace accord between the state and the FARC insurgency. In general, I tried to maintain a distance from the social actors involved. There were several reasons for this. As part of the research project, I was being supported by people from within the local town hall, whose programme encouraged participation from the poorest sectors of the city. These people had facilitated access for me, given me interviews and generally proved themselves to be open to the project in all sorts of ways. However, it is possible to be brought into the complicated dynamics of the relationship between institutions and communities in various ways. At one point in the research process, for example, I suddenly realised that as I attempted to map the ways these actors were framing their interventions in the local political scene I was in effect being used as a conduit for messages between local political figures and community leaders. Being caught in that tug-of-war was not where I wanted to be, not least because the risk of being seen to be on one or other of the “sides” distorted a process in which I needed to be able to adopt a critical stance to both, without being unfair to either. During this period I got to know many community leaders and established excellent working relationships and even close friendships with some of them. On one occasion, I was helping two community leaders to write a letter to the municipal administration about a civic strike they were planning, in which they would block the main road out of the city in protest at successive administration’s failure to pave it. The road had been in a terrible state for years and was a major obstacle to attempts to improve the quality of life of people who depended on it to get to work, to run errands in town and to get their children to school. I’d heard a lot about the plans for the road making project and given the history of the area I understood why the community leaders were about them. In any case, our meeting wasn’t much of a conspiracy, as we were meeting in an Internet café right opposite the town hall, where the letter was to be delivered. A man sitting near us overheard some of our conversation and voiced a few supportive opinions. Within a few hours, however, I was accused of promoting the strike by one of the leading figures of the Alcaldía, which in itself jeopardised my hitherto excellent working relationship with the institutions of local government. While I wasn’t an instigator of the planned civil disobedience, nor a party to the decisions that led to it, it was clear at that point that I was not engaged in what is sometimes framed as politically neutral comparative ethnography (Keesing and Strathern 1998). By

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making it clear that I supported the paro, I’d stepped over a line, something that is not at all unusual in fieldwork of this sort. That said, the exact nature of my relationship with the community leaders in question was complicated. I shared their overall goals and was happy to give them an opinion on the likely impact of their plans, and help with letter writing. This community was organised around a set of common goals, and it is important not to underestimate what they had already achieved. On the edge of one of the rainiest cities on the planet, a major collective effort had been able to bring a barrio into being, lending local people a sense of purpose and cohesion as they cleared the surrounding rainforest and worked together in the construction of houses. This process is recognisable all over the Global South, as vulnerable communities struggle to gain legal recognition, land title, public services and infrastructure. It was yet another case of people doing what they have to do to survive, working in the interstices of the legal system, struggling with underfunded institutions in difficult circumstances, but making gains that improve their quality of life (Chatterjee 2004). The people I met on my first visits knew that working together was the only thing that would help them to get ahead. When I first arrived there, in 2012, our walks around the neighbourhood that was emerging from the surrounding rainforest suggested an organic community at peace with itself, even though it faced tremendous difficulties. One of the key participants in the project was the Afro-Colombian president of the local neighbourhood association (JAC), a reliable, hard-working woman in her early 40s who played a major role in driving the collective process forward. María Estefana led citizen oversight committees, refused to be bought or intimidated, and stood up to local authorities, local criminals and national institutions alike. She had little formal education and only basic literacy, which was why I was involved in the letter-writing incident in the first place, but had a family history of community organising in peasant communities and many deep insights about what makes people and institutions tick. In this respect, she was an example of Gramsci’s insight that all people are intellectuals, with theories about the social world and their own place in it (Gramsci 2011: 279). She had been able to track down the local absentee landowner, at that time living in Barcelona, and begin negotiations with him about the community’s occupation of part of his land. She had been engaged in a long, attritional struggle with local institutions over the road paving plans, and she was able to mobilise an autonomous form of community support that resisted co-option by local politicians and criminal organisations. Jealousy and conflicting interests split communities, however. As noted above, it might be better to think of communities, in a political sense, as events rather than sociological entities. There was already a history of rivalry with a pre-existing association, headed by a mestiza, which represented black residents, some of the poorest in the community, in fact, who scraped a living as recyclers on the nearby rubbish dump. In contrast, María Estefana was seen

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by some as representing a group of displaced peasants from El Carmen del Atrato, a paisa enclave in Chocó. Her success within the community led to her being accused at different times of being a guerrilla, or even a witch, in an attempt to undermine her credibility in the community. Some residents suggested she was complicit with the local landowner in selling off housing lots for personal gain, a more credible and therefore more damaging claim. My own proximity to María Estefana and the group she worked with clearly had implications for the way other factions within the community saw me, though I went out of my way to talk to those who didn’t agree with her way of doing things in the community. Nonetheless, in a project that focused on the experiences of new community organisers, she stood out as the one least affected by the often overwhelming nature of the clientelist political culture in which community organisers find themselves immersed. But what these processes underline are the difficulties, in some cases, of identifying those actors with whom we can forge the alliance that PAR suggests we make. When it comes to writing up research a certain amount of soul-searching is needed about how criticisms of particular actors are to be framed, especially when they have helped in the research process. Some of the facilitators of research may have invested significant social capital in the project, too, which is why it’s important to consider the sorts of things that can go wrong from the outset. In Quibdó, for example, my academic partner Manuel Beltrán, a social psychologist, has been working in other projects on the peace process in which the notion of reconciliation has been significant. In these contexts he has worked to promote the idea that the price of peace is the acceptance that in return for full disclosure and the promise of non-repetition, certain crimes will in effect go unpunished. While emphasising collective culpability, these approaches also underline the importance of personal responsibility rather than structural critique. On watching the Argentinian documentary Who am I? (Estela Bravo, 2007) with a focus group in Tutunendo, his discomfort with some of the questions and answers was obvious. The film is about the struggle to locate the children of people tortured and killed by the Argentine military during the dictatorship, many of whom were later placed with other families who brought them up as their own. It also condemns any reduction in the sentences for the perpetrators of these crimes. Manuel was concerned: “After all the work we’ve done, how do we deal with this film that suggests that only punitive justice is acceptable?” Fortunately, I’d made the initial contact with the group with whom we were working in Tutunendo, so he was not risking carefully established relationships in this particular case, but other focus groups in community organisations with whom he has been working, will be seeing the same film. In my own experience, these kinds of concerns are particularly acute for Ph.D. students, and it strikes me that they are common for lone researchers, too. Indeed, working alone in these kinds of contexts can be a lonely business, not in the sense of actually feeling alone—on the contrary I have

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far more friends and acquaintances in Colombia than I ever would have if I hadn’t become a researcher—but when it comes to making difficult critical assessments. In such circumstances, however, discussing one’s findings as openly as possible is the best way of avoiding problems further down the line. Working as part of an interdisciplinary team can be the most rewarding way of overcoming some of these obstacles. Since 2016, I have been involved in a number of projects with the Institute of Environmental Studies of the Pacific (Instituto de Investigaciones Ambientales del Pacífico-IIAP), designed to bring together the academy, representatives of institutions and community leaders in one of the regions most affected by the armed conflict. The Pacific coast, a global centre of biodiversity and also the site of Colombia’s most important deep-water port, is afflicted illegal gold mining, logging, drug trafficking and the presence of a range of armed actors struggling for the control of territory, populations or smuggling routes. Much of the territory belongs to Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities with collective land title, who have also been disproportionately affected by forced displacement, the recruitment of child soldiers and a range of other human rights violations. It is also an area that has been convulsed by “civil strikes”, aimed at demanding state action to remedy the problems faced by a population with little access to education, employment, health care and basic infrastructure. The groups we have worked with have been made up of representatives of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, as well as representatives of the civic strikes, youth groups, demobilised guerrillas and urban community associations. These people would come together every month for three days to discuss different aspects of community organising and the ways in which they could use existing institutional capacities to improve the quality of life of their communities. What was striking in these cases was the tense atmosphere that resulted from bringing representatives of very different constituencies together. That was not just a matter of the historical distrust that marked the relationship between communities and representatives of the state but of the disagreements and rivalries between the community organisations themselves. The way these sessions has been conducted has focused on knowledge exchange, in this case referred to as andragogía, partly influenced by the kind of andragogy promoted in the USA by Malcolm Knowles (2014), but strongly inflected by the recognition of the value of the different forms of knowledge possessed by indigenous and Afro-descendant communities. Thus rather than being one more set of training opportunities for leaders who in many cases have already done dozens of workshops and diplomas, these ongoing encounters represent a meeting of perspectives. A significant feature of this experience has been the way in which the frequency of these meetings and the need to work together to suggest solutions to specific problems have changed some at least of the dynamics between these groups, lowering levels of mutual distrust and allowing participants to understand the wide range of perspectives that come into play in the complex political setting of

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Colombia’s Pacific lowlands. It has also been a place where the usefulness of research to the communities involved has been put to the test. From a personal point of view, the fact that this series of meetings and relationships can be turned into an impact case study is obviously attractive, not because I see any intrinsic value in the REF system (I don’t), but because to be successful in attracting grants and keeping institutions happy allows me to do the work I really want to do without feeling constantly harassed by the demands of the neoliberal university. More importantly, however, the presence of all of these sectors over extended periods of time (each of these events runs over a period of six months) has enabled the establishment of a series of connections to be made that allow those involved to re-evaluate what we have learnt and establish relationships that lead to future collaborations. In August 2019, for example, I was able to visit the Zenú community at Montelíbano in Córdoba, at the invitation of the indigenous leaders who had participated in the meeting with the IIAP. As well as filming a set of workshops set up with the Centre for Popular Education and Research (CINEP), we began to make plans to start a community audio-visual programme training young people in documentary making, with a number of research goals attached. The same was true for the Arapios community council, whose leaders I have met with on four different occasions and with whom I have also carried out documentary work. Without the broad-based support provided by the IIAP this would not have been possible. How, then, can I sum up this brief discussion of the problems faced by those of us using ethnography, based on my own experiences? Looking back over the text, I can see that the way I have presented the examples here suggests a kind of movement towards the kind of academic and activist work that I had envisaged when I decided to turn to ethnography as a research method. That’s not to say, however, that the more ambiguous relationships I established with those communities that I still know best were not rewarding. In fact, I’d be tempted to argue that it’s precisely the ambiguities and even the difficulties in the relationships with those communities, and those institutions, that made that research most interesting. Furthermore, it remains clear to me that however positive these recent experiences have been, the relationship between ethnographers and the communities they work with remains fraught with tensions and complexities as well as extremely rewarding moments. As well as shared goals and political agreements there are many different agendas at work, both personal and collective. Above all, the power relationships that mark the engagement of academic researchers with vulnerable communities will always be present, and always need to be negotiated. In fact, had I understood the way that working as an ethnographer was constantly going to challenge my own self-understanding as a researcher, and my own political values, I might have thought twice about entering the field. On the other hand, I still go back to that recording from Riohacha, which always convinces me that I made the right decision.

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References Castro Gómez, Santiago. 2017. ¿Qué Hacer Con Los Universalismos Occidentales?: Observaciones En Torno Al “giro Decolonial”. Analecta Política 7 (13): 249–272. Chatterjee, Partha. 2004. The politics of the governed: Reflections on popular politics in most of the world. New York: Columbia University Press. Dussel, Enrique. 2009. A new age in the history of philosophy: The world dialogue between philosophical traditions. Philosophy & Social Criticism 35 (5): 499–516. Fals-Borda, Orlando, and Anisur Rahman. 1991. Action and knowledge: Breaking the monopoly with participatory action research. New York, Apex: Intermediate Technology Publications. Gramsci, Antonio. 2011. Prison notebooks. New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press. Keesing, Roger M., and Andrew Strathern. 1998. Cultural anthropology: A contemporary perspective, 3rd ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College. Knowles, Malcolm S., Ed Holton, and Richard A. Swanson, eds. 2014. The adult learner. Oslender, Ulrich. 2019. Geographies of the Pluriverse: Decolonial thinking and ontological conflict on Colombia’s Pacific coast. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 109 (6): 1691–1705. Rowell, Lonnie L., Catherine D. Bruce, Joseph M. Shosh, and Margaret M. Riel, eds. 2017. The Palgrave international handbook of action research. New York: Palgrave. Tucker, Karen. 2018. Unraveling coloniality in international relations: Knowledge, relationality, and strategies for engagement. International Political Sociology 12 (3): 215–232.

CHAPTER 16

Gatekeepers Gyde M. Sindre

Introduction When teaching fieldwork methodology to students, two of the most common questions I get asked is ‘How do you get your contacts in your field? and ‘How do you know if they [my interviewees] are telling you the truth’. I usually answer that (1) I rely on other experts, internationally and locally; and (2) ‘When I am looking for facts, these can easily be double checked with corroborating sources. Often-time, I am not looking for ‘facts’ but for specific discourses, visions, parts of stories that the interviewee wants to tell me, structures and power dynamics. Interviews combined with observations provide a piece of a puzzle, small or large that you are seeking to answer. The two answers are not satisfactory, and they do not convey the complexities that concern issues of ‘who’ I talk to and which ‘truth’ I am being told. The two answers I provide refer back to a less explored theme in discussions within fieldwork methodology, namely ‘who’ opens the door to the field and provide me with the logistical backing to conduct fieldwork and thereby also set the parameters for who I talk to when in the field [how do you get your contacts?] and [how do you know they are telling you the truth?]. In fact, these questions draw attention to a central issue in preparing for and conducting fieldwork, which is rarely discussed or reflected on, namely how you gain access to the field, how you find your informants, and what implications these opportunities have for the research process, data and conclusions. While there is an abundance of advice to qualitative scholars on how to conduct semi-structured interviews and how to work with the data afterwards, there is

G. M. Sindre (*)  Department of Politics, University of York, York, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_16

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very little written about how researchers gain access to the field in the first place and how that access is navigated over time. This chapter addresses the issue of ‘gatekeepers’ when conducting fieldwork in Peace and Conflict Studies. Based on my own experience with conducting fieldwork in post-conflict/post-disaster areas, I will outline the role that gatekeepers have played in my fieldwork, reflect on the effects of my relationship with gatekeepers, highlight some of the potential pitfalls or problems one might face when having to rely on one specific type of gatekeepers, as well as discuss how I navigated the field expanding my ‘gatekeeper community’. The discussion will primarily focus on my own experience in conducting fieldwork in Indonesia’s Aceh province. I have conducted several field trips to Aceh over the years but will focus my attention on the most immediate post-conflict period from 2006 to 2012, which also include my PhD fieldwork. In the following, I briefly outline what roles ‘gatekeepers’ fulfil within peace and conflict studies fieldwork. I then provide a brief outline of the field site that is the subject of study before embarking on the main section of the chapter in which I discuss the gatekeeper communities I have relied on when in the field in Aceh.

Gatekeepers: What, Who and Where? The term gatekeepers signify that conducting fieldwork requires some form of formalized, well-prepared and meaningful contact before going into the field; someone to open doors and provide you with much needed contacts so you can embark on collecting data. However, gatekeepers can be much more than that. To researchers who are conducting fieldwork for the first time or starting to work in a new field site, gatekeepers do not only open doors to the field in the form of providing the first contact or a list of first interviewees; they are also essential for the logistical task linked to preparing for fieldwork and conducting fieldwork. Gatekeepers may act as the sponsor on your research visa application; they may provide you with a desk in an a­ ir-conditioned office and a familiar and safe place to return to transcribe your interviews data. Away from the department, gatekeepers can also provide you with collegiality and a network when you are finding your bearings in a new and unfamiliar setting and support when you need to sort through your impressions after a long day of interviews and field observations. In some instances, you may also rely on gatekeepers to help you with issues related to security, transport and interpreters—in other words as ‘fixers’. At the same time, gatekeepers can also have vested interests in your research and envision to reap some benefits from working with you or from your research results. Who Are the Gatekeepers? As researchers we rely on multiple gatekeepers at different stages of the fieldwork and indeed throughout our careers. When the field is a conflict-affected context, access to the field is often not straight forward and establishing

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contact often requires a lot of preparation. It is therefore useful to carve out a typology of gatekeepers that are commonly used to access the field. In the following, I first describe these ‘types’ or groups of gatekeepers. ‘Internationals’, peacebuilders and humanitarians: to many researchers, it is the international actors engaged in peacebuilding missions or humanitarian assistance in conflict-affected regions who become the first contact point before entering into the field. Many also rely on international organizations as gatekeepers and main contact points for the duration of their fieldwork. Examples can be a United Nations Development Programme field office, an international NGO such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, or an international observation mission. As will be further discussed below, when I first conducted fieldwork in Aceh in 2006, my initial gatekeeper that got the snowball rolling in the field was the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), the international mission set up to monitor the peace process and oversee the implementation of the peace agreement, including the decommissioning of weapons. The international peacebuilding apparatus and development offices often serve as useful door openers to the field because they bridge the research interests of many peace and conflict scholars and those of the international actors themselves, for instance studying the effects of specific peacebuilding policies. Often-time, researchers also rely on the international actors to serve as ‘expert informants’. There are at least two good reasons for why researchers would rely on internationals. Firstly, international actors are particularly influential and powerful in the conflict-affected region: they control inflows of aid and humanitarian assistance, are in close contact with stakeholders to the conflict such as rebel group leaders, military and state actors; they have good understandings of the security situation on the ground, and they have access and capacity to travel. Secondly, many research projects are also focused on studying the effects of international interventions and specific peacebuilding policies, which means that in addition to providing the researcher with useful contacts, they also become key informants. I have read numerous grant proposals that list internationals both as gatekeepers and as key informants, usually without thinking about the dual roles or how this may impact on the research process.1 In my own fieldwork in Aceh, my reliance on international organizations was both as gatekeepers and as key informants. For some research projects, this may be a clear balancing act: How much are the internationals willing to say on the record? Can you make use of the information you got 1 It is also worth mentioning that it is not uncommon for researchers to be embedded with international organizations for the duration of their fieldwork. This can include relying on UN infrastructure to travel around in the field, live in UN compounds and travel with UN personnel to the field. I personally have no experience with being embedded with internationals and can therefore not relate any personal experiences. Some of the points raised in this chapter regarding consideration of expectations by gatekeepers of ownership to data or access to data is relevant for this type of ­researcher-gatekeeper relationship as well.

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over a cup of coffee in which an NGO worker critiques its very own organization? What ownership does the organization retain over your data? These are issues that need to be taken into consideration before engaging on internationals as the main gatekeeper community when entering into the field. The degree of integration into the organization may be a product of what is possible: fieldwork in Burundi may necessitate closely working with the UN while conducting fieldwork in Colombia may not be dependent on being integrated into an international organization. Anyhow, any form of engagement requires weighing in on the pros and cons, as well as an honest and open conversation about expectations before starting the fieldwork and in the presentation of data afterwards. Local NGOs and civil society groups, such as human rights groups, pro-democracy movements, labour unions, journalists, churches as well as ­ local academics, provide another gatekeeper community that is helpful starting point for establishing an entry point into the field that is not predominantly made up of foreign experts. As international actors often spend only a limited time on a country, their expertise beyond the purpose of the mission is often limited. In this regard, the civil society community often has a better overview of the specific field and are well connected in political circles. To many researchers, the first contact points in the field may also be other academics, either at universities or think tanks. When I first conducted fieldwork in Indonesia, my first and initial contact was with academics who had set up an independent think tank. Some I had been introduced to at conferences and workshops, while others I identified from published reports. Many in this sector share an interest in the specific research topic that motivate conflict scholars and may prove valuable collaborators and colleagues for the future. In that light, there are also some ethical considerations to take into account that impact on how researchers work with collaborators in the field. Researchers working with civil society actors should also consider the unequal power relations between national and international experts and the ways in which the research can be of use to this community as well. For instance, this can range from data being made available at an early stage, invitations to co-author research outputs, to writing up a report or assist in writing tenders aimed at international funding bodies. Anyhow, the mutual expectations should be discussed ahead of and for the duration of the fieldwork. If the fieldwork is part of a larger project, such recognitions and activities can also be written into the grant proposal. To sum up, gatekeepers open doors and put the researcher in contact with interviewees and provide access to the field. One may also rely on gatekeepers to help provide necessary invitation letters to gain visas and research permits. Once in the field, gatekeepers provide an initial door opener to the field and interviewees. Reflecting on how I have conducted fieldwork in the past and current fieldwork activities, I have relied on gatekeepers in all stages of collecting field data. However, the instrumental role of gatekeepers and my dependency on

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gatekeepers to access the field have changed over the years as I have become more accustomed to conducting fieldwork. Access to the field, groups and communities, and individuals varies greatly from context to context and over time. For instance, if one wants to interview local NGOs who are involved in local peace initiatives, these often have a webpage and a contact e-mail address while rebel groups may have more closed networks and require personal introduction and time to develop trust to be able to collect the type of information one is looking for. However, if research is conduced at a time when a peace process is ongoing or a settlement is facing backlash, civil society activists may be more guarded and hesitant to speak openly. As situations may change quickly, researchers are obliged to consider the safety and security of gatekeepers and informants throughout the research process. The different roles of gatekeepers and the shifting implications for the research process will be discussed in detail below.

Fieldwork in Post-conflict/Post-tsunami Aceh, Indonesia I conducted my first intensive fieldwork in Aceh in 2006, about a year after the peace agreement (Memorandum of Understanding, the MoU) between the Indonesian government and the insurgent group, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) had been signed. I have since returned to Aceh several times. Most of my references in this chapter are with regard to the first two rounds of fieldwork that were characterized as especially volatile and unpredictable. My base was always in Banda Aceh, the regional capital while I also travelled outside of Banda Aceh to conduct interviews. My research was reasonably funded, which meant I could afford to pay for some assistance such as a driver and on occasion an interpreter. Most of my interviews were conducted in Bahasa Indonesia and English. When I first arrived in Banda Aceh in 2006, Aceh had been more or less closed off to researchers since the early 2000s. While the post-1998 era of democratization had set the stage for a surge in research about democratization and development in the rest of Indonesia, Aceh had remained under military control and been closed to both Indonesian and international academics and aid workers. The tsunami disaster of December 2004 caused massive devastation and a large-scale humanitarian crisis. Against this backdrop, in subsequent years‚ Aceh was described as a ­post-disaster/post-conflict region. International actors and government agencies were engaged in the parallel efforts of providing humanitarian assistance towards recovery, rebuilding and reconstruction on the one hand‚ and conventional peacebuilding support‚ such as peace monitoring, DDR (Demobilisation‚ Disarmament and Reintegration) and preparing for elections, on the other. The goal of my research then and now has been to study rebel groups’ political transformation in comparative perspectives. But this focus has been reformulated many times over the years depending on a combination of what happened internally to the actors I study and externally with regard to

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how the field of peace and conflict studies has evolved. Still‚ one of the most important lessons I learned when I first started to conduct research in ­conflict-affected regions is that fieldwork is unpredictable, and many aspects are difficult to plan for. Crucially, my initial plan for who to interview was a list of informant types that I expected to be able to interview: rebel group leaders and members, international peace monitors, civil society activists, representatives from the government and journalists/academics, aid workers and so on. In retrospect, I recognize I had very little understanding of the power dynamics within and between these groups, the significance of powerful individuals and sub-groups within each of these categories or the different experiences of these multiple stakeholders to the peace process in Aceh. Admittedly, I had also completely overlooked how incredibly difficult it is to set up and organize interviews on my own, and ultimately how dependent I would become on gatekeepers to help me gain access to many of these networks. Although I had prior experience in conducting fieldwork in Indonesia, the post-conflict, post-humanitarian crisis context brought additional challenges that set the parameters for the kind of fieldwork I was able to conduct. I needed to be sensitive to the context of a humanitarian crisis in which individuals I was in contact with had suffered loss, as a result of both the war and the humanitarian disaster. Also in terms of the practical task of conducting fieldwork, the infrastructure was destroyed in many places and it was difficult to travel to other regions beyond the main capital. As opposed to many other conflict-affected regions, security was not a major issue except the fact women should not go out after dark by themselves not wanting to face sharia police. Against this backdrop, I relied heavily on gatekeepers to gain access to the field and make sense of the social, political and cultural surroundings that made up my field site.

A Typology of Gatekeepers Below, I map out the different types of gatekeepers that provided me with access to the different groups of informants throughout my fieldwork. Although some categories, such as rebel group leaders, are context specific, several of the categories will be familiar and relevant across conflict-affected regions, including UN personnel, peace monitors and international NGOs. Note that the typology has been designed retrospectively for the purpose of this chapter to describe how my specific fieldwork unfolded. I realized quickly that it was much more difficult to identify gatekeepers that could provide access to rebel group members than it was to find gatekeepers who could open doors to local activist communities. Another factor that I had not taken into account was how the kind of access I gained to the field would eventually influence my research question and provide me with new research questions. Which direction would the research have taken, had I started out with another gatekeeper category?

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Internationals: Informants and Gatekeepers When I first travelled to Aceh in autumn 2006, around the time of the ­one-year anniversary of the peace agreement, I initially relied on two groups of gatekeepers: internationals involved in overseeing the peace process and an Acehnese civil society organization. The internationals were peace monitors from the AMM and diplomats in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Norwegian Embassy in Jakarta. I first met with a member of the AMM in Oslo prior to travelling to the field. This was also my first formal interview in which I sought to gain as much information about the peace process and the AMM’s work as possible. As Aceh was an entirely new field site for me, I also relied on this first informant for practical information such as where to stay, how to get around, where to eat and so on. The informant also provided me with personal e-mail and phone numbers to members of the AMM who would be able to help me in the field. While I could also have contacted the AMM head office in Aceh, this route allowed me to bypass any bureaucratic hindrances. In retrospect, this first interview conducted in a café in Oslo proved a good illustration of a much wider and normatively important discourse conveyed by many of the internationals working in Aceh at that time: the tsunami disaster had weakened the rebel group to the extent that it was forced to sign an agreement. This interviewee was also overwhelmingly negative about GAM in particular, describing the group as ‘fragmented’ and ‘unruly’ with little capacity for leadership, while her narrative about the Indonesian military was more positive than I had expected. While the negative narrative about GAM was familiar from multiple reports, the narrative that portrayed the Indonesian military in a more positive light represented something new. The AMM was portrayed as efficient and as crucial to the successful implementation of the peace agreement. Interestingly, later on‚ as my work in Aceh progressed, this perspective was challenged in my own work as I shifted focus towards studying the stakeholders to the peace process themselves. In retrospect, these conflicting narratives have led me to question the power of internationals to define successes and identify spoilers in peace processes. During my first week in Aceh, I contacted the representative of the AMM who helped me get in touch with several leadership figures directly involved in the peace negotiations and the implementation of the peace agreement. He personally brought me to see GAM’s representative to the AMM, Irwandi Yusuf and several senior figures within the Indonesian military who were overseeing the peace process from the government side. This first meeting and interview with a central GAM representative took place in a hotel lobby in Banda Aceh. It was not an ideal setting for an interview: the lobby was noisy; he was surrounded by his aides and people constantly came over to shake his hand. However, it was an important meeting as it provided me with a network of contacts of his inner clique, which represented the

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section of the movement that was directly involved in the peace process and who were trusted by the international peace monitors. During this first trip, no matter who I spoke to, within the AMM, rebel group members or military personnel, the story was remarkably similar: positive and upbeat about the peace agreement, yet hesitant and critical of rogue elements within the rebel group and amongst ‘radical’ segments of civil society. In a discussion about the significance of gatekeepers in conducting fieldwork, it also pinpoints the problem that ‘who’ you talk to—or who you have access to—determines which story you end up telling. Consequently, relying on just one individual or group to provide access may mean limiting one’s outreach. However, this does not mean that fieldwork in which you may not have opportunity to build multiple parallel network‚ be it for lack of resources or a deteriorating security situation, will be futile. I discuss some routes for overcoming such hurdles at the end of this chapter. Civil Society Associations The most important and valuable contacts I have made in the field are with local civil society associations and NGOs. This context of a vibrant civil society and activist community engaged in rights promotion, democratization and peacebuilding will be familiar to many researchers working in p ­ ost-authoritarian and post-conflict contexts. Aceh—as the rest of Indonesia—has for the past decades had a vibrant pro-democracy movement and activist community. Upon the signing of the peace agreement, many of the activists, who had been persecuted by the military in the previous years, returned to Aceh. The civil society landscape I encountered in 2006 onwards was largely home grown consisting of a multitude of activist groups focused on issues such as democracy promotion, reconciliation, women’s rights and post-tsunami recovery. When I returned for my second field trip in 2007, this became my community of contacts, gatekeepers and eventually friends. Working closely with and relying on civil society activist community has very much defined my own fieldwork and field experience. It was a friend from a Jakarta-based NGO, Demos, who was the first gatekeeper into this community. He introduced me to one of the more prominent activist groups in Aceh, the Aceh Civil Society Task Force (‘Aceh-STF’). They invited me to stay in their office and I did most of my work from there. The office also became a safe-haven and a nice break from the alienation and loneliness that can incur when in the field. This NGO became the most important door-opener to the wider political field in Aceh: I was introduced to other activist groups and I was given a long list of phone numbers to potential informants and help with setting up meetings. One problem I faced to begin with was that many names on this first list of contacts were not directly relevant for my exact research focus. This was frustrating at first, but I soon started to view these conversations as personal

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encounters, layered with new information that could potentially highlight trajectories and patterns of relevance that I would otherwise have overlooked. They served an educational purpose as well as helped me identify new research questions. I also started using these interviews to probe for new contacts. This is usually known as snowballing, but instead of asking who I should talk to next, I asked whether they knew how to track down a specific individual or where to meet ex-rebel group members. On several occasions, I was taken to a café known as hang-outs for rebel commanders. Acehnese coffee shops are traditionally places where intellectuals and political elites meet to discuss politics. It was often explained to me how, when ‘peace returned to Aceh’, these coffee shops again became a vibrant place for deliberation, debate and networking amongst the intellectual and political elite. Hence, I started going to these coffee shops on my own engaging in the conversation whenever possible. Beyond these coffee shops, I was also introduced to rebel group members in make-shift offices, at building sites in and around Banda Aceh, at various rallies, and eventually also at democracy training workshops organized by local NGOs, sometimes in collaboration with international organizations. From these encounters, I realized that where I was taken to meet with rebel group members was almost as important as who I met with‚ and this became important for my own understanding of Acehnese ‘peace politics’ as well as the wider research process. The context also tied into how I came to view their role in the ongoing political transformation of the rebel group into a civilian organization and a political party. For instance, the formalization of GAM offices‚ formally knows as KPA (Aceh Transitional Committee) was central to GAM’s transition into a political party and for building the party organization. As I entered the building, I was first seated in a waiting room before being called in to meet with the [former] rebel commander now turned politician. In contrast, to meet former rank and file members of the rebel group I went to the building sites around Banda Aceh. The two segments of the rebel group could talk of stories and experiences from different angles. Importantly‚ in both places‚ the aura of professionalism and organizational belonging was conveyed in uniformity. Entering such spaces as a foreign (female) researcher is not always straightforward. While I needed a gatekeeper to identify the informants and the sites where to find them, I did not strictly need a chaperone. However, I found it was much easier to strike up a conversation as a prelude to an interview when I was accompanied by someone of some social stature in Acehnese society. After such an introduction, I could arrange for an interview later or—as is often the case—conduct an interview on the spot. The identity of ‘belonging’ to that particular ‘someone’ was important in order to gain access. Another point of relevance is that many of these spaces were also heavily gendered. As opposed to the civil society offices and the Acehnese

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peacebuilding community that included many prominent female voices, the network of rebel group members consisted of mainly men. Where women were present, they fulfilled clerical roles and I was unable to establish a personal contact to pursue independent interviews. I can only presume that one of the reasons for this weakness was that those I relied on to introduce me, were also men who were not in position to introduce me to women members of the rebel group. The question of relevance for this chapter remains ‘did it make a difference who my gatekeepers were?’ I would argue that not only did the shift of ‘gatekeeper community’ from internationals to local NGOs to rebel group members have major implications for the kind of data I was able to collect, i.e. access a wide network affiliated with the rebel movement, but it also determined my own interpretation of events and my own research focus. Up until this point, the questions I had posed and the story I heard, which very much determined the content and focus of interviews, were predominantly framed around assessing the peace process itself. The story had been framed by those within the rebel group who worked closely with the international community engaged in post-tsunami recovery. The focus had largely been on the implementation of the peace process, its successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses—in the light of the massive humanitarian disaster that preceded it, all common themes within peace and conflict research. However, becoming integrated with and relying on a largely political community of activists, journalists and politicians, I shifted focus from studying the peace and reconstruction process to studying the democratization process itself‚ focusing not on the institutions of democracy per se, but rather the individuals, movements and social forces that drive forward such transitions in the light of the armed conflict. Conversely, there are several avenues that I have yet to pursue in my own research that may require a different approach and thinking mode when in the field. One such example is the awareness of gendered roles amongst gatekeepers. In particular, I trust my own research would have included a stronger focus on women in post-war politics, had I worked harder to engage such a gatekeeper community. Of course, the researcher-gatekeeper relationship is a two-way relationship that one should also be aware of. As with internationals, civil society activists may also have an interest in presenting one particular discourse while pursuing certain goals. Admittedly, at times I found it difficult to navigate the demands placed on me by way of association: the activists seeking to establish an NGO saw the association with an international researcher and a university as beneficial in building up their brand. Local NGOs are also prominent in a politicized field. In Aceh where I worked, many of the activists eventually also formed political parties and sought to join formal politics, while others were prominent in forwarding a particular viewpoint. In this context, I sometimes also felt I became a stakeholder to the political peacebuilding apparatus myself.

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Working Without a Gatekeeper But does one always have to rely on a gatekeeper? One way to overcome the problems associated with the snowball effect is to work on strategies to become your own gatekeeper whenever possible. One basic observation that any new field researcher should take into account—conflict or non-conflict region—is how much you learn about a context from just being somewhere. Although the taxi driver may not feature as the most prominent interviewee in your fieldwork, the conversations one has when driving around are tremendously useful for getting a picture of lived experiences. And in any case, you never know—as I experienced—chatting to the elderly woman at the market who turned out to have two sons in the rebel movement and who invited me to her home and shared a well of information about women’s political organizing during the war, these unplanned for and unexpected encounters may also lay the foundation for a new research question or research article. Yet, also this issue depends on your research focus. I have often heard my male colleagues talking about how going to bars and hang-outs frequented by ex-rebel members and war veterans, or even street corners, are their favourite spots for data collection. However, while it is crucial to take into consideration security issues, these are also heavily gendered spaces that male and female researchers will experience differently. Perhaps are well-organized focus group interviews that require some planning and pre-mediated contacts as valuable as the impromptu street-corner conversations?

Concluding Thoughts The discussion in this chapter has highlighted how working with multiple gatekeepers or rather ‘gatekeeper communities’ have implications for the research questions and which voices and stories are being heard. Navigating this field can become a complex field as the researcher also become embedded into heavily politicized context. In my own experience, I found gaining access to the groups I was studying required working closely with gatekeepers. The price is that the researcher automatically becomes associated with that particular gatekeeper community. Reflecting over these issues at all stages of the research process and challenging some perspectives is useful when moving forward. Trying to rely on multiple gatekeeper communities can likewise help bring multiple stories and voices to the forefront challenging one’s own conceptions. Realizing the politicized context of power relations that exist between actors and groups in the field ought to be brought to the forefront of the research process itself. The most important lesson I have learned over the years is that no fieldwork data collection strategy is perfect. If I had known how incredibly time consuming and difficult it is to navigate a complex field and how unpredictable fieldwork can be, especially in c­ onflict-affected contexts that are both unpredictable and in flux, I would have given myself more credit for actually getting the work done, but also reflected more on the research process itself.

CHAPTER 17

Working with Translators: Implications of the Translator’s Positionality for the Research Process and Knowledge Production Kristina Tschunkert

It is about a month into my research exploring host-refugee relations in Majdal Anjar, a town at the Lebanese-Syrian border. I am sat beside my translator, Paul,1 in his car, as we are leaving the town after another full day of attempting to build relationships with both Syrian and Lebanese small shop owners who slowly but surely start believing that we are in fact just a nosy researcher and her translator and not ‘spies’ of some sort or representatives of a United Nations (UN) agency. We have met with the same people many times and have shared informal conversations over coffee in this attempt to build trust and rapport. They are starting to get to know us, but also, and importantly, vice versa. After a few minutes of weaving through the dense traffic on this sunny afternoon, Paul turns to me and says “you know, this research has really changed my mind about the people in Majdal Anjar. I thought people here were very conservative and closed-off but actually they are very welcoming, hospitable and o­pen-minded”. It was only then that I fully realised that my translator was not just a ‘tool’ for communication but a person that holds certain assumptions, values and beliefs due to his identities and experiences. It was also only then that I started to completely understand that

1 I

have changed his name in order to ensure anonymity.

K. Tschunkert (*)  University of Manchester, Manchester, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_17

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this would have an impact on the research and that I would have to reflect on not just my positionality in this research but also on his. Readers of this chapter are probably, like me, planning to conduct research in a country or community whose language they are not or not fully able to speak and understand. In this situation, employing a research assistant or translator is inevitable and presents challenges but also opportunities. Most reading material found on this matter focuses on technical and methodological issues; for example, the competence of a translator to deliver technically and conceptually precise translations as poorly translated concepts might not reflect what interlocutors actually said and meant, which can threaten credibility (Squires 2009). Other examples of such suggested technocratic challenges are the cost involved in hiring a translator (Van Nes et al. 2010), seating arrangements for effective interviewing (Squires 2009), and semantic equivalence (Caretta 2015) among others. The focus of such material, while important, is a rather unreflexive problem-solving exercise that aims to achieve ‘best practice’ (Turner 2010). Fluency in both languages and the ability to translate words, sentences and concepts accurately are undeniably important skills of a translator and factors to choose who to work with. However, for my case study and the context of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, I had to factor in issues that are specific to working in conflict-affected societies. Besides fluency of English and Arabic, the most important quality of a translator to me was that they were empathetic to the situation of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and that they had a sound understanding of the work of humanitarian NGOs. While I had this in my mind permanently, I have to admit that I was more oblivious to what role identity factors of my translator would play in a society that has historically been divided along sectarian lines. Since the ‘reflexive turn’ in social science research (e.g. Atkinson 1990; Stanley and Wise 1983; Van Maanen 1988) there has been wider consensus regarding the role of the researcher as an active participant who shapes the research and is not value-free. However, the role of a translator in the research and knowledge production process is still largely underappreciated (Gawlewicz 2016). The traditional, positivist view of research that suggests that researchers should aim to conduct interviews ‘through’, rather than ‘with’ the translator writes off the translator’s values in an attempt to eradicate bias and maintain objectivity (Temple and Edwards 2002). The research process as knowledge production needs to be situated considering a researcher’s positionality (in terms of race, age, gender, socio-economic status, sexuality etc.) as this can influence the data collected, and how it is coded and theorised as ‘knowledge’ (Haraway 1991; Rose 1997). In qualitative research, language represents data and a key tool that helps us understand behaviour as well as social and cultural dynamics and meanings (Hennink 2008). In interviews and conversations that are conducted with the help of a translator, such meanings are filtered through the translator’s own experiences (Ficklin and Jones 2009), meaning that in this situation, knowledge construction

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and production involves another layer (Temple 1997). This means that even though as qualitative researchers we aim to explore and demonstrate social realities of our interlocutors through their own perspectives, interpretation of the language, and meaning-making used by interview participants, takes place not only at the analysis phase by the researcher but also at the translation phase by the translator. As Temple and Edwards (2002: 11) remark: “the research thus becomes subject to ‘triple subjectivity’ (the interactions between research participant, researcher and interpreter), and this needs to be made explicit”. With this in mind, using examples from my own research experience with a translator in Lebanon, in the following sections I aim to untangle how these epistemological issues might be manifested in the field and what the implications might be before I offer ‘lessons learned’ and advice on working with a translator. What I aim to further do in this chapter, is to contextualise this relatively new debate of translator positionality and its implications within ­conflict-affected and divided societies more specifically.

Implications of Positionality for the Research Process In aiming to be a ‘good’ and ‘thoughtful’ qualitative researcher, I had been aware of the importance of understanding and considering my own positionality in the research process and its impact on the interpretation of the interviews and ultimately on knowledge production. I will not go into detail about my own positionality other than as a female, white European PhD researcher people assumed I had Christian religious views. I knew this because people did not play the ‘what-is-your-name-and-where-exactly-are-you-from-game’ that usually is a core part of meeting someone for the first time as religious affiliation in Lebanon can usually be told by knowing a combination of these facts about a person. Furthermore, people assumed I was a representative of a UN agency given the presence of international organisations and ­non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and therewith a large number of international staff in the country since the Syrian Civil War broke out in 2011. However, in the process of employing a translator, I did not sufficiently consider and reflect on what implications a third person (besides me and the interviewee) with their own subjectivity would have on the research. Furthermore, only now, with some time and space away from the field, am I realising what role my positionality had in the selection process. During fieldwork in Lebanon, I worked together with an international NGO and after a couple of months of going to ‘the field’ with their teams, I realised that I would need a separate translator who can spend a considerable amount of time with me in one location. I wanted to learn to understand the everyday life of a community as closely and thoroughly as possible as the objective of my research was to explore perceived socio-economic impacts of humanitarian cash-based assistance on the relationships between Syrians

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and Lebanese, or refugees and hosts, in everyday economic interactions on the market and beyond. I decided to work with Paul who was recommended by a colleague at the NGO. I decided to work with him because of this personal recommendation but also because he was available for the following few months, because his English was flawless, he had worked in the humanitarian sector before and he expressed empathy with Syrian refugees in Lebanon. I had given gender some thought, but I had not anticipated how conservative Majdal Anjar would be. I soon found that as a European woman, I had no issues of acceptance by male interlocutors, as Clark (2006: 421) states “Western women have the advantages of being a ‘third gender’”. However, at times we had difficulty obtaining interviews with women if their male family members were not around, meaning that due to Paul’s gender, we were barred from large parts of the female realm. My respondents were mostly small shop owners, so my study had a strong male bias given the fact that there were only very few female shop owners in Majdal Anjar, which eventually made the gender issue less problematic. However, this heavily depends on the study and gender dynamics need to be considered as Paul’s gender could have massively affected or, in fact, made a research project with a different ‘target’ population altogether impossible. However, I was blind to other identity markers and what they might mean in a country like Lebanon that has been divided along sectarian lines. The Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) is often portrayed as a conflict between Muslims and Christians. Even though this paints a simplistic picture neglecting the political root causes, the sectarian divide runs deep in the country. In the months that I had spent in Lebanon, I did not experience anything but everyday peaceful co-existence. Taking the example of the office that I worked in, a space occupied by Lebanese Christians, Sunni and Shia Muslims, as well as by Palestinians, Syrians and a couple of Europeans/Americans, I had thought that religion did not play an important role in either dividing or bringing together the nation. Due to the value and belief system I grew up with, I now realise, I naively thought that a Christian translator would not have a large or any impact on the research process in Majdal Anjar, a majority Sunni Muslim town. In divided societies, a ‘culture of suspicion’ manifested in mistrust and nervousness in speaking openly to researchers is not uncommon (Clark 2006) and respondents may even view foreign researchers as well as people belonging to religious or political groups different to their own as opponents (Lynch 2008). As the account in the beginning of this chapter shows, this goes both ways and Paul admitted later that he felt uncomfortable in the beginning as Majdal Anjar citizens are stereotyped as being religious extremists, a belief that he soon dismissed. However, as Paul’s level of comfort grew, he started to wear the gold cross around his neck, that he had hidden inside his t-shirt before, openly. I was conflicted about this choice. On the one hand, I did not want to tell him what he could or could not wear but, on the other hand, I was worried that this might be perceived as

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a provocation. After asking a Lebanese academic friend for advice, I decided that I would not interfere given that I did not have the feeling that this act had changed anything in the relationships with people who by then had decided that we were friendly and trustworthy enough to hold conversations with. How do I know for a fact what influence my own, or especially his identity and his decision to openly wear the cross, had on the relationship with people, the way they interacted with us and the things they decided to share or not to share? I simply do not and cannot know and as Rose (1997) suggests as a researcher I will keep these worries and work with them. These revelations after a few weeks and months of working with Paul made me realise that his positionality in the research process was not as neat and straight forward as I had thought. His intersecting identities partly positioned him close to our interlocutors as an ‘insider’ and partly far from them and as an ‘outsider’. Temple and Edwards (2002) frame this as ‘identity borders’. Paul and most of our Lebanese interlocutors shared identity borders around nationality and gender; however, border divisions emerged around religion, class and professional status. With Syrian respondents, he only shared one border, namely gender, however, given the fact that his sister is married to a Syrian man, and that they had to flee from Syria when the war started, made him relatable to interviewees. He could hence be described as a partial insider as he shared not all but one identity factor with the interlocutors (Chavez 2008). However, these multi-layered identities make the ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ debate passé, also because these different identities meant that Paul encountered and enacted these various dimensions of identity during interviews (Ryan 2015; Chavez 2008). For example, during interviews with Syrians, he made sure that they knew that he could somewhat relate to their situation given the experience of his sister. During interviews with Lebanese interlocutors, even though they did not share the same religious beliefs, he was able to build relationships with the help of shared grievances about established political parties, whether aligned with Sunni or Christian religion. Thus, as different identities interact with one another, an assumed ‘insider’ does not automatically have shared understanding and beliefs with research participants and being an ‘outsider’ does not mean that they are neutral or objective (Ryan 2015). Furthermore, even though being an ‘insider’ has been depicted as being the best possible situation to be in for qualitative researchers, issues of this position include potential bias in selecting respondents, selective reporting and possible compromises in professional ethics (Chavez 2008). Instead, Paul was able to use the multiplicity of his identities to facilitate exchange by creating shared experiences (Srivastava 2006). Furthermore, it is not easy to predict how the research participants might place the researcher and her translator. During an interview, identities will be continuously re-shaped in an act of mutual identity construction (Ryan 2015). For instance, as I am a white European, people in Majdal Anjar assumed right away that I was Christian while Paul had to answer questions

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about his last name and which town exactly he was from. Once religious affiliation was established, I like to believe that with every conversation we had, identity borders were redefined and divisions minimised thanks to the open-mindedness of both Paul and our interlocutors. What this means is that especially in deeply divided societies, as researchers we cannot assume that someone is an ‘insider’ because they are from the same country as our research participants. In reality, we need to consider the ­multi-layered identities of ourselves, our translators as well as our research participants, which make this dichotomous ‘insider’/‘outsider’ thinking impractical. Even though I would hold longer conversations with my potential translator about identities, positionality and how this might impact the research process if I were able to do the research over again, I now have the chance to reflect on how my translator’s positionality shapes the knowledge we have produced together. This brings me to the process of interpreting data during and after interviews, and the implications for this when working with a translator.

Translator Positionality and Data Interpretation As established in this chapter so far, translators bring their own experiences, assumptions and concerns to the research process, leading to ‘triple subjectivity’ in the research (Temple and Edwards 2002). Language is data in qualitative research and language is culturally embedded in context which makes a translator not just a tool for literal translations but importantly, a ‘cultural broker’ (Hennink 2008). The ‘cultural broker’ delivers not just technically correct translations but importantly makes it possible for a researcher who is culturally and linguistically distant from the interview participants to understand social meanings behind words and language used by interlocutors (ibid.). Furthermore, the fact that language is culturally and socially embedded means that there is not just one correct translation, leaving the translator with a wealth of options of word combinations to choose from in order to convey meaning (Temple and Edwards 2002). I realised this often when I looked at Paul puzzled by the words he just translated and he took the hint and explained to me what that person had ‘really’ meant. For example, a Lebanese clothes shop owner, when talking about the socio-economic situation in Majdal Anjar since the Syrian Civil War he said “I can’t even cover my expenses. If it goes on like this, people won’t even be able to turn on their cars”. Quite possibly a part of this was a local expression that does not translate well to English, so Paul had to clarify “he means, if it goes on like this economically, he won’t be able to do anything anymore and go anywhere for business or leisure as he won’t be able to bear the cost of it”. Paul, like any translator in qualitative cross-cultural and cross-language research, contributes intellectually to understanding research data within the context that it is collected (Hennink 2008). Rich experiences that are important and very personal, like the one detailed by the research participant above,

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are difficult to put into words. In order to make them understandable to people, narratives and metaphors are commonly used which, however, do not translate easily from culture to culture (Van Nes et al. 2010; Hennink 2008) which is what likely happened here. In order to convey meaning, Paul had to use words that were not spoken by the interviewee and therewith interpreted the data from his own position and involved himself already here in ­concept-building rather than just translating word for word. He thus becomes an interpreter rather than a translator only (Temple and Edwards 2002). In presenting my data, I then have to acknowledge the key role that Paul played in both collecting and interpreting it. Part of establishing validity is making sure that meanings expressed by interviewees are represented as closely and accurately as possibly in the meanings interpreted in the findings (Van Nes et al. 2010). I know that Paul has always tried to do this, however, due to his identities described above, I cannot be sure that the meaning conveyed to me by Paul is exactly the meaning intended by our interlocutor as the form of language used depends on aspects of identity, such as gender, religion, ethnicity and moral beliefs (Temple and Edwards 2002; Kapborg and Berterô 2002). A similar threat to validity occurs the other way around, when the translator asked my questions to the interlocutors in their mother tongue. It is possible that in both scenarios, meaning gets lost as the translator might elaborate, summarise or modify questions and responses (Kapborg and Berterô 2002). It is possible that the data does not purely show the interlocutors’ reality, but a reality that has gone through several stages of interpretation through both the translator and the researcher, which again comes back to the idea of ‘triple subjectivity’ (Temple and Edwards 2002). Furthermore, as Yanow (2006: 55) suggests, language can only be understood in its context and “each new insight revises prior interpretations in an ever-circular process of making meaning. Interpretations are, therefore, always provisional, as one cannot know for certain that a new way of seeing does not lie around the corner”. Thus, the translator, as ‘cultural broker’, has to translate not just the literal meaning of the words used by the interviewee but also the contextual information carried in the way these words are spoken; just some examples of contextual information include sarcasm, humour, body language, metaphors and other emotions (Hennink 2008). This makes translating a challenging and exhausting endeavour. After many weeks of speaking to many different people in Majdal Anjar often about the same issues and concepts, Paul started to express what he felt was useless repetition of certain answers by interlocutors. He would start saying things like “same as before…” when repetitive patterns of behaviour and perceptions started to become clear. However, this can be problematic exactly due to the just discussed importance of contextual information and nuances of information that remain unrevealed if he does not deem them important. Maybe the way this interlocutor expressed the ‘same as before…’ mattered and gave a clue to how he felt about it and how he experienced it. This way of dealing with

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perceived useless repetition meant that some people were not represented in the way that they deserved as their narrative of how they experienced their living situation was cut short. As a result, their voices were marginalised (Ficklin and Jones 2009). Even when probed for a more detailed account of what our interlocutor had said, I worry that the translation was not as thorough as with some of the earlier accounts. In this sense, the responsibility of representing participants adequately at times did not meet the ethical requirements which shows that translators play a part in making choices about how to represent people (Gawlewicz 2016) influenced by the translator’s beliefs and preferences in selecting participants and in conveying the meaning of their realities (Caretta 2015). 1. Get to know the translator before starting to work together Yes, technical considerations are important in the decision of who to work with in the research process. Making sure that the potential translator has the level of language competence needed in order to hold complex conversations in the language of the research participants but also in English to the degree that they are able to discuss concepts. Ensuring this, according to Squires (2009), minimises the risk of translation errors. However, given the importance of positionality highlighted throughout this chapter, it is equally important that the researcher gets to know the potential translator as a person, also because they will spend a lot of time together. I met Paul a few times before we started working together, in a group of friends and then again just the two of us in order to discuss potentially working together. I would say that we superficially got to know each other, and as discussed above, I made sure that he ticked the boxes that I deemed to be important: he spoke English well, he had experience working in the humanitarian sector, and he was empathic towards Syrian refugee living in Lebanon. However, as this chapter has also made clear, I was not sufficiently aware of his different intersecting identities, or rather, the impact these identities could have on the research; some of which positioned him ‘close’ to the research participants and others positioned him ‘far’ from them. Looking back, I would hold deeper conversations with him not just about the research and his understanding of it, but also about his background in order to understand his positionality and the dynamic between him and the participants, as well as between him and me. Then, importantly, I would openly discuss this with him, to make sure that we have a mutual understanding of our roles in the research, our positionalities and the possible implications of this for the research process. Within all of this, it is important to bear in mind that who to work with is always a situated choice. 2. Briefings regarding research process in order to come to mutual understandings Once Paul and I came to an agreement regarding the length of the study and his remuneration, we talked in more detail about the research goals and the concepts used in my analytical framework more generally. Then we discussed

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consent, anonymity and other ethical issues. We also went through some of the questions I had in my mind, emphasising that the interviews will be conversational and semi-structured. We further talked about practical issues like note taking, how frequently to translate and things as mundane as transport to and from Majdal Anjar. However, looking back, I think that there was an opportunity there to really engage him in the meaning-making of concepts and hearing his take on the concepts and their meaning in more detail and depth. Discussing this in detail with a translator can flag up some cultural differences in understanding of concepts already and then during discussion, a mutual understanding can be built. Furthermore, the translator as ‘cultural broker’ can advise on appropriate ways to engage with participants; including the type of questions and the way they are asked. Paul and I did this on an ad hoc basis. Especially in the beginning of our mutual research endeavour, we would sit in the car at the end of a day to discuss what went well and what did not. For the next day, we would then adjust our approach if necessary. In this sense, he became a key part in shaping the research process. Another advantage of going through concepts, questions and themes in detail before the research process and coming back to these discussions regularly throughout, is that the translator can then be more directive in the interview process. They can probe for more detailed information from the interlocutor in a natural and conversational way instead of interrupting the flow of the conversation more frequently than necessary for translating purposes in order to wait for instructions from me. Paul was very interested in the topic of research and he had a good conceptual knowledge base and so he did this well but doing this with more intent from the researcher can help gain depth of research. Ultimately, by learning about the translator’s understanding of concepts and what meaning they take from it enables the researcher to make the translator more visible in the process and discuss in a more transparent way the manner in and the positionalities from which the interlocutors’ views are represented (Temple and Edwards 2002). 3. Decide early on how the exchange during an interview should take place Debates around which translation style is ‘best’, for instance verbatim or summarising, consecutive or simultaneous, are contentious (see for example Baker et al. 1991; Murray and Wynne 2001; Patton 2002; Westermeyer 1990). As described in the point above, Paul and I had an agreement on him translating as accurately and as closely to the meaning of what the participant had said to me every four or five sentences, or whenever a ‘natural’ break in the conversation occurred. This went well, however, I realised that whenever we discussed the information that one of our interlocutors had just provided, he would not translate this discussion back to the interviewee. Sometimes I would ask him to please translate back because I felt like it was rude to exclude the person

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from our internal discussion of what something the interviewee said might mean. Looking back, I would make this clear with my translator from the start and ask them that I would like them to include the research participants in our internal conversations during an interview as well. Besides this being the polite thing to do, it can also enhance validity of the research. Meaning is transferred from the research participant through the translator to the researcher who then transfers it to paper which then reaches the reader. Meaning can get lost in each of these transfers (Van Nes et al. 2010). The process of asking the translator to summarise the researcher’s understanding (or the mutual understanding of translator and researcher) back to the interlocutor can minimise risk of false interpretation. This can be exhausting, and I would do this with contentious issues that I might be confused about or that my translator had troubles transferring to the English language. In essence, summarising the researcher’s own understanding and interpretation of what the interlocutor has said back to them in situations where meaning is difficult to convey cross-culturally, misunderstandings between all parties (research participant, translator and researcher) can be minimised or altogether avoided (Caretta 2015). 4. Review data together with translator every day In the beginning, Paul and I, with good intentions, not only reflected on the interviews together but also discussed the notes I had taken. However, after a while we started to engage in this process less frequently and less thoroughly. Part of the issue, I think, was that he did not think that reviewing the data was part of the job description after a day filled with interviews. However, when we did discuss the data in order to verify my notes were correct and in order to agree on a mutual interpretation of meanings and concepts, it added to validity by making sure that our understanding of the concepts is equivalent to the way our interlocutors understood them. Interpretation and analysis on my part took place already as I was writing down notes during interviews, and every time I would read through the notes again. In this process, I would start thinking conceptually. By reviewing the data together with the translator, the ‘cultural broker’, the researcher can make sure that the conceptual understanding is as close to the way it is understood in the culture that they are representing in the research. This is so important, because meaning of concepts can differ across cultures and sometimes, in fact, no equivalent concept might even exit (Bragason 1997). As emphasised in this chapter, the translator shapes knowledge just as much as the researcher does. The translator uses language to convey meaning, feelings, opinions and experiences. Therefore, as Ficklin and Jones (2009) suggest, the researcher and interpreter are in a constant negotiation of meaning embedded in their dynamic positionalities. This constant negotiation should take place at every step of the research process, as highlighted in these points: before data collection begins, during interviews, and when the data is analysed.

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5. Fully acknowledge the way the translator has shaped the research I suggest in this chapter that the translator is more than just a tool to transfer words from one language to another. They are also a ‘cultural broker’ who has valuable insights into the society the researcher is interested in. Importantly, then, the researcher needs to acknowledge and reflect on not just their own but also their translator’s positionality and its effect on the research and knowledge production. One way of doing this is to treat the translator as a ‘key informant’ (Temple and Edwards 2002) and conducting an interview with them to understand what they make of the research, the process itself and their own interpretations of the research findings. In this sense, the researcher can fully acknowledge the role of the translator and document it, make it visible in writing as well. The translator as a producer of knowledge is then not seen as something that must be controlled in the research but rather as a strength to the research drawn out by engaging in mutual consultation through such an interview for instance (Berman and Tyyskä 2011). By making the translator and their positionality and their interpretation of the research findings visible in the research process and later in the written output, the researcher makes not just herself but also her translators ‘accountable’ (Temple and Edwards 2002). Such rigorous reflexivity of not just the researcher but all members of the research team sensitises the researcher to the possible influence of each person involved in the knowledge production through translation and interpretation of data (Hennink 2008). Finally, such acknowledgement should include an indication of when in the research process the translation took place exactly, which adds to a more transparent and clearer picture of the role of the translator and where and how their involvement in the research process might have influenced the data (Squires 2009).

Concluding Remarks Working with translators in cross-language and cross-cultural research is both challenging and rewarding. There are lists of ‘dos and don’ts’ when working with a translator that tackle the technical and practical challenges of such an endeavour. In this chapter, I emphasised and brought to the forefront issues around positionality in the research and knowledge production processes that might be less tangible than the practical issues, but not less important. The example of my own research in Lebanon has shown that especially in historically divided societies, these issues deserve added attention. In qualitative research, even though the researcher’s positionality is given due acknowledgement, the translator’s role in the research is still often minimised to being an objective, invisible, voiceless ‘tool’ for communication that is not allowed to influence the research and interpretation processes. However, the reality is that in every step of the research and knowledge production process, the translator leaves their imprint.

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Thus, the advice that I give my future self and anyone who is dealing with similar worries of not just validity of research but also, and importantly, the due representation of the very people that we are interested in for our research is the following. Embrace the worries and make them known. Make the translator, their multi-layered positionality and the possible influence of this in every phase of the research visible by reflecting not just on your own role in the research but also the role of the translator. Ultimately, view the translator as a ‘partner’ in knowledge production through the many ways they shape the research process rather than as a ‘medium’ for communication only.

References Atkinson, P. 1990. The ethnographic imagination: Textual constructions of reality. London: Routledge. Baker, P., Z. Hussain, and J. Saunders. 1991. Interpreters in public services: Policy and training. London: Venture Press. Berman, A.C., and V. Tyyskä. 2011. A critical reflection on the use of translators/ interpreters in a qualitative cross-language research project. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 10 (1): 178–190. Bragason, E.H. 1997. Interviewing through interpreters. https://psy.au.dk/fileadmin/site_files/filer_psykologi/dokumenter/CKM/NB23/EGIL.pdf. Accessed 24 November 2019. Caretta, A. 2015. Situated knowledge in cross-cultural, cross-language research: A collaborative reflexive analysis of researcher, assistant and participant subjectivities. Qualitative Research 12 (4): 489–505. Chavez, C. 2008. Conceptualizing from the inside: Advantages, complications, and demands on insider positionality. The Qualitative Report 13 (3): 474–494. Clark, J.A. 2006. Field research methods in the middle east. Political Science and Politics 39 (3): 417–423. Ficklin, L., and B. Jones. 2009. Deciphering ‘voice’ from ‘words’: Interpreting translation practices in the field. Graduate Journal of Social Science 6 (3): 108–131. Gawlewicz, A. 2016. Language and translation strategies in researching migrant experience of difference from the position of the migrant researcher. Qualitative Research 16 (1): 27–42. Haraway, D.J. 1991. Simians, cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature. London: Free Association Books. Hennink, M.M. 2008. Language and communication in cross-cultural qualitative research. In Doing cross-cultural research, ethical and methodological perspectives, Social Indicators Research Series 34, ed. P. Liamputtong, 21–34. Springer. Kapborg, I., and C. Berterô. 2002. Using an interpreter in qualitative interview: Does it threaten validity? Nursing Inquiry 9 (1): 52–56. Lynch, C. 2008. Reflexivity in research on civil society: Constructivist perspectives. International Studies Review 10 (4): 708–721. Murray, C.D., and J. Wynne. 2001. Researching community, work and family with an interpreter. Community, Work and Family 4 (2): 151–171.

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Patton, Q.M. 2002. Qualitative research and evaluation methods, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rose, G. 1997. Situating knowledges: Positionality, reflexivities and other tactics. Progress in Human Geography 21 (3): 305–320. Ryan, L. 2015. “Inside” and “outside” of what and where? Researching migration through multi-positionalities. Forum: Qualitative Social Research 16 (2), Article 17. Squires, A. 2009. Methodological challenges in cross-language qualitative research: A research review. International Journal of Nursing Studies 46: 277–287. Srivastava, P. 2006. Reconciling multiple researcher positionalities and languages in international research. Research in Comparative and International Education 1 (3): 210–222. Stanley, L., and S. Wise. 1983. Breaking out: Feminist consciousness and feminist research. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Temple, B. 1997. Watch your tongue: Issues in translation and cross-cultural research. Sociology 31 (3): 607–619. Temple, B., and R. Edwards. 2002. Interpreters/translators and cross-language research: Reflexivity and border crossings. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 1 (2): 1–12. Turner, S. 2010. Researcher note: The silenced assistant—Reflections of invisible interpreters and research assistants. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 51 (2): 206–219. Van Maanen, L. 1988. Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Van Nes, F., T. Abma, H. Jonsson, and D. Deeg. 2010. Language differences in qualitative research: Is meaning lost in translation? European Journal of Ageing 7: 313–316. Westermeyer, J. 1990. Working with an interpreter in psychiatric assessment and treatment. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 178 (12): 745–749. Yanow, D. 2006. Thinking interpretively philosophical presuppositions and the human sciences. In Interpretation and method, ed. D. Yanow and P. Schwartz-Shea. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharp.

CHAPTER 18

Facing Violence in the Field Roddy Brett

Researching Civil Society Organisations in Guatemala This chapter addresses a series of interrelated themes that emerged when I was carrying out doctoral fieldwork in Guatemala in the late 1990s, when I became enveloped in a violent confrontation that obliged me immediately to confront a series of ethical dilemmas and carry out actions for which I was far from prepared. The chapter will briefly address a series of thematic issues in broader scholarship before turning to a description of the episode itself. The chapter will close with reflections framed as a note to my younger self. My doctoral research addressed the role of Civil Society Organisation (CSOs) in Guatemala’s peace process and during the very immediate moments of the country’s post-conflict reconstruction phase. Consequently, the key constituency of my research would be CSOs, in particular, three organisations that addressed a series of broadly representative (and interrelated) themes reflecting the idiosyncrasies of Guatemala’s internal armed conflict: respectively, state-perpetrated human rights violations, indigenous rights and identity, and land struggles. I spent the first two months of fieldwork consolidating language skills and developing contacts and relationships with key gatekeepers, and subsequently dedicated a further year specifically to research. Whilst the research was to be focused upon the role and impact of said organisations at local, sub-national and national levels, it became increasingly evident that a core aspect of the study should be the analysis of the experience of communities where these organisations operated, ultimately signifying protracted time spent living in isolated rural indigenous R. Brett (*)  School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_18

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communities. One thing was the formal presence of CSOs in the capital city, another was what, if anything, they were able to do at local level in the immediate aftermath of a protracted violent conflict that had culminated in genocide. A further component of the research was to frame local experiences within the context of broader processes at national and international levels, implying a wide range of interviews in Guatemala City with political actors from government, political parties, the international community, and so on. These latter interviews were less challenging to carry out, and I would dedicate the final months of research in the capital city to complete the study. Time was on my side. My doctoral fieldwork was to take place for more than year. I had in fact been prohibited by my Ph.D. supervisors from returning even temporarily to the UK during that time, a practice that today would be unlikely, I suspect, to pass ethical approval, but that, in the end, both benefited me positively and profoundly changed me. In this regard, recent scholarship has advocated for so-called Ethnographic Peace Research (EPR) as a methodological approach for carrying out fieldwork in conflict-affected societies. EPR draws upon on anthropological norms and practices, including long-term residence/fieldwork, participant observation, semi- or unstructured interviews, and the importance of the knowledge of local languages and culture (Millar 2018: 187). Having originally been trained myself in the discipline of Social Anthropology, such an approach neither startles nor surprises me as a methodology relevant for carrying out research in conflict-affected countries; on the contrary, protracted engagement with key stakeholders through either formal interviews and/or participant observation continues to strike me as a necessary approach to the collective construction of knowledge and collection of data. What is significant to this chapter, nevertheless, are the three key advantages of EPR signalled by scholars—time, chance and change. Firstly, Millar argues that spending long periods of time in-country may allow for the development of relationships with research collaborators that lead to thick, in-depth and contextually situated knowledge (Millar 2018b: 662). Secondly, chance is signalled as being of key importance to ethnography, in short, with respect to how researchers may benefit from fortuitous meetings or interactions during their fieldwork, and how, significantly, it is through such serendipity that researchers may be able to understand institutions and processes as local actors themselves perceive them (Millar 2018b: 663–665). Finally, a third advantage of EPR is identified, namely how extensive and repeated stays in-country may facilitate the capacity of a researcher to comprehend change more easily within local conditions that may, from the outside, appear to be unquantifiable (Millar 2018b: 663–665). In general then, this recent scholarship explicitly highlights how it is fundamental to overcome the lack of cultural insight and contextually relevant understanding that is often absent in peace and conflict research. Peace and conflict research that forgoes protracted time in-country is habitually characterised by distortion

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or selective acceptance of knowledge, as well as sidelining the importance of local knowledge to research (2018a: 269–270).1 Whilst my research was, from the beginning, focused upon peacebuilding processes and narratives, it did not directly set out, at least initially, to study everyday experiences of violence. I had previously spent four years of postgraduate work on violence and conflict in Latin America, including specifically Guatemala, and worked with a range of advocacy organisations dedicated to human rights in Central America. Consequently, I was aware of the context in which I would be carrying out research and living. The research was part of a Doctorate in Politics that would, perhaps unusually at the time, employ ethnographic fieldwork as a core methodological approach. Given this peculiarity, neither during methods training at the University of London, nor as part of my core fieldwork preparation work individually with my supervisor, did I focus specifically on the impact of violence upon everyday experiences of victims or how such questions could potentially shape ethnographic fieldwork. The assumption was that if I followed my minimal methods training to the letter, and stuck to the core issue of peacebuilding, I would be fine. In the end, I did, and I was not. In the late 1990s, there was actually very little useful material directed towards ethnographers working in conflict-affected countries. Perhaps if I had read Nordstrom and Robben’ snow classic volume Fieldwork Under Fire: Contemporary Studies of Violence and Culture, published in 1996, just a year before I went into the field and significantly the first book of its kind, I may have been able to anticipate some of the issues that were awaiting me. Instead, I focused upon political parties, institutional arrangements and social movements, all very important themes, yet in the end offering an incomplete perspective, in particular for an ethnographer. The Nordstrom and Robben volume is a brilliant undertaking that analyses the complex endeavour of ‘researching and writing about violence’, a subject and process ‘fraught with assumptions, presuppositions, and contradictions’ (1996: 4). Across the broad series of chapters in the volume, the authors seek to understand both how violence remains a decisive dimension of people’s lives and how ethnographers confront this issue across a range of very different contexts. In this regard, in their introduction, Nordstrom and Robben develop a rich and layered analysis of ‘the distinct research problems and experiences of ethnographers who study situations of violence’ and ‘the theoretical issues that emerge from studying topics that involve personal danger’ (ibid.). Specifically, what was insightful and innovative about their argument was the emphasis upon 1 Interestingly, in 2013, after having lived for twelve years in Latin America (Guatemala and Colombia), I facilitated a workshop with a renown British academic in Colombia. The scholar spent a week or so in the country, part of this time was at events I organised in collaboration with an international agency. The scholar then wrote a scathing book chapter on how Colombian civil society participation was primarily induced by international actors. This style of parachuting in and making contexts cohere with one’s own academic perspective would perhaps benefit from EPR.

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the ‘everdayness’ of violence and how this characteristic shapes fieldwork, in particular with respect to the ‘emotional intensity of the events and people studied, the political stakes that surround research on violence, and the haphazard circumstances under which fieldwork is conducted’ (ibid.). A significant contribution of the volume then is to evidence the messiness and contradictory nature of violent conflict, and to argue that such complexity and perturbation will unequivocally influence ethnographic research in puzzling and potentially dangerous ways. In retrospect, of particular relevance to my own research was their analysis of the ways in which, to outsiders employing what they believe to be rational and pragmatic perspectives, the embeddedness of violence across all aspects of social life is difficult to understand. Drawing on Michael Taussig, they posit how violence ‘escapes easy definitions and enters the most fundamental features of people’s lives’ (1996: 10). Relatedly, Nordstrom and Robben also initiate a key discussion relating to the blurred line between victim and perpetrator, a discussion that has since been well developed across diverse academic disciplines, including Social Anthropology (Theidon 2012) and Legal Studies (McEvoy and McConnachie 2012). Disputing any immutable dichotomy between victim and victimiser, Nordstrom and Robben contend that ‘the front lines are much more volatile and inchoate, with violence being constructed, negotiated, reshaped, and resolved as perpetrators and victims try to define and control the world they find themselves in. For, through violence, people forge moral understandings about the implications of their actions, stand up in the face of brutality, and develop forms of resistance to what they perceive as insufferable oppression’ (1996: 10). This insight would become of utmost relevance for my own research, as will be discussed below, as I would become enveloped in an episode of violence for which I had not been prepared. Admittedly, the violence itself was, in my case, a single episode, and not of the same historical dimensions as those described by Pieke (1996) in his research on doing fieldwork in China and being caught up in the Tiananmen Square massacre. Nevertheless, my entire ethnographic research enterprise would be carried out in contexts where the myriad manifestations of everyday violence continued to determine ordinary lives. In this regard, my own doctoral experience in Guatemala closely reflects the insight evidenced in Pieke’s research, foregrounding two central issues that are as inescapable now, twenty years on, as they were then: How to address the unexpected ethical dilemmas that emerge when research partners (‘informants’) request collaboration; and how to understand empathy and compassion in contexts plagued by violence and inequality (Pieke 1996).

The Journey to El Quiché The journey had been long. A sleepy six-hour bus ride out of Guatemala City, followed by a dusty hitch in a pickup truck alongside indigenous K’iché Mayans who were transporting products north from the early morning market in the nearby county town of Santa Cruz del Quiché. I was accompanying

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two lawyers from one of the human rights organisations with which I was carrying out my doctoral research. The legal team had been cited to the small rural hamlet of El Pozo in El Quiché,2 an hour or so north of Santa Cruz, to document multiple attacks and threats against members of the indigenous community. The villagers were facing violence yet again, two years after the signing of the peace accords in 1996 that had ended the country’s protracted conflict, and fifteen years after it and the surrounding communities had been devastated in a state-led mass killing campaign that tore indigenous communities apart and culminated in genocide against the indigenous Maya (CEH 1999; Brett 2016). This time the violence was solely endogenous: neighbours organised in paramilitary units during the conflict—the so-called Civil Self-Defence Patrols(PAC)—had begun once more to mobilise within their community, with the aim of gaining control of plots of land where scarce natural resources were located. Although formally demobilised at the end of the conflict, the ex-PAC had recently attacked and threatened local villagers and expropriated several tracts of their land, an episode of some significance given that the hamlet was situated in an area where access to water was severely limited and droughts were frequent: the expropriated plots of land housed several natural springs. In fact, the violence in post-accord El Quiché had never disappeared entirely; lynchings had spiralled in the aftermath of the peace accords, as communities took justice into their own hands in the face of the almost complete absence of the Guatemalan state and what was left of its ineffectual judicial system. A perfect storm was brewing. During the last decades of Guatemala’s thirty-six-year internal armed conflict (1960–1996), the PAC had played a pivotal role in the counterinsurgency. From the beginning of the 1980s, the strategic deployment of the PAC by the Guatemalan military had played a decisive role in its counterinsurgency campaign against the country’s Marxist guerrilla, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG). The PAC were mandated to protect their own communities from the insurgency, resulting in widespread militarisation and the structuring of complex intelligence networks, particularly throughout rural and semi-rural Guatemala. All males between 16 and 65 years old had been obligated to join the PAC, subsequently forced to patrol their own and nearby communities, often accompanying military operations. The PAC were, in general, not armed with automatic weapons, but with machetes and old rifles. Those individuals who did not join immediately were threatened, obliging many to participate in combat operations against their will. Nevertheless, in many cases, particularly in the majority indigenous departments of El Quiché, Huehuetenango and Alta and Baja Verapaz, the PAC perpetrated egregious massacres against their own and neighbouring communities, often being ‘rewarded’ by the military with tracts of land or allowed to take female sex slaves. 2 This

name has been changed to guarantee anonymity.

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Individuals got a taste for power and for the spoils that often accompanied it. The paramilitaries, or patrulleros in local parlance, inspired terror and came to wield significant political impact. Their structures militarised indigenous communities and often displaced ancestral authorities. At the same time, the PAC precipitated increasing community polarisation, causing communities and inhabitants to turn against one another. Community divisions became cleft around those that supported the PAC and the military and those that opposed them, creating deep-rooted fear and distrust at the local level and embedding violence in everyday life. The deployment of the PAC strengthened the state’s counterinsurgency capacity and arguably contributed decisively to its strategic defeat of the guerrilla by 1984, a victory ultimately achieved through an unbridled mass atrocity campaign against the insurgency’s, principally indigenous, social base. Along with other indigenous zones, El Quiché was decimated. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, once the mass killing had subsided, human rights organisations began to lobby nationally and internationally for the demobilisation of the PAC within the confines of the ensuing peace negotiations between successive Guatemalan governments and the URNG. The paramilitaries were eventually formally disbanded in 1996 as part of the commitments enshrined within the seventeen UN-monitored peace agreements. However, whilst the PAC had been demobilised legally, their structures and power remained very much intact throughout the countryside, as the violence visited upon El Pozo in March 1998 would evidence.

Beginning Field Research Once we had arrived at the community, the lawyers took testimonies from visibly distraught villagers who had been victim to the recent episode of attacks and intimidation. We were subsequently taken to the parcels of land that had been expropriated from them, now fenced off with thick tracts of barbed wire. The situation was tense; villagers were frightened and anxious, and keen to get back to the community building. The threats from the ex-PAC remained ongoing and they had been consistently warned not to visit the fenced off plots of land. After a long day of taking testimonies, we set off for the journey back to Guatemala City. The lawyers had committed to preparing a legal case against the former paramilitaries, although they knew full well that Guatemala’s legal system was inept, and that the case itself would likely never see the light of day, instead ending up lost within a corrupt, overburdened legal system. Lack of institutional capacity, resistance to modernisation efforts, pro-military bias and entrenched corruption meant that any resolution to the case would be highly unlikely to occur in the short-term, if indeed at all. However, the lawyers gave their word to the villagers that they would push the case through as quickly as possible, a commitment that weighed heavy within the primarily oral tradition of Guatemalan indigenous communities, where ‘la palabra’ (the word) possessed a binding effect. Before

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setting off, I secured permission from the community elders to visit again several weeks later in order to carry out interviews with the villagers related to the specific theme of my doctoral research on the role of human rights organisations in the peace process and in post-conflict reconstruction. Three weeks later, I was on the road once more, heading back to the community after spending the night at the organisation’s regional headquarters in Santa Cruz del Quiché. The visit was to be my first outing as an unaccompanied doctoral researcher, during what would become over a year of ethnographic research in principally indigenous rural communities. Between bouts of drowsiness on the bus, I re-read the set of interview questions that I had devised and that had been approved by my supervisor: detailed questions relating to individual background and livelihood; a section relating to individual and community experiences of conflict and violence; motivations for and impact of their joining the human rights organisation; ongoing relevance of community mobilisation in the aftermath of the peace negotiations. That seemed just about to do it. I also revised the summarised notes from the ­ten-week Doctoral Training Module I had taken the previous year during my first term as a PhD student, a couple weeks of which had been dedicated to fieldwork. I went through the points in my head, feeling that I had satisfied all requirements by a long reach: carry out language training and be proficient in local language (at least in Spanish); build rapport with local collaborators and gatekeepers; assess social and political threats; guarantee ethical standards are met, including those relating to the safety and anonymity of interviewees, the storage of data and professional conduct; analyse natural hazards and potential health risks; finalise risk assessment; carry out logistical planning; gain detailed understanding of context, in particular by coordinating with knowledgeable and trustworthy local contacts; organise translator if necessary. What could possibly go wrong? It was seven or eight in the morning, early enough to feel the chill before the sun came up. I received a warm welcome from Don Mario,3a village elder and my contact in the community, and was given a cup of hot porridge and some tortillas. We assembled in the community building, twenty or so indigenous men and myself, sitting around a long wooden table. The community had decided that I could only interview males, despite my prior petition to the contrary. In line with ethical guidelines, I explained the reasons for the interview and that we could stop at any point if they requested to. I then described what would be done with the material afterwards and how it would be kept. I asked whether it would be possible to record the interviews, explaining that it was unproblematic if they preferred otherwise. They seemed happy enough. We decided it was fine to record the interview, as long as respondents were allowed to remain anonymous. And so my questions began.

3 Don

is a term placed before names to demonstrate respect for an individual. The female equivalent is Doña. This name has been changed to guarantee anonymity.

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The interviews were fascinating, and we talked uninterruptedly for over three hours. I was feeling the excitement of being a fully fledged doctoral researcher in the field. The Quiché men switched back and forth between Spanish and their indigenous language, K’iché, often deferring to Don Mario for the last word. My own newly minted Spanish was also seemingly hold up. The session was exhausting and we were rewarded at midday with lunch, a local stew served with tortillas. As we were finishing lunch, however, I began to notice a change in my interviewees’ behaviour, an unmistakable anxiety and distress began to displace what had been their relaxed, engaged and cheerful demeanour. As our plates were cleared away and everyone began to stand up, the tension escalated, obliging me to ask Don Mario if everything was okay. When it began, it immediately struck me that I had not, by any definition of the term, been prepared adequately to carry out doctoral field research under these conditions.

A Lynching Don Mario’s sentiments were chilling, forceful and entirely understandable. The lawyers had visited three weeks before and had subsequently filed the case. Yet from the villagers’ perspectives, nothing had happened and, above all, nothing was changing. On the contrary, Don Mario explained how they remained terrified and that the threats against them had, in fact, escalated. The patrulleros harassed them every day, physically abusing them and throwing stones at them. One of the villager’s mothers had been attacked several days before my arrival. Such threats would have caused fear and anxiety in any context; in the wake of Guatemala’s genocide, violence perpetrated by ex-PAC precipitated a severe emotional reaction, which took people back to the darkest days of the conflict and evidenced how everyday life continued to be textured by violence and aggression. The men were visibly scared and extremely angry, trembling and speaking erratically. As they began to explain what had been happening, their explanations became increasingly visceral and their rage palpable. I began to feel considerably unnerved. Accompanying their descriptions of the violence and the threats, the villagers manifest physical discomfort and tension, shifting from one foot to the other, moving arms and hands around angrily. They often gestured towards their machetes, a tool that peasant farmers in Central America habitually carry, and which had been wielded as a fatal weapon by the PAC during Guatemala’s internal armed conflict. I had initially thought that the situation could not get much worse, and then Don Mario spoke again. He explained the fury and dread the villagers were experiencing and how it was impossible for them to leave their homes for fear of being attacked by the patrulleros, which meant that they had no water and that many had very little food. And then came the words: ‘So,

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Don Roddy, with all this, we thought that, given you’re here, we could all go down together and lynch the patrulleros’. As far as I could remember, my fieldwork training had not anticipated this kind of eventuality. We had talked about the ethics of interviewing, language issues and barriers, the safety of interviewees, working with gatekeepers, anticipating natural disasters. In fact, from the security of our London classroom, we had addressed a broad series of issues relating to personal and interviewee protection; however, we had not talked specifically about how to avoid being part of a lynch mob.

Thinking on the Spot: Conflict Resolution and Fieldwork? My fear transformed almost simultaneously into adrenaline. The villagers were pushing aggressively for us to leave the building, which would have been a critical step and likely led to a point of no return. My initial response was to empathise and to seek to reassure. ‘Don Mario’, I began, ‘I fully understand your anger, and it’s completely justifiable. I would feel exactly the same as you. But before we decide to lynch the PAC, let’s perhaps think about this a little, is that okay?’. The men were also feeling their own adrenaline drive kicking in, and it was a drive to fight. ‘Let’s just sit down for a moment and think, plan, before we do anything’, I remember saying to the angry mob of villagers. I sat down, and they followed suit. Being sat down was a step further from our rushing out of the community building, and it felt better, at least it did to me. I felt strong compassion for the men and began to talk directly about the idea of our lynching the ex-PAC members. I could empathise with their feelings of fear, abandonment and desperation. ‘I understand how you are feeling, and I am sure I would feel the same as you do’, I explained. ‘Your fear must be terrible, and I can imagine how isolated you feel. How frustrated. But let’s just think about what could happen if we lynch them now. Is that okay?’. I was improvising. Don Mario nodded. I had a window of opportunity. Instinctively, I took a page from my fieldwork notebook and divided it into two down the middle. I then drew two stick figures, one on each side of the dividing line, and wrote ‘ustedes’ (you) under one, and ‘ellos’ (them) under the other. I explained that the ‘ustedes’ was them and the PAC ‘ellos’. Without much of a plan, I began to ask Don Mario and the other villagers ‘What do you have? In these conditions, what is it that you have?’. It was not clear at first what I meant, and so I had to explain several times and to elaborate, give examples. We gradually began to think collectively about the situation in which the villagers found themselves and the implications that this might have upon our actions. A series of key points began to emerge as together we mapped out the context of the village and the current conflict.

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It became clear that the villagers possessed the legal titles to the land that had been expropriated by the ex-PAC, whereas ‘ellos’ did not possess land titles. In fact, the former PAC were explicitly breaking the law, not only because they had expropriated the land, but also because they had used a series of violent methods to do so. In this respect, we agreed that the villagers had the support of the police and state institutions (although what that actually meant in practice was limited), as well as the support of their own human rights organisation, the United Nations and other national and international human rights organisations, however abstract that might have felt to them at the time. The point was, I explained carefully, that the villagers had had their human rights violated, which signified that they were able to call upon a range of national and international institutions and norms, and demand a series of duties/obligations be fulfilled by the state, at least on paper. Once we had come to a shared understanding of this situation, and the related context in which the former PAC were themselves situated, I framed a key question to them: ‘although I fully understand that lynching the ex-PAC would be an important possibility and is what you feel like doing, what would happen to us and what would happen to them, if we did so?’ In other words, how would our lynching the ex-PAC affect the conditions in which the villagers and the former paramilitaries were living? The entire conversation took over two hours, as we worked collectively towards a mutual understanding. My own Spanish was not, at the time, entirely robust, and the villagers themselves were speaking a second language, often reverting to K’iché to clarify the issues between themselves. As we focused our attention on the makeshift table we were drawing on the notebook and sought to work out the specific and distinct dimensions of the problem, tension shifted away from the immediate task of the lynching, and towards the macro-level details of their lives. The adrenaline seemed to have dispelled somewhat, but we were not clear yet. USTEDES (You)

ELLOS (Them—the PAC)

Land titles Support of the police Human rights violated (victims) Support of international actors Support of their organisation

No land titles Alleged criminal status Perpetrators of human rights violations Contravened national law/international norms Support of illicit actors (former PAC)

There was a long discussion between the villagers, most of which I could not understand. Then, after clarifying with the other men, Don Mario explained how, if we were to lynch the former PAC now, the villagers would lose their position of legality and thus the support of the distinct bodies that we had identified, which was the only advantage that they really had; in short, they would also become perpetrators and the ex-PAC victims. And the villagers (and I) would become criminals, perhaps killers. An audible expression of

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understanding was evident, as the villagers took in the dimensions of what their actions would signify. The tension appeared to lessen, and I was beginning to feel less scared for all of us. Consequently, I posited the question again to the villagers: ‘What do you think, should we go down to their houses and lynch them, or would you prefer not to? Is it a good idea?’. In a very real sense, the following five minutes were the most alarming of the entire day; they also felt like the longest. As was customary with decisions affecting the whole community, each individual was permitted to speak, to express their ‘palabra’. The villagers went off to the other side of the room, and an intense debate ensued in K’iché. I saw what I perceived to be stuttering and aggressive interventions, anger frustration, and, on occasion, the villagers would look over at me, and then continue to talk. There was, in fact, a point at which I felt I myself could possibly end up being the victim of a lynching, as I sat there in my own isolation and fear. Once Don Mario had been satisfied that ‘la palabra’ of each individual had been honoured, they came back over to me. ‘Don Roddy, we believe that it is not a good idea to go and lynch these men today’, stated Don Mario, words that managed put me at ease, in spite of his emphasis upon the qualifier today. ‘However, we implore you to speak to the lawyers at our organisation, and make sure they get in contact with us tomorrow; we need to know what is happening to our case. This situation cannot go on’. I made a commitment to speak with the lawyers as soon as I arrived back in Guatemala City and to pressure them to maintain weekly contact with the villagers, which I followed up on as soon as I had returned. The villagers were calm and the threat of violence had, at least temporarily, subsided. Don Mario signalled that it was late, and that he would help me track down a ride back to Santa Cruz del Quiché where I would stay for the night. He and the other villagers thanked me for my support and understanding, and I, in turn, thanked them for their interviews and their patience. We clambered back down to the Pan-American highway and Don Mario eventually flagged down a vehicle and the driver agreed to take me back to town. Not unironically nor coincidentally, the vehicle was a Bombero truck, an ambulance. I was given a seat next to a very ill patient in the back of the truck. I had that day been fortunate in many ways. My night’s sleep in Santa Cruz was disturbed and anxious; I was upset, stressed and scared. I longed to return home and to speak with the lawyers. The next day, I left on the first bus, arriving around midday in the capital, and went straight to the organisation, where I relayed what had happened. The lawyers followed up institutionally with the legal complaint and then got on the phone to Don Mario. The situation remained tense, but no lynching or further violence had yet taken place. Personally, I was left with deep feelings of concern for the villagers, as well as a sense of extreme impotence and guilt for parachuting into their community, and then leaving them to face the threat and danger of the ex-PAC.

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Reflections on Intervention and Responsibility: A Note to My Younger Self My experience in El Quiché has remained with me, although its visceral intensity has faded with the years. Nevertheless, the issues that the episode raised are of fundamental relevance for those of us who continue to carry out fieldwork in conflict-affected societies, and often do so from a position of unpreparedness. The violent episode was extremely frightening. Had I not had good gatekeepers (from the human rights organisation), it would have been difficult, although not impossible to have visited El Pozo. Gatekeepers then are fundamental. At the same time that I was carrying out fieldwork in Guatemala, other foreign researchers present in rural communities elsewhere had been accused of being there to steal children, and there had been a series of attempted lynchings. However, in my case, the organisation had vouched for me, and so I was afforded legitimacy and respect, and a degree of protection. Given my previous knowledge of Guatemala and indigenous culture, I already knew the importance of ‘la palabra’, and so was not alarmed when Don Mario and the villagers discussed what to do after our dialogue. Had I not known, I may well have been set into even greater panic. Since 1998, I have continued to visit Guatemala, as well as living there for extended periods of time. For over twenty years, however, the overriding impression of my experience that day in El Quiché has been one of guilt and impotence. In the immediate aftermath of the visit—once the initial shock caused by the threat of the violence and the relief of having, at least temporarily, prevented and escaped it had subsided—the discomfort I felt for having been able to walk away from the community and from the violence plaguing it was incessant. In fact, this feeling has recurred over time, particularly after extended periods of time living in both Guatemala and Colombia from a position of privilege and confronting intimately situations of violence and inequality. I had, in 1998, been able to return to my rented apartment, to my life in Guatemala’s capital city and to continue physically unscathed with my doctoral research. I had a good story to tell, and I could feel satisfied for having averted a lynching. I had lived it at the sharp end: this was what conflict research was all about, was it not? But there was a gnawing sensation that would not go away. Don Mario and his neighbours had trusted me enough to invite me to their community, to share their stories and resources with me. And then, in their desperation and their fear, they had felt obliged to ask me, a stranger, to participate in a lynching. That stranger had stopped them from executing possibly fatal violence, and he had then left. Yet the danger that they faced was to remain unchanged. And, of course, this is the situation across many communities in Guatemala. Was that all there was to it? Even as a doctoral student in my late twenties, I had known then that parachuting into a country, to a community, to carry out research and then

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turning your back on those individuals with whom you have proverbially broken bread, was not a morally acceptable intellectual or, in fact, political, enterprise. I had first begun to research Guatemala’s internal armed conflict and its impact upon indigenous communities in 1992, five years before my doctoral research in the country. I had studied the anthropology of indigenous Guatemala, and I had investigated the genocide and its impact and legacy, visiting the country for short spells. I suspect that I was not then, nor do I remain now, an impartial observer, engaged with conflict and its transformation from a uniquely academic perspective. In fact, Guatemala scholarship seems to have that effect upon people. Most scholars with whom I have worked since then have assumed a similar perspective in this regard: fieldwork is indeed oriented towards developing insight and academic understanding, but it is also intimately linked to processes of change and intervention. So, if you are about to do fieldwork, be careful: it may have unintended consequences. Fieldwork for me was life-changing; however, they did not tell me that in the Doctoral Methods Training class. In twelve months of ethnographic research, although the threat of direct physical violence transpired only once—in my very first outing, in fact—I was constantly confronted with the so-called ethical dilemma of intervention. In other words, research partners continually requested diverse forms of collaboration, from writing project proposals, to funding their initiatives, to teaching English, to cultivating vegetables and, most dramatically, to participating in a lynch mob. This will likely happen to all of us more than once when we carry out ethnographic research, and it is worth anticipating. With the exception of the lynch mob, I readily agreed to collaborate in all requests, and I am unapologetic and do not regret the fact that I did so. I would, in fact, have liked someone to have told me during my ethnographic research training that the luxury of dispassionate, objective research was going to be difficult and, in fact, that it was untenable. Ethnographic fieldwork is about building relationships and trust, making human connections, listening to and learning from our counterparts on an equal footing: we cannot expect that our presence can ever be gratuitous, nor should it be so. The so-called fly-on-the-wall ethnographer is a myth. Living in my counterparts’ houses, sleeping on their floors, eating their food, asking them to share their information came with a binding responsibility; in this context, requests for collaboration did not seem to me to represent an ethical dilemma. I would collaborate how and whenever I could as a statement of reciprocity and to honour my responsibility. And yes, the boundaries do get crossed. Research partners become friends. I remember planting over one hundred apple trees one morning in El Quiché with a Mayan friend and celebrating hard together after we had finished. I provided the funds to install glass in the offices of a human rights organisation where I slept in a rural hamlet in El Quiché. I provided money for the wife of a member of one of the three organisations to have an operation.

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Of course, these core issues are intimately related to the issues framing the researcher’s positionality. Spivak (1988) has rigorously analysed the motives and presumption(s) of Western academics who profess to ‘speak’ for vulnerable groups and has forcefully evidenced the historical privilege with which many Western scholars act. Millar (2018a, b) has similarly explored questions of identity and positionality with respect to their impact upon ethnographic research. There has been vehement criticism of the tendency for scholars to parachute in, carry out fieldwork, and then exit, subsequently building their careers on extractive research, research that is often based on misguided insight. Whilst we must be aware of the significance of our positionality— with respect to gender, class, race, colonial heritage and so on—and how it shapes our insight and, of course, the access we obtain, I believe we must also be aware that this positionality imposes a duty to confront the diverse injustices we are likely to encounter during fieldwork, as Nordstrom and Robben (1996: 11) coherently advocate. From my perspective, my fieldwork established the beginnings of a protracted commitment to struggles for justice in Latin America, with activities often carried out in Latin America, in Europe and the USA. This does not mean that I am unaware of or comfortable with my position of privilege. However, what I have sought to do is to use my role to a positive effect. Significantly, the day after my Ph.D. was awarded, I got on a flight back to Guatemala, where I subsequently lived for eight years, working on legal cases related to the genocide against indigenous Guatemalans during the armed conflict, amongst other initiatives. Many of my fieldwork contacts have since become very close friends, and many of them were also linked closely to the initiatives with which I have subsequently worked. At some point, there will no longer be a fieldworker and their assistant, but reciprocal collaboration. I suspect that, for me, this would not have happened in the same way had my perspective not been sculpted by fireside conversations and the trust and obligations that reciprocity brings with it, or if I had assumed the perspective that to collaborate was, in itself an ethical dilemma. I do not believe it that, in my case, it was. Perhaps it may be worth someone explaining this to us before we embark on fieldwork. However, of course, in most cases, we can only know whether we are crossing ethical boundaries through our collaboration if we know the society well enough. Whether to participate in a lynching was also, from my perspective, not an ethical dilemma. However, whether to finance specific projects may well be, contextual knowledge is key in this regard, but contextual knowledge can only emerge out of long-term commitment, self-critique and sensitivity to the voices and demands of those with whom we collaborate. Perhaps my final advice to my younger self would be to be prepared not only for the thematic issues that you may confront (political parties; institutional arrangements; social movements), in short, the theoretical framework that you will take with you, but also for the human messiness that you are

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going to encounter. In this respect, beyond the usual ethical training, of course, improvisation, patience and kindness some in handy. However, I would also advise completing a short course in mediation and in first-aid. My situation was providential, and I did not, in the end, require either. However, we may not be so fortunate in the future.

References Brett, R. 2016. The origins and dynamics of genocide: Political violence in Guatemala. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Comisión del Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH). (1999). Guatemala: Memoria del Silencio. Tomo III. Las Violaciones de los Derechos Humanos y los Hechos de Violencia. Guatemala: CEH. McEvoy, K., and K. McConnachie. 2012. Victimology in transitional justice: Victimhood, innocence and hierarchy. European Journal of Criminology 9 (5): 527–538. Millar, G. (ed.). 2018a. Ethnographic peace research: Approaches and tensions. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Millar, G. 2018b. Ethnographic peace research: The underappreciated benefits of long-term fieldwork. International Peacekeeping 25 (5): 653–676. Nordstrom, C., and A. Robben (eds.). 1996. The anthropology and ethnography of violence and socio-political conflict. In Fieldwork under fire: Contemporary studies of violence and culture, ed. C. Nordstrom and A. Robben. Berkeley: California University Press. Pieke, F.N. 1996. Accidental anthropology. In Fieldwork under fire: Contemporary studies of violence and culture, ed. C. Nordstrom and A. Robben. Berkeley: California University Press. Spivak, G. 1988. Can the Subaltern speak? In Marxism and the interpretation of culture, ed. C. Nelson and L. Grossberg. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Theidon, K. 2012. Intimate enemies: Violence and reconciliation in Peru. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

CHAPTER 19

Interviewing Perpetrators of Genocide Manolo E. Vela Castañeda

Introduction Interviewing perpetrators is always a dangerous game. You never know what might happen. Or rather, you always know what will happen: The perpetrators will always stick to their script, but you’ll insist, doggedly, hoping one day you’ll strike gold. These interviews tread the fine line between official discourse, what I refer to in this article as the margins of the narrative, and the space beyond what we already knew or what we, the researchers, expected to be told. Sometimes, only sometimes, do we achieve this. This requires the ability to ask the right questions and wait, patiently, for the answers. The perpetrators of genocide are complex respondents because in some cases they have committed acts of violence and in others they have witnessed acts of violence, extrajudicial executions, massacres, interrogations under torture, sexual violence and forced disappearance, committed against innocent people in various conflict scenarios. These acts of extreme violence left an indelible impression on their lives and memories. Over the course of the interviews, these events might be subject to prosecutorial action, which means these interviews might feel like evidence of their guilt, or that of their former comrades-in-arms, their subordinates or their superiors. Despite the fact that respondents are guaranteed confidentiality, it is possible the respondent might believe, mistakenly, of course, although reality is made up of mistaken beliefs, that what they say might be used against them or against their comrades-in-arms. Even under guarantee of confidentiality, this, which I call “fear of judicial prosecution,” is one of the greatest barriers to building trust. It is also important to bear in mind that we’re talking about respondents who M. E. Vela Castañeda (*)  Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_19

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are hard to approach; it’s not easy to frame an interview around their role in the Guatemalan genocide. The aim of this chapter is to share a series of reflections on the experience of interviewing soldiers and officers who perpetrated massacres in the context of guerrilla warfare. According to the Truth Commission, acts of genocide were committed during this war. These events happened in Guatemala in 1981 and 1982. Although the conflict was intermittent, it represented thirty-six years of Guatemalan history, from November 1960 to March 1996. The height of the conflict was reached in late 1981. At that point, the army launched a counter-attack that destroyed the guerrillas’ support base. The armed forces and paramilitaries committed 626 massacres; thousands of people were murdered or disappeared, a million and a half were forced to flee their communities and seek refuge in various parts of the country; two hundred thousand fled to Mexico. The interviews I reflect on in this chapter were conducted as part of the research I carried out to write my book, Los pelotones de la muerte. La cosntrucción de los perpteradores del genocidio guatemalteco. I wrote the book after receiving a PhD. During the interval between writing my thesis, in 2009, and publishing the book, in 2014, I was summoned by the Guatemalan courts in 2011 and 2012, as an expert witness in the trial against the perpetrators of the Dos Erres massacre, which occurred in Petén, Guatemala, in December 1982. As a result of these two trials, several of the material authors of the massacre: four soldiers who belonged to the “Kaibil Patrol,” as well as an officer who had been in charge of the military detachment in Las Cruces, the closest village to Dos Erres, were found guilty of murder and crimes against humanity. In order to testify as an expert witness, I developed other parts of the investigation, such as the regional context in Petén, the link between the massacre and the military detachment in Las Cruces, and the events that occurred immediately after the massacre, in terms of the interaction between the military detachment and the family members of the victims of the massacre. Later, in 2018, another material author of the massacre, also a former soldier and member of the Kaibil Patrol, was found guilty of murder and crimes against humanity. I conducted these interviews as part of an investigation that had an academic purpose, and the circumstances at the time rendered it useful in terms of bringing the perpetrators to justice. That trial marked the first time that army soldiers and officers had been brought to trial for perpetrating a massacre, almost three decades after the Guatemalan genocide. Previously, in May 2008, five members of the civil defense patrol had been found guilty of perpetrating the Río Negro massacre, in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz. Until 2013, these had been the only two massacres, perpetrated during the Guatemalan civil war, which had been successfully brought to trial. In March 2013, former head of state, Efraín Ríos Montt, who ruled Guatemala from March 1982 to August 1983, was brought to

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trial. Despite the fact that he was found guilty, the Constitutional Court granted the defense constitutional relief, in a highly irregular manner and flouting regular legal procedures, allowing the verdict to be overturned. This happened in May 2013. Using the main question that my research focused on as a starting point, I reviewed the available literature on the subject and developed an analytical framework that would guide my work. The question that guided my research was: How could soldiers be transformed into perpetrators of genocide? Based on this question, I carried out a series of interviews with sources who had first-hand knowledge of the subject and were on the frontline of the battle for transitional justice, or researchers who had a sound knowledge of a subject that I was barely getting acquainted with. I shared with them: (1) the question guiding my research and (2) my analytical framework, and I also asked them about specific cases that could be analyzed in light of these questions and that could be used to develop my analytical framework. These interviews helped me to consolidate, from a more practical perspective, the review of the available literature, regarding case study selection. At the end of this phase, I reached the conclusion that I should work on the “Dos Erres” massacre case. That phase in which I interviewed qualified sources, led me to delve into the Dos Erres case. I did this by working with the human rights organization that is fighting this case in the Guatemalan courts: FAMDEGUA, the Association of Family Members of Detained and Disappeared in Guatemala. Through this organization, I had access to: (1) the judicial archive they have built as joint plaintiffs in the case; (2) photographs and other documents; and (3) people who facilitated contact with the victims’ families, as well as the soldiers who had joined the prosecution’s witness protection program thanks to Familiares de Detenidos y Desaparecidos de Guatemala (FAMDEGUA) director Aura Elena Farfán. That’s how I was able to interview some of the perpetrators. I found others, who were officers, by searching for them in the telephone directory, calling them and requesting an interview, which they all agreed to. All of them granted me more time than I had initially expected. There were some I could have conducted further interviews with. When we said good-bye, I realized that they would have benefited from another session, the following week. Many of them feel a great need to tell their stories. In this chapter, I reflect on a series of critical elements, methodological lessons I learnt as a result of interviewing the perpetrators of genocide. I now reflect on these experiences, which others might learn from, to a greater or lesser extent. Five themes will be discussed in this chapter: (1) the importance of interviews, (2) narrative style and the contours of the story; (3) overlapping interpretations; (4) narratives are shaped by taking a stance; and (5) truth and omission.

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The Importance of Interviews The events that Death Squads are based on can only be reconstructed by compiling multiple testimonies. There is not much documentary evidence. If those documents exist—which they surely do—they are stored under lock and key. But there’s always clues. If no documents are available, the memories of the protagonists and witnesses of those tragic events hold clues. That’s how I understood that my task was to get many of them to talk. But each memory they recalled contained feelings of passion, love, hatred, resentment and misunderstanding that were never voiced. There’s still much to be told. To an extent, these interviews re-create explanations for why events occurred the way they did. Those interviews tell the story from their personal perspective. Their lives are being recorded and will later be transcribed as a written testimony. They talk about events from a present perspective, which is the result of how they filtered past experiences. Thus, there are fulfilled as well as unfulfilled life experiences. Individuals who regard the end of their military careers as a failure. These individuals are experiencing the process of beginning a new life from scratch. By putting the events that they talk about into words and holding them up for scrutiny they experience a sense of closure. Talking about a past recollection is the best way to put an end to a memory. By narrating those events—partially or totally, these individuals try to carry on living. They are attempting to recall traumatic experiences clouded by the fog of memory. Some of them have destroyed the loyalties that shaped their life experiences for many years, throughout their lifetime. They have overcome denial and censorship. During their lifetime they have been able to review what happened during that period of Guatemalan history. The need to talk about the past occurs in the present and past events are recalled from a present perspective. How can we judge events that happened thirty years ago based on values that were valid thirty years ago? If today, those values are shameful, if they are at odds with today’s values, why admit that my actions were based on those values? The hardest part of a narrative is looking at those old photographs reconstructed from memory without the yellowish hue of time, looking at them through the same luminous gray tone they had when the picture was taken. Added to this, a rapport is built between the interviewer and the respondent. Given the nature of the experiences told, a certain sense of private reconciliation begins to be perceived. Telling someone: This is what happened, this is what I did and these were my reasons. The interviewer can empathize with the events narrated. I always had mixed feelings after these interviews with the perpetrators of human rights violations. One has a very different feeling when working with victims, survivors, or the victims’ family members, as one feels compassion for the suffering they endured, solidarity with their demands, and one admires their capacity to get up and carry on living, with joy and determination, in

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many cases. In the case of the perpetrators, the interviews would shed light on their motives and I appreciated their willingness to cooperate with the legal system but I could never fully exonerate them from the acts of extreme cruelty they committed at the time. One could spend time with them, greet them, smile at their jokes—one individual said he had already shown up to the interview, which seemed more like an interrogation—share a meal with them, greet their family members, show up with some bread or a snack for the evening, but I could never stop thinking about the victims and the pain that the perpetrators’ actions had caused them. One’s heart lies with the victims. The aim of conducting research from the perpetrators’ perspective is to allow victims, survivors or their family members to understand what happened and why it happened. These interviews with the perpetrators generated a sort of instrumental empathy. But I was also sitting face to face with people who were willing to talk about difficult subjects, who were giving me their time and were thus cooperating with the investigation.

Narrative Style and the Contours of the Story I spent the first half of the interview on two things. Firstly, I would read a text I had prepared, explaining the reasons for conducting the interview, the topics we would talk about, the confidentiality agreement and its scope, and a series of rules that would be followed, such as the duration of the interview, the need to record the material and make notes on some but not all of the topics discussed, the possibility of switching the recorder off when certain subjects came up in the conversation, the procedure that would be followed when the respondent did not wish to answer a particular question, how the information would be used, my commitment to provide the respondent with a copy of the transcribed interview, which I always did, among other issues. In order to address the subject of confidentiality, there was a part of this text that read: The Guatemalan people and I wish to know more about what happened at the time rather than the specific details of whom said what. Once these formalities, which were nevertheless very important, had concluded, the interview would delve into the topics that constitute my analytical framework. The three major themes that guided the first part of the interview were: organization, indo ctrination and the development of warfare, so that the interview would focus on seemingly ordinary issues, thus avoiding the emotional weight of asking direct questions about acts of violence. This was crucial because it allowed me to build an atmosphere of trust and without this the interview wouldn’t have worked. The second issue I focused on during the first part of the interview was establishing how my respondent handled the questions. How did he tell his story? Was he a good storyteller? We all have a particular way of telling stories and I would spend the first few minutes of the interview figuring out what type of storyteller my respondent was.

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I paid attention to whether my respondent took the opportunity to make comments about other issues relating to the subject of the interview; I made notes on the questions that led the conversation to other issues that could be considered “superfluous,” but were not entirely so, or whether he answered tersely, or failed to address the question and chose to talk about something else. This is what I call discovering the respondent’s narrative style. In order to do that, I allowed my respondents’ narratives to flow, without interruptions. That was the dynamic that shaped the first few minutes of the interview. A very brief silence indicated that they had finished answering the question or were about to finish. A crucial point was: How could I ensure my respondent would circle back to the main focus of the interview when he digressed, without breaking the norms of politeness that should always be applied during an interview? I learnt that it is important to delve into these digressions and see where that would take us but after a certain point, I had to re-focus the conversation. A useful technique was “superimposing subjects,” meaning I would comment on one of this apparently superfluous things my interviewer had said and use that to make him circle back to the main topic of the interview. For example, if my respondent was talking about his responsibilities in the armed forces in 1976, and then went on to say that the bodies found in the former military detachments were actually victims of the February 1976 earthquake, I could latch onto this and steer the conversation toward the role played by the army during that emergency and the army’s organizational abilities, which was part of the analytical framework. Added to this, during those first few minutes I would try to establish what I call the contours of the narrative, as well as my respondent’s narrative style, meaning how far he was prepared to go and what his limits were, to assess how far I could go. I understand the contours of the narrative to mean how important it is for the respondent to assume the importance of certain issues or stories, in which he played a role as an active participant or as an informed spectator. Faced with the importance he gave these issues, my respondent was responsible for deciding what he wished to tell or withhold, or what he was intent on hiding, on not talking about, either by denying the facts or evading the answer or a narrative. I’m talking about subtleties, small details that one has to learn to identify. For example, if my respondent regarded the General Army Staff meeting in which the organization of the task forces was decided (that will be discussed later on) as the prelude to victory then that’s what it was. If another individual remembers the punishments he was subjected to as a badge of honor because it proves how strong he was, that’s how things were. I wouldn’t press him any further on that point. I didn’t compare opinions or offer a different interpretation of events. I continued to explore their narrative, I stuck to their reconstruction of events and my questions sought to push them beyond that, but without straying from the contours of their narrative.

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Every interview with perpetrators of acts of violence is framed by the contours of the narrative, how to push that to the limit and how to lead the respondent beyond that point so that he can tell us something new. I would usually try to go beyond the contours of the narrative at the end of the interview, in order to give the layers of memory that had already been reconstructed, a greater depth. Based on my respondent’s previous answers, I would return to those important issues. Sometimes it worked and I was allowed to probe into events they had previously avoided talking about. There were also respondents who felt harassed and clammed up. I understood this approach wouldn’t lead me anywhere and that those sections were only useful in terms of documenting a poorly conducted interview. Since my respondents were officers who had belonged to an army that waged a war in which acts of genocide were committed, the reconstruction of events followed this narrative framework: I played the role of spectator, they were the perpetrators, and the victims played a third role. Note the distinction between the individual who admits he perpetrated acts of violence against a defenseless civilian population, and the perpetrator who adopts the role of spectator or avoids referring to these events altogether. It is necessary to identify these categories in order to determine how the respondent’s narrative will fit and why the respondent might adopt or change this stance. The contours of the narrative are also defined by the body of knowledge accepted by the respondent with regard to certain events and experiences. Usually this is knowledge based on life experiences. I assess what I experienced, then I include and incorporate it in my discourse. Breaking the contours of the narrative also implies destroying this web of accepted knowledge. This is a process that the respondent himself might carry out—on his own, from within—and that might escape the interviewer’s notice. The narrative for every interview can be regarded in Foucauldian terms, as a sort of truth device. This can include: narratives; ideas on morality, on what should or shouldn’t be said and done; the laws and norms that institutions abide by; and the institutions that have played a major role in these individuals’ lives. The truth device, according to Foucault, includes this heterogeneous cluster of ideas. When we conduct an interview, we are faced with truth devices.

Overlapping Interpretations Overlapping interpretations occur when we analyze what a respondent says in light of various other pieces of information and evidence, which shed light on subjects the respondent didn’t dare to talk about or didn’t wish to talk about. This happens when the interviewer and the respondent have different interpretations of the same narrative. A narrative about a specific event might be interpreted by the respondent in a certain way. However, the interviewer might interpret it in a different manner when this narrative is analyzed in light of other information.

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The stories told by the soldiers who belonged to troops that committed acts of genocide clearly illustrate this. Many respondents frame this narrative in terms of courage and bravery, how strong and resilient they proved to be: – Get down on the floor, he told me. I had to lie on the ground, face up and face down, we had to do push-ups and press-ups, we were punished like that for two hours. But it was OK, the punishment was OK. Then, he told me to fetch my helmet and pour some water in it. Then, he made me collect some poop from the toilets, put it inside my helmet, mix it and drink it….I had to obey and drink it. When I was about to throw up, they made me turn round and round in circles on the ground and we would collapse on the vomit. However, when these narratives are placed within an analytical framework, they can be interpreted in a different way: as well as disciplining these young men and securing their immersion into the institution, this training process and this series of punishments, introduces them, as described by E. Goffman, to the rituals of violence that some of them will later inflict on defenseless civilians. Another example of overlapping interpretations is the predominance of “Kaibil” tactics in the Guatemalan army at the height of the counterinsurgency war. This marked a change in the training process that the officers and soldiers who were going to perpetrate acts of genocide, were subjected to. What did this change entail? It entailed subjecting the entire army to the Kaibil special operations course, through a number of courses designed and taught by Kaibil officers and soldiers. Officer Álvaro Lavarreda explains it thus: “in 1980, there were no more than 600 Kaibil soldiers. Eleven to 12 graduated from each promotion, minus those who died, 20. Many of them were employed in other activities: they served as support staff in the Presidential Guard. Only 150 Kaibil soldiers served in combat roles.” As well as being few in number, they had limited influence: “Officers (who complete the Kaibil training course) join the squad in subordinate roles. Their influence is minimal, at a platoon level,” said officer Mario García. For a long time, this is what was thought regarding this special operations course during the war and the Guatemalan genocide. Until a number of officers broke the silence and revealed the extent to which Kaibil culture had permeated the entire army. “Those who graduate from the Kaibil Training Academy become trainers and lead courses such as the Kaibilito parachute course; the graduation course in the Military Academy was hugely influenced by Kaibil culture; Sololá offers a course that is a mix between Kaibil and sniper techniques,” said Mario García. Óscar Álvarez expanded on this point: “Every section of the army offered mini-Kaibil courses such as Sultacá, Kamikaze, Cobra, Xinca, and Sinacán.” “Each military zone created its own course on irregular warfare, designed and taught by Kaibil officers. The model had been reproduced

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and multiplied. As a result of this transformation, a regular army became an irregular army. This happened in 1979, 1980 and 1981.” The officers who noted this transformation into a “Kaibil Army” didn’t realize that this piece of information, in light of other events such as the series of massacres that culminated in the Guatemalan genocide, provided a better understanding of what happened. Thus, this transformation into a “Kaibil army” is yet another factor that helps to explain how the Guatemalan genocide occurred. Another example of how one comes across overlapping interpretations: A respondent, an army officer, offers us a narrative about the meeting during which it was decided to change the counterinsurgency strategy. The aim was to regain control of the war and win. My interlocutor regarded that as the only possible interpretation of that meeting. That was the only meaning he could give it. But when that piece of information is analyzed in light of others: the deployment of troops, while huge massacres that led to genocide were committed, differences aside, that meeting appears comparable to the Wannsee Conference.1 On November 5, addressing military personnel in the Air Force amphitheatre, the Chief of Defense Staff issued guidelines for the deployment of the Iximché Task Force. The commanders of the Military Brigades and the Defense Staff attended the meeting. The intelligence officer, as well as the operations officer, gave a presentation on the situation at that moment. The intelligence officer plays a major role, and operations are carried out based on the available intelligence. Then, the Chief of Defense Staff immediately ordered the creation of a task force. He said: “Well, let’s create a task force. This is how it will work…and he laid down the guidelines. That’s how the task forces are set up, with a commander, a second in command and a chief of staff. They are deployed to Chimaltenango and begin operations in that area.

Narratives Are Shaped by Taking a Stance My respondents’ body language, during the course of the interview or while they listened to a question, was very revealing: The way they rested their arms on the dinner table could presage a very deep narrative on their wartime experiences. The look in their eyes, their gestures and tone of voice presaged 1 On

January 20, 1942, a conference was held in a village located in the outskirts of Berlin, to the south, on the Wannsee riverbank, in order to discuss “the final solution of the Jewish question.” Fifteen high ranking officers of the Third Reich discussed how their administrations would participate in and support those plans. Rather than the actual moment when the decision was made, the Wannsee Conference marks the moment when the decision, which had been previously made at the highest level—started to be implemented by the state apparatus.

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that the respondent was about to embark on a dense and complex narrative. Certain tense facial expressions also revealed the respondent’s displeasure when a certain question was asked. On other occasions, when the interview was carried out sitting on the ­living-room couch, the respondent’s attitude changed completely when he settled down, lied down on the couch or leaned forward, putting his arms on his knees. This body language indicated the respondent was adopting a more defensive tone. The interview would flow more naturally when the respondent appeared more relaxed. For that to happen, it is extremely important for the respondent to agree to the interview being recorded. If he doesn’t, the researcher’s attention will focus, almost exclusively, on taking notes, and nothing else. Recording the interview allows the researcher to focus on the respondent and what he is saying, which is also crucially important in terms of identifying important issues and ask follow-up questions in order to probe deeper. That’s why, when the introductory disclaimer is read, the respondent is warned that notes will be taken on certain points, but not throughout the entire interview. Nevertheless, I have also conducted interviews where the interviewer did not allow me to record his voice, which means I had to keep on taking notes throughout the interview. Under those circumstances, it was possible to take notes on certain points, in order to return to them and reconstruct the narrative. After this type of interview—which is not recorded—it is crucially important to process the interview as soon as possible, in order to extract the greatest possible amount of information from the notes taken, as well as short-term memory recollections. A number of experienced researchers have told me that taking notes rather than recording an interview works well for them. They believe the lack of eye contact with their respondents allows the latter to relax and better reconstruct their narrative, without feeling that they are under scrutiny. Several of the interviews I conducted at the home of one of my respondents were carried out with the TV set on. Although displeased, I tacitly agreed to this since the first interview. However, the respondent was not actually watching the program that was usually on that day and at that time, which was wrestling. He needed to switch the TV on to drown out the sound of his voice while he was being interviewed because the layout of the house meant his kids were always around, and he had told them a different version of this chapter in his life. The noise coming from the TV set isolated us from them and prevented them from hearing what was being said during the interview. There was a whole other story behind the noise coming from the TV. This teaches us that we often have to go against what research manuals tell us to do: conducting interviews in the quietest possible place, with no interference from other family members, and without a blaring TV set that had might distract the respondent. It is necessary to establish, at that moment, how to face situations that defy the conventional parameters set forth in the manuals.

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Interviews have their own pace and this is often dictated by the position adopted by the respondent as the interview progresses. Respondents’ recollections and doubts are reflected in their body language. Throughout an interview, one learns to read a respondent’s facial expressions, their body language and their posture. One comes to understand how this is linked to the respondent’s narrative. Interviewing is not just about listening, it’s also about observing.

Truth and Omission Truth is one of the hardest issues to face during an interview. How can you tell whether something is true or not? Fabricating events is obviously the result of a void in the narrative, or an event that needs to be supplemented with shows of bravery, dashing and merit. What’s the problem with these narratives? None, as long we can identify where they’re coming from and how they can be contrasted with other information and we know where the line between fact and fiction is in someone’s narrative. The issues I work on don’t allow me to give in with regard to means of representation. Am I interested in finding out who did what to whom, when and under which circumstances? Representation is another side of the story that must be subjected to internal and external criticism. This is what allows us to identify points of divergence, contradictory explanations and holes in the narrative. Those who deny the Guatemalan genocide often base their arguments on relativism and representation. I have identified several types of omission. One respondent who witnessed a massacre told me that when he was haunted by memories of the past, he did his best to keep himself busy so these images would “fade away” and he could “get on with his day.” The past, which is deadly, comes back to haunt us in tiny flashbacks. The scenes are always identical, with faces and expressions that never change. That is what my respondent was trying to chase away. Regarding so-called evasive omissions, soldier Martín Ramírez recalls: “I used to think about so many things and I can’t forget the things I saw. I can’t forget that. Those thoughts would haunt me. I couldn’t get them out of my mind. I remembered everything perfectly but I tried to focus on something else and forget about that.” But something led those memories to re-surface: his participation in a trial as a protected witness. He was willing to betray his ­comrades-in-arms. “When all of this started I could remember everything well and I felt guilty. I was scared and fear was tearing me apart. The more I felt scared, the more things I recalled.” And he uses the metaphor of an opening well to illustrate what happened at that critical moment. “It was like re-opening a well. You open a well, the water dries up, so you start digging until you find water again. That’s what happened to me.” He had pushed away his recollections of his participation in acts of violence against unarmed civilians, “things I thought I had forgotten, that I tried to forget and that I didn’t regard as

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important […] But when the trial began I felt scared.” Those memories that had been buried deep and had been forgotten suddenly came to the fore as a result of the trial. There are also parts of the story that never emerged simply because the respondent was unable to recall those events. As a result of the stress he had experienced, his attention was focused on other details. It was thus very difficult to reconstruct certain parts of an event. In this case, blackouts are stress-related. You get to this point by asking questions that cannot be answered because the respondent cannot honestly recall those fragments of the past. This type of oblivion includes answers such as “I don’t remember” or “I don’t recall that.” There’s another type of omission: silence. However, it’s important to notice when an underlying void of silence is being filled with rubbish, which can be misleading. When this happens, respondents will often reconstruct a narrative in order to deny the facts. They fabricate a story that reveals nothing. What throws them off is when the interviewer continues to nod without defying or contradicting them. In those cases, when silence cannot be filled, the respondent simply halts. The respondent makes it clear he doesn’t want to talk about that particular event. How can you compare two types of silence that stifle memories? Since those images cannot surface as part of the narrative, they continue to haunt the witness or perpetrator. Silence is the visible tip of a very deep pathology. Sometimes part but not all of the story can be told. And what can’t be told will remain buried in oblivion as a traumatic memory. Those memory gaps contain narratives that cannot be put into words. When those events don’t emerge, the respondent will relive them and suffer. As soldier Mario López said: “One always thinks about what happened but without putting it into words because one can’t say anything.” There’s clearly a hidden narrative, something that remains unspoken. There’s still no ethical conflict, no moral assessment of the events that soldier Mateo Salazar participated in: “When all of that happened, I never stopped to think whether it was right or wrong. I felt pity. But I never stopped to think whether it was right or wrong.” The respondent’s own life experiences made him feel triggered due to the overlap between the massacre of children and the fact that he himself had children. This is soldier Francisco Santos’ account of events. “I felt sorry for all those kids standing in line in front of the well. It was as if I had lined up my own children in front of a soldier and they were walking along here, another one in the middle and another walking behind.” He adds: “I felt really sorry for a lady who had just given birth. She had probably given birth 15 minutes earlier. The soldiers went to fetch her, threw her into the well and killed her with her baby.” That was the point when he came face to face with what he had done: “I looked at my children and said – if I had been there as a peasant and I had seen my kids slain in front of my very eyes….” Until the facts came to light: “When everything came to light it was like switching a light on and looking straight into the distance. I could see all of

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those fleeting images. I felt fear and sadness, I was aware of the fact that I was part of those events. I felt guilty for watching as they killed the kids, as they killed people. I felt guilty of being part of the patrol. I felt awful, I would start shaking, I felt a great fear. I felt as if I was about to burst into tears or laughter, I felt like running away, I don’t know how I felt but I felt awful. I felt tired, like when you’re running and you’re out of breath and feel awful.” In short, a narrative is made up of different types of oblivion, as well as by what is said and what cannot be said. All of these strands come together and overlap strongly during the course of an interview.

Conclusions Perhaps the most difficult aspect of interviewing perpetrators is one’s own nature, as a researcher, because if a researcher interviews a stranger in order to learn from him/her, what happens when one is faced with someone who committed atrocities? Empathy, which is crucially important in order to conduct an in-depth interview, is the type I refer to as “instrumental,” meaning it does not focus on them, the perpetrators, but rather on the victims, the survivors or their family members, and our aim of explaining what happened to them. But ultimately, the perpetrators have agreed to sit down with us and give us their time to delve into topics that are difficult to talk about, and that deserves recognition. Finally, the more you work with these types of respondents, you’ll come to realize that perpetrators have a dual identity: the person they were when they committed those atrocities and the new identity they adopted years later. Between those two stages there is a time frame in which they have absorbed those experiences, which are no more than a memory now. They are affable individuals who can hold an intelligent and amicable conversation, who have built a family, as well as a career or trade. We might never know who they were back in those days or at what point they got tired of slaughtering civilians. All we can do is work with their present memories of the past. Working from the perpetrators’ point of view allows us to understand genocide in a transparent manner. The fog clouding a series of events begins to clear. Thus, when we finally understand the sequence of events that allowed a series of massacres to turn into a full-blown genocide, we come to understand why those victims were slaughtered. It is crucially important to draw up a questionnaire that approaches topics gradually. The interview will be doomed to failure if it is based solely on the atrocities perpetrated. A sound grasp of theory and how to build an analytical framework is of paramount importance in order to put together a good questionnaire. And we don’t achieve this through idleness; we achieve this by working hard and following the path that others, before us, have already opened up: that is to say, by reviewing the available literature on the subject. Thus, our first task is to prepare for the interview. We need to find points that

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allow us to enter the perpetrators’ world, their dynamics, and we can only achieve this by reading the works of others, a cannon within this sub-field of genocide studies. Learning requires a seemingly paradoxical combination of humility, in order to read and understand the works of others, and pride, in order to present one’s own findings and to persevere with one’s work despite the boring moments or the interference of editors, who sometimes hinder rather than help. As previously mentioned, a good questionnaire might include set questions or a list of topics and it can be a lifesaver when the interview delves into troubled waters or appears to flounder. It ensures we always have something more to say and that we’ll always have a question ready to rescue us. The interviews carried out with actors close to the subject, such as activists and researchers who have worked on this topic, were also crucially important. The possibility of talking to them with no other purpose than to share ideas has always been crucial. One can learn a lot from these types of interviews, from the fieldwork, from the protagonists in the story, from sources, cases, relationships and struggles. One of the results of this series of interviews is adjusting our list of respondents and how we can approach them or recruit them. Once the interview is in progress, one of my key recommendations is to ask questions that might seem silly but are ultimately not so silly. This type of question can be very useful to open up a subject and delve into points that remain unclear. Finally, there is a chasm between us as researchers and our life experiences and the person sitting opposite us and their life experiences. These types of questions are useful in terms of bridging the gap between those two worlds. They also prove our interest in the details of the respondent’s life. Being aware of this type of question can also help the researcher not to feel infallible and to make the mistake of believing that everything we ask has a huge theoretical depth. What we should never do is ask more than one question at a time: not even to rephrase the same question because that will confuse the respondent, who will be forced to choose between the two questions. I learnt all of this during the course of my fieldwork, conducting interviews and learning from them, especially during this preliminary analysis period between one interview and another. This is when we listen to the respondent over and over again and ascertain which points were or were not adequately covered, and based on this, which aspects of the interview can be re-worked. This phase is crucially important, as it also allows us to see the world through the respondents’ eyes, as they realize that we take what they tell us seriously, that we study and prepare for interviews, which they find gratifying. Guidebooks or classroom sessions on research techniques or qualitative methods fall short in terms of teaching the student how to conduct this type of interview. Maybe now, thanks to this new manual, which is more fun and practical, things might begin to change. Translated by Louisa Reynolds

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Acknowledgments   I thank Roddy Brett for invaluable conversations as the article developed, I am forever grateful for him friendship and trust. My thanks to the editors of this book, the two anonymous reviewers. Their feedback helped to improve this article; any flaws remain my sole responsibility. The author acknowledges the funds of the CONACYT (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología), for funding the research this article draws on. The Universidad Iberoamericana generously supported the translation of this article, and provided to me the perfect time for research during my sabbatical period.

CHAPTER 20

Interviewing Elites Christine J. Wade

I was forewarned about the baggage inspection lottery at the airport in El Salvador. After passing through immigration and claiming your bag, you wait in line to hit a button that either allows you to pass through without inspection or requires a manual search of your bag. I was nervous because I was carrying a suitcase full of materials (books, posters, audio, and videotapes) related to the war at the request of a former professor and mentor. It seemed a reasonable request but as I reached for the button, I suddenly felt sick. What would I say if questioned about carrying such a wealth of controversial materials from the war? Did I even have the vocabulary to talk myself out of a jam? I pressed the button and the green light appeared. I was clear to exit the airport without an inspection. Overwhelmed with relief, I hurried out to find my ride. It was the first but certainly not the last time I would question the wisdom of my decisions in the field. I still remember the ride from the airport to San Salvador. It was hot and rainy. The air was thick and everything was green. From a foggy car window, I took in the mountainous terrain. I remember thinking, “this looks like a tough place to fight a war.” After I arrived at the guest house, I began to unpack. I discovered I had forgotten my toothbrush. I asked my host for directions to the nearest grocery store and set out on foot. I was probably 5 minutes into my journey when I heard gunfire. There was a firefight just ahead of me. A man ran from one house to another across the street all while returning gunfire. And I was in the middle of it. I threw myself to the ground. I don’t know how long I stayed there, but it was clearly longer than necessary. A man C. J. Wade (*)  Washington College, Chestertown, MD, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_20

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approached from the opposite direction and asked me what happened (“qué pasó?”) I didn’t know what to say. I just got up, dusted myself off, and continued on to the grocery store. On my way, I passed restaurants and other shops. There were men with automatic machine guns at the entrance and in the parking lots of all establishments, including several within the grocery store. All the guns unnerved me. I got a toothbrush and a couple of bars of Cadbury to stress eat on the way back. I felt woefully unprepared. I wasn’t supposed to be in El Salvador. The plan was to conduct research on informal politics in Buenos Aires, Argentina. If you’re familiar with Latin America, you can probably appreciate the difference between these two outcomes. But after two unsuccessful rounds of grant applications for another project, it became apparent that I was going to have to self-finance my dissertation research. On the one hand, this was deeply disappointing. Frankly, I felt like a failure. Other members of my cohort had received prestigious research grants. What sort of future did I have as a scholar if I couldn’t even land a dissertation grant? On the other hand, I felt freed from the constraints of satisfying the interests of some mysterious panel. One afternoon, walking down Commonwealth Avenue, I decided to shift the entire focus of my dissertation. I was going to work on something that I wanted to work on, not something that I had chosen in hopes of attracting a grant. Self-funding was daunting, but it was the only way forward. So with the last of my student loans and what little savings I had, I decided to bet on myself. I put together a new dissertation proposal, moved my things from Boston to Atlanta, and was in the field within months. I conducted field research for my dissertation from July 1999 through March 2000 in El Salvador. It was my first field research experience, my first extended stay in a developing country, and my first time in a post-conflict country. And while I’ve returned numerous times since and expanded my research to other countries, my dissertation field research experience made in indelible impression on me. I didn’t always get it right, but both my successes and mistakes shaped future experiences in the field. Looking back, I admittedly lacked a concrete research plan for my fieldwork. I had planned to be in the field for nine months, but not for any particular reason other than I thought it was an appropriate amount of time to immerse myself in the country. In truth, I could have accomplished the necessary field research in a much shorter period of time, but lacking a more specific plan turned out to have its advantages. I received very little advice about the process of conducting field research from my dissertation committee and mentors. Once in the field, I often felt self-conscious and unprepared—though I never admitted that to anyone at the time. Three members of my dissertation committee, including my advisor, had conducted research in conflict zones. Despite this, we never talked much about the mechanics of my field research or potential issues that I might face in conducting interviews. I had certainly heard plenty of their stories, which ranged from hilarity to terrifying, but I hadn’t translated them

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into concrete lessons for my field research experience. This wasn’t for lack of caring or diligence on their part. On the contrary, I had the benefit of an advisor and mentors who cared deeply about me and do still to this day. In truth, it’s hard to explain to others what to expect in the field. You operate by instinct… and a lot of luck.

Situating El Salvador El Salvador experienced a brutal civil war from 1979 to 1992, when the peace accords were signed. Out of a population of roughly 5 million, more than 75,000 had been killed and one million displaced. El Salvador was poor and unequal, and made more so by war. But the peace accords offered a ray of hope. Considered one of the United Nations more successful forays into peacebuilding, the peace accords radically transformed the landscape of Salvadoran politics. In the 1994 “elections of the century,” political parties from all backgrounds participated in free and fair elections. When I arrived in El Salvador in 1999, there was still a fairly positive outlook on the peace accords and prospects for the future. In another five years, that would change. I still remember returning for the 2004 elections and remarking to a friend and mentor that things felt palpably different. The mood was darker. There was a sense of unease. The questions I’d asked, the story I’d written in my dissertation no longer made sense to me. El Salvador was changing and I hadn’t seen it coming. Or had I just been so caught up in my own dissertation project that I ignored it? Because the war-time rivals on the battlefield became peace-time rivals at the ballot box, overtones from the war permeated Salvadoran politics. Still, elites from both the government and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) maintained cordial working relationships with one another. One former Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) government minister even told me that he got along better with politicians from the FMLN than his own party, which he complained was anachronistic. In fact, political elites rarely expressed animosity against their former enemies. Had they made their peace with one another? Perhaps not, but they had made peace with the fact that they would work together. In this, I often found them divergent with the general population. Animosities between the two sides ran deep, even among those who had not lived through the war. El Salvador, like many post-conflict countries, experienced elevated crime rates in the aftermath of war. Unlike most other post-conflict countries, El Salvador’s crime evolved into a homicide epidemic spanning nearly two decades, eventually becoming one of the highest homicide rates in the world. To put it into perspective, more Salvadorans have died since the end of the war than died during it. It’s difficult to describe what it’s like to conduct field research in that context. Even though crime rates were respectively lower at the time of my dissertation research than they were in the years immediately following the war or would become in the near future, insecurity was pervasive.

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I thought about it all the time. It probably didn’t help that w ­ ell-meaning Salvadoran friends would routinely express concern for my safety. “You shouldn’t be taking the bus. It’s dangerous.” It was. I was robbed twice. “You shouldn’t be out running in public.” They were right. I was defiant. “That man is watching us. We must go.” And so we did. It was mentally and emotionally exhausting. And I had a passport—I could leave at any time. Salvadorans had little choice but to numb themselves to it or make the dangerous journey to the United States. I confess that I’ve never become accustomed to all of the guns and armed guards in El Salvador. Their presence still startles me. There were times and locations where there could easily be 5–6 armed guards in a single establishment at a time—one in the parking lot, one outside the front door, another inside the front door, another near the restrooms. Many of the locals I spoke with seemed reassured by their presence, but they made me feel more insecure. Armed guards on buses, in restaurants, in banks, on street corners, at tiendas, at the top of streets in neighborhoods. In a single day in 1999, I could easily pass dozens of armed guards. As time wore on, they multiplied along with militarized police forces. There’s a perverse insecurity about “peace time” El Salvador. For several years, I assumed my experience from El Salvador post-conflict countries—particularly those in Central America—had the same dynamics. It wasn’t until I first arrived in Nicaragua in 2009 that I realized what remarkable contrasts exist. El Salvador wasn’t Latin America; it wasn’t even Central America. Writing this now, it seems completely obvious. But country experts tend to live in a bubble, especially in early days. I had been to Guatemala and Honduras, but I found Nicaragua to be a remarkable contrast. Though it too had also experienced a brutal war, there was no homicide epidemic. I rarely saw armed guards or anyone with guns for that matter. The first few times I went out to restaurants with friends my eyes would dart around trying to locate the guards. There were never any to be found. I found it hard to relax at first. El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras had conditioned me to be on alert. That paid off on one occasion when a friend and I were waiting in her Jeep at a traffic light in Managua. Two teenage boys, no more than fourteen, ran up from behind and tried to rob us in broad daylight. She had just picked me up from the airport. I seem to have bad luck on arrival days.

Researching Elites in El Salvador My dissertation research focused on the prospects and constraints that the former FMLN guerrillas faced in winning elections and advancing their economic project, such as it was. Because the peace accords had created the basic framework for postwar politics, or so I thought, much of my research consisted of elite interviews on the peace process itself and on postwar political dynamics. By “elite,” I am referring to individuals who hold either formal or

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informal power in a way that allows them to exert influence. In my case that meant that I interviewed public officials, business elites, analysts, directors of non-governmental organizations, and leaders of social movements or labor unions. For my dissertation research, my chief objective was to conduct interviews with former guerrillas and with both government and opposition negotiators of the peace accords. Research methods books of the time were sorely limited in advice about conducting field research in post-conflict zones or deeply divided societies. Most of what I’d read about interview techniques applied largely to conducting research in the United States. My plan had been to adapt this advice as necessary. Beyond basic techniques, I’m not sure how adaptable this advice really was. Even what we think of as “standard” research ethics becomes problematic in the field, where you may pay for access, withhold information for your own safety, or face other compromising situations. One of the pieces of advice I’ve seen in articles about elite interviews is that researchers should select a “neutral location” for their interviews. If you can find a “neutral location” in a post-conflict environment, let me know. In El Salvador, even the choice of hotel lobby is politicized. I chose to conduct semi-structured interviews, which allowed me to ask respondents in particular groups or categories the same set of questions with more open-ended, exploratory questions to follow. I also tried to be conscious about changing my strategy depending on how the interview was going. Most interviewees seemed to find this format agreeable. As you will see in the literature on elite interviews, elites appreciate open-ended questions because they can pontificate on matters as they like. This has been my experience as well. On rare occasions, the interviewee would take over. I remember one particular interview with a high-ranking member of the FMLN. She commandeered the interview for over an hour, answering virtually none of my questions. In situations like this, I simply thank the interview subject for their time and file the interview away for the future. I used a micro tape recorder for my dissertation research rather than relying on notetaking because I was afraid I would miss something and because I was concerned about accuracy in translation. There are both benefits and challenges with recording. The benefit, of course, is having a record of your interviews to review and can return to them in the future for later projects. Of course, the downside is volume. I returned home from my dissertation research with dozens and dozens of interview tapes, which needed to be translated and transcribed. If you do it yourself, it’s an extremely ­time-consuming task. I imagine graduate students rarely have budgets to hire out for such things; I certainly didn’t. I was fortunate to find a friend of a friend who was studying to be a translator and offered to simultaneously translate and transcribe my interview tapes for a greatly reduced cost. In retrospect, I should have hired university students or professors in El Salvador to do this work as I did on occasion in the future. Not only would this

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have allowed me to be more efficient while in the field, but my transcribers and translators would have had less difficulty with accents or phrasing. They would have also had a greater appreciation for context in interpreting the interviews. Any interviews conducted in English (a number of Salvadoran elites were educated or lived abroad), I simply transposed myself. One of the greatest challenges faced in field research in divided societies is access. Access is everything. I was very fortunate that a former professor and member of my dissertation committee, Tommie Sue Montgomery, flew to El Salvador at her own cost at the beginning of my field research to make personal introductions for me. She provided me with a network I never could have cultivated on my own. She had conducted research throughout the war and peace processes. There was hardly anyone she didn’t know. She could have just told me to use her name or introduced me via email, but she knew it would give me better access if she introduced me personally. It remains one of the most generous things anyone has ever done for me. In some post-conflict countries, particularly those where there was a lot of international involvement, you may find access to elites relatively unproblematic. This was somewhat true in El Salvador, where high-ranking members of the FMLN, Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR) and government were accustomed to being interviewed by foreign journalists and academics. That said, I had a lot of difficulty making interviews in Nicaragua. First, low- and mid-level officials wouldn’t grant interviews. Even a decade ago, government employees were cautious about granting interviews. One mid-level official volunteered through a mutual friend to speak with me on the condition that she wasn’t named and that I didn’t use any of the information she shared with me. I declined, to my regret later. I wasn’t accustomed to talking to people who were scared to talk. Second, most did not want to set up interviews in advance. The email reply, “get in touch when you arrive” is the bane of many field researchers. I spent weeks chasing my own tail trying to set up interviews once in the country. On later research trips to El Salvador, I used a “fixer.” A friend who worked for a non-governmental organization gave me the name of a former secretary who we dubbed “the human rolodex” because she could make interviews with anyone. Anyone. She routinely booked me between 4 and 6 interviews daily versus the three or four per week I booked for myself during my dissertation research. The small fee I paid her per interview not only enabled me to locate people who were difficult to locate, but made it possible for me to do more interviews in less time. With a limited budget, this was a smart place to spend money. Sometimes you get lucky. On more than one occasion, high-profile people I wanted to interview showed up at interviews I was conducting because they wanted to speak with my interview subject. We were able to exchange details and I got a measure of credibility by association, which was helpful for booking the next interview.

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One of my more fascinating and informative interviews occurred because someone had heard that a US scholar was conducting interviews. One day, I was sitting in the common room of an NGO office that I used as office space when the secretary came in and told me that someone was there to see me. I was startled, because just the night before I had been reading a book that detailed the alleged criminality of this visitor. I was admittedly nervous that he had sought me out. For the next two hours, he proceeded to reveal fracturing among the country’s right-wing elite. Because I had no interviews planned for that day, I had no tape recorder on me and had to write furiously. It was my first interview with a member of El Salvador’s coffee elite. Up to that point, most of my interviews had been with former FMLN combatants and politicians and civil society activists. I had no sense of what it meant to sit across from someone who was suspected of funding heinous crimes, someone I found morally repugnant. But as our conversation wore on, my nervousness faded somewhat. Throughout our conversation, he listed the names of others that I should speak with. As I followed the trail, I interviewed people who were happy to dish on the corruption, particularly with regard to the privatization process, within the current and past administration in stark detail. Much to my surprise, most were extremely forthcoming. Only on very rare occasions did a subject ask that their identity be kept confidential. The surprise interview I wasn’t even looking for turned out to be a boon to my research. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized the role that luck played in my research. During my dissertation field research, the government attempted to privatize parts of the health care sector. This resulted in the largest strikes of the postwar era. The strikes lasted from November until March, much of the duration of my dissertation field research. Of course, I had not anticipated the strikes. This turned out to be a very important part of my research. I also got a firsthand lesson in tear gas. Challenges of Elite Interviews There are certainly fewer risks associated with elite interviews than with other types of field research. One thing almost all field researchers in post-conflict countries face is managing personal security with a limited budget. The best advice I received about budgeting for field research was to stay in the nicest place my budget would allow, primarily for security reasons. But my budget for my dissertation field research only permitted me to spend about $10 per night. I ate a lot of pupusas, peanut butter toast, and cereal and took buses (not wise) on my non-interview days. I took the bus or negotiated cheaper taxi fares. For a while, my driver was a former FMLN combatant who was fairly well-known among the solidarity crowd in the country. But his taxi was emblazoned with Che Guevara stickers, had no seat belts (not smart in a country with as many

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traffic fatalities as El Salvador), and he used a dagger to hold his window up. This meant that I would often ask to be dropped off around the corner from some of my interviews so as not to arouse too much interest. I soon discovered that spending more on transport was worth the expense. There were areas of San Salvador where internationals lived, but they were high rent areas that I couldn’t afford. And, to be frank, it wasn’t the field experience I wanted. For my dissertation research in El Salvador, I rented rooms in homes or guest houses. On subsequent field research trips, I would arrange to stay with friends. I confess that I often felt very isolated during my dissertation field research. It helped to have a schedule. Midway through my dissertation research, I changed neighborhoods. This put me within walking distance of the Universidad Centro Americana, which made it easier for me to take Spanish language classes in the morning and schedule interviews in the afternoon. It also helped me to make friends who weren’t directly connected to my research. Interview subjects are tricky. You may not always know who you’re talking to, or what their motives are. Today it’s much easier to conduct background research on elite interview subjects. When I started dissertation field research in 1999, that wasn’t the case. There were no iPhones or wireless Internet. I often had to rely on friends and confidants to provide me with background information, which came with its own biases. Interview subjects can be very adept at telling you (a) what they think you want to hear and (b) what they want you to disseminate. On more than one occasion, I felt that interview subjects were using me to settle personal grudges. That interview subject who found me? He’d read the same book I had and wanted to have his say. It will be left up to you to determine accuracy and whether or how to utilize your interview material. You’ll find yourself interpreting in gray zones. You’ll learn that to work with different versions of the “truth.” Individually, they are anecdotal. Together, they are a pattern. When interviewing elites, you may forget yourself that you are an elite. It’s easy to find yourself in a bubble, talking only to government officials, analysts, or those who talk and think in your same vernacular. Some of those people may become friends or confidants you come to rely on. It’s important to find ways to balance and supplement your research. When you talk to business elites about crime, they complain about what it does to their personal economy, how much they spend on security, the estimated annual losses, etc. Many political and business elites also complain about the rights extended to criminals. I heard little regard for due process among some sectors, something that is mirrored in the general public. But the average citizen experiences crime on a very different level. If you’re conducting elite interview in post-conflict countries, you may be talking to someone who is or has been involved in criminal activity, however broadly defined. You’ll have to make critical decisions about what to do with this information. It may also make you uncomfortable during interviews. I often found myself practicing a certain level of detachment just to

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get through particularly difficult interviews where subjects discussed various human rights abuses. I also discovered that sexism is alive and well, though not always in the way that you think. One interview subject told me he felt he could confide in me because I was a woman. I thought this was an anomaly until I started comparing notes with another (male) graduate student, I noticed that my interviews with the same subjects were much chattier and more open. And while I’d like to think that it was due to my keen interview technique, I came to suspect that it was because I was a woman. Patience really is a virtue. In Central America, folks tend to run late. It’s up to you to adjust and make accommodations in your schedule for this. The majority of my interview subjects were punctual, gracious, friendly, and helpful. Many seemed concerned with how I was getting on with my work and whether I was having a good experience. A few even sent their drivers for me because they wanted to ensure my security. There were a few, however, who were chronically late, repeat no-shows, or boorish. Some answered phone calls in the middle of interviews. I sat in numerous smoke-filled offices with no ventilation and a window air-conditioning unit blasting so loud that I could barely hear the interview.

A Letter to My Younger Self You may feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t. The good news is that no one else does either. I have a feeling that a lot of these letters start this way. Field research is exhausting and can be socially isolating. It’s easy to retreat into your own head. You’re going to have bad days. People won’t show up for meetings. Interviews won’t go as planned. Transportation won’t cooperate. You’ll get sick. You’ll get homesick. You’ll be robbed, cat-called, and harassed. You will see and hear things that you won’t be able to forget. Epidemic violence makes an impression that never recedes. There will be days when you want to pack it all up and go home. But if you do that, you’ll miss a lot of good days. You’ll miss the big interviews. You’ll miss the moments that will change your life. And this will change your life. You’re going to learn things that you could never learn from books, no matter how many you read. So embrace the uncertainty, the awkwardness, the fear, and know that it’s all part of the process. Field research will teach you important life skills, namely patience, flexibility, and resilience. For someone who likes to be in charge, it can be difficult to accept that many things in the field are beyond your control. Building relationships and gaining trust take time. Inefficient bureaucracies are frustrating. Your timeline is not anyone else’s timeline.

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It’s difficult to deviate from your research agenda, but it’s important to be flexible with your project. Things may very well change while you’re in the field. Ideas that seemed good on paper in your office may be revealed as absurd. You may make assumptions about resources that don’t actually exist. You may learn things that make your research question obsolete. Don’t be afraid to adjust your project accordingly. And don’t be afraid to ask for help. It can be hard to admit that you need help in the field, but there is no shame in it. You may be self-conscious about your language abilities or knowledge of local culture or lonely. Find a mentor, take language classes, join a club, request regular calls with your advisor, but ask for help. Field research is hard, for reasons both professional and personal. You’re away from loved ones. You may be in a different culture, one where you may stand out… a lot. You may struggle with the stories you hear. You will talk to victims and perpetrators. It’s not for the faint of heart. It changes you. Evidence of the war marks people, buildings, and landscapes. It’s inescapable. Coming home is hard. No one ever tells you this, but re-entry is unsettling. Explaining field research in post-conflict countries to those who don’t conduct research in post-conflict countries is daunting. Few people will understand. These are often very polarized environments where heinous abuses have occurred. If you’re returning to a life of privilege, it may overwhelm you with guilt. You may not know how to process everything you’ve seen and heard. You may have a hard time knowing how to move forward with your research. But you will move forward. Through your fieldwork, you will become the guardian of the stories that need to be told. People have entrusted you with their stories. This is an immense responsibility, and a privilege.

CHAPTER 21

Secrecy and Silence in Fieldwork: Reflections on Feminist Research on Violence in Latin America Mo Hume

The famous Northern reticence, the tight gag of place And times: yes, yes. Of the “wee six” I sing Where to be saved you only must save face And whatever you say, you say nothing.

This is an extract from one of Seamus Heaney’s rawest poems about the conflict in the North of Ireland, ‘Whatever you say, say nothing’. In the poem, Heaney speaks of what he calls the ‘The famous Northern reticence, the tight gag of place’. His poem evokes a context where a particular language of silence and euphemism exists to navigate the violent everyday in very political ways. The everyday dynamics of this ‘tight gag of place’ are revealed in how people negotiate and survive their violent realties without necessarily giving explicit voice to the horrors of the conflict and the prejudices that underpin it. Though it may seem out of place in a reflection on fieldwork in Latin America, this poem speaks to me on a visceral level and its central message resonates with how I approach my own research on violence. I grew up in the context about which Heaney writes: Derry, in the middle of the Troubles, unconsciously trained in sectarian shorthand and the importance of saying ‘nothing’ in order to survive the everyday politics of M. Hume (*)  University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_21

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violence (Hume 2007b; Mac Ginty 2014). The foundations for much of my own research were laid during both my experience as a child but honed during my several years as a development worker in a Salvadoran feminist organisation. El Salvador’s civil war had officially ended and people were able to finally tell their stories. The ‘tight gag of place’ that should have been lifted with the peace accords was instead reinforced by an amnesty law cynically brought into force to coincide with the publication of the Truth Commission’s report to deny people any recourse to justice. Everyone I met seemed to have experienced both violence and loss. At the time, I remember repeating the question of how can people have their voices heard when everyone has a story to tell? This was the ‘abnormal normality’ in which people survived and negotiated the challenges of everyday life in a post-war context (Martín Baró 2003). The more I worked with women and the more I became embedded in the ­post-war challenges of everyday life, the more I could hear that these stories were full of their own gendered silences and omissions (Hume 2009a). While not wishing to essentialise or homogenise how biographies shape research, I can trace linkages between who I am and what I do. Growing up in a conflict situation most likely shaped some of my instinctive responses to threat and danger, which I had been used to dealing with from a young age, but also trained me the in the subtle arts of ‘saying nothing’ and following the rules of a ‘tight gag of place’. It most likely also shaped some of my substantive research interests, although I am very aware that this is all too easy to rationalise post facto and remains deeply subjective. Three years working in El Salvador in the late 1990s exposed me to the difficulties of peace, particularly for women living in low-income urban and rural communities. The everyday violence and multiple insecurities that women I worked with faced in peacetime were very different to the idealised notion of peace I had grown up with. Official conflict had ended but violence had mutated and still shaped people’s everyday life in a range of (highly gendered) ways. These experiences underpinned my doctoral research and have continued to shape my research interests in subsequent years. I am a feminist researcher interested in violence and most of my work has explored everyday violence in El Salvador, while also working in other Latin American countries that are dealing with protracted conflict and violence. I am specifically interested in how hegemonic (which I read as ‘masculinist’) accounts of violence rely on silences and ‘saying nothing’ (Hume 2009a, b). I have been interested throughout my research in the localised workings of ‘tight gag of place’ and specifically how these are both gendered and gendering. My research involves both a deep interrogation of violence against women and girls but also studying generalised violence as gendered. More recently, I have been working in Colombia in the context of a river that has been recognised as a bearer of rights, following years of conflict and destruction. Since people’s identities and livelihoods are so bound up with the river

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system the court ruling recognises that any attack on the river is an attack on its people and vice versa. I am interested in whose knowledge matters and how the river’s ‘voice’ has been silenced through conflict. While this latter research does not engage explicitly with violence against women and girls, my approach remains feminist. In this paper, then, I attempt to reflect on fieldwork in and on violence in Latin America as a feminist. I specifically focus on research over many years in El Salvador on the gendered politics of violence. My feminist politics are not only integral to my own identity, but also what and I research. I cannot pretend to offer neat answers here, but I will try to foreground key elements of learning over almost two decades. From the outset, it should be noted that I remain committed to thinking about fieldwork as a ‘dialogical process in which the research situation is structured by both the researcher and the person being researched’ (England 1994). As I have got older, had a child, been in secure employment, gained funding, my relationship with my research and specifically the fieldwork element, has evolved and changed. I have carried out research in ‘new’ places and on different issues. I think of fieldwork not a separate bounded period of time in another place, but as an integral part of the research process and this is reflected in the discussion below. Some of the challenges I now face are different to those I faced as an early career researcher, but the pull of fieldwork remains consistent. With every new fieldwork, experience comes new learning and it becomes both more challenging and more necessary to reflect on what I wish I had known. At the outset, it is important to say that I have been in secure employment for most of this time and I do not underestimate the changing nature of academic research and the increasing precarity faced by those at earlier stages of their career. The discussion below informed by conversations with newer generations of researchers with whom I have had the great privilege of working. Their intellectual curiosity, political commitment and energy inspire, but also the challenges they face act as important reminders that the academy is not immune to the various workings of its own ‘tight gag of place’. The paper is structured around four interconnected sections. First, I engage briefly with elements of feminist research methodology to situate the discussion that follows. In the second section, I speak about the importance of forging spaces to be open about the emotional impacts of and reactions to research in an academy that is still largely dismissive of talking about feelings. Linked to this, in the third section I discuss issues of safety, foregrounding the importance of open discussions about fear and danger since these have both practical and emotional implications. In the fourth section, I reflect on how we approach substantive issues of research in contexts of ‘abnormal normality’ (Martín Baró 2003) in which violence and accounts of violence are underpinned by gendered norms and silences. Finally, I explore some of the unresolved tensions that we face as researchers.

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Feminist Research Methodology—More that Adding Women and ‘Stirring’ I define myself and therefore my research as feminist. There is no one way of doing feminist research, nor indeed a singular feminism. Instead, feminist research is distinguished from other research methodologies by its explicitly political underpinnings and ‘a desire to challenge multiple hierarchies of inequalities within social life’ (Doucet and Mauthner 2007: 42). I insist that researchers of violence and conflict have much to learn from decades of feminist research. Many so-called turns in International Relations, for example, are merely ‘discovering’ what are already well-rehearsed debates among feminist researchers on, for example, emotions, power, the everyday. All of these are very bound up with the politics of fieldwork. In this chapter, I draw on two interrelated lessons from feminist research on violence inform my approach which I use to structure the subsequent discussion. Firstly, feminism refutes the positivist myth of value-free objective research. Feminist methodology also demands a deep interrogation of my role as a researcher. Feminist researchers have long emphasised the importance of researcher identity to the research process, encouraging researchers to engage in critical reflexivity at every stage. ‘Rather‚ reflexivity is self-critical sympathetic introspection and the self-conscious analytical scrutiny of the self as researcher. Indeed reflexivity is critical to the conduct of fieldwork; it induces self-discovery and can lead to insights and new hypotheses about the research questions’ (England 1994: 82). For me, as I have written elsewhere engaging in critical reflexivity is necessarily more than ‘an indulgent account of the “me” in fieldwork’ but allows me question and ‘make explicit the potency of hegemonic accounts of violence and our interactions with them’ (Hume 2007a: 481). While reflexivity can enhance our awareness of power asymmetries in research relationships, it does not remove them (England 1994). Secondly, feminist research on violence exposes the immediacy and ordinariness of violence in everyday life, specifically foregrounding its pervasiveness in familial and intimate partner relations. Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) is a ‘stubborn’ feature of many societies. I am interested in tracing the gendered political connections between different forms of violence in everyday life. As such, I don’t see VAWG as a mere subset of ‘real’ violence nor do I see issues of conflict-related sexual violence as ‘separate’ either to the normal machinations of war nor to prevailing hierarchies out with conflict (Stanko 1990; Boesten 2014). As researchers, the slipperiness and dynamism of violence can be challenging to grasp (Taussig 1987), but by looking at how different violences connect, we can see how diverse actors and groups mutate, update and develop violent repertoires at different political moments (Auyero and Berti 2015). Importantly, this can offer clues into how meaning of violence emerge and how some violences become rendered more normal than others. Many feminists have conceptualised violence along a continuum: from war to peace (Kelly 2000) sexualised violence (Kelly 1988) as

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‘gendered’ linking different acts of violence that women experience at various sites, from the personal to the international (Cockburn 2001: 31–37); recognising the linkages between social, political and economic violence (Moser and McIlwaine 2004). In this sense, I do not categorise violence as a set of discrete acts but look at the way violence is embedded in and nourishes existing social and political inequalities.

The Importance of Reflexivity: Where Emotion Is Allowed Reflexive research demands attention to our own (shifting) positionalities, our methodological and analytical choices and the framing and communication of research (Malterud 2001: 483–484). Fieldwork is an intrusive process—I ask people to tell stories, often painful and for my research participants, my research often offers intangible outcomes. This can often leave me feeling guilty or indeed as Sharon Pickering (2001) suggests even ‘dirty’ when confronted with people holding deep prejudices or having committed terrible atrocities (see Hume 2007b). All researchers should have unresolved tensions. Those who claim not to are being less than honest, indifferent or failing to reflect deeply on the ethics of what they do. Dealing with the emotional fallout of fieldwork therefore requires work but importantly, demands that we create safe spaces as academics in which to speak about research emotionally. It is to the emotional element of research I now turn. Working in contexts of extreme violence require us to be constantly thinking about violence—both in terms of trying to understand the problem intellectually and politically, and trying to cope with everyday fear and threat. This can be particularly challenging for those of us who engage in immersive fieldwork and spend long periods of time in dangerous places. Fieldwork is exhausting—often physically and almost certainly emotionally. Like many researchers, I have struggled with an acute sense of ‘imposter syndrome’ at various times. I have also felt that my sense of being overwhelmed by the challenges of fieldwork and research on violence were reflective of my own inadequacies as a researcher. As outlined above, like most researchers my first immersive period of fieldwork was my PhD work when I spent twelve months engaging in multi-sited ethnographic work on violence in El Salvador. I had lived in El Salvador for three years and was familiar with the context. Seeing heavily armed men dotting the urban landscape in their role as security guards for a growing number of neighbourhoods no longer shocked me and, indeed, on some levels I had bought into the myth these ‘men with big guns’ offered ‘protection’ (Hume 2007a). While on a rational level, I knew this was nonsense, it helped me get through everyday survival in a context in which I frequently felt afraid. I have tried to be honest about the contradictions, challenges and emotional toll in my own research practice, but as time passes, it is easy to forget the rawness of my feelings and how these underpinned my ‘imposter syndrome’ as a researcher.

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I was starkly reminded of this recently when speaking to a younger woman who is doing necessary and challenging research in Central America. She suggested her difficulty in coping with the intensity of everyday horror and violence cast doubt on her research skills. To her mind, she was somehow not ‘up’ to the task. She was not the first early career researcher I had heard blame themself for finding this research challenging and I could empathise immediately. Why is admitting fear in a scary situation so alien to the research process? If we study other people’s pain, violence and recognise that these have hugely traumatic effects, why do we cling to these positivist frameworks that assume researchers are immune? We are not and we damage both ourselves and future generations of researchers by assuming that fear is simply a risk to be mitigated or something to be objectively ‘managed’. In my own experience, fear has been an ever-present companion during fieldwork. If fieldwork is a ‘dialogical process’ (England 1994), by trivialising emotional effects of research, we are denying this permission to newer generations of researchers. I have faced countless situations over the years where I felt my ‘reactions’ to my research were somehow ‘wrong’ or too emotional. Examples might include: disliking or even liking research participants in the face of on in spite of horrific acts of violence they claim to have carried out; fear of being in communities affected by violence day after day; exhausted by having to be ‘alert’ to the ever presence of a potential threat; dread of having to face another day of feeling afraid; despair and hopelessness at the magnitude of the suffering people must endure and tremendous guilt at being conscious of my worldly advantages and ultimately being able to leave. On the other side, how do I balance these negative feelings with a constant amazement at the tenacity of women and men who live in the most horrendous of circumstances and who still manage to struggle for a better future for their families and communities, and an overwhelming sense that I can never do justice to their dignity and courage through my research. This gamut of emotions can be very paralysing even for a very seasoned fieldworker. Sara Smith (2016) reminds us that words linger and words matter, meaning that researchers have huge ethical responsibility to those who have shared their stories. For one PhD researcher I worked with, remembering this sense of responsibility finally allowed her to tell the stories of her research participants in an academic setting. She had spent months grappling with the all too common sensation of ‘what’s the point’ that often hits the PhD researcher while trying to make sense of a mountain of data and the feelings that underpin it on leaving the ‘field’. For many, including myself, revisiting interview recordings and transcripts that recount deeply traumatic experiences is difficult. These are not anonymous stories of suffering, but I can see and hear the person who I usually know by name and as time passes, often have built a relationship over the years. Feelings and how to deal with them rarely feature in methodology curricula and there has been very little in ‘mainstream’ literature that even acknowledges the integral place this ‘emotional work’ plays in research.

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In my own case, I have found that writing helps. As a postgraduate researcher, I struggled with all of the feelings mentioned above. I struggled with the sense that my feelings were self-indulgent since I was only a witness and not the direct victim of violence. To try to make sense of this, I used my emotions as ‘resources’ to delve deeper into some of the tensions and complexities of the research. I found writing about these experiences cathartic and it helped me process some of the horrors that people recounted. I know that other researchers have found similar sanctuary in writing. Writing about my feelings also helps me think more conceptually about my work. As a PhD student, I was lucky. My supervisors trusted and encouraged me to talk about the emotional aspects of my research and to write my emotions into my methodology chapter. This is not necessarily the norm, nor are researchers always comfortable in speaking about the challenges they face. It is interesting that even several years on, I feel ‘lucky’ that I had their ‘approval’ to engage in this emotional work explicitly. This is perhaps because writing emotionally comes with risks. Speaking about my feelings and insecurities, difficult ethical challenges and how I negotiated them—albeit in a very supportive environment—made me feel very exposed and often deeply uncomfortable. As a younger woman, it was perhaps more acceptable for me to be emotional and indeed it is a truism that female researchers still must do the ‘emotional work’. Paradoxically, at the same time and as a young woman in a Politics department, I was more vulnerable to being dismissed by colleagues as ‘emotional’ and this used to cast doubt on the ‘rigour’ of my research. On various occasions, my decision to work with ‘real’ people was questioned and my in-depth ethnographic work was dismissed as ‘anecdotal’.1 While this may say more about certain disciplinary biases, mine is not a unique experience and this can be very risky in the UK context where ‘outputs’ are graded through criteria developed in the Research Excellence Framework. In a US context, Wolf (1996: xi) speaks about being advised to not talk about certain issues before going up for tenure: Years of positivist-inspired training have taught us that impersonal, neutral detachment is an important criterion for good research. In these discussions of detachment, distance, and impartiality, the personal is reduced to a mere nuisance or a possible threat to objectivity. This threat is easily dealt with. The neopositivist’s professional armor includes a carefully constructed public self as a mysterious, impartial outsider, an observer freed of personality and bias.

What I remember clearly from this period as a ‘junior non-promoted woman’2 is my need to seek out spaces—particularly feminist ones—that felt safe and where I could speak honestly about the effects of my research. 1 I

have never quite got to the bottom of who are people who are not ‘real’, but my sense is that this is more a comment on working with non-elites. 2 The phrase a colleague used to justify my membership of a research committee.

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I actively tried to build these ‘safe’ political and intellectual spaces out in the same way as I actively tried to create safe physical spaces in San Salvador to help manage the everyday fear of being immersed in a violent context while doing fieldwork. Outside these spaces, however, talking about emotional engagement with research was often dismissed as irrelevant at best. This reinforced feeling of self-indulgence and imposter syndrome. These different reactions to being open about the emotional challenges confirm that researchers are not immune to the disciplinary ‘tight gag of place’ in terms of what we deem as permissible intellectual work. I ultimately published my paper on emotion in a feminist journal (Hume 2007b), but only after a spectacular and very short rejection from a prominent methodology journal calling into question my ‘fitness’ to do the research, without any apparent engagement in the subject matter that I had addressed. As a young researcher, this was devastating and hugely damaging to my confidence. I now look back on it and I struggle to remember the detail. I sat on that paper for over a year, worried that it was rubbish—and more damagingly, that I was indeed unfit to be a researcher—before a senior professor of feminist politics suggested submitting it to a feminist journal. While not strictly about fieldwork, what this episode alerts us to is that there are still risks in a largely positivist academy when speaking emotionally—and I would venture to say, honestly—about the research process. Despite hopeful signs of change with new generations of researchers rightly demanding more open discussion, while writing this I saw debate on Twitter that recounted how someone was told to ‘man up’ when reflecting on the risks of lone fieldwork. Who, how and where we can speak out is invariably shaped by our intersecting ethnic, gendered and class identities, which limit the boundaries of acceptable speech Wolf (1996: xi) has termed these ‘secrets of fieldwork’. How these secrets can have very practical implications for researcher safety will be discussed in the following section.

Fieldwork Safety and Secrecy On a very practical level by maintaining the ‘secrets of fieldwork’, there is a danger that the physical and emotional precarity of new generations of researchers is increased. This is particularly acute for those who work in conflict zones where risk of violence is heightened. I have made unsafe decisions because I felt this was what was demanded of me as a researcher: staying in communities alone after dark to attend meetings, forgetting to tell a trusted local contact of my movements, forgetting to check in with my university or feeling ‘tested’ by local actors and responding in ways that were perhaps not the most sensible. All because I thought a ‘good’ researcher should not worry about such trivial things as their own safety. I have learned from these experiences, but I would say that this is still a continual dialogue and we are required to make immediate decisions during fieldwork that perhaps we would not make in other circumstances.

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Practical advice differs depending on context and often violence can escalate very rapidly, so researchers are forced to ‘react’ to difficult and unexpected situations. Increasingly universities are taking researcher safety more seriously, which I welcome. Unfortunately, this is often only the response to things that have gone very wrong. When I did my PhD research in the early 2000s, I did not have to secure ethics approval and, to date, I have only had to do one risk assessment for research in Central America when UK government travel advice changed for a brief period following the 2009 coup in Honduras. I was given no training in research safety and checked in with supervisors about once a month. I think I may have had to buy my own travel insurance as well. I am not criticising the supervision. I had excellent supervision, but this was the norm. The fact that universities are now encouraging robust risk assessment procedures is tied to insurance procedures and diplomatic travel advice. When used well as part of researcher training, risk assessment can encourage researchers to think more in depth about what might be required and about can be done to mitigate risk. At the very least, opening up a conversation about ethics and risk requires some local knowledge and demand us researchers to interrogate some of the secrets of fieldwork. However, these can easily become overly bureaucratic exercises in Northern Institutions that fail to acknowledge other ways of knowing and the salience of local knowledge. For the most part, I have found my own institution to be thoughtful, but I have knowledge of others whose risk mitigation strategy would actually expose them to more risk. For example, a colleague was required by his institution to take a satellite phone to a remote area of Colombia, which anyone with any local knowledge would immediately advise against. Luckily, his bag was delayed since this would have associated him (and our entire research team) with armed groups and put us more at risk. With this logic, Kovats-Bernat (2002) advises a ‘localized ethic’ whereby researchers follow the advice and recommendations of trusted people in determining how, where and when to conduct the research. Relying on local knowledge should better ensure the safety and security of both the participants and the researcher. I have often had to change plans at the last minute due to security concerns and on the advice of trusted, local contacts. Maintaining flexibility and adaptability in conflict research is necessary, but can be frustrating especially if working against the clock and within a very limited budget. This is particularly acute for those at early career stages who do not have sufficient financial support or research grants. Precarity can force people to make unsafe decisions around very practical issues in the name of research, for example around transport, accommodation and even medical care. Precarious finances can underpin exclusions that determine who can or cannot do fieldwork and who can do it as safely as possible. The decisions I make around safety have certainly been helped by being in more secure employment. At a most basic level, I will now take taxis as opposed to buses in many circumstances, my university provides comprehensive travel insurance

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and I choose accommodation carefully. I am aware that this is an advantage that those in more precarious positions might not have, but institutions have a duty of care to staff and students and sufficient finance to make safe decisions should be built into any risk mitigation. Listening to everyday narratives of violence repeatedly and living in dangerous places can be traumatic for the researcher, as Warden (2013) discusses for the case of urban Guatemala. While the very practical coping strategies outlined above are necessary, it is important also to build in emotional self-care. This can be difficult since it demands countering the mythology of overwork in academe, which is particularly pernicious for early career researchers who are trying to complete a thesis against the clock or trying to secure employment. During immersive fieldwork, I have found that taking breaks is necessary. Fieldwork can be very lonely and even boring, which can lead researchers to only think about work. During long periods of fieldwork, I build in breaks—go away for the weekend when funds permit or even just spend time in the fresh air (or under an air conditioner, if available, in some contexts), a favourite café or time with friends. Keeping in contact with friends and family is both necessary and increasingly easy due to technological advances. The discussion thus far has focused significantly on the effects of research on the researcher. In the section that follows, I will reflect on how we think about the substance of the research. In this, I am guided by the feminist imperative to expose the immediacy and ordinariness of violence in everyday life and the gendered connections between different violences.

Fieldwork in Contexts of ‘Abnormal Normality’ Working in contexts where levels of trauma constitute what Martin Baró (2003: 295) has termed ‘normal abnormality’ is challenging on every level. Suffering is ‘a normal result of a social system based on persecution, exploitation and oppression of human beings by human beings… The psychosocial trauma takes then part of a social normal abnormality’ (Martín-Baró 2003: 295). A real challenge for my research as a feminist is to uncover the everydayness and immediacy of violence to women’s lives when this is often sidelined by more spectacular or public violences. Violence against women, especially sexual violence, is used strategically in conflict as a weapon of war, but ‘common’ (civilian) sexual violence and other forms of violence also pre-exist and increase during and after conflict. Reporting in such contexts is difficult for obvious reasons, so data are weak. One of the most lessons I have learned is not to trust numbers and an oft-repeated mantra is that data and ‘evidence’ are different things. For example, I have found zero recorded instances of domestic violence for one year in local police statistics. Rather than this absence suggesting the problem does not exist as some might easily conclude, it reveals serious problems in official recording mechanisms.

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There has been significant research done by feminists in a variety of conflict and post-conflict settings to try to uncover these silenced violences. Research from Northern Uganda, for example, indicates that a majority of rape cases during conflict involved non-combatants: boyfriends, husbands and ‘suitors’ (Porter 2015). In Northern Ireland, the police had a particular term for intimate partner murders—‘ordinary decent murders’—during the ‘Troubles’ in order to distinguish them from politically motivated killings (McWilliams and NíAoláin 2013). Such language betrays the gendered normative structures that silence violence against women. How these gendered silences and silencing practices—or localised tight gags of place—function is a real challenge for field research. Since the mid-2000s, I have been carrying out research with various women’s groups on the urban periphery of San Salvador. One of these is an area I am very familiar with, having first worked there in 1998 as a development worker and returning periodically as a researcher. In 1998, I used to visit communities alone and work with women across communities. While I usually let women know I would be arriving, I could call in unannounced and walk between neighbouring communities. There was a gang presence, but it was nascent and conflicts between gangs in neighbouring communities, shaped but did not regulate everyday life. As the years passed, the security situation escalated and my entry strategies to these communities changed. I now only work with and through local NGOs. While this is for safety reasons, equally it is to ensure that my research will reach beyond the confines of narrow academic debates. By 2011, women in these communities could no longer visit friends or work with women in neighbouring communities because of gang rivalries. My research participants, many of whom were affiliated to a campaign to prevent gender violence, were advising me to stay away from certain residential areas and instead we met in ‘neutral’ locations. But what is a neutral location in these areas? For example, the public health clinic is located in a neighbourhood known for a heavy gang presence. This restricts access to basic health care. I was acutely aware of the groups of men, noting entry and exit when I was visiting the clinic. The level of surveillance felt threatening to me—an outsider who left at the end of the day. It was even more problematic for women who needed medical attention, particularly but not exclusively those who had suffered violence from gang-members. For women in that area, surveillance and control marked their everyday life and were ‘a constant pressure’. I listened to their advice on how to move into and around the area. In 2011, Maya, a participant in a focus group, told me: It is a constant pressure because we don’t feel secure, more than anything else because of the brutality with which they carry out the acts [of violence]. In that place that I mentioned they have been killing young people on one sports pitch in particular. They took a girl from the school and that they killed her. It was surprising. I think the whole community was upset. She was grabbed almost

316  M. HUME from the front door of the house. They took her in a white car and many people saw it. …. Her father works in the police and it’s surprising that just because you have family in the police or in the army that it’s a latent danger for the family members…. These are things that have been happening that we have known about from a close distance and because they are so close, they cause insecurity. That is why we feel insecure.

Maya went into detail about the very brutal forms of torture that were done on to this young women’s body. I have consciously omitted this detail from discussion here. This is not because I think we should sanitise the torture in some effort to avoid the accusations of ‘thrill seeking’ or ‘pornography of violence’ that are often thrown at violence researchers, but because the detail could focus our attention on this episode as somehow spectacular and outside the realm of the normal (Nordstrom 1997). Maya’s point here is the opposite: women and girls’ bodies are used to punish families and linked to wider violent dynamics. Violence against women and girls is part of a wider repertoire of everyday violence. In this sense, violence against women, including these extreme acts, are constitutive of a wider, latent danger for women. Albeit using a single act to make her point, Maya is speaking about violence that ‘is habitually experienced… [the] sources of violence linked – not a matter of tracing route causes to one or another factor but recognising that multiple forms of violence act on one another and are experienced at once’ (Menjivar 2011: 3). Writing on Guatemala, Carey and Torres (2010) have argued that violence against women has become a constitutive—rather than aberrant—feature of the social fabric because sexism and the civic exclusion, public denigration, and physical abuse of women have been socially and legally excused. At the same time, they highlight the ‘overkill’ or excessive torture carried out on women’s bodies before murder. Violence against women, in this sense, can be simultaneously normal and abnormal. Violence can unite spectacular brutality with acts that are so normalised that they are not even acknowledged as such. Fieldwork often occurs at this intersection between the normal and the abnormal and we need to listen out for the ways in which people give meaning, silence and succumb to the ‘tight gag of place’. Our engagement with these ‘localised vocabularies of violence’ (Hume 2009a) can both illuminate and shut down the connections between different types of violence, its dynamism and its ordinariness in everyday life. In my own research, I have been consistently affected by what my research participants often dismiss as routinised and ‘normal’ social relations that on deeper probing reveal that these are underpinned by gendered cruelty and often extreme brutality. As a witness, it is often the apparent banality of some acts of violence that I find more traumatic than the spectacular. It is easy, especially during fieldwork when we are saturated by stories of violence, to be drawn to the spectacular and an important lesson I have learned is to listen out for the workings of the ‘tight gag of place’.

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Unresolved Secrets and Tensions There are of course many secrets of fieldwork that remain elusive and lessons that I am yet to learn or put into practice. In this final section, I will reflect on my developing dialogue with my fieldwork as my own life circumstances have evolved and think about what I could tell my younger self. One of the most significant changes in my own life is becoming a parent, which has quite profoundly altered my relationship with my research in both very practical and more substantive ways. For many female researchers, fieldwork and the choice to have children are held up as mutually exclusive. As far as I can make out, there has been very little written about the structural challenges of combining motherhood and research in and on conflict. While parents (mostly mothers) have written about taking their children to the ‘field’, this is often shown to be positive factor, for example, in building ‘rapport’ and facilitating ‘motherhood capital’ (Mose Brown and Masi de Casanova 2009; Kerr and Stewart 2019). As the mother of a young child, I cannot spend several months away from my family but neither can I presume to uproot my family from their own routines not least of all given the content of my research. For one, my partner, also an academic, has his own research demands that often take him in very different geographical directions. Perhaps more saliently, I am not sure I want to expose my daughter to the multiple insecurities that come with this type of research. My research is not her choice and while I can see that living in new contexts would be hugely enriching, this has to be weighed against exposure to risk and the curtailment of her freedom. To my mind, this is not my choice to make. Of course, what this exposes is the huge power differentials between my available choices as a parent and the people in the areas in which I do research. Much of my research has been with women and most of these women have been mothers. They do not have the same choices to shield their children from everyday threats. It also exposes the power differentials between me as someone in a permanent job who had a child later, and early career researchers who might already have caring responsibilities when embarking on fieldwork research. How this is resolved I don’t know. Over eight years into motherhood, I am still learning to be a researcher who is a mother and my dialogue with my fieldwork is evolving. So rather than offering advice, I am raising it here in the spirit of encouraging more open and frank discussion. Then again recognising unsolved tension as integral to research is perhaps the advice that I would offer myself if I were starting out. Research is a fundamentally relational process and as our research sites and participates evolve and changes, so do we as researchers. Now those moments when I do not seem to have questions worry me more than the familiar state of unresolved tensions and questions. Time is a huge factor in fieldwork. As the years pass, I look back at my long periods of fieldwork with a certain nostalgia, which may seem quite ridiculous given the subject matter discussed in this paper. In my own head,

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I remember long days spent ‘hanging out’ in communities, a mind full of urgent questions and a keen desire to make a difference. I had time to think, to focus, to challenge myself. Of course, I didn’t see it like that at the time when I was obsessing over making sure I was collecting ‘enough’ data, and feeling guilty at my privileged status. Thinking about emotions and being self-consciously reflexive can paralyse the researcher. More than just acknowledging power relations and the emotional challenges of research, it is important to use these to forge safe spaces for researchers but also to push us to be as ethical and as socially just as we can in our research praxis. As I have got older, I seem to have so many competing demands on my time that I recently checked myself feeling envious of a colleague who was getting to spend a few months in Colombia for a joint research project while I returned to the security of home. I would say to my younger self is to make the most of fieldwork. To be fair, I have always valued the fieldwork element of research despite some of the difficulties I outline here. I love the energy of carrying out research and being in the privileged position of hearing people’s stories. I have also shared some lovely, funny moments with women who never fail to inspire despite the circumstances of their lives. I would tell myself to avoid electricity cables, as separate incidents involving a fried laptop and a hospital visit for electrocution have taught me. After years of sleepless nights in accommodation with flimsy doors, I would advise my younger self to always take rubber doorstops. These make it more difficult for doors to be opened from the outside and improve your night’s sleep as a result. This might a very basic, cheap and potentially obvious piece of advice, but one that would never have crossed my mind. As I finish this chapter in Colombia in a hotel with flimsy doors, I realise that I have forgotten to bring a doorstop so I would definitely encourage my younger self to do as I say, not as I do. Listen out for these little nuggets and share them. I would tell my younger self to trust my instincts, to read Sara Ahmed (2017: 27) who reminds us that ‘a gut feeling has its own intelligence. A feminist gut might sense something is amiss. You have to get closer to that feeling’. In conclusion and without wishing to make easy analogies, I have argued here that it is important to remember that researchers are not immune silence and omission. Our ‘tight gag of place’ may be imposed by disciplinary boundaries and positivist logics that determine what we can and cannot talk about or indeed what is considered ‘acceptable’ to the rigours of a research culture that is often regulated by externally imposed frameworks for excellence. Mess, emotion and complexity, which often underpin research in conflict zones, don’t necessarily ‘fit’ with externally imposed agendas for ‘excellence’. These omissions not only foreclose honest debate about the challenges of fieldwork, but undermine our duty of care to newer generations of researchers who are denied access to fuller and perhaps more honest accounts before embarking on their own research journeys. The effects of this are to reinforce messages about researcher inadequacy, the myth of researcher

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objectivity and reinforce the many levels of secrecy of fieldwork. My plea to these newer generations would be to continue to uncover these secrets, trust your ‘feminist gut’ and breakdown some of the silences of fieldwork. Acknowledgements   Conversations with Ellen Van Damme and Ariana Markowitz on their recent fieldwork experiences helped me reflect on some of the issues I discuss here and I am grateful for their input. I would like to thank Dave Featherstone for comments on an earlier draft.

References Ahmed, S. 2017. Living a feminist life. Durham: Duke University Press. Auyero, J., and M. Berti. 2015. In Harm’s Way: The dynamics of urban violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Boesten, J. 2014. Sexual violence during war and peace: Gender, power and postconflict justice in Peru. London: Palgrave. Carey, David, Jr., and M. Gabriela Torres. 2010. Precursors to femicide: Guatemalan women in a vortex of violence. Latin American Research Review 45 (3): 142–164. Cockburn, C. 2001. The gendered dynamics of armed conflict and political violence. In Victims, perpetrators or actors? Gender, armed conflict and political violence, ed. Fiona Clark and Caroline Moser, 30–53. London and New York: Zed Books. Doucet, A., and N.S. Mauthner. 2007. Feminist methodologies and epistemologies. In The handbook of 21st century sociology, ed. D.L. Peck and C.D. Bryant. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. England, K. 1994. Getting personal: Reflexivity, positionality, and feminist research. The Professional Geographer 46 (1): 80–89. Hume, M. 2007a. ‘(Young) men with big guns: Reflexive encounters with violence in El Salvador’ special issue of Bulletin of Latin American Research ‘Researching Youth in Latin America’ 26 (4): 480–496. Hume, M. 2007b. ‘Unpicking the threads: Researching gender and violence in El Salvador. Women’s Studies International Forum 30 (2): 147–157. Hume, M. 2009a. The politics of violence: Community, conflict and gender in El Salvador. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Hume, M. 2009b. Researching the gendered silences of violence in El Salvador. IDS Bulletin 40 (3): 78–86. Kelly, Liz. 1988. Surviving sexual violence. Feminist Perspectives Series. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kelly, Liz. 2000. The global context: Wars against women: Sexual violence, sexual politics and the militarised state. In States of conflict: Gender, violence, and resistance, ed. Susie Jacobs, Ruth Jacobson, and Jennifer Marchbank, pp. 45–65. London and New York: Zed Books. Kerr, Roslyn, and Emma J. Stewart. 2019. ‘Motherhood capital’ in tourism fieldwork: Experiences from Arctic Canada. Tourism Geographies, 1–20 (published online). Kovats-Bernat, J. 2002. Negotiating dangerous fields: Pragmatic strategies for fieldwork amid violence and terror. American Anthropologist 104 (1): 208–222. Mac Ginty, R. 2014. Everyday peace: Bottom-up and local agency in conflict-affected societies. Security Dialogue 45 (6): 548–564.

320  M. HUME Malterud, K. 2001. Qualitative research: Standards, challenges and guidelines. Lancet 358 (9280): 483–488. Martín Baró, I. 2003. Poder, ideology y violencia. Madrid: Trotta. McWilliams, M., and F. Ní Aoláin. 2013. ‘There is a war going on you know’— Addressing the complexity of violence against women in conflicted and post conflict societies. Journal of Transitional Justice 1 (2): 4–44. Menjivar, C. 2011. Enduring violence: Ladina women’s lives in Guatemala. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mose Brown, T., and E.M. Casanova. 2009. Mothers in the field: How motherhood shapes fieldwork and researcher-subject relations. Women’s Studies Quarterly 37 (7/8): 42–57. Moser, C., and C. McIlwaine. 2004. Encounters with violence in Latin America: Urban poor perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala. London: Routledge. Nordstrom, Carolyn. 1997. A Different Kind of War Story. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pickering, S. 2001. Undermining the sanitized account: Violence and emotionality in the field in Northern Ireland. British Journal of Criminology 41 (3): 485–501. Porter, H. 2015. After rape: Comparing civilian and combatant perpetrated crime in northern Uganda. Women’s Studies International Forum 51: 81–90. Smith, Sara. 2016. Intimacy and angst in the field. Gender, Place & Culture 23 (1): 134–146. Stanko, E. 1990. Everyday violence: How women and men experience sexual and physical danger. London: Pandora. Taussig, M. 1987. Shamanism, colonialism, and the wild man: A study in terror and healing. Chicago: University of Chicago. Warden, T. 2013. Feet of clay: Confronting emotional challenges in ethnographic experience. Journal of Organizational Ethnography 2 (2): 150–172. Wolf, D. 1996. Feminist dilemmas in fieldwork. Boulder: Westview Press.

CHAPTER 22

Read the Room: Side-by-Side Methodology in a Belfast Ice Hockey Arena Eric Lepp

I remember my first ‘side-by-side’ interview perfectly. I walked into my first Belfast Giants game with a plan that I would interview whoever I happened to be sat beside for the game that evening—it was going to be great. I went into that game armed with a fresh notebook, a clean ‘Participant Information Sheet’, and a stack of consent forms, and I had them all out three minutes into the game. The poor gentleman must have felt like he was being sold a phone plan or a used car in a setting where he had paid money to come and relax with his friends. He was more patient than I would have been. I was some stranger trying to draw the best answers I could from him and scrawling into my notebook, while paying little attention to the game happening in front of me. I was trying to take the ingredients of a pretty standard qualitative research interview and it wasn’t working for the setting I was in. The interview was awkward. He knew it. I knew it. If the gentleman from seat Gate 12 Row N Seat 14 is reading this chapter—I’m sorry. Reflections of a First Interview—Conducted October 2015

E. Lepp (*)  Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_22

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Overview of Research The Belfast Giants ice hockey club were established shortly after the Good Friday Agreement was ratified by referendum in 1998. The team began play in the newly constructed Odyssey Arena1 in 2000. What has happened in the years since their establishment can best be described as a prolonged and unexpected success. The average attendance throughout the 2015–2016 season, during which I conducted my research, was 4500 per game. With 32 home games across the ice hockey season spanning autumn and winter, in total the 1500 season ticket holders spent a month’s worth of afternoons and evenings together. Although it would surprise many in Belfast, the regularity of games and the size of the crowd make the Giants one of the most viewed sporting events in the region. Researching this site in post-peace agreement Northern Ireland meant that I was in a space with no significant history with regard to the long conflict in the region, nor did the hockey arena have the baggage that comes with being a single-community activity. The starting point of my PhD research was an understanding that the SSE Arena during Giants games sat outside of the social and political expectations of division that can be seen in and across present-day and historical Northern Ireland. What I understood going into my fieldwork was that both Catholic/Nationalist and Protestant/Unionist populations have become hockey fans in Belfast, which to this day is something of an exception in a city where everyday living remains impacted by division, with voting occurring along community lines (Russell 2016) and the education system maintaining that 93% of children attend schools based on their ethnoreligious background (Hughes and Loader 2015). Constructing an understanding of the nature and makeup of the SSE Arena was central to core research questions I brought with me into the hockey arena, where I sought to understand what levels of interaction and communication were occurring across historical division at Giants games, and ultimately whether the relationships between fans had an impact in wider Belfast.

From Desk to Field Early in 2015, prior to my fieldwork in Belfast, I was tasked with producing a methodology chapter for my supervisors. This represented an exercise of coming up with a plan for how I would conduct my research, ensuring it was ethical, feasible and well thought out. The PhD office at my institute has a handful of large methodology textbooks—some for the qualitative researcher, and some for those who take a quantitative approach. Like the researchers who had come before me, I surveyed these texts like they were a menu, choosing approaches that seemed applicable, and then constructed a research plan and an early draft methodology chapter based on these approaches. The words ‘qualitative’, ‘semi-structured’ and 1 The

Odyssey Arena changed to a corporate sponsor name—the SSE Arena (Scottish and Southern Energy) in 2015.

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‘participant observation’ find heavy usage in my original chapter draft and played an important role in acting as theoretical guideposts in my final methodological approach; however, as highlighted in my opening account, research does not happen in the same way it is often described. I had entered into this setting thinking that I would be able to conduct interviews in the same way that I had done with the professors at Queens University or the NGO Directors down the road. It only took that one painfully awkward interview to decide I needed to adapt my methodological approach dependent on the setting and the person I was interviewing. Adaptability finds support from Burgess’ (1982: 22) recognition that ‘Field research involves the study of real-life situations. Field researchers therefore observe people in the settings in which they live, and participate in their day to day activities. The methods that can be used in these studies are unstructured, flexible and open-ended’. This adaptability brought me to a side-by-side interviewing method, which was responsive to the setting that the research was being carried out in. This involved a great deal of ‘reading the room’. In this spirit, this chapter will discuss how, when implementing a methodology, a number of decisions need to be made in response to the research community. In this way, I will theoretically situate the methodology before highlighting the decision-making and experiences that ultimately resulted in a unique methodological technique.

Theoretical Foundation of Side-by-Side Research At a theoretical level, the research methods guiding my research in the SSE Arena fell under an umbrella of an interpretivist/constructivist paradigm, utilising a research approach that seeks to understand ‘the world of human experience’ (Cohen and Manion 1994: 36). Through reliance on ‘participants’ views of the situation being studied’ (Creswell 2003: 8), this interpretivist approach aims to comprehend subjective knowledge (della Porta and Keating 2008). This understanding of the subjective is born of the reflexivity at the heart of this research methodology. England (1994: 244) recognises reflexivity as ‘self critical sympathetic introspection and the self-conscious analytical scrutiny of the self as researcher’. Such an understanding of reflexivity demands of the researcher to continuously question ‘attitudes, thought processes, values, assumptions, prejudices and habitual actions to strive to understand our complex roles in relation to others’ (Bolton 2010: 13). One of the key influences to side-by-side interviewing was the walking interview. The practice of walking through a neighbourhood, city or area throughout the course of an interview offers ‘insights into the dynamic emotional, affectual and physical relations of power-differentiated people within the everyday fabric of urban life’ (Warren 2017: 789). Although the physical aspect of walking was not embedded in these interviews, the physical set up of watching ice hockey from the same vantage point, and the need for the research questions to be ‘framed by a ‘place’’ (Evans and Jones 2011: 849),

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display similarities in method. Walking offers an interview experience where the researcher and participant are exposed to ‘multi-sensory stimulation of the surrounding environment’ (Evans and Jones 2011: 850; Adams and Guy 2007). Without the movement, the SSE Arena offered a multi-sensory experience of being in and amongst fellow fans, and with attention drawn to the game. Further, the walking interview cedes a certain aspect of control to the interviewee, who is recognised as a ‘local expert’, giving them agency throughout the process (Clark and Emmel 2010). This reflexive, qualitative approach laid the groundwork for innovating, imagining and enacting a research methodology that read the room—or in this case, the hockey arena.

Construction of a Side-by-Side Method (in a Belfast Ice Hockey Arena) Although I write about ‘reading the room’ and constructing a tailored methodological approach, there is an existing series of parameters that is required of good research practice. A researcher needs to abide by ethical guidelines, gain consent from the research population and represent the subjects of research in a truthful and transparent manner. These parameters, however, are not necessarily prescriptive; this section highlights the development of the side-by-side approach required to effectively conduct interviews in an ice hockey arena in Northern Ireland. The evolution of this method from the ­ill-fated first interview highlighted in this chapter’s introduction is presented not to contribute to any sort of standardisation of a side-by-side methodological approach, but rather to demonstrate that effective adaptation of methodological approach to real-life dynamic research settings is a continuous part of the research process which requires planning and thought. Becoming a Fan “The welcome and the willingness to offer explanations and educate me about their lives and their Giants experience is a remarkable trait I hadn’t expected. I thought it would take more work to get people to talk to me, turns out all I have to do is cheer for the Giants and ask.” Field Journal Entry—10 November 2015 In reflecting back on the interviews that I conducted within the SSE Arena, each one was unique to the individual interviewed and the game attended; however, a routine emerged in engaging with the person beside me, gaining consent, and conducting the interview. In general, an ice hockey game is an evening activity, lasting approximately two and half hours, and is comprised of three separate periods of play, broken up by two intermissions. The sideby-side interviews that I conducted within the SSE Arena lasted throughout the game, with the first period utilised for introducing myself to the person,

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or people, who I was seated beside and constructing a relationship. From the very beginning of conversation, I was identified as an outsider to the historical divisions of Northern Ireland (my Canadian accent made this very apparent), but I also found it very important to the dialogue, and the development of trust, that I present myself as ‘sort of insider’. The easiest way to do this was to show myself as a fan of the Belfast Giants. Samra and Wos (2014) identify the emotional attachment that is considered a central aspect of being a sports fan; in this manner, I shared in an identity trait based on mutual emotional attachment to the team. In my first interview highlighted at the beginning of this chapter, I showed little regard for the hockey game in front of me—however, it was from that platform, where I could ‘talk hockey’ and ‘bleed teal’, that the person in the seat to my left or right was open to talking about the things I had come hoping to discuss. Positionality is discussed in further detail later in the chapter, but it warrants noting that being a Canadian and having grown up understanding and playing hockey earned me some capital amongst Giants supporters. Yet my Canadian passport only got me so far: my early days in Belfast were spent consuming all things Giants in order to build capital with other fans: watching clips of past seasons on YouTube, reading about the season when ex-National Hockey League (NHL) star Theoren Fleury led the team to a championship, figuring out who Paxton Schulte was with his number 27 jersey retired and hanging in the arena, and learning why that violent brawl between the players of the Belfast Giants and the Nottingham Panthers on 26 October 2002 still evokes emotion from supporters. In many ways, my support of the Giants gave me rapport, a trait considered to be ‘a key ingredient in successful qualitative interviewing’ (King and Horrocks 2010: 48), but more importantly it showed the research community that I was invested—this was not merely an extractive exercise. The shared experience and shared interest between the researcher and the researched while watching a hockey game offer an experience that shares a very human and subjective element. In this way, the research methodology is based on an understanding of reflexivity that ‘encompasses continual evaluation of subjective responses, intersubjective dynamics, and the research process itself’ (Finlay 2002). A classical scientific understanding that research of humans and their interactions could yield definite and objective truths from quantitative and qualitative investigations is lost in the shared fandom central to this research. A core premise of my PhD was to engage with a question of whether shared interests could give pause to historical division; it thus made sense that I ditch any academic disconnection and share the interest as well. Ethical Approval There are two distinct ways in which I intentionally engaged with ethical approval in conducting research in Belfast: the institutional ethics process and my personal research ethics. These two elements are not exclusive of one

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another, but they were engaged with in very different ways. The institutional parameters for this research were quite easy to navigate. There were no text boxes on any ethics forms that identified Northern Irish ice hockey fans as a vulnerable population, and unlike a number of my colleagues who conduct research in conflict zones, a hockey arena in Belfast is not a place in which the university’s insurance policy has much concern over safety and security. A number of the practices covered in my low-risk ethical approval are covered further in this section—interview selection, consent, note-taking—so focus here is given on research ethics as an approach outside of institutional ­tick-box exercises. There is no lack of research conducted on Northern Ireland; John Whyte (1991) recognised the inundation of conflict researchers in Northern Ireland over the last 30 years. This recognition was furthered by Chris Gilligan (2016), who attributed the number of researchers in Northern Ireland to the ease of transportation to the region, the English speaking context, and the relatively low level of violence experienced in this conflict—as well as the considerable funding and influence which has steered research towards a focus on how to improve the lives of those affected. In response to this, I made a concerted decision to use the vast amounts of research that have been produced on this region as a positive influence in my methodological construction. I was able to find an incredible amount of literature from this sea of researchers who had come to Northern Ireland before me, which allowed me to focus on the hockey arena as a niche space while steering wide of questions and discussions that could reawaken the traumas of the Troubles within people and communities in the name of my research agenda. This was my foremost ethical concern; people I was interviewing were at a hockey game with no chance of knowing that they would be asked for an interview by the person in the seat beside them. As a methodological approach, a knowledge of the scope of research that had been written previously enabled my research focus to explore present relationships that were being constructed around the hockey team. Interview Selection The methodology textbooks I surveyed prior to fieldwork included a great deal about data gathering samples. With the help of Ticketmaster (see Fig. 22.1), I was able to ensure a random sample in my interview participants. Figure 22.1 shows the online seat selection that is embedded in the purchasing process on the Ticketmaster website. Through this online process, I would purchase single tickets in different sections and rows of the arena prior to each game; this also allowed me to move around the arena in proximity to the ice, as well as to sit in different sections in an effort to complete interviews with multiple types of supporters, not just casual fans or season ticket holders. The ideal seat would be an empty seat in the middle of a

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row, so that there would be interview options on both the left and the right. The close physical proximity of the seats to one another was of particular interest to my research, as it placed individuals who would not choose to live next to one another side-by-side in a hockey arena. Further, it also dictated that as an interviewer, I too experienced the navigating of elbow space on armrests, spilled beer and close quarters that accompanies a sporting event. One of the challenges of using random sampling based on dots on a website and seats scattered throughout the arena was the potential absence of voices that were valuable to the wider research project. In the context of the arena, the desired categorisations particularly corresponded with community—I had a strong desire to speak to both Catholics and Protestants in attendance. The goal in this was to develop an understanding of whether this arena sat disconnected from the intolerances and prejudices that permeate everyday Belfast and how these two elements come together—a shared space within a divided setting. Although the sample of 30 games is not very big, it was enough to highlight the presence of people from both communities, as well as groups of people that spanned division and came to this setting together. Gaining Consent When I asked her about whether divisions that are apparent in Belfast can be seen here in the arena she was firm and unwavering in rejecting the notion that they are. She said she doesn’t know whether people are necessarily Catholic or Protestant, while taking this time to let me know she is a Protestant. She made it clear that sectarianism doesn’t affect a Giants game and that many fans refer to their fan community as a ‘hockey family’. “We are a hockey family, so that stuff doesn’t matter here.” 17 October 2015—Gate 19 Row X Seat 39 The approach of interviewing the person seated beside me was informed by the questions I came with, while importantly leaving the opportunity for each interview to take a direction of its own. Overwhelmingly, people were responsive to my research. As highlighted earlier, I would spend the first of three distinct periods of ice hockey constructing a relationship with the person I was sat beside and late in the first period, or at the intermission between the first and second periods, I would clearly ask if they would be willing to answer questions for my PhD research. The act of explicitly asking for the consent of the interview participant was done to gain assurance that they are voluntarily involved with a full understanding of what the following discussion might be used for. What I strived for in this process was acknowledgement and agreement from the person beside me that our conversation had transitioned to active research, and to gain verbal consent without disturbing the rapport achieved through the first period.

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Fig. 22.1  SSE Arena—Ticketmaster, online seat selection (Source Ticketmaster 2016)

The role of consent initially presented a bit of a challenge in my seeking to construct an unobtrusive fieldwork strategy. Prior to conducting any research, I received written permission to conduct interviews from the Head of Hockey operations for the Belfast Giants. In the first interview described at the beginning of this chapter, I was eager to get out my signed consent and participant information sheets; however, this process only lasted for the first few games I attended. I have often heard people talk about how in recorded interviews the best comments and discussion occur in the minutes after the recorder is turned off; my consent forms were doing something similar. It seemed that as soon as things were formalised in such a way, the back and forth that was occurring became more guarded and less fluid. This was notable—and so I changed approach and decided on verbal consent for conducting the interviews. This freed me from the formalities; however, my forms were never far, travelling with me to each game and waiting in my nacho-cheese stained backpack under my seat. The act of handing out participant information sheets and collecting consent forms was only utilised if the person beside me required the support of legitimacy that these documents provided. Over 30 interviews, this was required only twice. Initially, the obstacle of formality in gaining consent sent me back to the methodology texts to investigate what was written about covert research.

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Admittedly, I was initially drawn to the idea quite simply out of a growing sociological interest in what it meant to be a member of the ‘hockey family’, and as a Canadian in Belfast I was openly welcomed into the hockey arena—a point discussed in further detail in the section on positionality. However, any romanticised ideas of covert research were quickly dismissed—why would I deceive anyone? To what ends would that serve? Just as becoming a fan of the team lent itself to a common ground, I found that the more explicitly I was a PhD researcher, the more people were willing to share their stories with me. The honesty in the interaction gave the methodological approach a more philosophical meaning that bore down to a researcher worldview. There was a feeling of side-by-sidedness quickly and honestly embedded in the evening’s relationship—a sense of, ‘This is who I am, who are you?’. Recording Interviews Tonight I sat beside a woman who was polite and quiet. In a lot of ways, she reminded me of my Mennonite mother – she didn’t exhibit any of the sharp edges that many people in Belfast show in conversation focused on difference, and yet when I asked this woman about whether divisions of Belfast infiltrated into the Giants supporter community she replied with a bluntness I hadn’t expected, stating: ‘Nobody cares’ …and that was very much the end of it. 24 October 2015—Gate 13 Row Q Seat 63 Although it is quite easy to remember an interview quote as short and abrupt as ‘Nobody cares’, the collection of interview recordings and the taking of notes was challenged by the space in which I was conducting research. The seating arrangement and the fact that we were actively engaged in the cheering and chants that come with being ice hockey fans in Northern Ireland would have made for some fairly entertaining and awkward transcriptions. Jowett and O’Toole (2006) draw attention to informality, noting that the ability to access information can be aided by the informality of the interaction it is obtained in. As highlighted, the physical aspect of sitting beside someone while sharing an experience offered the ability to make a connection that was not over-thought by the person I was with, and with so much research there was great opportunity for opening the door to candid discussion that would not likely have occurred otherwise. In my attempt to maintain an environment free from the obstructions of formality recognised in the change in approach to gaining consent, the recording of interview notes similarly required that I adapt to the setting. As I ‘read the room’, the pen and paper disappeared to minimise barriers to natural conversation. Across the interviews, a quasi-routine began to emerge in the way I produced meaningful research notes without too much interference in

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interaction. During intermissions, most people leave their seats to use the washroom, get a snack or a drink, or have a cigarette. It was during these times I would take out my notebook and make notes about what had been discussed. These notes, often point form, were utilised to offer ‘subtle and complex understandings of these others’ lives, routines, and meanings’ (Emerson et al. 1995: 13). Other notes were captured through a m ­ aterial that did not endanger the informality of the side-by-side interactions constructed in the SSE Arena: my mobile phone. The people I was seated ­side-by-side with would often have a phone in hand for texting, tweeting, or in some cases pulling up the rules of the game so as to better understand what exactly was happening in the match. This gave me the opportunity to also have my phone in hand and at times during interviews or intermissions I wrote text messages to myself, to remind myself of conversation points for completing field journal entries after the game, when back at my computer. Figure 22.2 offers an example of these simple notes. Following the hockey game, I would write in-depth notes about each interview and observation, as a means of capturing the experience before time clouded my memory. In the final copy of my PhD, I utilised the notes from

Fig. 22.2  Text messages to myself

Eric Lepp 17/10/15 7:46 PM Ballyclaire Eric Lepp 17/10/15 7:46 PM Seasons tic Eric Lepp 17/10/15 7:47 PM Hockey family Eric Lepp 17/10/15 7:47 PM Cross comm Eric Lepp 17/10/15 7:48 PM Hang out at games and sometimes outside Eric Lepp 17/10/15 7:49 PM Technical consultant Eric Lepp 17/10/15 9:35 PM We / us / my team Eric Lepp 17/10/15 9:35 PM It's just a giant family

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my research notebook in quotes or excerpts, like the one at the beginning of this section, rather than being able to produce direct quotes, as I was not capable of producing direct, lengthy quotations from the arena setting. Positionality Positionality is dynamic; Kezar (2002) recognises that ‘Within positionality theory, it is acknowledged that people have multiple overlapping identities. Thus, people make meaning from various aspects of their identity…’ (96). Within the context of the hockey arena, it took some time and reflection for me to understand my own positionality within the research setting. In this section, I will engage with the classic meta-categorisations of positionality, described by Muhammad and colleagues as ‘…both societal ascribed and achieved identities that confer status on an individual researcher, such as race/ethnicity, or level of education attained’ (Muhammad et al. 2015: 1051). In the wider context of Northern Ireland where individuals seek to categorise one another upon meeting, my accent immediately exposed me as a foreigner in Belfast. Belfast/Northern Ireland does not boast an incredible amount of racial diversity, with the 2011 census in Northern Ireland revealing that only 4.3% of the population was born outside of the UK or Ireland (NISRA 2011a). The population is predominantly white (98%), and as a white male, access to this research population was not impeded by my racial construction, despite my obvious ‘foreignness’ (NISRA 2011b). As a region, Northern Ireland has serious issues with racist actions and mentalities from both unionist and nationalist communities against those who are from outside (McVeigh 2015); this is inclusive of those who would identify in a census as white, but represent different ethnic backgrounds, such as Polish or Roma (McDonald 2014). However, these biases were not inclusive of the white Canadian male academic researcher—Americans and Canadians have historically been strongly connected to both populations in Northern Ireland and Ireland, and it became apparent through my experiences, there was a respect held for both of these identities that is not transmitted to other ethnic groups. The effect of my national predisposition went further, as my social identity was not classified into the usual binary ‘Catholic’ or ‘Protestant’ identities; rather my social categorisation was filled by my Canadian identity. My separation from both core ethno-sectarian groups—both in Canada and in Northern Ireland—further enabled fluidity for research between and across divisions. The understanding of positionality is a deeply reflective one which only became clear through a good deal of time in the research setting. What emerged in the SSE Arena was an understanding between those I interacted with that this was a setting in which I, as a Canadian, would logically be. Due to the sport’s deep Canadian roots I was never asked to explain or defend my presence at Giants games, even if the research participant thought it odd

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someone was conducting PhD research in a hockey arena—it still made sense that this person would be Canadian. As the research evolved and adapted, my ‘Canadianism’ presented an opportunity to not only access the hockey arena without any suspicions or negative assumptions connected to my outsider status in this divided society, it also gave the side-by-side interviews a sense of host and guest. The person in the seat beside me would often take a ‘hostlike’ role, speaking freely and simply explaining things to me as they would a student. This side-by-side sharing of experience and belief was a trait generally avoided in shared spaces in Belfast. In return, I was expected to have a strong sense of what was occurring in the sport we were watching. As hockey is a non-native sport in the Belfast community, there is less experience and familiarity with the game, and so a regular part of interactions included discussion about rules or strategies occurring on the ice. In the ensuing back and forth between research and ‘hockey-talk’, a uniqueness to the relationship emerged where my outsider status offered a usefulness to the research, rather than acting as an impediment as is often the case with outsider/insider qualitative research. Aoki (1996) discusses the role of being in between the binary outsider-insider; in doing so he bridges the two together with a hyphen. In this way, he is acknowledging that the researcher may at different points and in certain settings feel that she/he has reached a point of both being an insider and an outsider—and may often feel somewhere between these two poles. Researching in this ‘between’ space the interviews and immersion can best be described as a knowledge exchange between two people sharing the experience of a hockey game together; in doing so, the power and control over what was to be discussed became shared. Personality Sarah Moser recognised personality as very much integral to her access and research: I found that it was aspects of my personality, such as my skills, my emotional responses to and interest in local events, how I conducted myself and the manner in which I navigated the personalities of others that were the main criteria by which I was judged. This in turn affected my access to certain people, the degree to which they opened up and shared their stories and views, and ultimately had an impact upon the material gathered. (Moser 2008: 383)

Such inclusion is fitting to my methodological approach, which was designed around my personal ability to conduct interviews with the person randomly in the seat beside mine at hockey matches. The ‘not knowing’ element of who I might encounter in an environment relatively beyond my control demanded an extroverted responsiveness that was capable of finding a common ground to enable the interview to occur. When sharing stories of my research with colleagues, the pliability and congeniality required to utilise this method often elicited a sense of dread from introverted peers. I concede that before

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each game, as I prepared for the interview and the unknown that was ahead, I came to refer to my walk to the SSE Arena as the ‘white-knuckle walk’—a time for me to prepare and focus on the evening ahead, grounded in my core research questions but without knowing who I would be asking them to, or how they might be asked. Yet despite pre-game anxieties, the core research methodology was rooted in enjoying an ice hockey game with a stranger willing to be interviewed. In this way, my personality played a role in the responsiveness and engagement that was able to occur and opened doors to conversation in much the same way that the positionality categorisations to which I belong did—white, Canadian, male, PhD student, etc. This construction of a side-by-side method highlights a number of ways that plans were devised and research actions and protocols adapted to fit into the research setting, while also including ways that I needed to change to be the person who could conduct the research I sought to conduct. It warrants noting that, in spite of my anxieties, I very much enjoyed this research format. I enjoyed the randomness of the people I interviewed, the sense of casualness and unscriptedness that occurred in the arena, hearing stories about lives lived inside and outside the hockey arena, and I very much had fun becoming a supporter of the Belfast Giants. In reflecting back on my experience, I believe the enjoyment I had within the interview approach and setting contributed to the willingness and honesty of those I was seated beside in participating in the interview.

Conclusion The introduction of this chapter offered a reflection on my first interview. As this chapter has discussed and re-visited the navigation that I took to generate a side-by-side methodology, it seems apt to offer a reflection on my final interview in the SSE Arena in March 2016. I sat up in the top row near Gate 6. There were a number of people around me that I recognised from various team events, past games, road trips to Nottingham and Sheffield. Everyone around had started looking forward to next year, conversations were often about discussing what the team’s needs were. Comments like ‘We don’t play with the physicality we need to!’ or ‘We aren’t fast enough!’ had become a normal part of my exchanges. It turns out I spent a winter with Giants supporters for one of their worst seasons ever. I look different than I did last October - I have a Giants jersey on now, at my feet is a backpack filled with consent forms that have weathered corners from being in my bag for too long. To my left sits a retired electrician who has been a fan for years. He usually comes with a friend but tonight his friend is watching a rugby match. He genuinely seems happy for the company throughout the game. He talks with ease about the changes he’s seen in his lifetime across Northern Ireland. “You should have been here 20 years ago, Eric. You wouldn’t have recognised it.” I wonder if six months ago he would have recognised me. Reflections on a Last Interview—Conducted March 2016

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Setting out to conduct research in a Northern Ireland hockey arena was always going to make for a methodological design that required a significant level of adapting to the setting. The physical act of being in the arena with supporters during games made for exhilarating moments as a researcher and as a Giants fan. Through the side-by-side interviews, I observed a great deal of difference in the way people engaged the space, as well as how they engaged with me and the interview. In some interviews, people aligned their answers and discussion with the Giants’ marketing slogan that ‘In the Land of Giants Everyone is Equal’; in other interviews participants stayed connected to the fan experience, highlighting how great it is to have a professional hockey team in the city/region; and in other interviews things took a turn for the personal, explaining how the team had an impactful meaning in their life. The way in which the reflection at the beginning of this conclusion contrasts with the reflection of my first interview illustrates a reading of the room that developed a method which enabled diversity across the interviews. In doing so, the interview format maintained the comfort of the interviewee and offered a power balance that comes from a shared perspective of watching a hockey game side-by-side. If I had known then… Dear Past Eric, Not to worry you eventually do finish your PhD, however there are three things I think you should know. Buy into the research right away. Go all in. You tried to start your research with an ‘academic distance’ between you and the research community. This came across as a half-hearted approach. The research required that you become a full-blown Belfast Giants fan as well as a researcher. It would have been helpful if you could have started this way; you got the hang of it after the first couple of interviews, after you went to the games and treated the fans as if they were a group to be studied, rather than to learn from and cheer with. The early interviews, where you received stock answers and came across as disingenuous, as seen in the indifferent body language of the people in the seats beside you, could have been avoided. Had you included in your methodological preparations the role of joining in, in your case as a hockey fan, rather than focusing solely on the bigger picture significance of the team and who was there, things would have opened up much quicker, and the shared experiences that have become central to your methodology and research would have occurred earlier in the process. Have confidence trying new things. The easiest way to conduct research is to follow a ‘roadmap’ that already exists, but as you will become acutely aware, when you add humans things have a tendency to go off the map. Sure, it would have been efficient and

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valuable to test an existing theory or hypothesis in a new case study as an effective way to make an academic contribution. However, having enjoyed all the ethnographic writing at your desk, you set out to study human relationships influenced by a divisive history, where grudges and opinions permeate the everyday. Then of course you chose to do your research in a hockey arena, which is an interesting idea even if you do not quite know what exactly those interviews might actually look like. You will later find out that the idea of conducting interviews side-by-side lays the groundwork for a larger theoretical conceptualisation of everyday interaction in post-conflict settings that you will present in your PhD thesis. There is a great deal to contribute when you leave the beaten path – stay headstrong in your approach. Relax. There is a lot of pressure that comes with academic research. As a PhD student there is no shortage of voices offering advice and telling you what is required of you to have an academic career. Everyone has an opinion on the publishing, presenting, teaching, and networking that you should be doing. You are trying to keep yourself active and involved in this academic world throughout your fieldwork. Try to tune out all this noise (or at least turn it down); there will still be opportunity for you when you get back to campus. ‘Fieldwork’ is a precious time and warrants being fully present in, especially when you want to humbly represent the people you are researching. Plus, you can keep your chin up, Past Eric – you eventually secure a s­ hortterm, precarious contract! Sincerely, Present Eric

References Adams, M., and S. Guy. 2007. Editorial: Senses and the city. Senses & Society 2: 133–136. Aoki, T.T. 1996. Imaginaries of “east and west”: Slippery curricular signifiers in education. Paper presented at the International Adult and Continuing Education Conference, May 1996. Available at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED401406. pdf. Accessed 17 July 2018. Bolton, G. 2010. Reflective practice: Writing and professional development, 3rd ed. London: Sage. Burgess, R.G. 1982. Early field experiences. In Field research: A sourcebook and field manual, ed. Robert Burgess, 22–27. London: Routledge. Clark, A., and N. Emmel. 2010. Realities toolkit #13: Using walking interviews. Available at: http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/1323/1/13-toolkit-walking-interviews. pdf. Accessed 5 April 2018. Cohen, L., and L. Manion. 1994. Research methods in education, 4th ed. London: Routledge. Creswell, J.W. 2003. Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, 2nd ed. London: Sage.

336  E. LEPP della Porta, D., and M. Keating. 2008. How many approaches in the social sciences? An epistemological introduction. In Approaches and methodologies in the social sciences, ed. D. della Porta and M. Keating, 19–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Emerson, R.M., R.I. Fretz, and L.L. Shaw. 1995. Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. London: University of Chicago Press. England, K.V.L. 1994. Getting personal: Reflexivity, positionality, and feminist research. The Professional Geographer 46 (1): 80–89. Evans, J., and P. Jones. 2011. The walking interview: Methodology, mobility and place. Applied Geography 31: 849–858. Finlay, L. 2002. “Outing” the researcher: The provenance, process, and practice of reflexivity. Qualitative Health Research 12 (4): 531–545. Gilligan, C. 2016. Northern Ireland: Over researched and misunderstood? Panel Presentation at Common Ground, 10 May. Available at: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Aa6BzvgpHmk. Accessed 17 July 2018. Hughes, J., and R. Loader. 2015. ‘Plugging the gap’: Shared education and the promotion of community relations through schools in Northern Ireland. British Educational ResearchJournal 41 (6): 1142–1155. Jowett, M., and G. O’Toole. 2006. Focusing researchers minds: Contrasting experiences using focus groups in feminist qualitative research. Qualitative Research 6 (4): 453–472. Kezar, A. 2002. Reconstructing static images of leadership: An application of positionality theory. Journal of Leadership Studies 8 (3): 94–109. King, N., and C. Horrocks. 2010. Interviews in qualitative research. London: Sage. McDonald, H. 2014. Racism in Northern Ireland: ‘They called our children monkeys’. The Guardian, 12 June. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/ uk-news/2014/jun/12/racism-northern-ireland-couple-tell-abuse-belfast. Accessed 21 October 2016. McVeigh, R. 2015. Racism and racist attitudes in Northern Ireland. Available at: https://www.community-relations.org.uk/publications/racism-and-racist-attitudes-ni. Accessed 4 April 2018. Moser, S. 2008. Personality: A new positionality? Area 40 (3): 383–392. Muhammad, M., et al. 2015. Reflection on researcher identity and power: The impact of positionality on community based participatory research (CBPR) processes and outcomes. Critical Sociology 41 (7–8): 1045–1063. NISRA—Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. 2011a. Ethnicity, identity, language and religion—Country of birth full detail. Available at: http://www. ninis2.nisra.gov.uk/Download/Census%202011_Excel/2011/QS206NI.xls. Accessed 17 September 2016. NISRA—Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. 2011b. Ethnicity, identity, language and religion—Ethnic group full detail. Available at: http://www.ninis2. nisra.gov.uk/Download/Census%202011_Excel/2011/QS201NI.xls. Accessed 17 September 2016. Russell, R. 2016. Election report: Northern Ireland Assembly election, 5 May 2016. Available at: http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/globalassets/documents/raise/publications/2016-2021/2016/general/3616.pdf. Accessed 24 February 2018. Samra, B., and A. Wos. 2014. Consumer in sports: Fan typology analysis. Journal of Intercultural Management 6 (4): 263–288.

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Ticketmaster. 2016. SSE Arena—Online seat selection, digital image. Available at: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/Belfast-Giants-tickets/artist/30107?list_view=1. Accessed 9 February 2016. Warren, S. 2017. Pluralising the walking interview: Researching (im)mobilities with Muslim women. Social and Cultural Geography 18 (6): 786–807. Whyte, J. 1991. Interpreting Northern Ireland. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

CHAPTER 23

Traversing Fieldwork with Imperfect Language Skills Simon Philpott

Getting Started It remains an open question as to whether one needs to speak the language (and with what fluency) of a country that one wishes to research. That is, to what extent can an academic claim to be an authority on a country, ethnic group, region or culture without speaking their language or languages? If the bulk of one’s interlocutors ‘in the field’ are fluent in the researcher’s language, are there implications for the data collected? How essential is fluency in the language of the host community for a fieldworker to be trusted, transition from outsider to insider, and receive access to potentially sensitive information? If insecurity, imposter syndrome, alienation, feeling out of place and alone are all functions of fieldwork experience then an absence of linguistic fluency only enhances such feelings. For Elin Sæther, the following remark was a source of insecurity and raised questions of integrity about her own research: Whereas Western universities, media, and government(s) would never regard anyone with a reading ability of ten pages an hour in English as qualified to speak with authority on British politics, a similar standard does not yet apply to China and Chinese politics. Here even those who are functionally illiterate in Chinese may become authorities. (Schoenhals cited in Sæther 2006)

S. Philpott (*)  Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_23

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Similarly, over the years I have heard plenty of waspish comments made by accomplished speakers of Indonesian about the validity of the findings of particular researchers because of their inability to speak, or lack of fluency in, Indonesian. Arguably, the degree to which a scholar requires linguistic competence depends on the nature of the research. For example, someone analysing a particular government’s mission to an international organisation where all the business undertaken and documentation produced are in English may have reasonable grounds for claiming that speaking the national language is not important and has no bearing on the quality of the findings. However, if the organisation under analysis was a secessionist movement where use of a particular language or dialect is politically charged, one may question the data produced by a scholar not versed in the language. My own journey into the field has been long, winding and intimately bound up with the acquisition of a second language: Indonesian. I completed a four-year degree in Indonesian language, politics and culture as a mature age student in Australia. My last year of formal study was 1992 at which time my facility in Indonesian enabled me to graduate with a First Class Honours degree. As a language student, I would take every opportunity to travel in Indonesia over summer breaks, yes, because I was interested in the country and enjoyed backpacking it, but also because it was a perfect opportunity to work on language skills through a month or so of immersion. It is important to keep trying to improve one’s language through every day engagement with ordinary people. Rarely do people speak as formally or accommodatingly as university lecturers and the audio technologies one uses to learn a language. During my summer travels, I met people who spoke quickly or who used a lot of slang (common in Indonesian) or spoke in dialects or accents that I struggled to understand. I quickly realised dedicated study did not unlock all the doors to everyday use of Indonesian. I came to appreciate that making mistakes, many mistakes, was not simply the source of great amusement to my interlocutors but an important part of learning. Indonesians are often curious about visitors and I recall engaging in conversation with a young man while riding a public bus in central Java. He asked me where I was from in Australia and about what the weather was like in the southern summer. I was up for the conversation and explained to him that summer was exceptionally hot and dry and went onto say that because of the heat and absence of rain semua rumput berubah menjadi kucing which is all the grass turns yellow. At least, that is what I thought I was saying. Having so eloquently explained the summer landscape back in southern Australia, my fellow passenger surprised me by looking at me oddly and seeking confirmation. Again, I explained the heat, dryness and rapid change of grass from lush and green to dry and yellow (kucing). The conversation ended and I realised something was wrong. I sat mulling over what I had just said and suddenly recalled yellow is not kucing, but kuning. What I had insisted to my interlocutor was that the heat and absence of rain turned the grass into cats! I suspect that even with the correct word the formulation does not make a great deal of sense as the translation is too literal but at the

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time we had a laugh about my mistake and my companion later disembarked with good reason to consider precisely what kind of grass I may have been talking about.

Taking Risks and Negotiating Alienation I rarely had an agenda or set plan but one summer I did spend a lot of time with young activists from the Universitas Islam Indonesia. This group lived in a small house in Yogyakarta and kept their heads down given the hostility of the Suharto regime to radical student activism but a small sign outside their dwelling that proclaimed hari ini turun, besok bebas that roughly translates as today down, tomorrow free was both provocation and aspiration. At that time, my language skills were stronger than they currently are and I enjoyed spending hours talking politics with the group who possibly distrusted me a little. They were open to my visits but not especially warm. It remains unclear to me whether some in the group simply saw me as wealthy and privileged (a remark made at least once) or whether the seeming coolness was because my lack of fluency rendered me unable to read the usual social signals. There would come a point most days where the effort of listening well, framing responses, and just talking left me spent and I would take my leave unable to contribute to conversation with the same facility as earlier. One such day, as I was about to depart, the students encouraged me to stay and, in fact, to travel with them to a village located in a poor part of central Java called Gunung Kidul. There was to be, that night, a teater rakyat (people’s theatre) performance exploring the problems of the particular village they planned to visit. I was already running on linguistic reserve tank but it sounded like too good an opportunity to pass up so I agreed to join them. It was a long enough journey on the bus and upon arrival, there was a lot of activity as the finishing touches were put to both dialogue and venue for the performance. By then, a variety of educational, theatre and political activists had spent several days in the village talking to people about their concerns, anxieties, hopes and aspirations and, with the input of the villagers, devising a performance that enabled the safe public disclosure of these matters. In authoritarian Indonesia of the time, it was difficult for poor villagers to openly criticise local or national officials. Among other concerns that emerged was a profound anger that the government had not delivered upon promised and paid for improvements to the electricity supply. The performance was partly allegorical, partly comic, but everyone present understood the allusive references. That irritation about unfulfilled promises formed such an important part of the teater rakyat dialogue that night confirmed for all present that they were not alone in their frustration and annoyance. I understood much of what was being conveyed even if not all the dialogue and promptly saw how potentially empowering performances like this could be for people ignored by government officials. They too were present and equally aware of the allusions to their failures.

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During the course of the late afternoon and evening, I met many people and they all pressed me on who I was and how I came to be there. My energy levels continued to decline but the evening was so stimulating, so memorable as to help me keep me functioning despite a wave of tiredness engulfing me. In retrospect, I recognise I experienced what Henk Driessen and Willy Jansen term ‘productive fatigue’. That is, I had adjusted my bodily needs and rhythms to ensure my presence when activists and performers created a moment of significance, facilitating openness and a retreat from social norms and the formal silence demanded by local elites (Driessen and Jansen 2013: 256–257). However, it was only after the performance that I learned that my friends planned to stay in the village for the night, there being no available transport so late in the evening. Perhaps they assumed that was an obvious necessity but I found myself with an unplanned overnight visit without a change of clothes or toiletries. Conversation of one kind and another continued until the small hours of the morning by which time I was utterly exhausted and was first to retire to the shared room in which some of us were sleeping. I slept well! Upon awakening, I found one of my room-mates looking at me and he immediately embarked upon a political outburst and sought comment from me. Still prone, barely awake, I found the intrusion into my personal space quite uncomfortable. I arose, saw off the conversation and immediately found someone with a scooter willing to drop me at the bus station. I left without further remark to my colleagues and returned to my lodgings in Yogyakarta, closed the door and spent some hours in my own company. The whole experience had been no more than 24 hours, hardly any time at all, but I felt completely wrung out. I recognised that I was not merely fatigued from battling in a language I was in the process of acquiring but that the near absence of privacy, of personal space, weighed upon me. Daniel Everett’s words are a good description of how I felt: …linguistic field research engages the entire person, not just his [sic] intellect. It requires of the researcher no less than that he [sic] insert himself [sic] into the foreign culture, in sensitive, often unpleasant surroundings, with a great likelihood of becoming alienated from the field situation by general inability to cope. The fieldworker’s body, mind, emotions, and especially his [sic] sense of self are all deeply strained by long periods in a new culture, with the strain directly proportionate to the difference between the new culture and his [sic] own culture. (Everett 2009: 17)

While I was not gathering data or undertaking fieldwork in any meaningful way, befriending the activists, meeting people in their networks and attending events such as the teater rakyat performance provided valuable, informal insights to people’s lives and helped me understand wider social and political contexts of Indonesia. However, with little previous experience of a country so different to my own, I had few self-affirming reference points and lacking fluency in Indonesian added to a sense of being uncomfortably out of place at times.

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A day or so later when I again visited the students they pointed out that my conduct was somewhat offensive as I had left the village quickly and without alerting anyone as to my plans. That is, one should not simply peel off from the group in Indonesia without explanation as some people find that abruptness quite rude. For my part, it was awkward explaining the feeling of being overwhelmed by tiredness and unable to maintain as many hours of engagement with people as they expected of me. My reasoning failed to convince them. In this instance, I was not engaged in formal fieldwork and so I lost nothing of value by mildly upsetting people. Perhaps even as a fluent speaker of Indonesian a day of that duration and of those pressures may have been wearying but the combination of working so hard in my second language and finding my sense of personal space so compromised turned fatigue into uncharacteristic behaviour. Now I realise that not only was I learning Indonesian through this and other encounters but learning Indonesia. I think Everett makes an important point in observing that it is the degree of difference and unfamiliarity between what one knows and is learning that determines the strain and sense of alienation a fieldworker may feel. As he puts it: ‘Consider the fieldworker’s dilemma: you are in a place where all you ever knew is hidden and muffled, where sights, sounds, and feelings all challenge your accustomed perception of life on earth’ (Everett 2009: 17). However, the teater rakyat opportunity was one that arose from what Clifford Geertz calls deep hanging out (see Geertz 1998). That is, I had spent a lot of time with the students, informally talking, winning small confidences and was rewarded with an unexpected opportunity to learn about Indonesia in a new way.

Losing Contact After completing my Honours degree, I planned to undertake fieldwork in Indonesia as part of my doctoral research but that did not eventuate. To this day, I am unsure as to why the Indonesian embassy in Canberra did not approve my visa application. It was neither rejected, nor granted and the terms of my Australian government research award were that I acquire necessary clearances before embarking upon fieldwork. While I have no evidence to support my suspicions, a period of student activism focused on Indonesian politics may have meant I was on an undesirables list that affected my chances of securing a visa. Finally, I adapted my research such that a prolonged visit to Indonesia became unnecessary. However, foregoing a year living and researching in Indonesia meant losing the opportunity to consolidate my language skills. Indeed, that wrinkle fundamentally changed the direction of my career. Subsequently, I drifted away from Indonesia focused research as I made a career in international politics studies concentrating on the study of popular culture, television, cinema, documentary film and visual culture more generally. I retained an interest in western popular culture’s depictions of Islam and Muslims but I stopped reading in, thinking in, and speaking Indonesian.

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This laxity on my part has come back with a ferocious bite as in recent years I have returned to an Indonesia focus in my research, visit the country frequently and work closely with a wide range of Indonesian interlocutors of different ages, genders, ethnic and educational backgrounds. While I never achieved anything like first language fluency, by the end of my formal studies of Indonesian, I was a competent speaker. Now I merely get along well enough and the more so if people respond positively when I say ‘speak to me like a child…keep it simple, explain it carefully and slowly’. At other times, I am plain lost as a recent example attending a meeting illustrates. Stepping clear of Ibu Nona’s modest home in the Muslim enclave colloquially known as Gaza, my Indonesian colleagues asked laughingly if I had enjoyed the hour-long meeting we had just concluded. Fieldwork for our project Screening Violence: A Transnational Study of Post-Conflict Imaginaries took us to different parts of Ambon City and neighbouring Seram where we followed up on preliminary contacts my Indonesian colleagues made through their research networks. One challenge of the project is to identify communities willing to work with us for up to three years watching a succession of films about conflict, violence and transition from other of the project’s research sites (Algeria, Argentina, Colombia and Northern Ireland). Waringin, to give Gaza its formal name, was of interest because it is a Muslim neighbourhood surrounded by Christian areas and had extensive experience of the communal problems that bedevilled Ambon for several years from 1999. Ibu Nona was the gatekeeper we had to negotiate with to establish if showing films in her community was plausible. Agreeing to participate in the research entails a significant commitment as we seek to engage with the same small audiences several times a year to watch and discuss films and, if people are willing, to discuss their experiences of conflict and transition from it. Our task was to share information about the research and its aims with Ibu Nona and gauge whether we could realistically work with the people of Waringin over the next three years. The meeting went well. At least, that is what my Indonesian research collaborators told me afterwards. For my own part, I had understood very little of what Ibu Nona said! Ibu Nona’s spoke incredibly quickly and in a mix of standard Indonesian, Ambonese and slang. The joke was very much on me among my Indonesian collaborators. It is in moments like these I wonder why I let my hard-earned Indonesian language skills slip so badly.

Strategies for Fieldwork with Imperfect Language Skills When embarking upon this research, I was aware that my linguistic capabilities fell short of other of my colleagues who are fluent in at least one of the languages of our other primary research sites. It is a source of insecurity about my bona fides as a researcher able to make a valuable contribution to

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the project. As Elin Sæther notes, it is never entirely clear how much capacity in the language of one’s field site is adequate if one seeks to make authoritative claims. For her, it is an ongoing negotiation with one’s confidence and interlocutors (see Sæther 2006). We addressed the problem by incorporating a budget for a research assistant who could work with me during my stints in the field in Indonesia. The research assistant has other duties too not least of which is assisting with the carriage and setting up of the equipment we need to undertake the film showings in a range of venues. To date, we have shown films in university lecture theatres, in church offices, in a shared community space, and on the verandah of the home of one of our interlocutors. None is ideal for film showings and so we travel from place to place with a digital projector, a projection screen, metres of cords and large parcels of heavy blackout paper to darken usually overly light rooms. It is a significant effort carrying and setting up for a film showing and normally entails an hour or so of preparation. However, at times it is a valuable opportunity to informally talk with hosts and those planning to attend the film screening. The real work for my research assistant begins once the film is complete and we embark upon conversations with our participants. We are interested in how participant perceptions of conflict and transition develop during a sustained engagement with fictional and documentary accounts of conflict from each of the other locations in which we are working. There are two key assumptions that inform the project. The first asserts that all conflicts have specifically local dimensions and narratives and that apprehending local contexts, meanings and narratives is essential to an informed account of any conflict. Local is a term often used but little appreciated and we seek to give substance to the concept of local through the research. Our second working assumption is that social imaginaries inform local understandings of conflict, self, other, transitions, past, present and possible futures. Along with ‘the local’, scholars frequently make reference to the social imaginary but we seek a grounded, empirically informed account of the social imaginary better to understand what the concept enables us to see and what it may prevent us from seeing. Working with the same audiences over time means that in the discussions that follow on from the film showings we are not only interested in how people respond to the films, but also how their commentary about different forms of conflict may develop over time. The ways in which learned imaginaries of conflict inform the views of an audience or the individuals that comprise it is the primary focus of the research. We seek not to foster reconciliation and nor do we necessarily anticipate that the views of people will change simply because they have engaged in a sustained viewing of and discussion of films concerning conflicts often little known to audiences in Indonesia. However, if one is to hear the nuance in discussion about conflict and transition, one requires fluency in Indonesian that I no longer have. A simple example illustrates the point. Responding to issues raised in the Colombian

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documentary Falsos Positivos, a student millennial in Yogyakarta described Colombian activists fighting against a right-wing government and associated paramilitaries as ‘separatists’. This categorisation addresses one aspect of Indonesia’s history of violence as many conflicts have entailed groups seeking to separate from the Indonesian republic for political, religious or ethnic reasons. However, there is no sense in which the various factions and combatants in Colombia are attempting to secede. The student made the remark in English and so it instantly registered with me. However, Indonesian is the language of most other post-film discussions, and I am acutely aware of how much of potential significance I miss in the moment. The student’s remark is also a reminder of how language codes, reveals, hides, distorts and clarifies particular experiences. In Indonesia, the entire lexicon of the left remains politically sensitive given the rout of communism and its fellow travellers of trade unionism, militant student, women’s and agricultural labour organisations. Any reference to the masses or mass politics or the presence of political demonstrations will still provoke unease in some people. During the Suharto years, simple terms such as tata (order), tertib (orderly), aman (safe/ secure) and keamanan (security) became highly politicised, even ominous(see Pemberton 1994: 15). Indeed, New Order references to partai politik (political parties) were routinely negative because ‘…the word politik is marked by a sinister tonality acquired after the political killings of the mid-1960s…’ (Pemberton 1994: 4). How particular terms affect and are used by specific individuals and groups is extremely difficult to fathom in the best of circumstances and more so for a researcher with imperfect language. However, it does highlight, irrespective of fluency, the importance of a thoroughgoing knowledge of the political environment one seeks to enter and study. One way I seek to overcome not understanding potentially important remarks is to have the research assistant at my side whispering a simultaneous translation into my ear. Of course, this is not a word for word translation and so it remains possible that my translator does not pick up all remarks of potential interest but it is largely a satisfactory solution that enables me to respond to interlocutors. We also take close notes of discussions. The notes are not a verbatim account of commentary about the film and other matters: in groups of sometimes twenty people or more, it is not feasible to capture every word spoken in notes. One could argue ameliorating the cost my lack of fluency imposes on the project by audio recording our discussions for later transcription. However, the conditions in which we work make it near impossible to record discussion to a level of quality that enables satisfactory transcription. In an earlier focus group-based research project, I did record participants to enable a professional service to transcribe from audio to text. To achieve audio recording of sufficient quality meant equipping venues with a microphone for each participant and the presence of technicians to set up, monitor the functioning of the equipment, and ensure that we were indeed capturing a high-quality audio recording

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of discussions. That in itself was a complex operation and entailed use of a great deal of equipment and cabling. Other factors also informed choice of venues. The research demanded that participants be in familiar venues where they felt safe to disclose, at times, uncomfortable personal information and opinions. While satisfying that demand was a key driver in selecting focus group sites, I also had to consider issues such as proximity to traffic, whether the background hum of air conditioning units and other ambient sound would affect audio quality. The transcription service also advised of the importance of minimising people speaking simultaneously or over each other to facilitate identification of speakers in, occasionally, impassioned discussions of sensitive social and political issues. Even under almost ideal conditions, there were still gaps in the transcription of the audio as participants, mumbled, stumbled, spoke over other participants or because of the intrusion of external sound. In Indonesia, we have little control over the venues at which we show and discuss films. We cannot anticipate how readily an unseen venue will lend itself to first-rate audio recording of proceedings. Moreover, it is simply unrealistic and unaffordable to transport and set up audio recording equipment to capture the spoken interventions of a number of participants we also cannot accurately predict. It is also possible that the presence of highly visible audio equipment that participants must actively engage influences what they are prepared to share. As ethnographic film-makers such as Jean Rouch and Joshua Oppenheimer argue, the presence of a camera necessarily means the subjects of a film engage in a performance that transforms the matters documented in the film. While this does not imply the tarnishing of the events and issues captured on film (not least because in performance people may so or do something unexpected), it does mean the recording of a cine-truth (cinema vérité). Indeed, the presence of a camera complicates simultaneous translation in my research venture. Part of the project output will be documentary films from each of the sites and at each film showing there is a small crew ­video-recording audience responses and discussion. One of the golden rules of film-making is ensuring superior audio: viewers forgive imperfect visual presentation but poor audio is off-putting and deters engagement with film content. As such, given the sensitivity of the microphones the film crew use, I am highly conscious of loudly whispered translations forming an unwanted part of the film’s audio. Depending on ambient sound and my proximity to those speaking, I at times forego the simultaneous translation to ensure we capture potentially valuable disclosures and comment to be the best standard circumstances permit. In just such a moment, my colleagues later made me aware that I missed a participant disclosing a particularly painful personal history to her peers for the first time. My Indonesian co-investigators acknowledged the courage entailed in making the disclosure and so my linguistic inadequacies caused no offence. Indeed, in my experience my interlocutors are highly tolerant of my faltering Indonesian and generously reward my efforts to converse in Indonesian.

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Not always being able to keep up with proceedings does though open up the possibility of other forms of engagement. I find myself watching audiences more closely than I might otherwise, looking for visual cues as to how they are responding to a particular film. I note changing facial expressions, what people do with their hands, whether people are whispering to each other, or seem absorbed to the point of intense focus on the film. For example, during pilot work for the project, I showed Alan Clark’s Elephant, a particularly harrowing film about The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and quickly noticed audience members putting their hands to their faces, resting palms flat against cheeks or, with hands clasped as if in Christian prayer, covering their mouths. If I am unable to follow a conversation about a film or the way an audience member relates film content to local issues and experiences, I make a point of trying to feel the mood of others in the room. Are people nodding in agreement? Do they seem disturbed or anxious about the commentary? Are people fidgeting in discomfort? Are members of the audiences looking at each other or avoiding one another’s gaze? I am quite certain that if I were fluently following discussion I would not engage other senses to the same degree in trying to get a feel for the mood of project participants. If circumstances permit, I make notes while audiences are watching a film, attempting to form a view of how engaged they are with the film, on which sections of the film may provoke responses, points of disengagement or seeming irritation. After each film showing, I take the first opportunity to sit and write up these impressions and of discussion, noting who was vocal and who was not, and what, if any, were the recurrent themes and motifs. My shortcomings as a field researcher make it imperative that I well brief my Indonesian colleagues and research assistant. While I cannot anticipate how audiences will respond to a particular film or the direction or tenor of a discussion of the film and how it may (or not) relate to local experiences of violence, my Indonesian collaborators are familiar with the research objectives and alert to the emergence of particular themes and responses. However, there is no denying that my lack of fluency makes me dependent upon the goodwill of others. For example, my Indonesian academic collaborators have generously introduced me to a group of older women (primarily) who are survivors of the cataclysmic political violence of mid-1960s Indonesia. Now of advancing years but finally able to openly discuss their experiences, the group has welcomed me into its midst and permitted us to show films. I hope to be able to work closely with a small number of the women, visit them at home and seek their agreement to participate in documentary filming of their everyday lives as they share opinions about their own experiences and their views of the films about other conflicts. It would be disrespectful of me to initiate contact with the women directly given the great care taken to ensure their welfare by my Indonesian colleagues. It is a moot point anyway as I am not quite able to converse with sufficient fluency to facilitate easy communication. I have something of a set-piece description of the project that I can

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deliver in quite reasonable Indonesian (indeed, upon meeting the group for the first time, one of the women complimented me on my fluency). Similarly, when briefly introducing a film, I know what I want to say about it and have rehearsed the issues I wish to highlight prior to speaking. That creates an expectation that my ability to embark upon spontaneous discussion is greater than it is with the inevitable outcomes once I am engaged in regular conversation. I also recognise the need to make an additional effort to ensure that I have understood commitments I may have made when not all of the detail may have come across to me. Keeping commitments made in fieldwork settings is always essential but in a project working with people who have experienced trauma and who are courageously opening a door onto it, keeping promises is a matter of trust. While the particular circumstances of working with groups and in research networks developed by my Indonesian colleagues dictate it anyway, it also means I am obliged to wait for others to make and communicate arrangements to me. Fieldwork often requires that one be patient while potential interlocutors form an assessment of one’s character, project and calculate the costs and benefits of engaging. The fieldworker must earn, not expect as right, trust and confidence and this can mean that at times progress in the field is very slow going. It is, in my experience, even more the case when one is linguistically functionally dependent upon others. Moreover, it is not only the people one potentially wants to work with that are busy, academic collaborators and research assistants are also often juggling multiple demands upon their time of which advancing a cherished research project is but one. As much as my research project and fieldwork are a priority for me, I constantly remind myself that it is not necessarily the case for those so generously providing their time, guidance and support. Of course, that may mean waiting around for things to happen.

Hanging in There Whatever my shortcomings as a fieldworker, I have always been upbeat about my ability to communicate effectively with students and colleagues. That is, personal confidence issues notwithstanding, I am comfortable talking to people, sharing ideas and engaging in conversation. I find not being able to speak freely with people can lead to more isolation than is desirable in fieldwork downtime. Occasionally, I find myself reluctant to leave my accommodation not out of any sense of personal insecurity but because the opportunity to engage with strangers while, for example, sharing a bench at street food stall, is limited by my linguistic facility. I can securely do all the standard, basic things such as explain who I am, why I am in Indonesia, whether I am married and how many children I have, but more complicated questioning or topics of discussion means I flounder. In some ways, it is the fact that I can get by relatively well that raises expectations among interlocutors. Indeed, my inability to take full advantage of ‘small talk’, chat, gossip, joking (even though

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occasionally I can raise a chuckle not simply based on my bad Indonesian), and meaningfully ‘hang around’ hampers the development of confidence, trust and personal ties with potential interlocutors. As Driessen and Jansen observe: [u]sing interpreters in fact means being completely cut off from the benefits of participation in small talk exchanges, apart from being entirely dependent on the willingness and ability of a mediator to translate statements in as precise and detailed a fashion as possible. (Driessen and Jansen 2013: 252)

It is in small talk that interlocutors may disclose important information about themselves but that will often require a good grasp of local slang and idioms to fully appreciate (Driessen and Jansen 2013: 251). In my experience, it is after film showings and formal discussions that particular participants seek me out to expand upon a comment made or simply to chat. I recognise that I would lose valuable disclosure but for the presence of a research assistant helping me with translation. However, I also make conversation more difficult than it needs to be. Sometimes I watch subtitled English language movies in the evenings as a way of improving my vocabulary (but not my listening skills) and I am often struck by how the formal grammar I learned impedes my ability to more simply frame sentences and phrases. For example, watching a film one evening, one of the characters said ‘damn it, the power has gone off’ as the room he was sharing with another fell into darkness. Putting aside the gentle curse, the direct translation is something like listrik sudah padam. However, the subtitling was simply lampu mati or ‘lights off’ or ‘lights out’. I remind myself constantly to seek simpler formulations for the things I want to say precisely as I would in English. Despite my struggles with Indonesian, I greatly value the opportunities I have to work with Indonesian academic collaborators and with people willing to watch films, discuss them and share of their own experience. I am in no doubt as to the immense privilege, and responsibility, being able to undertake such research confers upon me. Is it complicated by my lack of linguistic facility? Certainly. Everyone involved in the project has to work harder and make allowances because I am linguistically dependent upon others. However, I am aware that people who are participating in the project are forgiving of my shortcomings in part because they know I have formally learned the language and continue to work at improving my skills. Ultimately, that is all I can now do: keep working to enhance my comprehension and speaking skills. It is frustrating to have once had a higher degree of competence than I do now. It is a bit like walking around a familiar room in the dark. One knows where everything is but stumbles and stubs toes anyway. To develop my Indonesian, I have gotten old undergraduate textbooks off the shelf. I watch and listen to Indonesian news on YouTube and try to spend some time every day reading something in Indonesian. I make use of online language practice sites (but have found nothing that works satisfactorily yet). For a while, I spent two hours a week with a native speaker and this is probably the most effective

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work I have done to date (but was quite expensive). I am fortunate to have studied not just Indonesian language but the history, politics and society of the country. The knowledge acquired and that I continue to acquire does not replace linguistic competence but I do feel as though wider familiarity with Indonesian life helps me with broader contextual understanding of the matters raised through the film showings.

References Driessen, H., and W. Jansen. 2013. The hard work of small talk in ethnographic fieldwork. Journal of Anthropological Research 69 (2): 249–263. Everett, D.L. 2009. Don’t sleep, there are snakes: Life and language in the Amazonian jungle. London: Profile. Geertz, C. 1998. Deep hanging out. The New York Review of Books, October 22. Pemberton, J. 1994. On the subject of ‘Java’. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Sæther, E. 2006. Fieldwork as coping and learning. In Doing fieldwork in China, ed. M. Heimer and S. Thøgersen. Copenhagen: NIAS Press.

CHAPTER 24

Confessions of a Local Researcher Nemanja Džuverović

As a researcher in Peace and Conflict Studies, and coming from a ­post-conflict region, my research takes place on two parallel tracks. On one side, I am conducting research in the fields of peace and peacebuilding. As it might be expected, I am, in Chakrabarty’s (1992: 17) words, ‘positively unoriginal’ and my research focus is on the region where I live (the Balkans) and peacebuilding and statebuilding processes in this part of the world with a heavy critique of the involvement of external actors and their imposition of the liberal peace. I mostly publish in academic outlets (such as the journal Peacebuilding) that are sensitive to imperfect local knowledge and ‘good enough’ methodologies (Firchow and Mac Ginty 2017). My attempts to publish in mainstream International Relations journals are often described by the reviewers as risky since the author (myself in this case) ‘engages in acts of essentialisation that he also claim to be critical of, merely through the set-up of the paper and the type of arguments this enables’ (Reviewer comments). Many of them are not published or go to the second round of reviews. At the same time, I am acting as an object of research for those researchers who are interested in recent Balkan history. The region experienced numerous conflicts in the period 1991–2001 (often called the wars for Yugoslav Legacy), and it has been one of the main playgrounds for international actors in their efforts to implement a liberal peace agenda. Understandably, the experience of the Yugoslav wars has attracted the attention of many researchers (with most of them coming from Western academia) who offered various interpretations of the conflicts and their causes, ranging from complex and multifaceted explanations to a simplified balkanization-type description of the N. Džuverović (*)  Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_24

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past events (see Todorova 2009). My role in this process is twofold. Firstly, my research findings are used by other researchers who are interested in contextual knowledge about the Balkans (Džuverović 2019). More importantly, my positionality of being Balkan researcher who writes about the Balkans often puts me in a situation of being researched as a local representative who is able to provide a somewhat different interpretation of the past events. This paper is dedicated to my experiences as an object of research and my positionality (or lack of it) during this process.

The Local as an Object of Research This chapter should be read as the personal experiences of a local researcher coming from a conflict-affected region. I do not claim any universality of my experience, though many local researchers from other parts of the world would probably identify with some aspects elaborated below. The chapter is a personal story of a local researcher who is in many respects hybrid, well connected with international peace and conflict community but at the same time grounded in the local context. Understanding the Local One of the most striking feelings of someone who is living and working in a post-conflict region is how little effort researchers from the Global North (hereinafter: researchers) make in trying to understand the problems of inhabitants of societies they are investigating. The lack of understanding is very frustrating since the ‘local turn’ (Mac Ginty and Richmond 2013) in peace studies has been encapsulated with non-stop talk about the need for a more empathetic and solidaristic approach (Richmond and Mac Ginty 2015). The reality is that researchers and the locals are ‘worlds apart’ (Milanović 2007). Researchers see us as a commodity that is useful for their academic progress and groundbreaking findings including concepts of resilience (Chandler 2014), reflexivity or critical consciousness that, to be honest, do not mean much and often do not have any impact on the life in post-conflict societies. However, these findings are shown as a result of international-local cooperation wherein they are just post festum reflections of someone who is well protected by his academic cocoon and not concerned with the everyday survival of the local. What frustrates me the most is that the problems we keep emphasizing as the most pressing are often neglected by researchers since they seem meaningless or too ordinary for a romantic defence of the local. If, for some reason, they do accept the importance of these problems, the immediate response is a ‘white man’s burden’ self-defence (Kipling 1899). The illustration of these claims would be my own experience from one of the International Studies Association conventions where I was presenting a paper on the everyday problems of local researchers (Džuverović 2018). What came as a response from a well-established peace researcher was not any sign

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of empathy but a long speech of how these problems are more common than I think and how they affect everyone in more or less the same manner. This was the worst thing you could say to someone who is coming from a post-conflict region. While I do recognize and appreciate the severity of problems Western academia is facing at the moment, they cannot be regarded as being equal to the difficulties faced by researchers coming from war-stricken environments. They complain about cuts in multimillion-research projects while we talk about desk chairs or second-hand office computers. It is not the same. It is worth putting my experience in a wider context though. On several occasions when I was talking about this issue, colleagues from Africa and Asia told me that my ‘whiteness’ prevents me from understanding the true scale of the problems. I always considered my country and region as part of the ‘European super-periphery’ (Bartlett 2009: 21) or ‘the periphery of the periphery’ (Bechev 2012: 1). However, it was rightfully pointed out to me that my problems start only after someone checks my passport, while researchers from the Global South (hereinafter local researchers or the locals) expect trouble from a distance. I believe this point is very important but also very much off the radar in our field of study. Race and accompanying citizenship are crucial factors in conducting field research (see Macaspac 2017). Othering and Inferiority In communication with researchers from the Global North, I often notice how hard it is for them to accept some aspects of our interpretations of conflicts that have occurred. The issue I am talking about here is not the lack of knowledge about the region and the past events, but the difficulties of matching categories and analytical frames used by us with their predetermined analytical frames. In the case of the Balkans, complicated i­nter-ethnic relations and rich histories provide a lot of nuances that can be hard for outsiders to grasp. Often these historical palimpsests are regarded impenetrable. The story of conflicts in Croatia (1991–1995) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995) involving three ethnic communities (Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs), three religions (Catholic, Islam and Orthodox), one language ­(Serbo-Croatian) but two letters (Alphabet and Cyrillic), one civil and two world wars and two colonial empires (Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires) show how hard it is to make linear conflict analyses that would fit most conflict resolution models. As a result, primordial arguments such as ancient hatreds (Kaplan 1994) are put on the table as a possible explanation of violence although very few, if any, local researchers agree with this interpretation. It seems that the main problem for researchers to understand and, more importantly accept, is that Western and non-Western societies are not s­ imilar. If not able to accept a different perspective or narrative as a plausible explanation, the outside researcher risks falling into the trap of othering, one way

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or another. I can explain this through personal experience. My research on statebuilding in the Balkans has led me to the conclusion that the legacy of socialism and the command economy could be very useful in combating the negative effects of neoliberal statebuilding in the region today. This especially applies to the education, welfare and public health sectors where the adverse effects are most visible (Pugh 2005). However, my proposals on these issues are usually followed by disbelief or a shrugging of the shoulders by Western researchers who have a hard time understanding that someone is proposing such anachronism in today’s liberal setting. Most often disbelief turns into disapproval or silent treatment. Over time, I realized this is not an offensive practice but rather a sign of researchers’ fear of going into unknown and unfamiliar terrain. If one wants to research in post-conflict and ­conflict-affected societies, unknown phenomena should always be considered as different and not in any way strange. Sectarian segregation in cities like Mostar or Vukovar, bridge watchers in Kosovska Mitrovica or Belgrade’s public exhibitions of victims from the Kosovo conflict are expressions of the multifaceted and multilayered context of the region. They are not a sign of the backwardness or lack of European values (whatever those might be). If unable to accept the reality of a post-conflict setting, the researcher would have a tough time conducting fieldwork. As Mac Ginty (2011) continually points out, you should never romanticize the local. As researchers often fall into the trap of othering, the locals (me included) are prone to an inferiority complex. This means that we often do not agree with the assumptions or the findings of researchers from the Global North, but we do not contradict them since they are established names in the field and often have impressive publication records. I am not sure if this should be attributed to the patriarchal culture in which we grew up or a plain lack of confidence, but for sure this complex leaves us speechless at times when we should raise a voice. I have caught myself many times during conference panels or public talks disapproving of what speakers say. However, I have rarely stood up and raised my concerns about the points made by the ‘esteemed colleague from a prestigious university’. In the same vein, I have been interviewed several times by Peace and Conflict researchers, but have been cautious in responding to the researchers’ analyses, and have never raised the issue of whether they are asking the right question. I am confident that my example is not the only one. Many local researchers act in a similar way. To a large extent, it is because of this behaviour that the debate on the liberal peace has remained under the ownership of international researchers and why efforts to globalize International Relations (Acharya 2014; Buzan and Acharya 2007) have, to a large extent, been an empty shell. In addition, as the reader of this text will probably realize, language represents a big problem in transmitting the message. Some local researchers have perfect English due to their educational background at US or UK universities. However, most of them have picked up language skills along the way and

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do not possess or do not feel confident enough to talk about a serious topic in a language that is not their mother tongue. If, in his fieldwork, an outside researcher uses a ‘Bourdieu type of English dictionary’, locals would often shy away and give generic answers instead of providing personal interpretations. It is precisely because of language insecurities (and the neoliberal conditions in academic publishing) that local researchers publish in local journals, thus keeping many transcripts and narratives undiscovered to a wider audience. Finally, it should be said that the story of an inferiority complex contradicts the criticism of othering. How are researchers supposed to know if they are making the wrong assumption about the conflict if the locals do not point out this fact to them? To be honest, there is no clear answer to this question. I believe it is a matter of constant evaluation and revaluation of researchers’ work, coupled with a better understanding of how the locals navigate through the issues of dominance and subordination. The bonds the researcher makes with the locals tend to be very strong, but it takes much time for these emotional ties to be established. Emotions and Labels Stigma and stigmatization (Adler-Nissen 2014) have been one of the main features of analyses of post-conflicts societies, especially the Balkans. This process has been directed towards individuals (Lugano 2017) but also against groups and entire ethnic communities (Hansen 2006). Accordingly, the emotional attachment (Lemay-Hébert and Kappler 2016) of local researchers is of considerable significance in any fieldwork. We tend to value more the work of a researcher who provides a balanced understanding of past events and the actors involved. In the Balkans, this especially applies to Serbia (and myself) since our country is recognized as being most responsible for the crimes committed during the conflicts. In this respect, the researcher who tries to engage with the local by posing ‘Who is to blame?’ or ‘Is there a need to face the past?’ questions usually stumbles upon a wall of silence. In a recent online debate about academic terminology, I supported the stand of one of the editors of this book not because of the argumentation he was making (I really did not care about the debate) but because of our past collaboration and, more importantly, his nuanced views on the conflicts in the Balkans. I felt that the support he provided to me over many years deserved the same treatment on my side whatever issue might be. The point I am trying to make here is that you should treat locals not as an object of research but as a peer that you genuinely care about. If you do that you might get to access a much richer view of the context. If not, maybe you should employ methods other than fieldwork in your research. The second issue I would like to raise here is the constant need of researchers to label everything and everyone during their fieldwork. The problem with this is, as Lister points out, ‘how we name things, affects how we behave

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towards them. A name, or a label, carries with it the expectation’ (2004: 103). This implies that local researchers are usually labelled after the initial meeting or an interview, with their positionality being fixed by the researcher who is conducting the fieldwork. In my case, answers I give on the questions about Kosovo, cooperation with International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and reconciliation, are usually those that determine the stand of the researcher on my point of view. Accordingly, I am labelled as ‘too ambivalent’, ‘Euro-skeptic’, ‘nationalistic’, ‘anational’, ‘not ready to accept the responsibility’, etc. Once my positionality is firmly fixed in the eyes of a researcher, all future inquires revolve around these issues with researchers’ intent on getting further confirmation of their initial assessment. The reality is that we do not want to be labelled. Also, the labels we get sometimes do not mean anything in our context; they are imported from another (academic) setting to fit us into a social order other than ours. They also set the validity of the argumentation we are making—if a researcher positively values the label attributed to us, he will more likely accept the point we are trying to make. The same goes in the opposite direction—negative labelling discourages researchers to accept the findings of the locals with the attention they deserve. Ethics When it comes to fieldwork in Peace and Conflict Studies, ethical issues represent one of the most significant concerns (Smyth and Robinson 2001). There is much talk about how to behave in this context, how to conduct your research properly and how to protect yourself while doing research (Wood 2006). Recent examples of a University of Toronto student being arrested while doing his fieldwork in Tajikistan or a Cambridge University student being killed while conducting his research in Egypt prove that this is an important topic that needs to be addressed. Accordingly, leading universities have introduced detailed and well-planned procedures for conducting fieldwork in post-conflict and conflict-affected environments with final approval needed from ethical committees and similar university bodies. However, what is missing in all this is more consideration on how to protect the locals from the research. What do I mean by this? Researchers are often ready to push the limits to get meaningful findings for their research. In a way, this makes sense. Fieldwork is an expensive endeavour; it takes much time to design research and to get all the approvals; and ultimately, if you are PhD student or early career researcher, your academic career depends on the findings and subsequent dissertation or publications. At the same time, researchers tend to forget that their research involves other people who are not protected and do not have the same institutional support that they do. These people need to continue living their lives after the researcher finishes with the fieldwork and that is sometimes difficult. In 2017, I was, with my graduate students, part of a group doing fieldwork in Albania and North Macedonia. This was

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part of a research project initiated and funded by a well-established Western university. As part of our activities, researchers from this university sent us to a Macedonian village to conduct a short ethnographic interview in a local language. It was only after interviewing was over that I found out that the village was one of the strongholds of the Kosovo Liberation Army during conflicts in Kosovo (1998–1999) and North Macedonia (2001). Being from Serbia and conducting interviews in Serbian in populated Albanian village with ex-combatants still residing there put in grave danger not only myself and my students but also local villagers who spoke with us and who probably experienced harassment after our departure. After I made clear my disquiet to the outside researchers, the response we received from them was that they acted in good faith and with best intentions. To top it all (as we would find out later on), the entire fieldwork was designed as a concealed effort to reconcile Albanians and Serbs. The aggravating part was that the researchers thought we need reconciling in the first place and that they were the ones who should do it, in secret no less. I am quite confident this procedure could not be found in any guidebook on how to conduct proper fieldwork. This example shows the picture where ethical considerations are intended mostly for the outside researcher and the institution he is coming from. The habitus of neoliberal academia puts a lot of pressure on these institutions to protect their students and researchers since any mishap could lead to financial liabilities. Designing strict rules and procedures for fieldwork in ­ conflict-affected or sensitive environments is to be welcomed, but this approach must also include the locals who are often put in a dangerous position by accepting to be part of the research. Every researcher should always have in mind that his research may affect the lives of others and he should stop if this happens. Crucial in all of this are power relations. Economic advantages often give outside researchers a series of other advantages in terms of the ability to initiate, design, fund, sub-contract and direct research. Fundamentally, outside researchers also have the power to leave once the research has been completed.

How to Approach a Local In his work as an ethnographic peace researcher from Global South and, at the same time, fixer for researchers from the Global North, Macaspac talks about the concept of double suspicion. He describes this concept as ‘processes through which local researchers encounter suspicion simultaneously from the local communities they work with, who tend to be suspicious of Western perspectives about the Global South, on the one hand, and from the community of scholars in the Global North who perceive a lack of scholarly distance from local researchers who conduct research in their home countries’ (2017: 5). This is an excellent description of how a local feels like as an object of research. On the one hand, he is constantly evaluated by the researcher who is conducting the fieldwork. On the other, his immediate surroundings

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and community are keeping a close eye on him and the narrative he provides to outsiders. The local is bound by his academic integrity and professional ethics to provide as much details as possible so that accounts of what happened, who did what or was involved are fully assessed and understood. Simultaneously, he feels loyalty or at least has the sense of belonging to a community where he works and lives. It is because of this double suspicion principle that local researchers are in a constant state of anxiety, trying to find a way to navigate between professional commitment and community identity. In this dilemma, it is the job of a researcher who is conducting the fieldwork to approach local researcher in a way that will transcend these issues. How does he do that? Patience is the first factor. This suggests that the researcher invests time to explain what he is doing and why he is doing it. It should be portrayed as something done not for academic purposes only but also because of a genuine interest in a subject. The locals are living the experience the researcher is trying to comprehend. Although it might be fieldwork for one, it is often a matter of everyday life for the other person. In this respect, it is essential not only to ask about the opinions of locals but also to make enquiries about the process of forming the opinions. The locals have many dilemmas and cannot always provide the clear-cut answer researchers might be looking for. The researcher should be clear and honest that he is looking for answers but that he is also interested in stories behind the scene. In Peace and Conflict Studies, a lot has been written about the hidden transcript (Scott 1992) and its importance in understanding the context in post-conflict societies. What is not mentioned is that this transcript is a process rather than an explanation. It is by constant interactions with the locals that the transcript is discovered, not by looking at the answers provided during interviews. This process involves many, seemingly unnecessary, meetings, listening to gossip, and indulging local’s wish for joint public appearances, drinking alcohol together or giving them a hand with tasks. However, all this is worth the effort. Empathy is always very important. The researcher should always try to understand the problems locals are facing. As meaningless as they might seem to him, they could represent an insurmountable obstacle for those he is speaking with. This does not revolve only around money, although it is usually assumed this is the case, but could be related to personal issues, politics, economy or everyday hurdles they are confronted with. The context in which fieldwork is situated could be dramatically different from the one researcher is coming from, especially since most of the fieldwork in Peace and Conflict Studies is done by Global North researchers in the Global South, which is something that should always be remembered. However, the locals rarely expect researchers to solve their problems nor do they usually expect some compensation for the participation in fieldwork, although this might sometimes be the case. A genuine interest in their lives and compassion is what makes the bond between the researcher and the locals. If this bond is created, locals will allow access to knowledge that is restricted to most outsiders.

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Offering assistance is helpful, but only if the outside researcher is willing to help and, more importantly, if he is able to help. Since most of the fieldwork is done by researchers from the Global North, resources available for them, however modest they might seem, greatly outnumber resources at the disposal to the locals. The grim reality of fieldwork in Peace and Conflict Studies is that it reflects and reinforces North–South divisions. Assistance of this kind is not of great material value, but it can be significant for the person in question. Medicine for a family member, an invitation letter required for visa approval or a copy of researcher’s book could prove to be very helpful in showing the investment the outside researcher is making in his relationship with the local. In the Balkans, these gestures are usually described as ‘tokens of appreciation’. Other regions have their name for it. This point could be particularly sensitive for Western researchers due to fears of possible corruption. This is amplified by the fact that work is done in a post-conflict setting where these kinds of acts could have detrimental effects (Divljak and Pugh 2008). However, contextual knowledge of the region or a country where the fieldwork is taking place could give another perspective. This contextual knowledge might understand nuanced differences between socially acceptable and forbidden practices and where Western understandings on these issues are not always of much help. Finally, the vital factor in approaching the local is the researcher’s cultural humility. Often researcher is coming from the country that was directly involved in a conflict where fieldwork is taking place. This could lead to ‘grievance transfer’ from a country to a researcher. In cases like this, the outside researcher should always be very clear that the fact that he possesses citizenship of a particular country does not prevent him in any way approaching an issue with an open mind and without prejudices. It should be clear that his patriotic sentiment does not influence the validity of fieldwork in any way. Cultural humility does not stop here. It assumes many little things like knowing basic words and greetings in a local language, readiness to dance awkward traditional dances, a willingness to try local cuisine and delicacies even if you are vegetarian, vegan or just do not like how food looks like, or coming to family gatherings so that the local could show off with his international connections. These and many others trivial gestures could prove to be important since they show the researcher’s willingness to emerge himself in the everyday practices of the locals. Ultimately, it is up to a researcher how he will approach the local. The tools presented here represent a small number of possible choices. The context will vary significantly depending on the region. In some instances, a material aspect is prevalent while in others emotional bonds are much appreciated. Personal connections and previous contacts with the region could be helpful but could also prevent the researcher from seeing the bigger picture from the one offered by his acquaintances or by perspectives formed by previous visits to the site. As other chapters in this books show, fieldwork is a complex endeavour that depends on numerous factors. The ones presented here are of someone who is observing researchers from the other side of the fieldwork table.

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Conclusion As the title suggests, the aim of this paper is to offer the perspective of a local researcher on the fieldwork and his positionality in this process. There should be no doubt about the subjectivity of the locals. The stories researchers are interested in are personal; they involve loss of family members or relatives, destruction of personal property, betrayal, broken relationships, trauma and everything that goes with bitter inter-communal fighting. Reminiscence of past events is mixed with present-day frustrations and grievances and gives, one way or another, distorted picture of what happened. This distortion is to be expected and impossible to avoid. However, by listening to different stories, the outside researcher can assemble his own picture about past events and create the narrative he believes is the best one to explain the conflict and post-conflict reality. This is why he embarked on the fieldwork in the first place. Explanations and narrative about the same conflict can vary tremendously. The variation depends on the researcher’s positionality, people he is talking with, place and time of fieldwork and many other factors. What is in common to all of them is constant interaction with people who have experienced a conflict. Accordingly, regardless of the findings he will reach and the narrative he will provide, the researcher should always remind himself that the work he is doing is affecting other people. This chapter discusses possible ways how a researcher should approach the local. Compassion, assistance or understanding are hardly revolutionary approaches in fieldwork and are often not even mentioned in textbooks. However, as someone who has experience of being the object of research, the author of this chapter believes that these human acts are much more important than any skilfully elaborated research abstract or slick interview consent form. It is clear that any fieldwork in Peace and Conflict Studies has to be conducted with rigour and according to high academic standards. There is no doubt that proper methodologies, epistemologies and other -ies have to be employed in reaching sound empirical findings. However, while doing all this, there is always time for personal stories, complaints about everyday problems and new relationships. Every good fieldwork has to have well-elaborated methods, but it also must have a researcher’s compassion and care towards people who are part of his research.

References Acharya, Amitav. 2014. Global International Relations (IR) and regional worlds: A new agenda for international studies. International Studies Quarterly 58 (4): 647–665. Adler-Nissen, Rebecca. 2014. Stigma management in International Relations: Transgressive identities, norms and order in international society. International Organizations 68 (1): 143–176. Bartlett, Will. 2009. Economic development in the European super-periphery: Evidence from the Western Balkans. Economic Annals LIV (181): 21–44.

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Bechev, Dimitar. 2012. The periphery of the periphery: The Western Balkans and the Euro crisis. European Council on Foreign Affairs Policy Brief. Buzan, Barry, and Amitav Acharya. 2007. Why is there no non-Western International Relations Theory? An introduction. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 7 (3): 287–312. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 1992. Postcoloniality and the artifice of history: Who speaks for “Indian” pasts? Representations 37 (1): 1–26. Chandler, David. 2014. Resilience and the ‘everyday’: Beyond the paradox of ‘liberal peace’. Review of International Studies 41 (1): 27–48. Divjak, Boris, and Michael Pugh. 2008. The political economy of corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina. International Peacekeeping 15 (3): 373–386. Džuverović, Nemanja. 2018. Why local voices matter: Participation of local researchers in the liberal peace debate. Peacebuilding 6 (2): 111–126. Džuverović, Nemanja. 2019. Contextualization of the local: A predisposition of former Yugoslav states to liberal peace. Southeastern Europe 43 (2): 135–157. Firchow, Pamina, and Roger Mac Ginty. 2017. Including hard-to-access populations using mobile phone surveys and participatory indicators. Sociological Methods & Research 45. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124117729702. Hansen, Lene. 2006. Security as practice: Discourse analysis and the Bosnian War. New York: Routledge. Kaplan, Robert. 1994. Balkan ghosts. A journey through history. New York: Vintage Books. Kipling, Radjard. 1899. The white man’s burden: A poem. New York: Doubleday and McClure Co. Lemay-Hébert, Nicolas, and Stefanie Kappler. 2016. What attachment to peace? Exploring the normative and material dimensions of local ownership in peacebuilding. Review of International Studies 42 (5): 895–914. Lister, Ruth. 2004. Poverty. Cambridge: Polity Press. Lugano, Geoffrey. 2017. Counter-shaming the International Criminal Court’s intervention as neocolonial: Lessons from Kenya. International Journal of Transitional Justice 11: 9–29. Macaspac, Nerve Valerio. 2017. Suspicion and ethnographic peace research (notes from a local researcher). International Peacekeeping 25 (5): 677–694. Mac Ginty, Roger. 2011. International peacebuilding and local resistance: Hybrid forms of peace. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Mac Ginty, Roger, and Oliver Richmond. 2013. The local turn in peace building: A critical agenda for peace. Third World Quarterly 34 (5): 763–783. Milanović, Branko. 2007. The worlds apart: Measuring international and global inequality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pugh, Michael. 2005. The political economy of peacebuilding: A critical theory perspective. International Journal of Peace Studies 10 (2): 23–42. Richmond, Oliver P., and Roger Mac Ginty. 2015. Where now for the critique of the liberal peace? Cooperation and Conflict 50 (2): 171–189. Scott, James. 1992. Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Smyth, Marie, and Gillian Robinson (eds.). 2001. Researching violently divided societies: Ethical and methodological issues. London: Pluto Press. Todorova, Maria. 2009. Imagining the Balkans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wood, Elisabeth Jean. 2006. The ethical challenges of field research in conflict zones. Qualitative Sociology 29 (3): 373–386.

CHAPTER 25

Gendered Challenges to Fieldwork in ­ConflictAffected Areas Kathleen M. Jennings

Two Accounts from Fieldwork It is 2005. I am on my first fieldwork in Liberia, leading a team of Norwegian and Liberian researchers completing both a survey and qualitative interviews of ex-combatants living in different areas in Monrovia. Given that this is my first real, independent research project, and only my second trip to the African continent—the other being a 2-day conference at a luxury hotel outside of Nairobi—I feel way out of my depth. Over the course of the fieldwork, previously undiscovered tensions erupt between myself and a Norwegian colleague.1 He is senior to me, but it is my project. My idea. At a crucial juncture, toward the end of the trip, we argue over how to proceed. He wants us to return to our last field site for one final day of survey and interviews. I think we have enough material, and am concerned that the situation at that site is becoming volatile. I am convinced I am right, but I give in. He is senior and besides, I am tired of fighting. The next day, things go wrong. Too many people turn up, and they start arguing over the small rewards—biscuits and tins of sardines—that were given as compensation for informants’ time. Some are just troublemakers asserting their authority, but we provided the arena for it. I am sick over the fracas that erupts around us, 1 People

familiar with my work might assume they know the identity of the colleague that I argued with, based on patterns of co-authorship and shared thematic and geographical interests. It is not that person.

K. M. Jennings (*)  OsloMet—Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_25

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because of us. While there is no physical violence, the situation is tense. I fear for my safety, and for my team’s, and for those informants who turned up in good faith. Tempers boil over, and not just among the ex-combatants. My colleague and I exchange heated words, and he walks off, leaving the site. It is hot, humid, loud. It is the end of fieldwork and I am exhausted. People are looking to me to fix this. I feel abandoned. Finally, I pull my other Norwegian colleague behind a car. She is an experienced nurse and good in a crisis. We confer. How will we placate a group of angry, disgruntled ex-combatants? My thoughts are going a mile a minute. I am convinced the project is ruined. I am convinced my career is over. I cry with frustration, anger, helplessness. My colleague covers me—literally. She shields me with her body. She knows, as I do, what it means to cry in this situation. A few minutes later, I pull myself together. We put out the fires. We placate. People disperse, annoyed but peaceful. We leave. I feel shame, embarrassment. A week later I am back in Oslo. A different colleague calls me in for a chat. He knows Liberia and knows the field and, as it happens, was in a different part of Liberia on a different project when all this went down. He is concerned and clearly uncomfortable. He asks what happened. He says he heard from our Liberian colleagues that there was an incident. They told him that I cried. He gently, but directly, tells me that I can never, ever again cry in public. At least not on fieldwork. Making a mistake is one thing, but crying over it is much worse. He tells me that I did a good job my first time out, but also that I might not regain the respect of my Liberian colleagues. He is not trying to be cruel. Such is the reality for a young woman, a crier. I am mortified. Not because of him. Because of myself. Liberia again. 2007. A new project. This time I focus on the peacekeepers, not on the ex-combatants. This is how I have learned from past mistakes. Among the peacekeepers, I feel more in control. I am working on the project with a colleague, the nurse from before. We work well together. But this project—on how peacekeepers experience the UN’s zero-tolerance policy against sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA)—is not really her field, so she mostly defers to me. I organize access to the UN mission, UNMIL, using contacts in the gender office. It is amazing access. We get passes that allow us to come and go freely on the premises, unaccompanied, and to use UN transportation throughout the entirety of our stay. But—the gender office. It didn’t occur to me that this might be an issue until we are in the office of a senior staff officer, a colonel, from a European country. I am counting on this colonel to facilitate other interviews with harder-to-access contingent personnel and commanders, and ultimately with the force commander. And this colonel does not like the gender office. There have been some conflicts in the past. As soon as we sit down, I know we are in trouble. He is hostile, impatient, openly suspicious of our motives. At one point, his junior officer, who overhears the exchanges through the open door, comes in and nervously asks if this is on the record. I feel my desperation rising. So I ask if we can

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take a step back, and turn to a tactic that I used with success in Haiti a month earlier, on fieldwork connected to the same project. I play the military card.2 Look, I say, I understand that you are wary. You think I am hostile to the military, and that I will make you look bad no matter what you say or do. But I am not hostile to the military—I am a product of it! I reference my military grandfather, father, my brother on active service. I shamelessly name-drop the military bases I spent my early childhood on, knowing that he would recognize them as US Marine bases, and that the Marines carry a particular cachet (among military types) even beyond US borders. I note how the almost exclusive focus on military peacekeepers in terms of SEA obscures the modalities and extent of the abuse carried out by civilian and police peacekeepers, and by other non-UN international personnel. Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room changes. He relaxes, his hostility evaporates. His natural gregariousness appears, and now he wants to impress us. He is positively—in the sense of harmlessly, non-physically, non-aggressively—flirtatious. Two young white women asking him questions, listening to him talk, soliciting his knowledge and experiences. A nice change of pace from normal mission life. Two hours fly by before the junior officer reappears to remind him of another appointment. Leaving, I am forcefully struck by the knowledge—also evident under the surface in Haiti, but unadmitted to myself until this moment—that being a young (white, hetero, Global North) woman in the field is not only a liability, as I convinced myself after my first trip to Liberia. Maybe it is an advantage. We get our interviews. Postscript: Five years later, I am in Kinshasa conducting my PhD research.3 Sitting alone in the courtyard café in one of the UN mission compounds, I overhear three staff officers talking at the next table. Recognizing that they come from the same country as my colonel, I strike up a conversation, asking if they know him (by then, a general). They do. I fill them in on what my current research is about, and they ask what they can do to help. More doors are opened. On its face, this does not seem to have anything to do with my being a (still, then) young, white woman. Except that the entire outdoor seating area was empty, except for me, when they arrived, yet they ended up at the table directly abutting mine. One does wonder. These two anecdotes bring a number of issues to the fore. Some of these issues are directly related to gender and, more specifically, to the experience

2 In

Haiti, I enjoyed a similar level of access to the mission, MINUSTAH, but there it was organized through the office of the force commander. This ensured cooperation from military personnel throughout the organization and also had a great deal of pull with most civilian personnel. My playing the military card in Haiti was less about gaining physical access, then about convincing my military sources that I was a competent and trustworthy interlocutor with some degree of understanding about their lives—that is, someone they could speak openly and honestly with. 3 See Jennings (forthcoming) drawing on this fieldwork on empathetic engagement with vulnerable sources.

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of being a woman doing fieldwork in conflict-affected locales; others are more generally applicable. Many of these points may seem obvious or inevitable; in any case, they go largely unacknowledged in (most) methodology sections. Yet they are hugely important in how determining what, and who, we gain access to, and accordingly the claims we can make.

Point One: We Are Treated Differently by Virtue of Who We Are—And We Treat Others Differently by Virtue of Who They Are As a feminist researcher who is conversant with, if continuously challenged by, the ideas of positionality, reflexivity, and intersectionality, it is both necessary and natural to observe how our work is affected by who we are. By ‘who we are’, I mean what we communicate to those around us: our identity markers, experiences—specifically, what we choose to share, and to what ends— personal attributes, and affiliations. In this sense, ‘who we are’ is distinct from ‘what we do’, but most methodology discussions are confined to the latter. In this section, I discuss the former. Feminist scholarship is not just about critical theories and perspectives; it is also about how research is done and how power operates in the act of accessing, analyzing, and presenting material (Ackerly et al. 2006). This also entails personal reflection. The late Lee Ann Fujii writes eloquently of her experiences as a mixed-race North American woman doing fieldwork in Bosnia, Rwanda, Croatia, the United States, and Belgium. In developing the concept of accidental ethnography, she discusses how her identity markers and professional qualifications—specifically, her language skills—mean different things in different locales, both within and across her case countries (Fujii 2015: 529–531). For example, in Rwanda she is ‘typed’ by many locals as part Rwandan, according to varying criteria—her facial features, her spoken Kinyarwanda, her very presence in a particular locale—with her dark skin being the common feature that enables this typing. The same features that mark her as ‘familiar’ in Rwanda mark her as ‘foreign’ in Bosnia, but her ability to converse in Bosnian, even if haltingly, results in a noticeable difference in how she is treated by Bosnians compared to other foreigners. Fujii’s purpose in relating these anecdotes is that, ‘Observing how others type us can reveal a great deal about the various clues and criteria that people use to categorize others in general (Fujii 2015: 529)’, and further that ‘physical features are not objective signs, but that people read faces, bodies, and body language according to local categories and meanings (Ibid., 531).’ In other words, awareness as to how others ‘read’ and type us makes us better ethnographers, giving us another tool with which to analyze our material. Critical reflection on how others judge/interact with/dismiss/elevate you as a person thus makes for better research.

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While Fujii examines how the meanings of our experiences and identity markers change over space, Cohn (2006) shows how these change and acquire further meanings over time. She interestingly relates how her subject position (the ‘I’ doing the interviews) changed in both subtle and significant ways in the course of two extended research projects focusing on civilian defense intellectuals and military officers, respectively, and the effect that this had on her interaction with her informants. The effect of time on ‘the “I” doing the interviews’ is something I did not properly appreciate in the course of the 2005 and 2007 fieldworks, but that became more obvious in later fieldworks—particularly those conducted after the birth of my first daughter in 2009. Becoming a mother added a new dimension to my identity. By this, I do not refer to the idealized traits associated with motherhood—nurturing, self-sacrificing, and the like. But like Cohn, I found that motherhood helped normalize me to certain informants, especially military personnel and, often, local informants. Among military personnel, while I still played the military card as my main means of establishing contact and building trust, it was striking how my status as a mother worked almost to defang me and put informants at ease, among both male and female personnel. A similar effect was observable among local informants, where, at least in my field sites, motherhood also endows a sense of adulthood (from girl to woman) and respect. If nothing else, parenthood provided grease to the conversational wheels and a point of commonality with many of my informants. Thus, even while, as a feminist researcher, I am critical of the idealization of motherhood and the particular forms of femininity associated with it, I cannot deny that I benefited from these tropes, insofar as they worked in informants’ minds to make me a less intimidating, mystifying presence. As Cohn and Fujii argue, therefore, these experiences illustrate the contingent nature of knowledge, and how a researcher’s access to information is predicated at least in part by the markers people use in deciding who they trust. But these encounters are not just revealing about our informants, our ‘subjects’; they also reflect back upon ourselves, our position(s) in the field, the choices we make, and the way we understand and construct arguments on the basis of our fieldwork experiences. To illustrate this, I return to the accounts above. How did my identity markers, my competence, my background, and experiences (as necessarily conveyed by me) impact my material and my work? In Liberia in 2005, my research team from a Norwegian institution worked together with a team of Liberian colleagues affiliated with a Liberian institution. At the field sites—picked in a cooperative process between the Norwegian and Liberian teams—our Liberian colleagues worked primarily on data collection for the survey component, but they also had an important informal intermediary role between the Global North researchers and the ex-combatants. By virtue of their very presence, they vouched for us; but through their actions and verbal and non-verbal communication, our Liberian

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colleagues could also signal their disagreement or distance. This is an understandable—indeed, necessary—strategy on the part of local colleagues. But while I knew this was the case (and why), I did not understand, at least at the beginning, the importance of the implicit, unarticulated meanings circulating in the field site between the various participants.4 What I did realize straightaway, conversely, was that the most senior Liberian colleague did not recognize my authority as project leader, instead relating always to my older, male Norwegian colleague; and that this behavior was copied by his subordinates, both in team meetings and at the field sites. These in-team power relations were something I experienced as annoying and belittling, but they did not seem to affect our contact with ex-combatants at our first field site, where we experienced a good reception from the neighbors and immediate community. Moreover, as I focused particularly on conducting in-depth qualitative interviews with a smaller number of informants, I was able to establish a degree of independent contact with ex-combatants that (I convinced myself) overcame the signals they might have been picking up from the other team members, who concentrated on the survey component. However, at the second field site—which was actually a series of sites clustered in proximity to each other, as we could not get permission to use the same place everyday—the frictional dynamic within the team became, for various reasons, more pronounced, to the extent that it complicated my relationship with our ex-combatant informants. Partly because of this, and partly because we changed location everyday—thus making it difficult to follow up individual interviewees to the same degree as at the first site, where many made it a habit to drop by everyday to chat—I struggled to achieve the same degree of contact and trust with my interviewees. On the other hand, the more challenging circumstances of the second site forced me to be more attuned to the power dynamics playing out through and around me—not just within the research team, but between team members and ex-combatants, and among ex-combatants themselves. When the machinery of fieldwork functioned well, my attention had been subsumed by my informants. Once I had to involve myself more actively in the management of the field site, I became more aware of the interplay—sometimes subtle, sometimes not—between the various actors present, including how the ex-combatants that came to the site situated themselves vis-à-vis each other, the immediate community, and the UNMIL forces patrolling the area. Moreover, because many ex-combatants used each day’s site as a hangout for the day, I was often able to initiate discussions with different groups that turned into quasi-focus groups.5 Some of these group discussions turned out 4 On

using research brokers in conflict-affected areas, see Käihkö (2019) and Utas (2019). ex-combatants at the first site also used the site as a hangout and gathering place during the extent of our fieldwork there. Because I was so focused on conducting individual interviews, I did not initiate focus group discussions in that site, although I did have many informal discussions with small groups of ex-combatants during breaks. 5 Many

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to open up new lines of enquiry, and all were valuable in providing a glimpse into the interaction among e­ x-combatants. In particular, the dynamics at the second site gave me greater insight into how ex-combatants navigated and played to their advantage the system set up by others, something that became central to my analysis of how the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration program worked in Liberia. These insights and dynamics did not all unfold because of ‘who I am.’ But the intra-team power relations assumed the form they did in part because of who I am; and these power dynamics in turn affected how I, and the rest of the team, did our work and how our informants related to us. This firsthand experience of the contingency of knowledge contributed to a more nuanced and considered analysis. ‘Who I am’ played out differently in my 2007 fieldworks on the SEA project. But it was not necessarily that my physical identity markers took on radically different meanings for my UN informants than they had for the ex-combatants. Instead, because my background and experiences were closer to UN peacekeepers’ (both military and civilian), this enabled me to establish a connection with them that was markedly different from how I could relate to the ex-combatants. As noted earlier, among UN military peacekeepers, my personal background as relates to the military would often come up. I either brought it up myself, in order to establish commonality or build trust with the peacekeepers; or it came up organically in response to the informant’s surprise at my familiarity with military ranks and terminology.6 These performances were for the most part, spontaneous; or at least, they were not the product of a deliberate strategy developed in advance of my fieldwork. But it is not lost on me that—similar to how I have also benefited from the idealized tropes of motherhood that I normally abhor—the tactic I used in interviews and conversations with military personnel can be seen as essentially ‘de-feminizing’ myself in order to fit in with ‘the boys’ by establishing a sense of camaraderie based on (albeit limited) shared experience. Indeed, playing the military card might have been even more effective precisely because it seemed to cut against what some of my other identity markers—small, physically unthreatening, straight woman, working on gender issues—seemed to signal. Conversely, with civilian UN staff, particularly those in professional categories, I would instead tend to hew to the terminology and credentials acquired in previous years working in the Washington, DC (and more sporadically, New York) policy world, and on earlier research projects on UN missions. This helped me establish credibility and provided a common language with these informants, and often imbued the interviews with a tone of both informality and equality. Among local sources, conversely, I was more willing to

6 See

also Higate (2007: 103–104) for a discussion of how a male ex-military researcher used his military background and experience in a research project on SEA and masculinities.

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profess my own confusion or ignorance when it cropped up, even occasionally ‘playing dumb’ in order to get a fuller backstory and more information from sources. This willingness to embrace my own ignorance in interactions with local sources was not something I dared do in the 2005 fieldwork, where I mistakenly thought that asking for help would signal weakness. But the more relaxed, ordered environment of the 2007 fieldworks—where most of my interviews with sources occurred in an office setting, where I experienced a greater degree of comfort and control (see next point)—gave me the confidence and license to play on my femininity in this way. I write ‘play on my femininity’ because playing dumb hinges on a specific type of privileged (raced, aged, straight) femininity. Thus, while taking care to play down my femininity in some ways—by dressing and behaving more conservatively than in my normal life—I was also attuned to how aspects of my femininity could be played up in my interaction with different sources. This awareness in turn informed my subsequent analysis, not least concerning women peacekeepers’ experiences in-mission and how they relate to SEA. Yet all this reflection about how sources, locals, and others in the field experience us should not obscure that this works both ways. It is both less comfortable and, in my experience, less discussed to admit that our work is also affected by how we treat others, and that this in turn is mediated by who they are. For example, my first encounters with ex-combatants were shadowed by my own nervousness and fear, stemming from what I knew of the horrors of Liberia’s civil war, and exacerbated by the concern of family and friends regarding the (perceived) danger I was exposing myself to—all of this intrinsically entangled with raced, gendered, and classed tropes and stereotypes of African men (and ex-combatants specifically). My comfort level around ex-combatants quickly grew, but that does not negate this shame-inducing reality. Of course, we should strive to treat everyone equally and with respect, fairness, and kindness. But we should also recognize and acknowledge how our own preconceptions and expectations—and sometimes prejudices, biases, and fears—play into our experiences, performances, and analysis. I cannot pretend that my first fieldwork experience was not marked by fear. Similarly, I cannot truthfully maintain that I approached ex-combatant informants in exactly the same way that I later approached UN informants. I do not think that this admission discredits my work on ex-combatants and DDR, but I put it forth here to acknowledge it as another way in which I fail to live up to my principles—just as when I disappoint my feminist convictions by playing on my femininity and tropes of motherhood in relation to/with sources. These self-interrogations are not comfortable, but they are analytically and personally valuable (see also Eriksson Baaz et al. 2018). Acknowledging that my reaction to people and events in the field is highly situational, occasionally opportunistic, and not always in line with my own ideals has made me both a more empathetic and more critical researcher.

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Thus, as researchers we should always strive to situate ourselves and our material in relation to the larger context, acknowledging that our knowledge and claims are always and necessarily partial, mediated, subjective, and temporal. Given this reality, my own efforts to create responsible, analytically sound research entails being open about the limits of my material, what I can and cannot claim, and where these claims are coming from. The ‘scientific’ way to do this is to cloak these considerations in the language of scope conditions and generalizability, in the process sometimes ghosting yourself from your own text. While I recognize that this is often a necessary trade-off for getting work published, I hope that we as researchers push our respective disciplines toward more openness in discussing the importance of contingency in our production of knowledge.

Point Two: Your Physical Comfort and Emotional ­Well-Being Are More Important Than You Let on Both the sheer physicality and the emotional labor and fallout of fieldwork are rarely problematized, but they are central to our experiences of fieldwork and color—if unconsciously—our analysis. Some of the ways this plays out are obvious. People with disabilities or living with chronic illness will face challenges beyond the general hardships posed by fieldwork in conflict-affected locales. Researchers with conditions that limit mobility will likely find access to be especially problematic: Transportation infrastructure and many buildings will simply not be accessible. Availability of decent medical care is also a concern. While this is true for anyone, it is a particularly important consideration for people managing illness, including mental health conditions, as well as for pregnant researchers. People with dietary restrictions, including not just allergies or intolerance but also vegetarianism or veganism, can also find life difficult, especially in rural areas.7 None of this should be read as implying that researchers with disabilities or health issues cannot do fieldwork. It is simply to acknowledge the extra level of difficulty that they face. But there are other, less obvious ways that our physical and emotional comfort influence our fieldwork and, by extension, the analysis that stems from it. My two accounts from Liberia are illustrative. The 2005 fieldwork was both physically and emotionally challenging. Our workload was intense, meaning that I slept much less than usual over a prolonged period. The experiences ex-combatants related to us, both from the conflict and from their current situation, were upsetting. Our days, from early morning until sundown, were spent entirely at our various sites, meaning that no breaks or downtime were built into the day. Staying at the sites all day also meant that we were dependent on whatever food we could find nearby, and were similarly dependent on negotiating access to toilet facilities. This added a level of 7 This

is obviously context-specific.

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anxiety and discomfort. Finally, I had no reserves of experience to draw on, something that made me feel insecure and emotionally unequipped—a feeling intensified by the interpersonal conflicts on our team, and by my confused status as a both a project leader and a junior researcher. These issues do not excuse the situation that unfolded at the end of fieldwork, but it is also true that my reaction to that situation was affected by accumulated physical and emotional exhaustion. Conversely, while the 2007 fieldwork was also long and challenging, it was much more manageable—in part because I learned from my earlier experience. As previously noted, my decision to examine SEA through the lens of peacekeepers rather than victims was deliberate, informed by greater awareness of my strengths and weaknesses as a fieldworker and researcher. My emotional involvement in my informants was more detached, something I can only attribute to the fact that they were not suffering as the ex-combatants had been. While my colleague and I spent a good deal of our time at the main mission compound at Pan African Plaza (PAP), we were not stuck there. Being at PAP was like being in an office anywhere: quiet, air-conditioned, clean, with good toilet facilities and a canteen and café for breaks between meetings. I was conscientious about building downtime into our schedule, and in getting enough sleep. Monrovia itself felt safer than it had two years earlier: I realized in 2007 just how stressed the security situation made me feel in 2005, a realization I could only make when it was no longer the case. I also felt more confident of myself as a researcher and project leader. These factors all made the 2007 fieldwork easier and more productive. The fact that I eventually built on the 2007 project in my PhD work, while I never again did any further field research on the 2005 project, is hardly coincidental. Issues of physical and emotional comfort are universal, but they are also gendered and raced. The example above of access to toilet facilities is one that affects men and women differently, and one that can create discomfort, embarrassment, insecurity, and—not least—health complications. Encountering sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination or harassment in the course of one’s fieldwork affects researchers’ emotional health and comfort, and their perception of (in)security and vulnerability. While many researchers seem to think that anything short of physical violence does not count as a difficult or traumatizing field experience, it is important to acknowledge the many stresses and challenges that fieldwork can entail, and the effects these can have on researchers’ well-being. In this respect, it is crucial—and often, unfortunately, neglected—that home institutions have in place routines to follow up researchers returning from fieldwork, including (minimally) debrief sessions with the researcher’s supervisor and immediate colleagues, but encompassing also free access to mental health services and other necessary follow-up care. Supervisors and colleagues need to develop a culture of checking in on researchers who have returned from fieldwork in conflict-affected areas, even if the researcher seems to be functioning fine.

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This is equally true for male as for female researchers, as men may be even less likely to ask for help when they are struggling. As with the previous point, the issues raised here can be difficult to write into our texts. In fact, reflecting on the importance to our field experience of ‘comfort’—a feminized word that, to many, evokes softness, luxury, and entitlement—may make researchers even more vulnerable in the review process, where some unsympathetic reviewers will seize on any admitted weaknesses in order to discredit the author and the work. But this point is important to bring up for two reasons. The first is to highlight the importance of physical and emotional comfort and health in fieldwork, so that researchers— especially those with less field experience—can (insofar as possible) plan for how to mitigate challenges that can reasonably be anticipated, such as those related to known health conditions. This is necessarily an individual process, but something that should also be discussed among the project team before fieldwork. The second reason is to remind the reader that we all have challenges and limitations. These limitations cannot always be planned for or around, nor do they suddenly disappear when we go to the field. In fact, they may be intensified. Recognizing this will hopefully help researchers be more kind and forgiving to themselves and their colleagues.

Point Three: No One Has a Perfect Fieldwork Sometimes things go wrong through no fault of your own. But sometimes it is your fault. Sometimes you misjudge the situation, or exacerbate an existing conflict, or wrongly assume that you will have access to the things you need, or take shortcuts, or behave inappropriately in your pursuit of the data, the interview, the elusive ‘it’ that will make your work stand out. And in either case—whether you feel yourself to blame or not—sometimes you do not react the way you want to or should. In 2007 with the colonel, I was able to read the room, shift tactics, and salvage the interview at no cost to our integrity or project. In 2005, I made a bad situation worse by letting it spiral while I wasted time and energy fighting with a colleague, then letting my own doubts and fears overwhelm me. Even more than the initial mistakes, it is my failings in responding to these mistakes that have stayed with me the most. Up to a certain point, this is both fine and necessary: In such a relational activity as fieldwork, it is irresponsible, if not unethical, not to reflect on and learn from ones’ mistakes. The problem occurs when reflecting on, and learning from, errors tips over into obsessing and being paralyzed by them. Speaking from experience, this is self-defeating to your work, professional development, and health and well-being. In my case, it grew out of the conviction that my fieldwork was grossly insufficient compared to everyone else’s. But this is ridiculous. No one has a perfect fieldwork. Given, then, that we all make mistakes and that no fieldwork is—or can be—flawless, there are two takeaways. First, and most importantly, is to always

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keep sight of your ethical and moral obligations in conducting fieldwork. This is not always as easy as it sounds, as many of the ethical issues that crop up during fieldwork are not of the black-or-white variety, or even necessarily obvious at the time. There is usually a trade-off involved, and this trade-off is even harder to make without a considered understanding of your obligations as a researcher. Because as seen in the episode from the 2005 fieldwork, it is easy to let yourself be overtaken by events. If I had insisted that we would not make a final visit to our last field site—if I had listened to my own instincts instead of going along with the plan so as to avoid more intra-team conflict—then the irresponsible and ethically troubling episode could have been avoided. At the time, I lacked the experience, confidence, and (de facto) authority to make the right call. Thinking more deliberately beforehand about fieldworkers’ ethical obligations and challenges would not have changed those facts, but it could have made it more reflexive to make the right call. The second takeaway is to accept, and make the most of, the material you do get, in a way that is responsible, conscientious, and analytically sound. Post-fieldwork, our ethical obligations may change form, but they do not evaporate. They may not be as immediate or embodied, but they are crucial nonetheless. The obligations I am referring to here are those we have to scholarship. Obviously, we cannot falsify or make up data. But beyond this basic principle, we must avoid the temptation to push our arguments beyond what our material can take; to ‘prettify’ or whitewash our data; or to remove ourselves from the picture entirely, bestowing upon our material—always obtained relationally and contextually—a surfeit of objectivity and impartiality that is disingenuous. This does not mean that we must always write ourselves into our texts. But it does mean that, as we think through our data and construct our analysis, we must always consider how our behavior, our actions, our status, and our behavior—but also our identities and our physicality— affect what we gain access to, and the ramifications this has for the arguments we make.

Final Thoughts The points above were learned the hard way, through experience and over time. Anyone who has done fieldwork in conflict-affected locales will have their own lessons-learned. All the preparation in the world will not fully prepare you for fieldwork. That said, there are some things that I know now that I wish I knew then, as it would have equipped me better for fieldwork’s challenges—and joys. Push Your Comfort Zone—But Know Your Limits Fieldwork is intense and in many ways constitutes a sort of state of exception to a researcher’s normal life. It is intellectually, emotionally, and often physically challenging and stimulating. It is exciting and, occasionally, alienating

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and lonely. Anyone preparing to do fieldwork in a conflict-affected locale needs to be willing to step outside of their comfort zone. If you cannot or will not do this, then you should rethink your project. This is the kindest thing you can do for yourself. If you find yourself dreading and fearing your fieldwork, then that is a warning sign that should be taken seriously. But pushing your comfort zone does not mean abandoning it altogether— and just because you are in the field does not mean your limits disappear or radically change. Because fieldwork is time-limited, there is a strong incentive to ignore the signals your body gives you. Physical and emotional overload and exhaustion are seen as obstacles to push through in order to maximize your time in the field. This is self-defeating and potentially harmful. Yes, push yourself—but do not make yourself a martyr. And try to keep some sense of perspective. While the bad interview or messed-up itinerary may seem critical at the time, it rarely is as important to your overall project as you think. In connection with knowing your limits, consider also the costs of your performances in the field—analytically, but also in terms of yourself. Especially with qualitative or ethnographic fieldwork, you are not just taking (knowledge, experiences, stories) from others, you are also giving. What are you giving of yourself, and why? This does not mean you have to have a deliberate strategy; indeed, such a strategy can backfire if it comes off as inauthentic. But I wish I had been more conscientious about how my professional and personal selves imbricate—as they do with almost all researchers—and where the professional compromises or complicates the personal. While I do not have any concrete examples of boundaries crossed from my fieldwork, looking back I realize that I was putting a lot of myself on the line. This is, perhaps, only fair when we ask our informants to do the same. But while this way of working often enabled me to connect to people and establish trust, it also could leave me feeling wrung out and exposed. I wish I had been less naïve in thinking that the only relevant identity I took with me into the field was that of researcher. If I had thought more beforehand about my boundaries and limits and how these could affect the data I expected and wanted to get in the field, and about the trade-offs I was willing to make, then I would have been better prepared for the totality and all-consuming nature of fieldwork. Get Out of Your Own Head This advice seems to run counter to the points above about how your actions, your person, and your comfort affect and mediate your fieldwork experience and knowledge production. But it comes back to the need to keep some kind of perspective. Being self-aware is an important component of doing fieldwork. But try not to assume that your perception of yourself, including how you should behave, react, and what you should be capable of, is shared by others. Do not let these perceptions control, hamper, or cripple you. Being open and attentive means that sometimes you have to get out of your own head.

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It also means that sometimes you just have to let things roll and see what happens. This is hard for me, since I find it hard to relinquish control. And sometimes just letting things happen ends up taking you down the wrong path. But a rich fieldwork experience is not just about checking off interviews or getting all your questionnaires filled out. It is also about the spontaneous, the unexpected, the weird, and the chancy. Yes, you probably should have some sort of overarching plan or structure for your fieldwork; survey work in particular depends on it. But do not underestimate the value of sometimes just letting go. Embrace the Selfishness of Fieldwork Fieldwork is inherently selfish. You are taking time away from family and friends, abandoning your everyday responsibilities, and spending lots of someone else’s money to go and devote yourself to a project that you find interesting. You are also extracting valuable time and knowledge from your sources. You are not doing this because it is forced upon you. You are doing this (hopefully) because you want to. How I wish that I had embraced the selfishness of fieldwork! And now as a mother of two, how I wish that I had been even more selfish back when I had no double shift, no imperative to cut even shorter a fieldwork that is already too packed, no guilt, no tearful Skype calls with a distraught child. Because the reality is that, for most of us, fieldwork is a luxury that does not last. Teaching loads, professional pressures, caregiving responsibilities (especially for single parents, but also a challenge in dual-career households), precarious positions, ever-diminishing research funding—all affect our ability to conduct fieldwork, and for how long. And generally speaking, because women still assume a disproportionate share of caregiving and domestic responsibilities, as well as service work in their professional capacity, the effect on fieldwork is more acute for women than men. If I had known then what I know now— that doing fieldwork was a phase in my research life, one that became exponentially more difficult after one child and (for me) unmanageable after two, but one that I will hopefully return to in time—then I would have appreciated the experience even more.

References Ackerly, B.A., M. Stern, and J. True (eds.). 2006. Feminist methodologies for International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cohn, C. 2006. Motives and methods: Using multi-sited ethnography to study US national security discourses. In Feminist methodologies for International Relations, ed. B.A. Ackerly, M. Stern, and J. True. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eriksson Baaz, M., H. Gray, and M. Stern. 2018. What can we/do we want to know? Reflections from researching SGBV in military settings. Social Politics 25 (4): 521–544.

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Fujii, L.A. 2015. Five stories of accidental ethnography: Turning unplanned moments in the field into data. Qualitative Research 15 (4): 525–539. Higate, P. 2007. Peacekeepers, masculinities, and sexual exploitation. Men and Masculinities 10 (1): 99–119. Jennings, K.M. Forthcoming. Sex workers and sugar babies: Empathetic engagement with vulnerable sources. In Doing fieldwork in areas of international intervention: A guide to research in violent and closed contexts, ed. B. Bliesemann de Guevara and M.Bøås. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Käihkö, I. 2019. On brokers, commodification of information and Liberian former combatants. Civil Wars 21 (2): 179–199. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2 019.1602806. Utas, M. 2019. Research brokers we use and abuse while researching civil wars and their aftermaths—Methodological concerns. Civil Wars 21 (2): 271–285. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2019.1654325.

CHAPTER 26

Race, Positionality and the Researcher Sarah Njeri

Introduction Whenever I have engaged in ethnographic research, the issues of race and positionality have rarely been aspects that I reflected on or analysed deeply. The exception however was an attempt to reflect on how my gender would impact on my fieldwork and my research in a predominantly m ­ ale-dominated field such as mine action.1 This was prompted by having been involved in ‘stints’ of landmine-related research during my previous career as a humanitarian aid worker, and therefore having encountered a lot of sexism not necessarily coming from those within the mine action sector2 but from the larger humanitarian aid sector who were ‘gatekeepers’ and facilitators for my 1 Mine Action is the collective term that is used to refer to all ‘activities which aim to reduce the social, economic and environmental impact of landmines and ERW, including cluster munitions’. It encompasses several dimensions, all of which must be considered in order to address the full range of problems posed by landmines and Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) contamination. These activities include (a) advocacy, (b) mine risk education (MRE), (c) humanitarian demining, often referred to as ‘clearance’, (d) victim assistance, which includes physical and psychological rehabilitation and reintegration, and (e) stockpile destruction (UN Definition of Mine Action). 2 The Mine Action Sector is recognised as a sub-sector within a larger humanitarian aid sector. The term refers collectively to the various organisations active in all aspects of activities that aim to reduce the impact of landmines; these include and not limited to various UN entities such as United Nations Mine Action Service, UNOPS; International Demining NGOs such as HALO Trust, Danish Demining Group and Mine Advocacy Group (UK); Institutions such as the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD), etc.

S. Njeri (*)  Research Associate, African Leadership Centre, King’s College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_26

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research. Later, as an academic researcher, I have encountered much more than sexism during my fieldwork. While it was relatively easier to anticipate and unpack how gender played out during my research then, it has required an exercise of reflexivity to fully unpack and focus on my role as a researcher, including how who I am, who I have been and become, who others think I am and to what extent that impacts on my access to data, how I collect this data and how I carry out any analysis. On reflection, these opportunities have emerged during the intervals necessitated by the transition through my research journey. This chapter therefore serves two purposes: firstly, it traces these transformative intervals; and secondly, it provides an opportunity to further engage in an exercise of reflexivity especially as it relates to my racialised identity. Thus, this chapter draws on a growing body of literature around issues of the positionality of researchers (Mwambari 2019; Büscher and Vlassenroot 2010; Merriam et al. 2001; Bourke 2014; Muhammad et al. 2015) who seek to grow their capacity to understand the significance of the knowledge, feelings and values that they bring into the field. A majority of the researchers who engage on issues of positionality have mostly done so consciously during their research process. My reflections, on the other hand, depart from this dominant approach as I offer a post-fieldwork engagement with issues of positionality demonstrating how such a process has interacted with my research, how I have developed as the research develops and how this affects the research in the process. I highlight the extent to which my previous experience in undertaking research in refugee camps in Tanzania, coupled with institutional processes and procedures informed by the perception of Somaliland as an insecure research context, shaped how I prepared and negotiated access into the research site. I argue that the process of reflexivity remains an ongoing process and do this by examining how my multiple identities—a black African, Kenyan, British woman, doctoral (and later postdoctoral) academic researcher from a Western institution—continually shaped my engagement in the field. This intersectionality was both privileging and challenging. I suggest that the research context/site (Africa) and the location of the research subject (humanitarianism; humanitarian aid sector), and the specific sector (the mine action sector and by implication security sector) are important windows through which some of the reflections, especially on race, must be understood. While the humanitarian aid sector is one of the most widely researched contexts by peace and conflict scholars, I note that there is a dearth of academic literature by ethnographic researchers that interrogates issues of race. Yet such research sites are in themselves replete with issues of power imbalances.3 Thus, I draw on the work of Benton (2016) who addresses issues that 3 Between

local/national staff and international/expatriates’ staff.

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resonate a lot with my own experiences. Her reflections on African expatriates and race in the anthropology of humanitarianism focus on African expatriates working in African countries and argue that critiques of humanitarianism fail to engage explicitly with issues of race and its role in humanitarian representation and encounters, or in terms that acknowledge their intimate connection to everyday humanitarian professional practice. She argues that this remains a thorny and an under-examined issue and, in this chapter, I wonder whether this could also explain the absence of researchers’ reflections on the same. I demonstrate how I continually engage in a process of retrospective reflexive exercise as a method of demonstrating the transformative impact of reflexivity that occurs post-fieldwork (including through writing) and during critical intervals during one’s research journey. The idea of a retrospective reflexivity draws from the work of Attia and Edge (2017) who posit that reflexivity is an instrumental relationship to ongoing processes whereby a researcher’s development occurs as a result of the research experience with the researcher remaining central to this process. Through this exercise and through engaging with Benton’s article, I utilise the opportunity to reflect on my own experiences in the field, a process which helps me in understanding the extent to which I inevitably encountered ‘subtle but intractable manifestations of white supremacy’ in the field. Within these institutions race is structuring and structured through institutional policies and practices, and therefore, there are possibilities that those within are likely to focus on one’s racial identity (Attia and Edge 2017).

The Research My interest in researching mine action came from years of involvement in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) both as an activist and as a researcher for the civil society initiative ‘The Landmine Monitor Initiative’4; which monitors and reports on the implementation of, and compliance with, the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty (MBT). I had previously worked with an international NGO that had a strategic advantage due to its reach to refugees across the Eastern Africa region, thus the ICBL’s, Landmine Monitor specifically called on my involvement in the collection of data from refugees who had crossed borders from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda and were all situated in refugee camps in Tanzania. The information and data that I gathered was used to corroborate the data collected from the respective home countries. This data was otherwise not available from within these countries due to political unrest, and therefore, the narratives from refugees provided crucial information. 4 The Landmine Monitor is a civil society initiative that provides independent monitoring, for the implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty, Kjellman, K.E. 2003. Norms, persuasion and practice: Landmine monitor and civil society. Third World Quarterly 24 (5): 955–965.

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The physical geography, of the research setting is important. The research was located within humanitarian settings in Africa5 and within the mine action sector both of which are largely dominated by northern/western organisations. Further, the mine action sector is viewed as an isolated sector within the broader domain that is humanitarian aid. This isolation is attributed to its technical focus (Skåra 2003) and a reliance on ex-military expertise (Njeri 2015) and therefore within the security domain. Thus, by implications the mine action sector is largely white, northern/western and ex-military even though the ‘local’/national workforce is considerably larger than the international/expatriate staff. While women do work in the sector, white male dominate positions of authority. The research location thus is home to a humanitarian aid industry that is imbued with the workings of power, usually along lines of cultural, class, economic and political difference. Issues of race are intimately woven into humanitarian professional practice—something that was difficult to avoid noticing as a black, African woman (Benton 2016). The experiences I draw upon are from different stages in my research career; however, the subject, context and focus has remained the same, i.e. research on the consequences of landmine contamination in post-conflict environments. This entails engaging with the mine action sector which by implication means undertaking research in challenging politically sensitive contexts with implications to personal security. Post-conflict environments imply that danger especially ambient danger6 is an inherent part of the research environment (Lee 1995).

Safety and Security; Risk Assessments and Self-Awareness in Preparation for Research Site Access Somaliland is the location that I have engaged in longest and as such where I draw most of the reflections from (although I have also worked in the post-conflict contexts of Angola and Cambodia). As a research site, Somaliland invokes the notion of insecurity and this is premised on the assumption that ‘Somalia’ is a chaotic, highly insecure and dangerous context that lacks any order. While that view has long had validity in south-central Somalia, it is manifestly incorrect for Somaliland. This perception of insecurity is heightened by Somaliland’s lack of international recognition as an independent state by the international community who continue to engage with it under the de jure constraints of having to treat it as part of Somalia. The perception persists within the academic institutions in the UK and as such Research Ethics Committees unfamiliar with the context always raise concerns when Somaliland is proposed as a research site. It is for this reason that 5 The

continent remains one of the most heavily impacted by the presence of landmine contamination. 6 Ambient dangers are those that are present in the setting for researchers and researched alike.

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my fieldwork preparation both during my doctoral and postdoctoral research paid much attention to the challenges of undertaking field research in conflict and post-conflict contexts (Mazurana et al. 2013; Goodhand 2000; Dixit 2012); or in dangerous contexts (Nordstrom and Robben 1995; Linkogle and Lee-Treweek 2000; Baird 2009; Cramer et al. 2011; Sluka 1995, 2018; Hobbs and Wright 2006; Goodhand 2000). This literature brought to fore discussions of safety, danger and fear but also crucially, it began to bring to prominence narratives that were rarely addressed in academic literature at the time—namely the need to engage in reflection and wider thinking on the nature of access and the meanings of research and research partnerships. The increasingly risk-averse nature of universities meant that, with my focus on Somaliland and landmines, I had to invest considerable energy into completing risk assessments. While Somaliland was and is not a ‘live’ war zone or a dangerous research site, I thought it prudent to be embedded within a humanitarian aid agency already working on the ground—an approach that has been described by Goodhand (2000: 13) as ‘the only safe and practical way to gain access to a “live” war zones’. This was also necessary for logistical reasons, in order to gain access to the field and critical participants. Being embedded within a humanitarian aid organisation meant that I could rely on their security and safety arrangements, and the intelligence that the organisation has in place for its own teams. However, as a researcher I was also aware that even within such arrangements there is always an element of risk, especially for a woman. In the past, having sought access to suitable accommodation in a refugee camp, my gatekeeper (a humanitarian practitioner identified to provide access) had turned up at my guest house for a ‘welfare check’ that turned out to be a very uncomfortable evening as it became obvious that the intention was of a different nature. I managed to get out of the situation playing extremely ‘dumb’, talking excessively about how HIV had become prevalent in the community I came from, and talking about a non-existent fiancé. A similar strategy was used by Johansson (2015) while undertaking her research in Nigeria. My biggest worry after the incident was not how lucky I was but was whether I had jeopardised my opportunity to collect the crucial data from the camps as I had one week to do so and had just arrived. At the time, I was constantly paralysed by my desire to ‘collect good data’, rather than the risk of offending my gatekeepers. Alot of this is evidenced in the literature by feminist researchers about the possible dangers they face in the field (Sharp and Kremer 2006; Green et al. 1993; Nilan 2002; Lee 1997; Arendell 1997).

Reflexivity as an Ongoing Research Process Therefore, while researcher risk and danger were issues that I could have anticipated, on reflection and based on my experience in the field, I now realise that there were other silent and subtle challenges that I could not have

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anticipated and that continue to shape my development as a researcher. I have undergone a transformative journey from an ‘uncritical landmine campaigner and activist’ or a ‘naïve practitioner’, to one who had been challenged by academic exposure to become a ‘critical academic researcher’. This transformation continues. My continued exposure to, and reading of, the many accounts of feminist and critical researchers has continued to impact on this transformation as I learn to become more conscious and reflective of my research encounters. Fundamentally, doing research is an ongoing process that extends beyond the completion and dissemination of research findings. Unlike many acts of researcher reflexivity that are undertaken during the time of data collection and while in the research site, and also, that reflect on a single research project, this chapter recalls experiences of fieldwork during different research undertakings. I draw from my research experience during my doctoral research period and also from recent experience as a postdoctoral researcher. The reflections that follow here demonstrate the different layers of challenges and privileges that I had not fully anticipated. While I had fussed about ‘dangerous’ field sites and anticipated how my gender would interact with my research, some of the challenges I encountered were more subtle and sometimes rarely discussed in the literature. This chapter provides an opportunity to reflect on some of these. Positionality Positionality refers to how researchers explore their situatedness and their multiple and shifting identities and how these identities inform research processes. Part of this positionality Ozano and Khatri (2018) suggest is ‘how they (researchers) view themselves and are viewed by others: as an insider or outsider, someone with power or feels powerless, or coming from a privileged or disadvantaged situation’ Positionality is thus determined by where one stands in relation to ‘the other’. These positions may sometimes shift, are multiple, complex and in flux, and are based on identity. Similarly, identity has been described as a complex, multi-layered and dynamic phenomenon that is both fluid and situational, yet retaining core characteristics (Oetzel 2009). Thus, we each have multiple identities, which include our ascribed characteristics that depict our race/ethnicity, cultural background, skin colour, sexual orientation, ability and, most often, gender; thus, my identity is that I am a black heterosexual African woman, Kenyan, British, postdoctoral academic researcher. Hence, I bear different personal characteristics than I ascribe to myself and those too that others have attributed to me through the way they see me. The identities are sometimes shaped through my social location within society and are reinforced through interactions with others (Muhammad et al. 2015). My intersectional identity means that matters are complicated. I am a scholar based at an institution in the Global North, and therefore, issues of power and privilege need to take into account, as does my location in relation to ‘insider-outsider’ questions.

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Multiple Identities; ‘Expat or Local’, ‘Insider or Outsider’ or None As part of the plan to be embedded within a humanitarian aid organisation, I grabbed an opportunity to undertake a short-term research assistant position with the UN Somalia office in Nairobi. This position, I hoped, would help me identify an NGO who could host me as a when in Somaliland. I was part of a team of three researchers: one Norwegian from the University of Tromso, who had just finished her master’s degree, a Hungarian doctoral researcher from my own university and department, and myself. Anyone who has worked in the UN system will be aware of the difference that exists between local and expatriate staff. What was my ascribed identity? Was I local or was I an expatriate? Having been recruited from the UK, I arrived at the UN bearing a British passport that bears a British surname as was reflected in the names that I was registered under. My name tag bore a British name. On one occasion, as my programme manager attempted to explain something to cafeteria assistant, I volunteered and translated what he meant in the/my local language. He looked at me quizzically and away from anyone’s earshot he asked ‘how?’ I explained that I was a dual national; I was born and bred in Kenya but now lived and worked in the UK. While he did not say much from that exchange, from that moment, I ‘lost’ my ‘expatriate’ status. I learned this as I was excluded from any social gathering and events where other expats congregated. I only learned about such events from my two colleagues who on several occasions sought to know why I had not turned up (I had never been invited or told about the events in the first place). Duster (2001: 115) cited by Benton suggests that incident like this should be seen as racial stratification, ‘reifying any one of those identities comes with the risk of losing the basic insights into the nature and character of racial stratification’. Later, I was to experience the same in Somaliland. Having negotiated access through a landmine clearance organisation, I arrived in Somaliland, and while embedded within this organisation was required to abide by the security regulations for expatriate staff. This meant that I interacted with them socially as I was sharing accommodation. During the evenings sometimes the discussions were about ‘local’ staff. In several such sessions the expatriate staff and on some occasions their guests would apologise to me whenever they talked about their local colleagues. It did not matter how many times I told them that they didn’t have to, but every time this came up, they would repeat the same apologies. As I left the field, I wondered why they had felt the need to. Upon reflection, I realised that in such instances the identity that was at the fore for many of my ‘fellow’ expatriates was my race: black, African, Kenyan and therefore ‘local’. That I was neither a Somalilander nor an expatriate meant that I was being ‘othered’ as ‘local’ and therefore an ‘outsider’ (not an expat) by those I was interacting with at the time. With hindsight I now see that my situation was akin to an African expatriate within the humanitarian discourse and practice, who when recognised at all were described as ‘both foreign and native in a circumscribed

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ontological and epistemological space called “Africa”’ (Benton 2016). Benton further posits that the ‘nativeness is expected to be in solidarity with, and empathetic to, local concerns’ (ibid.). INGOs declare that they adhere to Western humanitarian professional ethics and conduct, which explicitly proclaim the equality in capacity amongst racial groups, but as Benton argues, ‘also predictably positions black Africans on a lower rung of the humanitarian professional hierarchy’ (ibid.). In my case, I was rendered as ‘local’ by these expatriate colleagues. Was I local? Did my identity as a Kenyan and African mean that the Somalilanders would identify with me? I returned to Somaliland for a second data collection visit fifteen months later. On this occasion, I had a sense of my way around, and therefore chose not to be embedded with the NGO and instead I shared a house with a group of young, white, American expatriates who I had been introduced to by a colleague. Without an NGO facilitating my project meant that I had to find my own means of transportation to get me to my various appointments. A taxi service in Hargeisa was still a very new phenomenon, and there were very few taxis at the time. I however was lucky to identify and therefore engage a taxi driver who had been recommended as ‘friendly’ and who spoke English. This was important as I did not speak or understand any Somali. During one of the many trips with the driver, a conversation emerged where he asked me how many words of Somali I could speak. My response was honest—that indeed I had not been in Somaliland long enough to learn the language. His response was one of anger, and he questioned how a white colleague who lived in the same house as I did, could converse in Somali while I, an African and Kenyan, could not make any efforts to learn the language. It did not matter what my response was (the fact that I had only been in the country less than a month in total did not make any difference), he became agitated and drove to my destination rather aggressively. His behaviour and reaction towards me worried me so much that I had to find other means of transportation for the rest of my stay which was a challenge as there wasn’t a pool of taxis from which to select from. The taxi driver had felt that I was ‘betraying’ being one of them, an ‘insider’ as I was an African and black like him. The above incidents should not have come as a surprise for me as I had been part of the humanitarian profession before I joined academia. I had witnessed how as national/local staff within such settings I and others had occupied those lower rungs of the humanitarian professions. Yet it is only on reflection and through my experiences as an academic researcher that I can see these actions for what they were. This included the introduction of policies that were downright biased against local and African expatriate staff. For example, upon learning that I had undertaken an errand for the office that involved driving the office vehicle, a policy was introduced that forbade local staff to drive office vehicles unless employed as a driver. This was while

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international/expatriate7 (read white) colleagues were on arrival for the first time automatically allowed to drive and provided with access to vehicles for both personal and official use.8 This must be understood within a context in which very few local staff would have had access to cars, as driving and/ or owning a car was beyond the ability of the majority of the local/national staff. To drive was to have a status of power, it was for a few minorities who were privileged. Then and now, recognition of the role that racial identity plays in the humanitarian aid and development sector is yet to be openly discussed. Similarly missing in the discourse today is how race, especially that of an ethnographic researcher, intersects with racialised humanitarian and development spaces in the realms of knowledge production. The above situations of neither being an insider, outsider, both or neither (expatriate or local or neither) resulted in a deep sense of emotional emptiness due to both the social and geographical isolation of being in the field. My experiences reassert the findings by Crewe and Fernando (2006) who have argued that ‘generalized representations of “racial” groups are pervasive and can be trivial in impact, but when combined with exclusionary social networks and rituals, and used to justify white-dominated power structures, the result can be systematic discrimination against people based on their racial identity’. While I had been over-prepared through risk assessments as required by university ethics committee panels, the main challenge that I encountered was in navigating my different identities. None of this was captured in the ‘good’ ethical guidelines of institutional paperwork but had to be negotiated and grappled with daily in the field. Identity and Status; Privileged Access to Participants My encounter with the taxi driver challenged me and led to a lot of reflection on relationships, access, power and commonality of experience and more importantly how the community that I engaged in perceived me. I also realised that my status as an ‘outsider’ was not always a negative one. Indeed, it sometimes brought with it some privileges and eased my way in accessing research participants who included state policymakers, planners, international development agencies as well as NGOs, research institutions and academics. In these instances, my outsider status was an asset for the research. This ‘outsider’ status was also linked to power and therefore privilege. I was 7 International

staff was and can be a euphemism for ‘white’ or ‘western’ expatriate. was not based on insurance concerns—as this would have therefore been applicable across the board including to international staff. However, it was as a result of my then British regional director who had learned that I had been asked to pick up a visitor who was stranded as a result of the driver being caught up in traffic. The fact was that I had learnt how to drive and had lived in the same city since birth and therefore knew the roads quite well. Such policies resulted in a nasty accident involving an expatriate member of staff who having just arrived in the country for the first time and being unaware or unaccustomed to the notorious Nairobi traffic. 8 This

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a researcher representing a UK institution and mentioning my link to such academic institutions opened several doors. Somaliland is certainly one of the most accessible research sites whether you are seeking contact with government ministries, civil society organisations or the Somaliland people themselves. However, as with other sites, there are sometimes instances where individuals or institutions are not always as accessible as we would want them to. In such occasions whenever I struggled to gain access to a senior government official in Hargeisa, I took to visiting the relevant offices and I would take a chance with the receptionist or hope that the target individual would walk past giving me an opportunity to request a meeting. I observed how receptive the receptionists and guards (both gatekeepers) were upon learning that I was from an institution in the UK. I always wondered whether I would have got the same responses had I been from the University of Nairobi or any other university in Africa. I observed that people positioned me with ties to privileged educational institutions. I use the term privilege here to refer not to the advantages that some people have over others but as a lens through which I understand myself and my relations to others (Howard 2013). Thus, as a doctoral and postdoctoral researcher from a UK institution, and as a resident of the UK, a perception amongst my Somalilander research participants meant that I was seen as coming from a more privileged position. While similar historical and political processes might have located me with my research participants, I was different through a class privilege (Lal 1996). Being Kenyan and representing a UK institution gave me certain privileges while navigating access. For example, whenever I met with a hostile security guard a mention of my Kenyan identity was welcomed and it became a conversation starter that would sometimes facilitate access into a building or even an office. In some instances, it was the fact that I lived in the UK and this seemed to be received positively by government officials in Hargeisa, especially those who were dual nationals and had second homes in the UK. My experiences reaffirmed what Bouka (2018) and others have argued that one’s gender, ethnicity and class determine the opportunities and challenges that they may encounter in collecting data. A Reflection Having previously been a humanitarian aid worker, a landmine campaigner and later landmine researcher meant that I had many connections and links with those working in the field. I assumed that my positionality was akin to an ‘insider’. I was black, Kenyan and African, undertaking research in an African country, thus, I had assumed that the shared African identity (if there ever is one) would give me an ‘insider’ advantage over my non-African white colleagues. Neither did having been a practitioner in the humanitarian aid sector translate into being an insider. Despite my involvement/identification as an insider, my being accepted by the community in question was not

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totally accepted. As my time in the field progressed, it became evident that my assumed positionality as an ‘insider’ in the field of mine action and my multiple identities were different to the many stakeholders and encounters during my different experiences in the field. I was also an ‘outsider’ to the humanitarian expats both in the UN office in Nairobi and in Hargeisa, and so was I in Somaliland’s unique context, demonstrating the impossibility of permanently locating oneself or others according to a single continuum of insiders or outsiders. Like all social roles and statuses, these are frequently situational and dependent on the prevailing social, political, and cultural values of a given social context. Reflecting about these experiences, I conclude that in such encounters, I was what Mullings (1999) described as ‘simultaneously an insider, outsider, both and neither’. I identified with Reinharz’s comment that ‘although the researcher may consider “being a researcher” as one’s most salient self, community members may not agree’ (1997: 3). While as a researcher I thought I knew who I was, it was the way in which other people chose to see me that defined my experience and this in turn shaped how I engaged with my research. Although not all of my interlocutors were research participants, they were all part of the experience of doing research. Quite evidently, the above experiences further reinforce the fact that positionalities are tempered both spatially and temporally and are unstable and not fixed (Sultana 2007). Sometimes there is a naïve assumption amongst researchers, myself included, that access is no more than an administrative hurdle that precedes ‘the “real” research’ (Crowhurst 2013). Indeed as others have observed, there are several levels of access when carrying out research, access to research sites and then access to participants (Okumus et al. 2007). However, access is about more than just this, it is also about having access to a social community within the research sites that can provide a lone researcher with that extra sense of belonging. The discussions on access should not be limited to accessing research sites, and or research participants as my experience indicates. Naively assuming that having access to a mine clearance organisation my research would be unproblematic was indeed a fallacy. My experience of navigating the insider/outsider line contributes to discussions that point to the complexity inherent in either status or suggest that the boundaries between the two positions are not clearly delineated. The reflexivity in my own took place during research intervals, and this then shaped and informed the next research engagement. It is similar to what Attia and Edge (2017: 35) describe as a process whereby a ‘researcher consciously stepping back from action in order to theorise what is taking place, and also stepping up to be an active part of that contextualised action’. This process of stepping back and stepping up was not explicitly planned but research intervals provided for stepping back, returning to the field in a different capacity represented the stepping up. My experiences as a novice landmine monitor researcher informed decisions for my doctoral research, and in

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turn, this provided reflective time for the postdoctoral research period. My encounter in refugee camps heightened my awareness that as a woman, I need to be constantly on the alert to ward off uninvited attention whether real or perceived. This reflects what Sultana (2007), citing Kandiyoti (1988), calls ‘making a patriarchal bargain when negotiating what is in the best interest of the research being done’. Over time as a female researcher steering any remarks and actions from male participants back to the issue/question at hand without offending them becomes part of my psyche while in the field. When confronted with such incidents, many women researchers deliberately do not call this out as ‘sexual harassment’ or ‘unwanted sexual attention’ as we would in our own cultural settings. Instead, we revert to dealing with this in a calculated way of not voicing anger or offence (Johansson 2015).

Conclusion Attia and Edge (2017) offer a great insight on the ideas of reflexivity especially in explaining the transformational process which they term as ‘Be(com) ing reflexive researchers’. They characterise reflexivity as comprising of two interacting elements—prospective and retrospective reflexivity (see also Edge 2011). They identify prospective reflexivity as one that is frequently utilised by researchers and one that concerns itself with the whole-person-researcher. A retrospective reflexivity, on the other hand, concerns itself with the effect of the research on the researcher and linked to this are ways in which one may affect and be affected. The process of becoming a ‘critical’ ‘reflexive’ scholar relates to the ability to be transformative, something described by Cranton (1996: 79–80) ‘to involve and lead to some fundamental change in perspective’ which further means that encompassing an awareness of how assumptions about myself and the social context functions in powerful ways in order that transformation may occur. I realise now that while reflexivity is critical during the collection of data in the field, it is as important beyond the field and in the writing up period. England (1994) notes that research continues as we reflect. Thus, if reflexivity is self-critical sympathetic introspection and the self-conscious analytical scrutiny of the self as researcher, then this process does not end when one leaves the field. I contend that indeed it induces self-discovery and can lead to insights and in the process, it provides for a process of transformation of a naïve practitioner into a critical ethnographic researcher. Similarly, there are several ways and models of ‘doing’ positionality and reflexivity, during research however, a retrospective reflexivity on the aforementioned issues must not be ignored. Working on this chapter has therefore been an act of reflexivity which is now widely accepted as a necessary element not only of good fieldwork practice, but I would also argue post-fieldwork in order to improve and inform one’s research journey. This chapter is therefore an opportunity for a personal reflection both on my own racialised, gendered identity and my own development as a researcher and an academic.

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References Arendell, T. 1997. Reflections on the researcher-researched relationship: A woman interviewing men. Qualitative Sociology 20 (3): 341–368. Attia, M., and J. Edge. 2017. Be(com)ing a reflexive researcher: A developmental approach to research methodology. Open Review of Educational Research 4 (1): 33–45. Baird, A. 2009. Methodological dilemmas: Researching violent young men in Medellín, Colombia. IDS Bulletin 40 (3): 72–77. Benton, A. 2016. African expatriates and race in the anthropology of humanitarianism. Critical African Studies 8 (3): 266–277. Bouka, Y. 2018. Collaborative research as structural violence. Political Violence at a Glance. Retrieved from http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2018/07/12/ collaborative-research-as-structural-violence. Bourke, B. 2014. Positionality: Reflecting on the research process. The Qualitative Report 19 (33): 1–9. Büscher, K., and K. Vlassenroot. 2010. Humanitarian presence and urban development: New opportunities and contrasts in Goma, DRC. Disasters 34: S256–S273. Cramer, C., et al. 2011. Researching violence in Africa: Ethical and methodological challenges, vol. 6. Leiden: Brill. Cranton, P. 1996. Professional development as transformative learning. New perspectives for teachers of adults. The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series. Crewe, E., and P. Fernando. 2006. The elephant in the room: Racism in representations, relationships and rituals. Progress in Development Studies 6 (1): 40–54. Crowhurst, I. 2013. The fallacy of the instrumental gate? Contextualising the process of gaining access through gatekeepers. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 16 (6): 463–475. Dixit, M. 2012. Field research in conflict zones: Experience from India and Sierra Leone. International Studies 49 (1–2): 133–150. Duster, T. 2001. The ‘morphing’ Properties of Whiteness. In The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, ed. Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Irene Nexica, Matt Wray, and Eric Klinenberg, 113–137. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Edge, J. 2011. The reflexive teacher educator in TESOL: Roots and wings. New York: Routledge. England, K.V.L. 1994. Getting personal: Reflexivity, positionality, and feminist research. The Professional Geographer 46 (1): 80–89. Goodhand, J. 2000. Research in conflict zones: Ethics and accountability. Forced Migration Review 8 (4): 12–16. Green, G., et al. 1993. “Who wears the trousers?”: Sexual harassment in research settings. Women’s Studies International Forum 16 (6): 627–637. Hobbs, D., and R. Wright. 2006. The Sage handbook of fieldwork. London: Sage. Howard, A. 2013. Learning privilege: Lessons of power and identity in affluent schooling. New York: Routledge. Johansson, L. 2015. Dangerous liaisons: Risk, positionality and power in women’s anthropological fieldwork. Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 7 (1): 55–63. Kjellman, K.E. 2003. Norms, persuasion and practice: Landmine monitor and civil society. Third World Quarterly 24 (5): 955–965. Lal, J. 1996. Situating locations: The politics of self, identity, and ‘other’ in living and writing the text. In Feminist Dilemmas inFieldwork, ed. Diane Wolf, 185–214. Oxford: Westview Press.

394  S. NJERI Lee, D. 1997. Interviewing men: Vulnerabilities and dilemmas. Women’s Studies International Forum 20 (4): 553–564. Lee, R.M. 1995. Dangerous fieldwork, vol. 34. Qualitative Research Methods Series. Thousand Oaks and London: Sage. Linkogle, S., and G. Lee-Treweek. 2000. Danger in the field: Risk and ethics in social research. London: Routledge. Mazurana, D., et al. (eds.). 2013. Research methods in conflict settings: A view from below. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merriam, S.B., et al. 2001. Power and positionality: Negotiating insider/outsider status within and across cultures. International Journal of Lifelong Education 20 (5): 405–416. Muhammad, M., et al. 2015. Reflections on researcher identity and power: The impact of positionality on community based participatory research (CBPR) processes and outcomes. Critical Sociology 41 (7–8): 1045–1063. Mullings, B. 1999. Insider or outsider, both or neither: Some dilemmas of interviewing in a cross-cultural setting. Geoforum 30 (4): 337–350. Mwambari, D. 2019. Local positionality in the production of knowledge in Northern Uganda. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 18, 1609406919864845. Nilan, P.M. 2002. ‘Dangerous fieldwork’ re-examined: The question of researcher subject position. Qualitative Research 2 (3): 363–386. Njeri, S. 2015. A minefield of possibilities: The viability of liberal peace in Somaliland, with particular reference to mine action. Peace Studies. Unpublished thesis, University of Bradford. Nordstrom, C., and A.C.G.M. Robben. 1995. Fieldwork under fire: Contemporary studies of violence and survival. Berkeley and London: University of California Press. Oetzel, J.G. 2009. Intercultural communication: A layered approach. New York: Vango Books. Okumus, F., et al. 2007. Gaining access for research: Reflections from experience. Annals of Tourism Research 34 (1): 7–26. Ozano, K., and R. Khatri. 2018. Reflexivity, positionality and power in c­ ross-cultural participatory action research with research assistants in rural Cambodia. Educational Action Research 26 (2): 190–204. Reinharz, S. 1997. Who am I? The need for a variety of selves in the field. In Reflexivity and voice, 3–20. London: Sage. Sharp, G., and E. Kremer. 2006. The safety dance: Confronting harassment, intimidation and violence in the field. Sociological Methodology 36 (1): 317–327. Skåra, B.A. 2003. Risky business or constructive assistance? Community engagement in humanitarian mine action. Third World Quarterly 24 (5): 839–853. Sluka, J.A. 1995. Reflections on managing danger in fieldwork dangerous anthropology in Belfast. In Fieldwork under fire; contemporary studies of violence and survival, ed. C. Nordstrom and A.C.G.M. Robben, 276–293. Berkeley and London: University of California Press. Sluka, J.A. 2018. Too dangerous for fieldwork? The challenge of institutional risk-management in primary research on conflict, violence and ‘terrorism’. Contemporary Social Science, 1–17. Sultana, F. 2007. Reflexivity, positionality and participatory ethics: Negotiating fieldwork dilemmas in international research. ACME: An International E-journal for Critical Geographies 6 (3): 374–385.

CHAPTER 27

Fixers and Friends: Local and International Researchers Morten Bøås

The study of international interventions in countries in conflict is an expanding field. As a result, fieldwork is being conducted by students and scholars from disciplines other than anthropology and the number of studies published has increased rapidly over the last decades. By and large, these studies are written by external ‘experts’, scholars and students that live and work in the Global North. Those that often contributed greatly to making these studies happen—that is, local researchers, fixers and brokers—if mentioned at all, are thanked for their efforts in a footnote or acknowledgement page. This is paradoxical as many Global North university curriculums currently are preoccupied with positionality, decolonisation, emancipation and co-production. Yet these debates seem to have little impact on research practice beyond endless debates on university campuses or in academic journals mainly read on the same campuses. This is an issue that needs deeper reflection as it suggests a global academic elite more concerned with how their peers view them than practising what they preach. However, there is also another paradox present here. If we assume that external interventions carried out under the UN flag, the EU mantle or led by other large donor groups have relatively good intentions, even if their interventions may lead to very mixed results on the ground (see Bøås and Rieker 2019), it is still a puzzle This chapter is written in memory of my colleague Ambroise Doukou, a genuine intellectual and exemplar researcher that died way too young in a car accident in Central Mali. M. Bøås (*)  Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_27

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why accessing these interventions is so difficult for local researchers. After all, these local researchers live in the area of intervention and are therefore also supposedly the beneficiaries of the intervention. Even disregarding the meagre resources colleagues in a country like Mali have available for research, often they are not even able to get appointments for interviews with the agents of international interventions or access to the data collected and held by the intervening parties if they want to research the very intervention that is happening in their country. For this author, it is just another indication that we live in a highly unequal world where your position vis-á-vis agents of power and authority will determine what you have access to. The question, I would like to explore in this chapter, based on years of experience with fieldwork in the Sahel is, however, if we can turn this around. Is it possible to ‘make inequality work for mutual benefit’? I believe it is and demonstrate this in this chapter through reviews of personal experiences of working with colleagues in several Sahel countries. In reviewing these personal experiences, most of them penned on the way out of Niger after yet another round of research work with this group of researchers, leads me to suggest, not a code of conduct, but some very personal principles that have come to guide my way of doing fieldwork, of making ‘inequality work for mutual benefit’.

Are Local Partners Only Fixers? While our colleagues who live in highly unsecure places play a crucial role in most research ongoing in these sites, there is very little written about the working relationships between local and international researchers. The literature that does exist tends to see them as research assistants, interlocutors or ‘fixers’: as someone that can enable proper researchers (i.e. those trained and employed in the Global North) to safely navigate violent and conflict-prone areas. They are often depicted as people that can help researchers like me deal with difficult agents of the state, or enable my access to remote or hidden populations (see, e.g., Baaz and Utas 2019). Undoubtedly, local people who perform any of these roles play an important part in much of the research that takes place, but their contribution and even existence is most often ignored (see Turner 2010; Gupta 2014). Thus, to the extent that these relationships have been reflected upon, it is often from a post-colonial perspective that tends to display this as yet another piece of evidence of an exploitative world order (see, e.g., Middleton and Pradhan 2014). In the literature (although not in practice), this perspective has not been subject to much questioning, although there are a few exceptions. One is Schumaker (2001) who argues that the post-colonial reading is too deterministic as it fails to acknowledge that local research assistants, interlocutors and ‘fixers’ also have an agency of motives, interests and objectives that shapes their reason for getting involved in, and continue to remain

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part, of such relationships. Others, like Molony and Hammet (2007), have even presented a picture that almost victimises the Global North researcher as someone preyed upon by local research assistants who simply are after the cash. A recent contribution to this debate by Baaz and Utas (2019) aims to bring the role of local research assistants, interlocutors and fixers into the centre stage of the debates about positionality, but also discussions about fieldwork security (see also Peter and Strazzari 2017) that have come to dominate debates about fieldwork on Global North university campuses. This is a much-needed attempt to bring some truly critical perspectives into these debates, but the approach taken by Baaz and Utas (2019: 160) also falls short as it basically defines local researchers as brokers—a character they define as a ‘key agent being in-between the researcher and the researched who regulates the access and flow of knowledge between them’. This definition is accurate for some relationships. The problem is that it fails to acknowledge that this is not the only relationship that exists. As I will attempt to spell out in what follows, my relationship with a group of researchers organised in a research network that is called Alliance pour la Gouvernance en Afrique (ARGA) and particularly to my main contact point there Abdoul Wahab Cissé is of a different nature. ARGA and Abdoul are not research brokers, but research partners. We acknowledge that we are different, that we have different access to funding and to the field, and not the least the fact that we both live in a highly uneven world formed by hierarchies of power that none of us can do that much about. However, we have also come to the conclusion that we can form a partnership that can make inequality work for mutual benefit. This is another side to these questions—a non-normative pragmatic approach to global injustice that we believe is more useful to both of us than spending endless time and resources on theorising something that none of our research and writing will do very much about. In the following, I will therefore try to present a picture of how Abdoul and I try to make inequality work for our mutual benefit and offer some principles that can guide other researchers to a more pragmatic and less paradigmatic approach to research collaboration across the lines of global inequality.

Doing Fieldwork in Present-Day Sahel Engaging in fieldwork (I am tempted to say ‘proper’ fieldwork) in the Sahel is becoming increasingly difficult. We are witnessing an evolution of events that represents an odd re-making of the blank spots that once could be found on old European maps of Africa. In most of these, the interior of Africa was either simply left blank, or blanked out with the caveat: Cave! Hic Dragones! (Here be dragons!). Unlike colonial cartographers, we have an advanced knowledge of the physical landscape of places like the Sahel borderlands of Niger or the Lac Chad Basin encompassing peripheral parts of Cameroun,

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Chad, Nigeria and Niger. However, what we have lost during the last decades is a grounded understanding of the social landscape of these areas based on independent third-party empirical observations. The reason for this is that security concerns mean we are simply not present in the field like we as empirically-oriented researcher used to be. The question is then how do we deal with this? How do we deal with the fact that outside of capital city areas the state has almost vanished, the international presence is low, and the security situation is rapidly deteriorating? Hotels and restaurants are attacked. Hostage taking happens and both international and local researchers are targets. This is the situation that we currently are faced with in the Sahel where there is very little independent third-party systematic data gathering. Here, field research, as we used to be able to conduct in other conflict zones, is no longer taking place in the same way. Much of the research that does take places is often conducted under a certain degree of suspense and suspicion, if not outright paranoia. Field visits are infrequent and almost always short. This means that it is difficult to develop a systematic data set based on first-hand data collection. It also leads to a dependence on a combination of more anecdotal evidence and data collected by several sources whose reliability can be questioned, for example, data collected by journalists and intelligence officers. This data are not necessarily bad or biased; it can be very good, mediocre or bad, but the problem is that most often we do not know much about the quality of the data nor the original purpose behind its collection, analysis and framing. Part of this problem can be tackled by triangulating as much data as possible. This helps, but the question is what more we can do? The most frequent answer given to the problem of research gaps is the ‘local’; be it a ‘fixer’, an interlocutor, a research assistant, an individual researcher or a research organisation. In other words, by working with local researchers, partners, communities and institutions, we can overcome the difficulties posed by problems of access and insecurity. In the ideal world of a number of anthropological texts, which mainly exists in the theoretical imaginary of global cosmopolitanism and emancipation, such a relationship is based on trust and eventual friendship, making the researcher into what Geertz (1983: 56) calls the exemplar of the ‘myth of the chameleon fieldworker, perfectly tuned to his exotic surroundings, a walking miracle of empathy, tact, patience and cosmopolitanism’. Such a persona obviously cannot exist no matter how much we pretend, and in previous work on this issue, I have tried to the best of my ability to offer some concrete advice about how to deal with unequal research relationships in highly insecure places (see Bøås et al. 2006; Bøås 2020; Bliesemann de Guevara and Bøås 2020). Certainly, this literature on working with the local has been useful, not least for myself as it has helped trigger some much needed critical reflection on my own behalf about what I have been doing in the field over a period of more than two decades. However, these texts may also give the impression

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that collaboration with local partners always will be shaped by difficult questions concerning the control of funding and security concerns. Yes, it is undoubtedly the fact that in most cases, it is the researchers from the Global North who bring funding and opportunities, control the research process and spend a considerable amount of the project funding. This will have an impact on the relationships between the researchers involved. That cannot be denied. Likewise, working in a highly insecure place where people like me area potential target also takes its toll as I am probably not the only one who at times has had second thoughts concerning the loyalty of those I work with and have had concerns about their security advice. Such thoughts will emerge, and they should be acknowledged as well as the unequal and hierarchical nature of the relationship between highly mobile researchers like myself and my local partners in the Sahel (see Bøås 2020). The world is not a fair place and our various relationships with friends and colleagues are marked by this. However, this does not mean that we cannot make inequality work. I believe that we can and that we can make it work for mutual benefit if we acknowledge our different positions and how these can jointly be used for mutual gains. These gains will not make us equal, they will not necessarily be equally divided either, but if it is clearly something that is of interest to both parties, yes, we can make inequality work. Thus, what I will try to accomplish in the remaining parts of this chapter is to spell out how I, together with a couple of colleagues from the Sahel, have managed to work together over several years, being each other’s fixers and interlocutors, eventually also finding a platform for a type of friendship based on respect for each other’s comparative advantages. This is what can form a platform for an unequal relationship that works for mutual benefit.

Working with Abdoul—An Unequal Relationship for Mutual Benefit Sitting at the terrace at the venerable Grand Hotel in Niamey with Abdoul, watching the sun going down over the River Niger and the John F. Kennedy Bridge, our conversation that until then had been about the joint project we were working on now turned to how our relationship had come about and what we had done and achieved over the last four years. We did not go back that long, but since 2015 we had worked together extensively—first on a huge European Union Horizon 2020 funded project (see www.EUNPACK. eu) where I had been the Principal Investigator (PI), and thereafter on a couple of other projects financed by the Norwegian Research Council (NRC). Our first meeting was not in person, but via a Skype conversation. While we were doing the initial design of the EUNPACK project, we decided to include a case study of EU crisis response in a country in the Sahel. This made Mali the ideal candidate as the EU was forcefully present there with a relatively large delegation, and huge programmes of crisis response, namely

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EUCAP Sahel-Mali and the European Union Training Mission (EUTM). The former is mandated among other things to work on various aspect of police reform and border control (improved border management as the EU parlance calls it), while the latter, EUTM is a military training mission that is supposed to make the Malian Army (FAMA) not only better equipped to deal with a string of Islamist insurgents, but also to do it in a human rights friendly manner (for a critical review of these missions see Cissé et al. 2017). As the EUNPACK research design required local partners in each of the case study countries, we therefore needed to identify a Malian partner. After I had gone through old notes from previous fieldwork visits to Mali and consulted some colleagues as well, I decided to try to convince ARGA to join our consortium as I already had met some Malian researchers involved in this network and had a good impression from that encounter. It soon turned out that Abdoul was their regional research co-ordinator and that he was based in Dakar. To cut a long story short, I contacted ARGA and Abdoul, we agreed to discuss the matter on Skype and not that long after we received confirmation that ARGA would join the EUNPACK consortium as a full partner. ARGA as well as other EUNPACK partner organisations in other case study countries joined the consortium as full members and we never talked about anybody as local partners. If you were a member of EUNPACK you were a member. It was never my intention that partners in case study countries should be doing the data gathering, while the analysis and publications would be the responsibility of the European-based partners. However, the plan was also initially that the partner institutions in the case study countries should organise and facilitate the joint fieldwork that we were going to conduct. After all, they were permanently present in the field and it should therefore be easier for them both to facilitate access to national stakeholders that we wanted to meet and interview and to set up interview meetings with the international counterparts present. Not all of this turned out to be the case. Fixing Access The problem we soon came to encounter was precisely the ironic dilemma highlighted in the opening paragraphs of this chapter: it is much more difficult for researchers that live in areas of international interventions to get access to these missions for interviews or data than it is for international ‘experts’. This is not how it should be, but as both I and Abdoul are pragmatists we quickly came to the conclusion that the answer to this was to try to perfect a different kind of work-sharing. Prior to our joint fieldwork for the EUNPACK project, the rest of the team of international researchers and I involved in this specific work package would work on the international stakeholders, setting up as many meetings as

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possible in advance and where this was not possible, using our contact points to get access to as many cell phone numbers as possible so that we could call people we wanted to talk to directly when we were on the ground in Mali. Abdoul and his ARGA colleagues would facilitate meetings with national stakeholders many of whom they had a comparative advantage in accessing. In the field, we formed joint teams, meaning that ARGA researchers would join the European-based researchers in the meetings the latter had secured with international stakeholders. Likewise, European-based researchers would join the ARGA researchers in the meetings the latter had organised with national stakeholders. Obviously, this arrangement reflects global hierarchies of power and what they tell us about who has access to whom, and it is perverse that it is so difficult for researchers from countries in conflict to gain access to the international missions that supposedly are there to assist their countries. The question is what to do about it? One can complain bitterly about it, probably also write lengthy theoretical papers about it, or one can enter into a partnership where one becomes each other’s ‘fixer’s’ based on one’s respective advantages. This is what we did in the EUNPACK project, and it is an arrangement we have continued to try to fine-tune. Researchers like me have a much better chance of accessing both international stakeholders and various funding sources. The former mainly due to who I am, the latter because I have come to age as a researcher in an environment where I have learned to play the game of how to write and shape proposals to maximise the chance of winning such bids. Abdoul and ARGA need contact points to the global world of academia and research funds, but in the Sahel researchers like myself also need partners like Abdoul and ARGA. Security is an overarching issue, and even if I have worked in a number of precarious places previously as the Mano River Basin, Northern Uganda and DR Congo, questions concerning project security have never felt as acute as when I started working in Mali and the Sahel in 2007. The reasons for this lie in the deep uncertainties and fears that are brought about by a combination of insecurity and the near impossibility of accessing the most research-relevant parts of these territories. While the research situation was also highly insecure at times in the other conflict zones I have worked in, my research teams and I were rarely a direct target of possible attacks. This is different in the Sahel, where jihadist insurgencies attack hotels to create spectacular dramas for international media coverage, and international hostages are much sought after, leading to a severe decrease of fieldwork-based research in these areas. Security is important for everybody and Abdoul’s security is as important as my security. However, we are also affected by the crisis in the Sahel differently. There are places where we both can go, there are places where they can go, but they do not want me to go with them as it would increase the security threat to them as well, and there are places where none of us should go. The working arrangement we have found around this is based on two

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principles. The first is that the security situation changes constantly and it must therefore be monitored on a daily basis. What was possible yesterday may not be something one should plan to do tomorrow, and likewise what was not possible yesterday could suddenly become possible. We monitor security collectively and make our decisions while in the field based on this. Secondly, in making these decisions, we both have a ‘red card’ that we can play. What this means, is that we both can say no to a certain travel or meeting. I can say no and Abdoul can say no, and if one of says no, then no it is, we will not do this at least not now. The bottom line here is that on the basis of the EUNPACK project we have been able to define a practical and pragmatic working relationship where we deliberately acknowledge that we live in an unequal world and that there is not that much we can do about it. But we can make inequality work for our mutual benefit, because we need each other. This has come to constitute a common framework and understanding of our respective strengths and weaknesses that we have been able to take forward into a couple of other projects after the end of EUNPACK in April 2019. The question is if this continued collaboration also has taken our relationship into another arena that also would constitute as friendship? Not a One-Off Affair Less than a week after the end of our November 2019 fieldwork in Niger, I met Abdoul again in New Orleans where we were having joint presentations on two panels at the annual Middle East Studies Association (MESA). The conference had several interesting panels and our two joint panels on ‘hybrid pathways to resistance in the Islamic World (HYRES)’ went well with a decent level of attendance, but we also took some time to explore the city. This was interesting because we suddenly became something else, we became two tourists exploring a place that none of us knew very well. Sitting at a café in the uptown part of New Orleans on our way to visit a cemetery nearby that both of us had read about, another colleague at the table that we did not knew very well commented upon on our relationship saying ‘we talked together like we had been friends since high school’. I replied not to the other colleague, but to Abdoul, asking ‘are we friends?’ Abdoul replied, ‘Yes, we have become friends’. I was happy to hear this as I had started to think about him as something more than a good and respected colleague. However, as we talked a little about this as we continued our walk, we also concluded that our friendship had been formed on the basis of our working relationship that had proven good for both of us, but also by the defining moment when a man we both had a lot of respect for, and who also happened to be one of Abdoul’s best friends in Mali, suddenly died. His name was Ambroise Doukou. I had met Ambroise in 2013, two years before I first met Abdoul. Ambroise and I never became very close, but we kept in touch and I remember fondly the conversations we used to have at a place called Villa Soudan in Bamako,

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sitting by the River Niger, discussing everything from the abysses of Malian politics to the different promises and pitfalls of governmentality as a framework for research. Ambroise was also connected to ARGA and he took part in some of the research we did together for EUNPACK, but he also worked on a number of other projects, including one in Central Mali funded by a U.S. based group. This work entailed a lot of field research in this part of Mali. Having recently had his first child with his wife, Ambroise travelled home every weekend to Bamako, only returning by car to the field on Sundays. This meant that he almost inevitably had to a make part of the journey in darkness. This would be his and another colleague from the University of Bamako’s bane. One fatal night in 2018 they drove straight into a lorry full of timber that had broken down on a bend in the road. Both Ambroise and his fellow passenger died. It did not take long before Abdoul knew about this and he immediately contacted me as well. We were both struck by grief over what had happened, but I guess that loss can also bring people together. We shared the same feeling of loss, although it goes without saying that this was much more present for Abdoul than it was for me. After all, he had lost one of his best friends. However, there were also a number of issues that we needed to deal with. We needed a replacement for the role that Ambroise had played in our joint EUNPACK project and both of us also wanted to acknowledge the role that Ambroise had played. We wrote a short piece about the tragedy that had happened for the EUNPACK webpage and electronic newsletter, and I also asked about his family—a side of his life I did not know very much about, apart from knowing he was married and had recently had a child with his wife. On the next field trip to Mali, Abdoul and I went to visit Ambroise’s widow. It was emotional, but I believe it also felt good for both of us, and to some extent it fortified our relationship. It became more than simply a useful working relationship. However, this is the consequence of a working relationship where we quite quickly together started to look at new opportunities for mutual, albeit unequal benefit. What this meant was that we quickly started to define our joint work as something that should continue beyond the life of the EUNPACK project. Our relationship would not be a ‘one-off affair’, but something we both together could expand and branch out to other areas of research. This joint commitment made it much easier to swiftly develop an approach where we calmly and pragmatically could estimate each of our respective strengths and weaknesses to see if we could make ‘inequality work for mutual benefit’.

Taking Steps to Making Inequality Work for Mutual Benefit Whether we actually managed to make ‘inequality work for mutual benefit’ is probably not entirely for me to decide as I am clearly biased in this matter. Nonetheless, the question is if this is just a ‘good story’, or if it also can tell us something about how we can address the wider issue of structural inequalities? I believe it can, but not as an answer to how to overcome structural

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inequalities, but as a possible tentative guide to a non-normative pragmatic approach to global injustices where we do something with what we can do something about. This is a ‘step-by-step’ approach where the guiding principle is a commitment to establish collaborative relationships across structural inequalities that lasts over time based on mutual interests and gains accepting that these are not necessarily equally divided, but still facilitates research partners in the Global South access to funding and to the agents of the international interventions that operate in their countries. In this regard, all of us so-called international experts could do much more, and it would also be in our own interest as I believe this chapter shows, but then we need to start defining those we work with as research partners and not simply research brokers that enable us to do our research. In this case, working our time with Abdoul and ARGA, we have managed to initiate and execute a number of new projects, in the process becoming each other’s ‘fixers’, as well as establishing a basis for friendship. All of this suggests it is at least possible to make such a relationship work. If it is to work, it must be sustained over time, and as with all other relationships, it will only be sustained over time if there is something in it for both parties. Its benefits do not necessarily need to be evenly divided. They rarely are in any kind of relationship, but there must be something there for both parties, and the initial question should be: What can we do for each other? In this particular case, we discovered quite quickly that we could become each other’s fixers. Me as the international partner could be the interlocutor that enabled contacts, data and interviews with the international missions in Mali, while Abdoul and ARGA likewise would enable the same with national stakeholders. We became each other’s fixers, based on a pragmatic reading of our respective strengths and weaknesses. Our relationship is also based on respect, as I believe is reflected in our respective right to a ‘red card’ with regard to project and personnel security during fieldwork. We can both say no, and if one of us says no then that no is definitive. We can look at it again, but not there and then. This is possible because we have defined this as a long-term affair from early on. This changes the dynamic of the relationship as we both know that we will meet again and there will be new opportunities for further collaboration in a part of the world where the security situation is not likely to improve any time soon.

References Baaz, Maria Eriksson, and Mats Utas. 2019. Exploring the backstage: Methodological and ethical issues surrounding the role of research brokers in insecure zones. Civil Wars 21 (1): 157–178. Bliesemann de Guevara, Berit, and Morten Bøås (eds.). 2020. Doing fieldwork in areas of international intervention: A guide to research in violent and closed contexts. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

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Bøås, Morten. 2020. Unequal research relationships in highly insecure places: of fear, funds and friendship. In Doing fieldwork in areas of international intervention: A guide to research in violent and closed contexts, ed. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Morten Bøås. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Bøås, Morten, and Pernille Rieker. 2019. Executive summary of the final report & selected policy recommendations. Brussels: EUNPACK. http://www.eunpack.eu/ publications/executive-summary-final-report-selected-policy-recommendations. Bøås, Morten, Kathleen M. Jennings, and Timothy M. Shaw. 2006. Dealing with conflicts and emergency situations. In Doing development research, ed. Vandana Desai and Robert B. Potter, 70–78. London: Sage. Cissé, AbdoulWahab, AmbroiseDakouo, Morten Bøås, and Frida Kvamme. 2017. Perceptions about the EU crisis response in Mali—A summary of perception studies. Brussels: EUNPACK Policy Brief 7.7. Geertz, Clifford. 1983. From the native’s point of view: On the nature of anthropological understanding. In Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretative anthropology, ed. Clifford Geertz, 55–72. New York: Basic Books. Gupta, Akhil. 2014. Authorship, research assistants and the ethnographic field. Ethnography 15 (3): 394–400. Middleton, Townsend, and Eklavya Pradhan. 2014. Dynamic duos: On partnership and possibilities of postcolonial ethnography. Ethnography 15 (3): 355–374. Molony, Thomas, and Daniel Hammet. 2007. The friendly financer: Talking money with the silenced assistant. Human Organization 66 (3): 202–300. Peter, Mateja, and Francesco Strazzari. 2017. Securitisation of research: Fieldwork under new restrictions in Darfur and Mali. Third World Quarterly 38 (7): 1531–1550. Schumaker, Lyn. 2001. Africanizing anthropology: Fieldwork, networks, and the making of cultural knowledge in Central Africa. Durham: Duke University Press. Turner, Sarah. 2010. Research note: The silenced assistant: Reflections on invisible interpreters and research assistants. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 51 (2): 206–2019.

CHAPTER 28

“Mummy I Want to Go Home”: Children and Parenthood in the Field J. M. López

Chiapas, Mexico 2013 Coming up to about a month here and last night I heard the words I have been dreading, “Mummy I don’t want to be here anymore, I want to go home”. If anything, I’m surprised it took this long, though my eldest has always been sensitive to what’s going on around her and is not likely to blurt this out at any given moment. I have to say I envy a child’s ability to be honest with themselves and those around them. In reality she was echoing what I had been feeling deeply on the inside during these last 4 weeks. So far, we have had arguments with landlords and house moves, infestations of headlice, regretful and unplanned trips to the jungle (long story!), occasional vomiting, over-tiredness, grumpy immigration secretaries, school applications, insomnia and a spattering of general wobbling of confidence in what I’m here to achieve – and that’s just me! Having been witness to all of this, and only once having uttered the ‘going home’ words, (which to add context were said as an over-tired, played-out child was refusing to put her own pyjamas on before promptly falling asleep), has actually left me feeling immensely proud of my eldest daughter and amazed at her adaptation skills. After spending a sleepless night worrying about my response and action plan

J. M. López (*)  University of Bradford, Bradford, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_28

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408  J. M. LÓPEZ to these dreaded words, there was no mention of it the next morning. She woke up, asked for breakfast and happily chatted about her plans for play that day. All in all, she appears to be coping with this whole thing much better than me!

* * * The paragraphs above come from my fieldwork diary of 2013. I was conducting a 12-month ethnographic study of motherhood and intimate family lives in a low-income neighbourhood the Southeast state of Chiapas, Mexico. Though I was new to this particular neighbourhood, I was not new to the city of San Cristóbal. I had previously lived there and in 2010–2011 had carried out shorter stints of two- to one-month projects accompanied by my children who were then two and three years old. I had never planned to do the earlier stints as a lone parent, but due to an issue with my partner’s passport I had ended up doing so. In many ways, it was good preparation for what I undertook a couple of years later. In 2013 the pressure was on, I had 12 months to complete my PhD data collection, my eldest daughter Emilia (then five years old) was coming with me, I was pregnant and due to give birth 3 months into my stay, and my partner and three-year-old son were left behind in the UK. I was asking those closest to me to sacrifice their year to fit around me, the feeling that I could not afford to fail was consistently overwhelming. A few days prior to leaving for Mexico, as I packed our bags and spent precious moments playing with my son, I wrote the following on my PhD blog: Over the next year I shall experience the following: Being accompanied in the field by a small child; leaving another small child behind; being pregnant with third child; birthing said third child and continuing in the field. Have I gone mad? – is a question on the lips of many. Is it ethical or moral to separate my young family in the name of fieldwork, and what right do I have to do so? I have been asked and have asked myself many questions like this ever since I began this project. However, as is the concern with most fledgling academics, as much as I love to theorise about the cultural construction of the human body, my womb does have a shelf life. I know that people like me fight hard in academia to achieve their goals, but my dad always taught me – if you want it enough you will work for it. Although I have struggled to find any published evidence surely, I am not the first parent to be in this situation? In preparation for the field I have learnt much about interview techniques, fading into the background (or not), the impact of the researcher on the field site, the best way to make notes etc., but my training has taught me little about the aspects of my own life that cannot be suspended in animation whilst I go about spending months away from home. There’s no sub-section for family responsibilities in the PhD proposal.

This chapter is a critical reflection of the messy process of parenting in the field. I will examine this process to consider the impact that children have on the fieldwork and its outcomes. I will discuss planning, method and direction

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and how it is guided by the presence of dependents who gradually get erased from the published accounts we are left with. There is an eerie adult silence in the (metaphorical) halls of academia; it is an environment where children are rarely seen and even less so heard. This is only something that came apparent to me when I began to have children and started my PhD concurrently. When childcare and babies become your world, you very quickly start to wonder about your place in spaces that appear child and family bereft. There is little written on the topic of parenting and postgraduate fieldwork in anthropology or beyond the discipline. One text suggested to me by a fellow postgraduate parent is an edited collection entitled Children in the Field (Cassell 1987). It is worth noting that in the 30 years or so since the books’ publication no similar text (in English) has been produced. As such parents entering the career in the twenty-first century are left none the wiser on how best to proceed. In one notable chapter examining how anthropological engagement is enriched by the presence of children, anthropologist Renate Fernandez (1987: 186) identified four specific ways in which parenting and children impact on the field: 1. Our children influence the choice of field site and bias us towards certain human resources. They nudge us towards certain communities and individuals, and rule out others. 2. Our children accelerate the ongoing social dynamics in the field community and contribute towards the interpretation of events from all perspectives. 3. Our children forge the links on which our longitudinal studies are built. 4. The needs of our children prompt us to expand the proposed inquiry into the society and the bureaucracies that lie beyond the boundaries of the neighbourhood/village/town under study. For the purposes of this chapter and to offer methodological insight, I will discuss three of the above observations made by Fernandez in relation to my own experience in Chiapas: Children’s influence on the field site, children forging long-lasting links and how their needs take us beyond the initial boundaries of our work. Early career researchers1 feel isolated at the best of times. Those navigating the identity politics of being black or minority ethnic, non-cis queer, female, working-class, first-generation scholar or having a disability of any kind alongside their early career status feel that isolation tenfold. The idea that early career researchers also have dependents or may one day plan to is only ever brought up in the context of “not letting it get in the way” of 1 I

use the term Early Career Researcher to encompass PhD students, postgraduates, academics within the first 10 years of their career who are either teaching or research focussed (as I recognise that teaching focussed is a contract obligation that does not omit the expectation of research activity/output) and researcher associates in and out of academic institutions.

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your career or “deep thinking”. Over the last decade I have observed gradual change in attitudes to family life in academia, I have worked in institutions where early career parenting is increasingly being combined with early career contracts and degree life. In departments where I have worked, family making is increasingly more openly celebrated, for childbearing women at least. However, I continue to sit in meetings where a student’s pregnancy is discussed as “a problem”, hear younger (female) colleagues lament over never being able to imagine how they would “fit a baby” in without damaging their career progression, watch new parents struggle to maintain full-time hours and have yet to be able to include childcare costs in a funding bid. These observations indicate that parenthood and academia remain an ill fit, and the idea that research can learn from parenthood in the field remains a subject untouched. My discipline, anthropology, is methodologically more privileged than most in that it requires researchers to spend extended periods of time living alongside communities and developing intimate relationships.2 The ethnographic method and output require reflection on positionality and a narrative style that provides space for mention of who you were within the field. The visibility of the researcher (and therefore their dependents) is intrinsic to ethnographic analysis and rigour. Anthropologists work hard to include themselves in their process whilst concentrating on the subject and population under study. Despite this, there remains a practice of skimming over the presence of children in most ethnographic texts or media and this often leaves the early career scholar unable to imagine themselves doing the same. I was lucky during my Masters’ education to read Nancy Scheper-Hughes’ Death Without Weeping (1993) and being inspired when I got to her epilogue to discover a brief narrative on having her children and husband with her for part of her fieldwork. I was further delighted when I read Mathew Guttman’s study on fatherhood in Mexico City, Meanings of Macho (1996). His method section described how arriving with his partner and baby daughter helped to position him as a family man amongst the residents of the neighbourhood. His reflections on his own life stage as a new father shaped how he understood the working-class Mexican men participating in his study. At the beginning of my PhD (which coincided with starting a family), I was comforted by the narratives of these seasoned academics describing their early career research. Yet, these moments in the writing were fleeting, a brief paragraph and the children were gone. They certainly never had a voice. In addition, these authors never spoke of separation from children, financial and childcare issues, and the various dilemmas involved in navigating small children in and out of field sites where poverty and violence were prevalent—all things that I have had to confront throughout my career in order to sustain myself in my chosen discipline.

2 Though

this is becoming increasingly rare for postgraduate students whose age and social demographic has become more varied and while funding is scarce.

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Fieldwork For over a decade, I have carried out ethnographic research on motherhood, intimacy and reproductive health in Chiapas, Southeast Mexico. Bordering with Guatemala, Chiapas is known for its complex geography, of its central highlands (Los Altos), Eastern Mountains, Pacific Coast Plains and Sierra Madre. For many northern Mexicans and foreigners, the state is characterised as a rural idle, with Mexico’s highest concentration of Indigenous populations (predominantly Maya descent). Aside from the cultural richness this provides, these population dynamics bring with them high levels of inequality, poverty and structural violence. White and mestizo Mexico’s treatment of the Indigenous populations is characterised by historical oppression, colourism and racism that has endured centuries and into the present day. Chiapas has the second-highest maternal mortality rate (68.1 per every 100,000 live births) and the highest infant mortality (17.9 per every 1000 children under 5 years in 2013) (ENSANUT 2013). In addition, over sixty per cent of the population rely on subsidised primary health care, and there are major structural and social barriers even to accessing that. The high levels of poverty amongst all ethnic groups and corrupt governance often erupt into pockets of violence in rural and urban areas. The highland region is described as undergoing continuous low-intensity armed conflict between the Indigenous movement EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation) and the state (represented by its military and police forces), as a result of the EZLN uprising in 1994 and its ensuing multifaceted consequences. Though militarisation and armed conflict is generally confined to the highland mountain region, the effects pour into the small cities where I undertake fieldwork. From the background presence of military bases and troops passing through city centres, local police corruption, underlying fear and demonising of Indigenous peoples, to the mass displacement of highland communities and economic migrant flows, city residents live with an underlying fear and heightened awareness of violence. Distrust of local security forces leads to acts of vigilantism in urban neighbourhoods and acts of retaliation that can put the innocent at risk of being caught in the crossfire. In addition, already high rates of sexual violence against women and girls increase where armed conflict occurs simultaneously. These intersecting forms of violence become normalised and life continues regardless.3 Communities thrive, children grow, adults get old and life goes on amongst the noise, chaos and uncertainty of broader issues. Although violence is not the core focus of my research, it remains a constant and important factor to consider when planning fieldwork and analysing my material. When I learn about how women navigate their pregnancies and 3 Intersecting forms of violence refer to the following categories as developed by ScheperHughes and Bourgios (2004): structural violence, symbolic violence, everyday violence and intimate violence.

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childbirth, I stumble into narratives of abuse and maltreatment in the public health system, when I collect family life histories they are woven together with generational tales of violence or neglect, and when I ask people to help me draw maps they are shaped by the safe and unsafe zones in the city. In this work, I am faced with daily reminders that violence and oppression are present in every aspect of community life, yet they are matched in equal amounts with celebrations, togetherness and expressions of love within family units. When I choose to bring my dependents into this world of extremes, I am left with moral and ethical decisions that go beyond the normal realms of ­parenting. At the same time, I know that the children’s presence has shaped my research in ways not possible if I had been in the field alone. In this sense, there is a reciprocity in what children experience and gift to their own parents’ and anthropological development.

Our Children Influence the Choice of Field Site As indicated in my diary excerpt, the first month of fieldwork in 2013 was difficult. I had chosen to rent a house I used during research in 2010 and where I had stayed alone with my two children. Back then, it had suited my purpose of a 5-week scoping exercise in the city where I was mainly interviewing women connected to the local birth centre or families I was personally connected to. The house was in the very centre of the city, the rent was very expensive, and the barrio (neighbourhood) was mainly populated by businesses or foreigners who had bought the colonial adobe houses for a song in the 1970s. What is more, the traditional houses were surrounded by large walls and huge wooden doors meant to shut residents away from the outside world. This arrangement had served me well for the short stay with the children, but for the purposes of long-term fieldwork where I needed to embed myself in a community, it was wholly inadequate. I had returned to this first house in 2013 because I was anxious that arriving in Mexico heavily pregnant with a 5-year old in tow I needed a place to stay. I worried about my daughter’s safety and the extra stress of starting our year in hotel rooms or on friends’ couches. I felt that if she had a place to call home from the outset she would cope with the transition better and would feel secure. It very quickly became apparent however, that neither of us were happy there. The house was unkept and dirty on the day we arrived, water and electricity were sporadic and closed in behind the large walls I realised we were not protected but isolated. The once delightful garden was overgrown and unmanageable meaning that Emilia had nowhere to play but, in the house, and no other children nearby to play with. I began to panic at the amount of money I would spend on rent over the year and had no idea how to begin research when I was hidden away from the world with no childcare. I began to resent my daughter’s constant need for attention and she began to complain bitterly of missing her friends and having a grumpy mother. I began to

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feel that the challenge I had set myself—to understand the everyday experience pregnancy and early motherhood in an urban setting—was about to be sabotaged by my own increasingly complicated mothering situation. Everything about where I had chosen for us to live felt wrong and my protective instinct kicked in. At this early moment of sink or swim, the weight of the sacrifice I had made by travelling whilst pregnant and temporarily splitting up my family strove me towards finding a solution. I called my midwife Cris, who was also my research collaborator and long-term resident of the city. She immediately recommended some cabins for rent in the barrio where she lived. “You’ll be happier there” she told me. “The rents are cheap, the community strong and the people are nosey. They’re 100% local, no foreigners, no bullshit. What’s more, when you go into labour I’ll be just around the corner!”. Ten minutes later Emilia and I were in a taxi trying to direct the driver with the vague description given to me by Cris. We found the cabins, grouped together on a terreno4 in a small barrio on the outskirts of the city and they were ideal— basic but clean and surrounded by houses teeming with family life. The barrio resembled one where I had begun married life six years earlier and I instantly felt calmer. The landlord lived onsite, and after a brief view of two available cabins, I made a decision on the spot. After paying a deposit to secure a small cabin, I quickly devised a plan to move out of the first house without losing any more money. Moving to a neighbourhood of more modest housing on interconnecting terrenos meant that we swapped absolute privacy (and isolation) for full community membership and a constant stream of playmates for my daughter. This positive move to a place where other families were on our doorstep and with a kindergarten place arranged drastically smoothed over the initial settling in period. Having my child settled and happy meant that I stopped pressurising myself into intense data collection. As homelife settled down I began to realise that everything I needed to know about family dynamics and motherhood was on my doorstep. Having to take the school day into account, I was left with a short period of 5 hours each day to focus on data collection and this gave me structure. The fact that I was a pregnant mother living alone drew a lot of attention in a small neighbourhood defined by intergenerational households sharing the burden of childrearing. There was a communal desire amongst neighbours to simultaneously judge me as a mother and protect me from any immediate dangers. I was heavily scrutinised by my neighbours, which I later reflected as just deserts considering that was exactly what I had set out to do to them. The daily interrogations I received on birth and parenting choices told me much more about social rules than my poorly worded questions ever could.

4 Small

plot of land.

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I had to travel twice a day to kindergarten which was on the other side of town near the main city market. This necessary routine provided me with an opportunity to learn about women’s labour patterns and childcare arrangements. Travelling to and fro along with women from the barrio, I saw how they used the journeys to connect, gossip, do business and organise. Through the brief conversations, I was able to learn about who was related to whom, who ran which business from which house, and whose marriage or child was in trouble. This provided me with the material and ideas I needed months later when I knew some families well enough to record in-depth interviews. The gendered distribution of labour in this barrio meant that boys and men of working age were out across the city from morning to late afternoon. Girls above primary school age and women undertook childrearing, domestic labour and ran doorstep businesses from early hours until dusk. When I was first establishing relationships, it was difficult to catch women during the daytime due to their work schedules. I was limited in the evenings due to my own childcare, concerns about being out after dark and increasing tiredness towards the end of the pregnancy. The random meetings I had with women on the bus enabled me to find common ground amongst the heavy shopping bags, babes in arms and neighbourhood gossip. The snippets of conversations prevented me from being over-intrusive and over the weeks my daily presence on the bus earned me “an in” to many families. Whilst I could never make any claims to blending into this community (as a European, middle-class white woman), the visible mother work I undertook on my journeys earned me a level of mutual respect and reciprocal interest in childrearing habits. Over time, I was given invitations to bring my children to play at the houses of neighbours and when I lamented over the challenge to get my five-year old to eat anything other than quesadillas, I eagerly accepted cooking lessons in the homes of my neighbours.

Our Children Forge the Links on Which Our Longitudinal Studies Are Built My third child was born almost three months into fieldwork and two days before my partner and son arrived for their visit. I was visiting the birth centre to collect data when I had a feeling I was going into labour. Since the morning when I had taken Emilia to kindergarten, I had felt an overwhelming desire to be home and to lock myself away. The rainy season had started and between 2 and 3 p.m. every afternoon heavy downpours meant it was impossible to leave the house. Each day I had to time the bus journey and pick up to make sure we were not left stranded halfway home as the streets downtown flooded within minutes of the heavy rains. On the day I went into labour, the feeling of hibernation felt so strong I broke my rule of socialisation via bus and brought Emilia home in taxi. When the storms calmed down around 5 p.m., I took her to her yoga class at the birth centre and caught up

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with Cris. I asked her to check my cervix, which she did and confirmed I was only dilated a couple of centimetres but “I smelled birthy”. By the end of Emilia’s class 20 minutes later, I had begun contractions and was fully into the first stage of labour. The birth centre was my other significant place of study outside of the barrio. It gave me a class and midwifery comparison as it tended to be used by middle-class Mexicans and foreigners seeking a more commodified homebirth model with professionally trained midwives. In the barrio, most women continued to give birth at home with the local midwife because (a) it fitted with local reproductive belief system and (b) it was often cheaper and safer than hospital. In a country with 49% caesarean rate and a government drive to have 100% institutionalised birth by 2030, these two distinct models of out-of-hospital birth are worthy of study (Murray de López 2015, 2018; Murray de López and Alonso 2018; Dixon 2015). The birth centre and the midwives who work there hold great significance for me as a parent and researcher. It is the place where both Emilia and the passion for my research specialism were born back in 2008. I had followed their work for five years since my first birth and now I found myself back there, full circle to give birth again. Objectivity and subjectivity are truly blurred in this space, but the connection I share with other mothers and birth workers has led to confidence and high levels of insight into women’s healthcare-seeking behaviour. The 16-year old daughter of one of my close neighbours gave birth within weeks of my new daughter arriving. The tentative relationship that I had already started to build with this family gave me access to the new parent as she convalesced with her newborn. Catholic families traditionally follow a forty-day postpartum convalescence where only immediate family or close friends will have contact with the mother-infant unit. There are important beliefs surrounding the physical, spiritual and emotional vulnerability of mother and infant in the postpartum period. Enclosure in the maternal home for the forty-day period is part of several measures put in place to protect these early days of life. I started to leave my house openly with my baby within her first month. Though neighbours gently castigated me for doing so, I was allowed to go to my neighbours’ house to visit and observe these very private care practices precisely because I was seen as vulnerable to external forces too. Bringing a new child into the barrio linked me to families in an important way. Each time I have been fortunate enough to return I sit with barrio friends to compare how our children have grown since the last visit. The babies that were born in 2013 now play together and my older children reunite with their friends. I am able to track the generational changes through my children’s experiences with their friends. I know that the next time I return, now that Emilia is in secondary school her peers in the barrio will have finished their education and will be working hard with their mothers, grandmothers and cousins. The differences in girls’ lives as they creep towards

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adulthood will become more stark, and this allows my research to learn the subtleties of time and social change. The different expectations that women have of the children (mine and their own) as we return every three years or so reveal how class, ethnicity and gender are performed dependent upon context.

The Needs of Our Children Prompt Us to Go Beyond the Boundaries of the Place Under Study For two months of 2013, we were joined by my partner and then three-year-old son Issac. This was a more challenging time for me as a ­ researcher because of the extra demands placed upon my time. Quickly bored by my data collection activities, I was put under pressure to spend family time beyond the boundaries of the barrio. I was jarred by the interruption to my fieldwork routine but simultaneously felt intensely guilty that I should be making more of this short time together (and help with the childcare). There were six weeks left of the school year and so we decided to put Issac into kindergarten with his sister in order to improve his Spanish. He was also clearly frustrated staying at the cabin all day with his parents as back home he was used to a full day in nursery and the freedom to roam to the small park behind our house. Having two children at the kindergarten and an extra parent to relieve me of the school run meant that we became more involved with other families there. Having missed the state school registrations when I arrived in Chiapas, I had found a private kindergarten run by volunteers and peace activists from Europe. Besides their willingness to take my child on at short notice, I had settled upon this school for Emilia because I felt she needed the emotional support provided by the school’s ethos. As a charity, it was also affordable, and as a community, it provided a space away from the more traditional barrio expectations of mothering. As part of their ethos of building a peaceful integrated community, the kindergarten required families to be involved in extra-curricular activities. This included camping, field trips and cooking lessons in family homes. Whilst alone and pregnant I had been hesitant to volunteer my time, and this had been accepted by the teachers. Once my partner arrived, this dynamic changed, and with two children there, we became more involved in the school’s communal activities. The migrant community in this city had always been somewhat of an enigma to me. Whilst most locals assumed I was part of it and knew all the foreigners in town, in reality I was married to a Mexican and my social circle came from his own family and friends. Through the children’s friendships and the activities we were tasked to do, we entered the homes of the city’s international migrant community for the first time. I was able to see just how segregated the city (which prided itself on being multicultural) was and how opposing cultural values played out behind closed doors. Between the barrio,

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birth centre and migrant community I had insight into various types of family life in existence in this small city. Most discussion on social dynamics in the Highlands region focuses on the parallel lives of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Mexican populations. Through my children’s extended networks, I observed the depth of ­classbased segregation between low- and middle-income Mexicans and the prejudices between foreigners and non-Indigenous Mexicans. I learnt that most long-term migrant couples were employed by international NGOs which meant they were in receipt of salaries on par with their countries of origin (USA, Canada, Spain). This explained how from the outside they always appeared to live beyond the means of the local economy and why most low-income Mexicans assumed that foreigners who come from rich lands appear to have money whilst doing little for it. Social divisions appeared because International NGOs focussed on working with Indigenous communities in and around the Highlands which meant that poorer non-Indigenous Mexicans never benefitted or understood what the foreigners were doing. Collecting this kind of data allowed me to understand more deeply the existing barriers between myself and my new neighbours in the barrio. Moreover, it provided an explanation for how their attitudes towards me shifted once my partner arrived on the scene. There had always been a noticeable (and understandable) hesitation to accept me as a mother and wife with similar domestic responsibilities and relationship woes in those first months. As soon as it was proved that not only did I have a visible husband but one that was clearly a local man, I was treated as having a better level of understanding of their own family dynamics and gender roles.

Reflections on Emotional Labour and Birthing a Research Project We have gone from a house of two to five in a matter of days and a family separation for the second time. Saying goodbye a second time around has been horrible and unsettling for us all. It has forced me to reassess my priorities – PhD or Family – it has always felt like a battle between the two. I realise now that it is not so clear cut and there are ways to make them of equal importance in a practical sense. It may seem strange to put my academic career development on a par with my family but no-one quite prepares you for the emotional and physical strain of either one – and in that sense they are similar. Being a mother and a partner influences who I am as a human being, but so does what I study. This experience is teaching me a lot about myself and the strength of my relationships, and in turn is giving me an insight into the lives I study that would never have happened if my own family life hadn’t been turned upside down in order to make it happen Field Diary September 2013

Whenever I read through my diaries or publications, I am met with the memory of emotion as well as the knowledge commitment I put into six years of

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PhD study. I can clearly map the pregnancy, birth and postpartum stage of my data collection and analysis and have a raw example of how our emotions and relationships shape the core of our learning in the field and beyond. I must acknowledge the level of privilege that allowed me to meet the challenge of childbearing and rearing whilst researching in Mexico. There were particular factors that made this possible and kept us relatively safe in a precarious field environment. I had full-time employment in one University whilst completing my part-time doctoral studies in another. This enabled me to combine fieldwork with maternity leave and therefore self-funding a year in the field, whilst also financing a house and care for my son back in the UK. I was returning to a familiar field site where I had established connections (though no fixed site) and friends and family close by. I had a healthy pregnancy and a trouble-free birth which enabled me to continue without pause throughout the year. Above all, I had a supportive family back home who took on the burden of care for my son in my absence. I took risks that were both measured and strategic. With children in tow, I was less likely to put myself in danger and I put great thought into who I placed my confidence, but I did and do not see this as limiting my overall research. The ways in which my young children interacted socially without the level of overthinking and intention I found unavoidable taught me much more about the nuances of ethnographic fieldwork than any book ever could. By bringing my children into the field, I learnt a lot about my own cultures’ attitude to parenting and working mothers. I often floated questions on social media asking for advice or comments from academics with families. A consensus amongst many was the idea that fieldwork should only be done for short periods and that finding time to parent well would be too difficult. This did make me reflect on the perspective of my children and how appropriate it was to have them with me. Yet this was constantly outweighed by my commitment to my discipline and desire to complete an in-depth ethnographic study. When I was considering the viability of cutting my stay short a UK colleague commented that it was probably the right thing to do as I had “compromised my family enough already”. I could not help but wonder at the time if they would be saying the same to a male colleague. There are significant points of learning that I have taken from my experiences in Mexico that apply across the board for researchers. I must acknowledge that part of this learning comes from the shared practices of other parents in a similar situation. Through UK and international networks, I have contributed to roundtables, seminars and informal discussions on this issue and I benefit from others’ experiences. Though I could find little written on the topic, and few senior colleagues at my PhD institution willing to discuss it, I did reach out to people across postgraduate social networks. I found that by being very vocal about my situation attracted others who wanted a space to share their stories and methods. This process of other early career researchers “coming out” as parents when the opportunity was offered served to highlight the reinforced shame of family life in academia.

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The lack of recognition of family is to the great detriment of change in the academy and to the advancement of an applied ethics of care. As parents and primary carers, we already have an immense skill set for organisation, budgeting and ability to adapt quickly to unforeseen circumstance. All these transferable skills to project planning and research should be celebrated as such and declared as strengths in the preliminary training for fieldwork. New postgraduate students should be encouraged to draw upon life experience as much as academic rigour in the proposal development stage. An excellent approach to postgraduate research is to accept your limits in regards to time, data collection and safety, and including children in your project will force you to do this. I cannot deny that my research topic connects well with my maternal positioning in the field. However, I would argue that, in the context of social research at least, children’s perspectives and reactions of others to them bring forth distinct questions on any social, economic and political aspect of life. What are initially perceived as limits should be interpreted as opportunities to think differently. Burdening the extra costs (financial and emotional) of childcare in research activity is dependent upon an individuals’ circumstance and support network. My response to this factor is to rid ourselves of familial humility and state our extra support needs towards achieving equality on the workplace rather than meekly declaring it as an inconvenience. For this to happen it does take confidence and a certain level of privilege in order to challenge institutional bias against care for others—the journey of a PhD or postdoctoral professional should start as it means to go on. On a final note, by bringing the researcher’s family out from the shadows we break from the idea that the personal and professional must remain separate. The practice of field research becomes more egalitarian because the private life of the researcher is forced out into the open, in the way they expect the lives of their participants to be revealed to them. Ultimately, it can lead to a better understanding and more thorough social science, as dynamics are more reciprocal and that is something we should all be striving towards.

References Cassell, J. (ed.). 1987. Children in the field. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Dixon, L. 2015. Obstetrics in a time of violence: Mexican midwives critique routine hospital practices. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 29 (4): 437–454. https://doi. org/10.1111/maq.12174. ENSANUT. 2013. Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Nutrición 2012. Resultados por Entidad Federativa: Chiapas. México: Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica. Fernandez, Renate. 1987. Children and parents in the field: Reciprocal impacts. In Children in the field, ed. J. Cassell. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Gutmann, Matthew C. 1996. The meanings of macho: Being a man in Mexico City. London: University of California Press. Murray de López, J. 2015. Conflict and reproductive health in urban Chiapas: Disappearing the partera Empίrica. Anthropology Matters 16 (1).

420  J. M. LÓPEZ Murray de López, J. 2018. When the scars begin to heal: Narratives of obstetric violence in Chiapas, Mexico. International Journal of Health Governance 23 (1): 60–69. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHG-05-2017-0022. Murray de López, J., and C. Alonso. 2018. Riesgo o Aliento: El caso de una Casa de Partos. In Los caminos para parir en México en el siglo XXI: experiencias de investigación, vinculación, formación y comunicación, ed. G. Freyermuth, 142–149. Mexico: CIESAS. Scheper-Hughes, N. 1993. Death without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press. Scheper-Hughes, N., and P.I. Bourgois. 2004. Violence in war and peace. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

CHAPTER 29

Privilege Stefanie Kappler

Introduction Banja Luka, Republika Srpska, Bosnia-Herzegovina. I am meeting with a museum curator with respect to my PhD project. The meeting takes place at the end of an extended field work period in the country. We end up talking about the curator’s project ideas for which she would have to travel to different EU countries. She tells me that it seems almost impossible to realise these ideas as she will have to travel to Sarajevo to obtain the visas multiple times as this is where the embassies are. There are hefty fees attached to the visa process, alongside a long wait with a possible denial of the respective visa at the end. Sarajevo is a six-hour bus journey from Banja Luka, and the trip will therefore involve the need to spend the night in Sarajevo. I think about how I entered the Bosnia-Herzegovina myself, as I do whenever I arrive: I board a flight, get off in Sarajevo, show my EU passport at the border and pick up my bag. It does seem strange.

More often than not, when conducting fieldwork as researchers,1 we find ourselves in positions of privilege vis-à-vis the people we encounter. This can be very difficult to embed in our research frameworks, particularly when we are committed to normative approaches that condemn colonialism and inequality. How can we credibly research such phenomena when we inherently benefit from the structures in which we conduct field research? In fact, Caretta and Jokinen (2017) demonstrate how the colonial origins of field research have created privileges for the researchers (in their case, 1 I

recognise the problematic language of the ‘field’ and ‘fieldwork’. I use it in this chapter as a way to tie in with the larger objectives of this book, but recognise to its colonial connotations (see Richmond et al. 2015).

S. Kappler (*)  Durham University, Durham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_29

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geographers) due to the ways in which it has systematically been set up, relying on local assistants and operating within a wider global system of inequality. It is this very system that puts us researchers in positions of privilege, depending on who we are and who we research. Privilege becomes a matter of social power and political differentiation. It is therefore little surprising that privilege and disadvantage have become important themes in feminist research. If we see privilege as a phenomenon constructed through social norms (Case et al. 2012: 3), we have to admit that we, too, are emplaced in and disseminate such norms. Our place in relation to who we are researching is therefore crucial in terms of what we find and research. This chapter investigates the extent to which privilege is a phenomenon of intersectional inequality. Drawing on my research experience primarily in South Africa and Bosnia-Herzegovina, I will show that being in a position of privilege can both advantage and disadvantage us in our ambitions to conduct field research. I will flag practical and moral questions that our positionality brings with it and reflect on the resulting uncomfortable interactions with our interlocutors and research assistants. To do so, I will outline and discuss fieldwork ‘situations’ which I have found myself in to disentangle those to understand the multiple lines of privilege that run through them. In terms of my personal research trajectory, I have conducted most of my field research in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), investigating the ways in which international peacebuilding policies are received and resisted locally. BiH is flooded with international researchers as well as diplomatic staff in its trusteeship-style peacebuilding process and generally considered a very safe ­ country to conduct research in. More recently, I have started to research South African post-apartheid memory politics, spending time in different South African cities. I spent time visiting museums and memorial sites and talked to different memory activists across the country. Compared to BiH, field visits in South Africa are always accompanied by more difficult risk assessments as well as more security concerns. I was even given travel advice specific for white, female travellers in order to prepare for field research in South Africa— although this was not my first research trip to South Africa. That, in a way, made me even more aware of my identity in relation to where I was going. Bosnia-Herzegovina and South Africa have very different histories and challenges, and my experiences between the two are significantly different. However, during field research in both countries, I have been confronted with a challenge of finding my place in a political context of which I was not part at first glance. And whilst it may be more ‘normal’ for BiH to see large numbers of foreign scholars to research the Bosnian peace process, I was still (or maybe because of this) asking myself whether it was my position to conduct research there. In South Africa, I was asked this question directly: How would South Africans benefit from sharing their stories with me? This of course raises questions about our research process more generally, but specifically about how we see ourselves in relation to those we research. Each time, we negotiate and

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legitimise our position vis-à-vis our interlocutors in new ways. The situations I sketch out below can therefore be read as such negotiation processes in which I try to make sense (to myself and to the researchees) of our mutual relationships. Questions of privilege and disadvantage are always implicit in such subtle negotiations, but rarely ever thematised directly.

Intersectionality, Visibility and Privilege Johannesburg, South Africa. I am interviewing a white, seemingly middle-class, male professional who explains to me that he may look very privileged, but in fact he has come from a rather poor background and is struggling to find his place in society. People tend to consider him as a privileged person as he is white and has employment. Yet he has had to take on a job that he does not like very much as he needs to be able to feed his family. To a certain extent, I feel like he is talking much more to my male research assistant than to me, and I am a bit annoyed by that. On the other hand, I am not sure I should judge him as I am in a position where I was able to choose my job fairly freely, and I enjoy what I am doing. Unlike him, I am not confronted with my whiteness on a daily basis either.

Mainly, but not only, from feminist research do we know that privilege is an intersectional phenomenon (Case et al. 2012; Case 2012). Crenshaw (1989) originally coined the term ‘intersectionality’ to point to the multiplicity of inequalities that dominate society—whether that be based on gender, race, class or other categories of social differentiation. If we acknowledge that there is more than one dimension of social stratification, this also means that, as a researcher, we can be privileged in one dimension, but disadvantaged in another. The situation above shows that, during this interview, I felt a clear gender dynamic—the interviewee speaking to my assistant more than to myself— which made me feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, I was also aware of my privilege of being employed in a permanent and enjoyable position. The conversation made me very conscious of the fact that being white in Europe is a very comfortable position. In contrast, my interviewee felt like he had to shoulder the guilt of white supporters of apartheid when he had only been a child during that time. My white privilege is specific in that it is not generally visible when I go about my everyday life in the UK. Case suggests that there is an ‘invisibility of whiteness’ (Case 2012: 79)—but of course more so in Northern England, where I am based, than in South Africa. That is one of the tricky aspects of privilege: it often comes in disguise as it is normalised in the everyday. It becomes visible the moment one does not have it. The same holds true for questions of class and inequality. For me, it may be easy to assume that I have earned my permanent job through hard work and persistence and to forget about the fact that I had had access to free education and scholarship schemes, so I did not have to worry about making a living that much as a postgraduate student.

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It may precisely be the moment of encounter with those less privileged— something that often happens during fieldwork—that our own privileges become visible. It is therefore notable how primarily female researchers write about ‘privilege’, which again may suggest that it is felt through its absence rather than presence (cf. Coston and Kimmel 2012: 97). Inequalities must therefore not be reduced to gender, but, as my example shows, they emerge from a more subtle and multi-dimensional process. Which ones of our privileges become visible depends on our interlocutors and encounters. What they may lack becomes visible in us and vice versa. In that sense, privilege must be regarded as relational and situational at the same time. ­Townsend-Bell argues that ‘[o]f course in reality it is not just the fieldwork setting that varies; the relationship of the researcher to the field matters a great deal—and that may be much more dependent on our specific identities than we have previously credited’ (Townsend-Bell 2009: 311). Townsend-Bell (2009) describes how, depending on her situation, sometimes her gender identity was primary, whilst in other instances, race seemed to be a more salient characteristic (312). How our different identities intersect is therefore always s­ituation-dependent. We should be aware of the types of ‘situations’ that we create during field research and that we find ourselves in order to understand what impacts such dynamics may have on our reading of the ‘field’. Our encounters during the research process can therefore be a good opportunity to recognise our own privileges that would otherwise have remained unseen. It allows us to be more cautious in the categories we construct as it helps us acknowledge that they are relational. Making visible our privileges and disadvantages alike can be a first step towards a more nuanced encounter with our research participants. The implications of this reach beyond just stating our privileges vis-à-vis the research participants whilst maintaining a position of superiority over them. Instead, it has to mean an ethical approach to data collection, that is, refraining from collecting data that could harm the research participants, including research assistants in the benefits that come from a potential publication (possibly in the form of co-authorship or other desirable rewards) as well as, more generally, putting those in less privileged positions ahead of one’s own career ambitions. After all, as researchers we are highly dependent on their support, despite the fact that the benefits of the research process are hardly ever shared with them.

Open and Closed Spaces Lwandle, township outside Cape Town, South Africa. We are visiting the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum, commemorating the poor working conditions that Black migrant workers have faced since colonial times. The museum in the township highlights the continuing injustices in the housing sector and the privileges of white South Africans when it comes to land allocation and housing. The museum is empty, we are the only visitors and the staff are taking photos of us whilst we are walking through the small museum room. They offer a short ‘guided tour’ through

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the township afterwards. We see women washing the dishes at the public water source, others are barbecuing meat. We are told that the inhabitants had hoped to be able to sell this meat to all the tourists that the museum would attract – but we are the only ones. I am not sure whether this form of ‘academic township tourism’ is the right thing to do. On the one hand, the Lwandle people are hopeful for the small income outsiders can bring. On the other hand, I feel uncomfortable getting a tour of people’s everyday lives. Would I feel comfortable if it was the other way around? Should I be here?

Privilege is not a one-dimensional thing. It can open many spaces, but close others. I needed certain privileges to be able to get in the position to do research, mainly to grow up in a society where I had access to (higher) education and was able to obtain a scholarship to fund this. Yet (or therefore) it feels almost hypocritical to study other people’s lack of privilege. How can I legitimately write about their experiences? Is it ethical for me to walk around in a township for research purposes? This argument can also be turned around. Being disadvantaged in some respects can open research spaces in others. For instance, whilst being a woman may not always be an advantage in academia due to its partly patriarchal structures, it can certainly be important when specifically liaising with other women’s challenges during fieldwork. Similarly, I have found that, when revealing one’s own vulnerabilities to research participants, it can create a form of solidarity and lead to otherwise impossible connections. In a way, whether we are able to establish a connection with our research participants may depend on whether we are able to be upfront about our vulnerabilities. If the power inequalities between our research participants and ourselves are too steep, this may be an almost impossible task. Henry argues that it is apparent that many difficulties arise in the course of conducting research in relation to how a researcher should represent herself to her participants both for the purpose of facilitating access to interview participants and keeping a check on power relations between participant and researcher. (Henry 2003: 235)

It has to be added that whether a form of privilege plays in your favour or against you depends on the type of space and situation you are in. In my case, as a white woman, my identity can be a real privilege when it comes to talking to a women’s advocacy group. But can I talk about the experiences of Black women in South Africa? Can I write about the Lwandle community in a non-colonial way? I cannot offer a clear solution to this dilemma other than suggest to identify the spaces in which we can connect with our research participants in a meaningful way, without resorting to a patronising language. Sometimes, spaces seem only closed to us because we have not looked well enough or because we are too attuned to top-down or even colonial methodological

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roots (cf. Smith 1999). However, if we can look for the multiple possibilities of solidarity through our gender, class, race (and many other) forms of identity, a conversation may be possible.

Privilege and Solidarity Cape Town, South Africa. I am attending a dialogue event with South African and international attendants. In small groups, we are talking about everyone’s own painful memories and how they relate to each other. A young African American woman points out that African Americans and Black South Africans share a similar history of oppression. Yet, she adds that one of the obstacles to solidarity between those groups is the fact that mainly white and wealthy Americans travel to South Africa. To South Africans, she says, this evokes the impression that ‘all is well’ in the US and undermines the possibility of showing solidarity with each other. *** Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. In anticipation of a workshop, I sit in a café in Sarajevo’s picturesque old town with a few academic colleagues from the UK. One of the academics tells me that he does not understand what the problem with the country is, people seem fairly happy and to be leading a decent life. I ask him whether he has been to the country before? Never, he says. When has he arrived? Just yesterday, he responds. Has he been outside of Sarajevo’s old town? No, he has not, he responds, but it is clear to him that there is much ado about nothing.

Solidarity can be a powerful response to a power differential that emerges from different levels of privilege. At the same time, privilege may also prevent the emergence of solidarities. The latter are very important instruments of change. Hence, when reflecting on privilege, one always has to consider the exclusions that it creates when we fail to relate to the oppression of others—or vice versa. The two situations above reflect the extent to which privilege does not have to be a passive feature of a person or a group, but can be an active choice. Choosing to engage with someone who is less privileged than oneself often requires entering unfamiliar spaces. That in itself is a difficult and ethically challenging decision as it has to be done in a non-patronising way, as I suggest in the previous section. However, we have to critically interrogate our selection of spaces and interlocutors as it is directly linked to our gaze as to what we consider worthy of investigation. Instead of representing a factual given, privileges reflect what we are willing to observe. Privilege also determines mobility. The South African example clearly highlights the extent to which financial privilege influences who we are able to meet. Even in an age of social media, the ability to build transnational chains of solidarity still largely depends on the financial means to evoke such mobilities. Some may never have the opportunity to meet differently privileged people due to travel restrictions, whereas ‘dark tourism’ tends to create situations in which financially privileged tourists experience exoticised versions

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of poverty (cf. Witz et al. 2017). On the other hand, we can see from the ­Bosnia-Herzegovina example that this is also a matter of choice. Where are we prepared to go and who do we want to engage with? Either way, and this is my deduction from the second situation here, it is important not to jump to conclusions or generalisations too quickly. We always need to keep a clear eye on our privileged or disadvantaged position and how this shapes our research findings as well as the spaces in which we move. This is always a relational exercise, as Townsend-Bell confirms. My sense of racial solidarity led me to want to portray black women’s groups in the best possible light; assumed expectations of racial solidarity on the part of black groups made me nervous about the consequences of my criticism for future work with said groups. (Townsend-Bell 2009: 313)

Privilege, Complicity and Guilt During my PhD field research in Bosnia-Herzegovina, I stay in a house with a three-generation family. Relative to my funding, I pay comparably little rent to the family who share a few tiny rooms with changing numbers of three to fifteen family members. Some of the younger children are orphans and the different generations struggle to find employment in post-war Bosnia. It feels strange to me to be a guest in a house where space is tight anyway. And although there is a lot of hardship on this family that I can only imagine, they never let me feel it and make me feel welcome every single day. They share their food with me and call me one of theirs. I am almost embarrassed by their kindness.

*** South Africa. It is an awkward feeling to sit in the company of people who have fought against apartheid with their lives and have paid a very high price for it. Some have lost family members, some are traumatised, some have been in prison and some were wounded. I do not really know what to say as I feel embarrassed that I have never had to make such sacrifices to live a dignified life.

*** I walk through a township on the outskirts of Cape Town and am starting to feel guilty about my own life. What am I doing to support their struggle? Should I be acting or would this be patronising? That night, I write in my diary that “[s]omehow I feel that my presence in the township exacerbated the sense of differentiation of the different lives one can theoretically live.[…] I have a feeling of guilt, shame and complicity in relation to people’s suffering and inequalities” (field diary, 4 July 2018).

***

428  S. KAPPLER A South African artist tells me that it is really difficult to obtain the copy rights for journalistic material (photographs and film recordings) from the foreign media companies that produced this material during the struggle against apartheid. In fact, they tend to charge very high fees to those who want to use that material in their own work. The artist suggests it is a way of ‘stealing our history’. I start thinking about my own work: am I at risk of doing the same? Is my career also based on telling stories who should belong to those who have lived and experienced them? It seems not fair that people are talking to me without charging ‘copyright fees’ whereas they have to pay those fees to access media material of their own histories.

I would go as far as to suggest that, more often than not, as researchers of conflict and violence we find ourselves in positions of privilege vis-à-vis our researchees. The situations I sketch above are just a small sample of situations I have found myself in and which reflect my privileged position. Yet, what is more, there are situations in which we are complicit or benefiting from an advantaged position. For instance, I benefited from the affordable rent in the Sarajevo family house. I keep benefiting from my access to other people’s stories and histories; it is useful for my publication record. I am complicit in the neo-colonial setup of academic field research. There is no denying this is the case, as emancipatory as our ambitions may be. In a way, one could even say that our field research risks complicity with a global system of inequality: interviewing people who are already in precarious employment (as is often the case with civil society actors) or in no employment at all without paying them for their time can be an unethical thing to do. They may have little to gain from the research process for them, whilst our careers may thrive as a result of it. So what does that mean for how we should go about our positions of privilege? In a speech, co-authored by his wife, a Johannesburg-based school deputy principal speaks about this very question. His main message for his pupils is that the most important thing to do is to acknowledge privilege: ‘Your denial is not harmless. In my mind, it should be a crime’ (Bechus and Leathem 2018). The point is not about whether to feel guilty or not, but instead to think about one’s positionality and acknowledge one’s advantages. This then means that we may be able to use that position to do something meaningful with it. Of course, I do not want to suggest a quasi-colonial approach of speaking on behalf of or claiming to externally empower local actors. Instead, there may be ways of being helpful back to those in less advantaged positions. Starting to recognise that our achievements are only partially due to our own merits and to a large extent down to privilege is a small, but important starting point. It means that there is, implicitly, respect for others who have had less opportunity in life as it allows for a much more nuanced understanding of different life stories. There are certainly also more pro-active ways of dealing with our guilt and complicity. For instance, I often ask myself whether I have contacts that I can pass on and that might be useful for others. Am I in a position where

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I can be of use? I will explore some of this in the next paragraph in more detail, but including less advantaged individuals or organisations in funding proposals or putting them in touch with one’s own contacts may be one possible option. Flagging the visa issue to my own government may be another. Whether this is appropriate needs to be decided in dialogue and is context-specific. By all means does it have to avoid the ‘white saviour complex’ (cf. Theriault 2014). I am certainly not suggesting that we should take such steps to alleviate our feelings of guilt where we have them—often such feelings are quite justified and perhaps the price to pay for one’s privilege. However, it can be one way, also put forward by Bechus and Leathem (2018), of transforming it in constructive ways.

Privilege and Expectations South Africa. I am in a meeting in which I hope to find out more about the ways in which dominant memory discourses are locally perceived. Yet, before we sit down, my interviewee asks me how I will be able to support their organisation’s cause. Will I be able to raise money for them? Do I have access to political platforms on which I can promote their cause?

Being in a visibly privileged position often means that we can more easily access resources and networks. Sometimes privilege can be perceived only, but often it is real and just invisible to ourselves. We can be so used to certain advantages that we forget that they are not available to everyone. In my case, opportunities I have include access to a number of funding schemes (within and outside the university), contacts with policy-makers as well as with students—potential future policy-makers. This may seem little, particularly in the light that, often, funding applications are rejected or our (policy) contacts may not be too interested in our suggestions. At the same time, expectations on us as researchers to give something back to the people we are speaking to are, I would say, entirely legitimate. As I have outlined above, in a context in which we are complicit with a system of exploitation vis-à-vis our interviewees, it would be surprising (to say the least) if we did not consider giving something back. Certainly, in many cases, there are very limited options for us to return the favour, despite being in a situation of privilege. We may simply not be able to access what we are being asked for. It is therefore crucial to avoid making empty promises to people and to be upfront and realistic about what we can do. If that means that we may not be able to get a particular interview, then that is a legitimate response on the part of the potential interviewee. At the same time, Case has argued that it is important to use our privileged position as a researcher to promote justice more generally (Case 2012: 92).

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Again, this goes back to my earlier point, we have to reflect on the ways in which we can do so in a non-patronising way. How do we make sure to not intervene in a community on behalf of one set of actors, yet thus negatively impacting on a different set of actors? An informed decision requires in-depth knowledge of the sociopolitical context in question, and it is generally best to be cautious about any intervention when unsure. Often, we may not even be aware of the different possibilities of cooperation that exist and it is always worth speaking to our interlocutors about possible, ethical and strategic ways of working together. Certainly, this then also means that we can no longer consider ourselves as objective and uninvolved researchers. Instead, this means that we engage in some form of action research, which comes with its own challenges (cf. Brydon-Miller et al. 2003). Yet, it seems impossible to recognise one’s own privileges without also admitting one’s participation and bias in the research process. In fact, if we let go of the notion of impartial and neutral fieldwork, then making an engagement for the cause of social justice, for instance, is not a big leap. An engagement with privilege not accompanied by any in-depth reflection on its implications seems meaningless.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued for the differentiated recognition of the privileges and disadvantages as we encounter them as researchers in the field. The latter are not generic to the ‘class’ of researchers, but instead intersectional and specific to who we are. This is linked to our identities in relation to gender, race, class, disability, sexuality and many more. Which feature is salient and matters for our research is always context-specific and changes across time and place. To that end, I have outlined a number of ‘situations’ in my personal research trajectory that made me think about power differentials between researcher and researchee to show that it would be wrong to say that we are categorically privileged or disadvantaged. Rather, our privilege is malleable and relational. At the same time, we must not fall into the trap and ‘make it all about ourselves’. When reflecting on privilege during field research, it is important to not use it as an exercise to centre the analysis away from the research subjects, but instead as a way to engage in a dialogue with them, or indeed to de-colonise our research methods and aims. This argument is based on the acknowledgement that all research is relational and shaped by multiple lines of sociopolitical and economic differentiation. It then has to be our aim, as reflective researchers, to highlight such power divergences. This raises an important question: How can we deal with (not only discuss) privilege in an ethical and responsible way? I would suggest that this has implications for our stance towards (1) our research subjects and (2) colleagues within the academic community.

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First, recognising privilege when we see it is an important step, but it has to be more than an acknowledgement. McCorker and Myers outline this problem in their own research as follows: […] we handled the race effects question using many of the same discursive strategies that appear in the literature—with a nod to our privileged position as white academics; a shrug regarding the influence of our positionality on our relationships with respondents and our analyses of their worlds. (McCorkel and Myers 2003: 206)

But of course, merely adding a qualifier to our research outputs does not really signal an in-depth engagement with this issue. Rather, it requires a more profound rethinking of our categories, the invisibilities in our research as well as a dialogue with those we research about their needs and ethical demands on the jointly produced research. What this looks like in practice varies from project to project, but making it part of the research process as a whole (not just a small isolated methodological statement) seems important here. Second, the ways in which we deal with questions of privilege have implications in terms of how we relate to the academic community more broadly. I am referring to a certain degree of essentialisation in attitudes towards fieldwork in much of the peace, conflict and development literature. Whilst I generally agree that we should be talking to and meeting with the people we research, I would suggest that there is a danger of judging people and their academic credibility according to the length and danger of the fieldwork they have engaged in. At first glance, it often seems more impressive if someone has conducted several years of fieldwork in a war zone far afield than someone who has conducted research in a European city, to quote but one example. I certainly do not want to diminish the creativity and personal sacrifices that come with ‘difficult’ fieldwork. However, we often forget that the ability to conduct extended field research may also be an expression of privilege. It may be as simple as access to funds, insurance cover or contacts that determine whether or not someone is able to conduct extended fieldwork in particular locales. What is more, there are additional obstacles faced by researcher with disabilities (or, better put, different abilities2) or those with caring responsibilities. The latter affect women disproportionally. Such limitations crucially impact on the extent and type of fieldwork someone can conduct and will require an adaptation to personal circumstances, whether they be related to caring, disability or others. It is therefore crucial to not judge the quality of fieldwork by its length or the place itself—not all ‘dangerous’ fieldwork is good, and not all good fieldwork is dangerous. In that sense, if we are serious about recognising the intersectionality of privilege in our research, this needs to not only apply to our research participants in the field, but equally to how

2 Many

thanks to Mary Hames for our insightful discussion on this topic.

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we treat and judge our colleagues. Access is always a phenomenon of intersectional privilege. To conclude, I want to therefore suggest that privilege is never simple. As researchers, we are not necessarily and equally privileged or disadvantaged. Some of us enjoy privileges in more situations than others. As we have different relationally and situationally dependent privileges, it is important to not judge each other when we do not know the full story. More caution in our judgement towards researchees and colleagues alike is a helpful step towards the recognition of privilege.

References Bechus, Tammy, and Kevin Leathem. 2018. High school speech, published by Brett Lindeque as “speech about white privilege by school’s deputy principal is going viral for all the right reasons”. In GoodThingsGuy, 4 June. Available at https://www.goodthingsguy.com/opinion/white-privilege-jeppe-high-speech/. Accessed 3 October 2018. Brydon-Miller, Mary, Davydd Greenwood, and Patricia Maguire. 2003. Why action research? Action Research 1 (1): 9–28. Caretta, Martina Angela, and Johanna Carolina Jokinen. 2017. Conflating privilege and vulnerability: A reflexive analysis of emotions and positionality in postgraduate fieldwork. The Professional Geographer 69 (2): 275–283. Case, Kim A. 2012. Discovering the privilege of whiteness: White women’s reflections on anti-racist identity and ally behavior. Journal of Social Issues 68 (1): 78–96. Case, Kim A., Jonathan Iuzzini, and Morgan Hopkins. 2012. Systems of privilege: Intersections, awareness, and applications. Journal of Social Issues 68 (1): 1–10. Coston, Bethany M., and Michael Kimmel. 2012. Seeing privilege where it isn’t: Marginalized masculinities and the intersectionality of privilege. Journal of Social Issues 68 (1): 97–111. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum 139 (1989): 138–167. Henry, Martha Giselle. 2003. ‘Where are you really from?’: Representation, identity and power in the fieldwork experiences of a South Asian diasporic. Qualitative Research 3 (2): 229–242. McCorkel, Jill A., and Kristen Myers. 2003. What difference does difference make? Position and privilege in the field. Qualitative Sociology 26 (2): 199–231. Richmond, Oliver, Stefanie Kappler, and Annika Björkdahl. 2015. The ‘field’ in the age of intervention: Power, legitimacy, and authority versus the ‘local’. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 44 (1): 23–44. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books. Theriault, Anne. 2014. The white feminist savior complex. The Huffington Post, January 23. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-theriault-/the-white-feminist-savior_b_4629470.html?guccounter=1. Accessed 3 October 2018. Townsend-Bell, Erica. 2009. Being true and being you: Race, gender, class, and the fieldwork experience. PS: Political Science and Politics 42 (2): 311–314. Witz, Leslie, Gary Minkley, and Ciraj Rassool. 2017. Unsettled history: Making South African public pasts. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

CHAPTER 30

From the Field Back to Academia Malgorzata Polanska

Introduction This chapter captures the intensity of the post-fieldwork ‘impossibility’ and necessity of writing up a PhD thesis. Rather than a typical academic chapter, it is a personal story, written as an honest account of the slow overcoming of author’s separation from research participants. An autobiographical tone dominates, and the reflection is embedded in an interpretative qualitative approach to research.1 This chapter is also a result of an honest conversation with my PhD supervisor as well as myself. It does not reinvent the field: I am aware of the huge power asymmetries that dominate fieldwork and research conducted by ‘western’ scholars on less privileged parts of the world. I do not claim to find an answer to all the questions. Instead, in a hopefully honest way, I attempt to tell a story of my processes of writing, reflexivity, dealing with the requirements of a PhD and reaching some kind of compromise. In words of Debbie Lisle, there is a dynamic rather than static space between the narcissistic and patronising attitudes of critical International Relations (IR) scholars. To her, the way to move forward requires seriously acknowledging the responsibility: to be aware of this space and work on it with others’ feedback.2 I see this chapter as a kind of closure to the long process of PhD writing. In the end, it 1 This chapter was also written through the tension of being honestly humble and self-reflexive. I am aware this effort in between the two may not satisfy all readers. 2 Debbie Lisle, Queen’s University Belfast, workshop: Innovative methods and the materiality of security practices, part of: Critical Global Politics Research Seminar, University of Manchester, 20 November 2019.

M. Polanska (*)  Keele University, Keele, UK © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_30

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is a piece about imperfect writing and re-writing. It takes on board the seemingly impossible balance between the accountability to the research ‘informants’ and the ownership of one’s own research. It confronts the challenge of the impossibility to give back to the people without whom the research would be impossible. By questioning the separation from the research site and participants, and the process of re-encountering one’s own voice, this chapter challenges the usual binary power relationships between experts and ‘informants’, authority and the obedient, the receptor and the giver. And, of course, these challenges are not possible to overcome entirely. I remember a few moments more vividly from this strange time upon my return from the field. A couple of days after returning to London, which I was about to start calling home again, I met my supervisor and we went for our usual ‘walk and talk’. It was the cold end of February and I still felt jetlagged. However, I remember feeling blessed not only because I was meeting the closest person to my PhD project after a long while, but also, because I was still carrying the field in me. I had a sensation of a mixture of unexplainable happiness and the impossibility to articulate my experiences. I felt that I embodied ‘here vs. there’. This sensation of still being connected to the field persisted for some time. Our conversation could be summarised as follows: – So, how was your fieldwork in Mexico? – Well, it was the most intense experience in my life. Yes, I could not really put it into words. This chapter aims to capture that intensity of returning from a geographically distant ‘field’ to academic life, transitioning between cultures, languages and lifestyles, and the challenges this created for myself. My intention here is to situate this process of separating myself from the fieldwork and, most importantly, people I had encountered there at the centre of the chapter. That separation, simultaneously necessary and impossible, was far from a single event of return. Rather, such disconnecting took (of course, a luxury of) long months and could only be healed over time. Upon my return, what was supposed to be the most exciting moment of the doctoral process, just when the empirics meet theory and suddenly all should become a coherent picture that makes sense, resulted in a bumpy road full of emotions and unexpected directions. All of this, of course, was under the usual PhD pressure to ‘make progress’. Not only was this moment the most transformative in my doctoral journey, but also perhaps the most challenging. I felt as though I was literally situated ‘on the edge’—of the fieldwork site, but also of the doctoral programme. My doctoral research focused on persistence and everyday uncertainty in the context of criminal violence in Mexico. Over the 8-month fieldwork period, I lived alongside the unprivileged at-risk residents of the u ­ rban-rural periphery in Veracruz State in central-east Mexico. My aim was to understand

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how people responded to everyday violences (the plural is deliberate), as well as how they communicated in such a hostile environment. While my research centred on the unprivileged at risk, it also tackled the space where the encounter between the researcher and the ‘researched’ took place.3 This chapter starts with the puzzle of the apparent impossibility of a complete separation between the two, while reflexively paying attention to background power structures. In the process of responding to the above research questions, I did not pretend to speak for Mexican society or to represent the state of Veracruz as a whole, nor did I aim to ‘give voice’ to anyone. In this sense, I recognise such encounters as a meaningful space of engagement. Yet despite the efforts made by myself, I am aware that my attempts at giving back might have not been sufficient for those at whose expense this research has been written. In my writing, I acknowledged ‘my complicity in the violence I seek to ‘understand’ and ‘explain’, or in which I seek to intervene with my myriad good intentions and envisioned liberal futures’ (Dauphinée 2013b: 349). In the end, to accomplish my research aims, I accepted a sense of unease: while writing about others’ responses to violence, it was not in my hands to change their lives. The separation from the field exemplifies how challenging it felt to acknowledge. Following this brief introduction to my PhD project, I first elaborate the ongoing tension between the personal and the institutional milieu that became especially visible upon my return from the field. Second, I briefly introduce some of the positionalities I recognise as relevant in the process of separation from the field. Third, this chapter unpacks this process of separation, and then sketches some possible ways out, and hence ways to continue writing. Prior to introducing my positionalities in the field, a few caveats are necessary. I see my experiences as personal, yet they took place under a framework, rules and conditions set by institutionalised academia. Thus, the chapter should be read as an honest sharing of the negotiation between the personal and the institutional, without pretending that this way of ‘resolving’ the PhD impasse was in any way ‘better’ than that of others, or that, it ‘should’ be done in a particular way. I follow Jenny Edkins in distinguishing between an intellectual and expert (2019); I have never intended to become the latter and it is from this humble position that this chapter is written. However, it helps that at the time of writing, it has been over three years after returning from my fieldwork, following a successful completion of my doctorate (yes, with no corrections), as well as just after securing a 3-year research position. In this context, I am bold enough to request a reader’s attention to turn to a personal experience of that difficult period of my doctoral studies: a task I have been consciously avoiding till now.

3 I

do not use the terms ‘informants’ or ‘subjects’ in my doctoral writing. We became friends.

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There really is no quick solution to the ‘returning process’, and instead, my intention here is to examine this slow process of trials and errors perhaps with more patience than I had while experiencing it. Needless to say, it is essential to prepare as much as one can prior to research in field, and to expand our awareness of, for example, our ethical responsibilities to those who we wish to become our research co-participants. Despite undertaking numerous trainings and carrying out extensive preparations in terms of institutional risk assessments, ethics, and a pilot visit to the area of my field research, I found myself unprepared for the challenges of returning from the field.

Why Returning from the Field Was so Challenging I could hear in my head, but also from some well-meaning friends: ‘Hey, get over it, could this get any better?’ And, ‘You do what you love (or think you do), you get paid for doing this, you are safe (again), you have no major worries, you’re healthy and loved. Just get on with it. You’ve been there [in the field] for so long, you must have so many stories to tell, this must feel so fantastic!’ So, why returning from the field was so difficult? Upon my return, I felt overwhelmed at so many levels. Not only had I travelled a long distance, I had also changed my lifestyle dramatically: from predominantly street-based life, living with people, planning my every day according to new pathways my co-participants enabled, carrying out creative, innovative methods, brainstorming and just really living on a natural sort of high, completely devoted and immersed in the new environment that provided my daily life with meaning. Upon my return, I suddenly felt deprived of all of the above. Alone, in my new office, I was supposed to detach myself from nearly nine months of fieldwork and make sense of it in an academic way. The expectation of the doctoral programme was to write in a cold, analytical tone about what was just so hot, colourful and anything but simple: it was contradictory, messy, complex and non-linear. My research was largely inductive so I did not return with a ready-made analytical framework. As a result, upon my return, there was not even one recognisable pattern that I could hang on to and follow in my ‘analysis’. Moreover, I felt it was not the right thing to do. I started to feel being out of place. I still felt all things I lived in the field, with nearly the same sensitivity and intensity, and as a consequence of this contrast with the everyday institutional reality and pressures, felt fragile and completely misunderstood. I was trapped in between my inner necessity to make justice to those whom I owed my research in field and an institutional requirement to write analytically about it. In my mind, such instrumentalisation risked misrepresenting my co-participants. In fact, I felt I could not and should not dare to represent them. This tension seemed nearly contradictory at the time of my return to the university.

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Certainly, such tensions began during the fieldwork, albeit differently pronounced. I record writing to my supervisor in the second month of immersing myself in the field. Note: how disrupted this writing is, mainly by means of parenthesis. There is a lot (too much?) of empathy and compassion that make me feel extremely exhausted (I know it is a part of adjustment). I sometimes feel I resemble a tool, a box where everyone can throw whatever (no complaint here though). It’s like I was living for others, living to listen to them (which is fine, I am here for this purpose). However, it is truly very hard to overcome the flow of emotions and to avoid sometimes openly reacting when facing certain testimonies. Before anything, tons of very strong feelings of hopelessness… Sometimes, people who I listen to may not survive tomorrow. And I’m ONLY a privileged listener. This changes everything, all of my privileged life experiences I had had before. Still, no idea how to make sense from what I am doing at the moment. Does it make sense at all?4

The above fragment of the email correspondence contains tensions between the ethical and the institutional and shows that these started long before the actual return.

Positionalities: Drawing Impossible Boundaries in the Field A number of positionalities interplayed over the course of the fieldwork, both for myself and for the communities I worked with. My aim here is to reflexively acknowledge perceived and shifting positioning of the researcher vis-à-vis research participants, which concerns class, ethnicity, gender and ­ other aspects that affect the research (Huisman 2008; Sylvester 2010). In particular, there was a wide disparity between my privilege and theirs, something that at times felt overwhelming. One recurring positionality took the form of an insistent question: ‘How dare I come here and keep asking questions about people’s lives?’ while those very people express anxiety about surviving until the following day? This derived from a contrasting sense (and the actuality) of the privilege I exercised in my temporary interruptions of peoples’ daily lives, with the simultaneous prospect of return to a different, safer reality. In short, I actually had a choice (and a place to return to). With this in mind, I could not help but feel that I lacked the legitimacy needed to request that my interlocutors share their difficult life situations merely to benefit my research. This was a feeling that I struggled with for a long time, both during and upon my return from the field. A second recurring positionality came from what could be termed an ‘activist drive’ that was especially apparent at the beginning of the fieldwork period. I restrained myself from intervening 4 Email

correspondence with my supervisor in the second month of fieldwork, August 2015.

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in others’ lives, which would not have been ethical. Such ‘help’—which they might in any case not be willing to receive—could result in unforeseen harm. Third, I experienced a strong sense of guilt in relation to our contrasting privileged positions. Of course, despite feeling immersed in the fieldwork, I could not temporarily convert my life into theirs. The possibility of increasing their level of risk while meeting in public led me to trust their judgement about the safety situation and to be careful in my routine (e.g. informing a trusted person of my movements, returning home before dusk). Despite being accustomed to being visible on the streets of Mexico City,5 the tension was acute during the fieldwork: ‘If my job is to observe people, who am I to expect them not to observe me?’. As a consequence of the gendered dimension of visibility in Mexico, I invested a lot of energy into disguising myself in the way I dressed; I also changed my routine and daily walking routes, while at the same time attempting to gain as much experience of the Others’ everyday as possible. For example, this took form in the modes of transport I took and acquiring some food from markets rather than shops. Despite these efforts, of course, I never became a ‘local’ and could never overcome the guilt. A fourth issue relating to positionality was that my attempt to remain a ‘neutral observer’ was also unrealistic. That sort of artificial separation failed in front of numerous everyday injustices: I felt overwhelming frustration in the face of many of them (again like Edkins 2019). Structural poverty, gendered inequalities, corruption, lack of public space or disrespect for human life were among the repetitive aspects of my daily life, which at times paralysed me. Although my research did not directly concern these issues, they nevertheless built my general sense and picture of the communities I immersed myself in. Despite these positionalities, I made a conscious effort not to let these feelings affect my relationship with others. Among the strategies I adopted were debriefing my supervisor about it, writing my field diary and talking to friends in situ. These small actions allowed me to acquire some distance from the, at times, overwhelming feelings and acknowledge them as temporary. This was the first effort that I made to separate myself from my research participants while still in the field. The second was the conscious attempt to reverse power relations between myself and my interlocutors. My insistent active participation in daily jobs, such as ironing and cooking, exemplified such an attempt: the woman I was speaking to could sit and rest for a few minutes as I took her turn, a rare treat in her busy life. We continued our conversations and the dynamic silently changed: my physical work allowed her to rest and think things through. Also, it shifted our relationship in that instant: by the mere fact I was doing the same physical job, not only could she see me in a different light, but also find it empowering to teach me some new skills, as well as taking the opportunity to ask me questions, rather than the other way around. 5 I

had lived in Mexico City for five years before undertaking my PhD in the UK.

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Imperfect Writing: Messy Beginnings I carried some fragments of my above-described positionalities to my post-fieldwork writing efforts. Far from any linear process, this was a bumpy journey, with at times contradictory experiences and negotiations, and an impossible desire to make justice in representing my research co-participants. In the months that followed my return, I do not think I was aware enough of this. My initial attempts at writing up revealed just how disconnected I was from a ‘seemingly objective’ academic approach. I was—quite embarrassingly, now when I think of it—focussed on my own, rather than my interlocutors’ state of mind. While hesitating to return to my fieldnotes, I attempted to follow the interpretative route and employed, for example, popular literature and poetry to provide meaning, and experimented with writing styles that were not mine. From the perspective of hindsight, perhaps that stage revealed the impossibility of moving forward while my mental state was still dominated by strong feelings from the field. One example of trying to ‘move on’ was my avoiding the physical notebooks with my handwritten fieldnotes. I felt that reading the notes would remind me that the text and context were not part of me anymore. I just wanted to remember everything from the field: as if the field was inside me. As strange as it sounds today, it felt painful to return to my physical fieldnotes. There was a paradox in that the physical separation from the people meant that I had to return to what they actually said (not what my head thought they had said).6 I was afraid of confronting those feelings and struggled to both incorporate them into an acceptable narrative and being at the same time overwhelmed by them. In the end, I needed some sort of distance in order to formulate my analysis. It was a bumpy writing up year and, I am less afraid to admit it now that is over, I was searching for my new self again. I needed to (and still am) confront(-ing) what Olga Burlyuk calls in her autoethnographic essay ‘a triple inferiority complex’ (2019). She recalled beginning one of her guest lectures with the opening statement: I am a young Ukrainian woman talking about [the] root causes of the war in Ukraine. I know you will dismiss everything I say in the next two hours on accounts of age, nationality and gender. Who am I as a young person to talk about tectonic shifts in international relations? Who am I as a Ukrainian to know and say anything ‘objective’ and ‘authoritative’ about Ukraine? Who am I as a woman to talk about war? (Burlyuk 2019: 45)

I am amazed by the feeling of immediate complicity: I could simply replace the author’s identity with mine and put Mexico instead of Ukraine as if the paragraph was mine. I found the passage very helpful in that it allowed me to recognise how inferior I had been feeling for a number of reasons over 6 However,

once finally ready, when I ultimately dived into my fieldnotes, it was a great relief.

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many years studying and working in the UK university. Over the longer term, it helped me with the writing process and dealing with the separation issue.

Separation (Despite Its Impossibility) This section focuses on the problematic transition from a street-based life alongside an at-risk population to an enclosed desk-based and, in a way, isolated academic life. As shown above, the separation was both necessary and impossible; I needed to carry the stories inside me to stay truthful to them, and at the same time, it was also necessary to let them go, in order to move forward and separate myself from them on paper. Upon my return from the field, I felt lost. To paraphrase Megan Daigle, when I arrived at my doctoral desk, I faced a wall (2016: 31). It is fair to say I was paralysed by fear of misrepresenting the people I owed everything in my doctoral project. So, what have I done with it? Quite predictably, I walked away from the field (in me) and turned myself to others. Here I aim to acknowledge physical and material challenges to this process, within and beyond the apparently obvious: ‘write it up’ advice. This section elaborates on three (among many other) ways in which I gained (some) distance that enabled the doctorate to be ultimately accomplished. To reiterate, they all worked for me and I do not pretend them to be transferrable. First, I embraced my work as mine. Second, and no surprise here, I let myself write it up. Third, I turned to other sources (and people!), some of them unexpected and not from my, strictly understood, field. I sense all three processes overlapped, rather than following any consecutive order. First, it took a long time to accept my ideas and articulate them as mine. In the PhD process, the ownership of the project may not be so obvious: despite being the only author, there are many strong influences one needs to take into consideration. The interpretation of ‘data’ is mine despite multiple compromises undertaken. Yet I only understood this further in the process. One of the reasons was that, as my former institute’s colleague put it, only towards the end of the PhD one actually knows what one wants to say.7 Yet this is just right: a doctoral project is about embracing its fluidity and ongoing change, because this is how one’s mind works. Had it been all fixed from the beginning, what would there have been to discover? This, quite evidently, was in contrast to the constant demands of presenting, closing, finishing something and concluding in one established form that is actually readable and transmittable to others. Most importantly here, I had to reach the process of separating a written outcome of the research from its field-based process. It was a question of ownership, in my mind, but also living—not really overcoming—a moral tension of deserving to write (on) somebody else’s lives (Daigle 2016). To acknowledge that this was my work took a really long 7 I

am thankful to Róisín Read for this observation.

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time of writing, trying and failing, and accepting the whole imperfection of the writing process, and hence the impossibility of the absolute separation from my interlocutors, as suggested in a former section. This connects to the ­following point. Second, as I confessed in my latest job interview (and I got the job!), I had to allow myself to let myself write in a different way than before. This was a painful process. It may seem obvious, given that a PhD ‘is all about writing’, but it was not always obvious to me. Of course, a specific routine may help: this is (also) highly personal. For me, a long period of systematic, everyday writing with few distractions, a routine of the same desk space and the same limited hours a day allowed me to establish a rhythm that enabled the text to flourish. The reader is certainly aware of academic-writing conventions, yet recently there has been a lot of focus on how different writing is actually possible within, not necessarily outside, academia (Inayatullah 2011; Dauphinée 2013a, 2015; Edkins 2019 and the Journal of Narrative Politics among most notable examples). However, such an acceptance of the many different ways of writing was the last key factor that led me embrace my own work and generated a sense of ownership and responsibility for the text. I was finally at (sort of) peace with the separation: people ‘there’ vs. my words ‘here’. To put it differently, I felt the flow after quite a long time of adjustment. And this was very much thanks to many incredibly generous souls I met along the process. Following Himadeep Muppidi, I made a conscious decision to ‘redirect the reader’s gaze’ (2015: 9) towards the ways of living of the ‘Other’, rather than the (multiple and of course worth exploring) forms of dying. This leads me to the third point: the people without whom this project would have never moved forward. Third, and as trivial as it sounds, this final writing up process would not have been possible without an incredible push I received from those passionate enough to provide me with their generous time, non-judgmental presence, walking while listening and just really enjoying being different. This third point is also about letting go and opening myself to the process of imperfect writing. And it was not possible without a deep emotional engagement with colleagues and also senior academics. Over years of academic exposure, it has remained hugely challenging for me to engage with those higher in the hierarchy. This hindrance to a more authentic contact alongside the hierarchy structures originates in a persistent ‘inferiority complex’ (Burlyuk 2019) but also of course, in remaining stuck instead of overcoming it. Upon my return from the field, I really felt stuck. In one of the most challenging moments, already some months after my return, and thanks to a friend’s recommendation and university funding, I (quite literally) dragged myself to collective seclusion in a Welsh forest, where a small group of doctoral students met distinguished scholars of international studies in a week-long encounter of seminars, group and one-to-one informal conversations. We also walked, and even danced, together. I purposively do not call it a ‘summer school’ because it seemed a dream-come-true: the right conditions for the right moment in my doctoral journey. From a distance, I

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can say it was one of the turning points that allowed me to think and write differently. It opened up the type of creativity that, after another while, enabled my PhD completion and transformed me completely. I cannot praise enough this week-long encounter that allowed me to understand more the scream I had inside, the guilt and the stiffness that made me stuck in front of the screen. Thus, it felt the exactly right thing to do in academia: to think reflectively out loud, to walk freely, to speak honestly and to listen to other stories of very personal struggles. I remember vividly two moments of the encounter. First, at the dinner table, when I expressed my fears of not only misrepresenting my interlocutors, but also the quite literal impossibility of writing about them, for the first time I put into words my physical impossibility of allowing myself to write, of including myself in this writing and of finding ‘the right’ language. I literally found myself physically trapped in front of the question: How dare I talk about the people whose lives were in danger? Also, I have found the effects of my writing and re-writing peoples’ realities into my thesis, like Veena Das, increasingly disappointing. She mentions ‘I felt that every time I succeeded in saying something, I was left with a sense of malaise, a disappointment with what I had said. Given that there is a certain air of obviousness with which notions of the everyday and of violence are often spoken of in anthropological writing, I have been amazed at how difficult I found it to speak of these matters’ (2007: 2). These questions paralysed my writing and made it impossible to move on for a long time, and it was an alleviating experience to actually say them out loud. I remember turning red and nearly crying while my voice went cracking at that dining table. Yet articulating my fears from inside was a relief. Second, I managed to have a couple of rare but indeed valuable conversations with colleagues and senior scholars that changed my usual landscape. One of them turned my attention towards the responsibility I carried in making a moral decision to choose what to say and what to hide in my doctoral thesis. This was an important exchange because it made me feel empowered again; ultimately, becoming a turning point I could start with: selecting what to add and exclude from the story I was about to create. Lastly, during my whole doctoral process, there were a number of diverse academic events, or one-to-one conversations, where I could simply witness the kind of passion, intellectual flourishing without excusing oneself of one’s ideas and risking being misunderstood by the audience, and further, exposing one’s difficulties that simply made this journey more human. It is far from my purpose to enumerate all of these encounters. That is to say, thank you. Without such passion stripped from fear that I sensed from these people, from different disciplines and corners in the world, I am not sure I could follow my bumpy journey. Of course, I was lucky enough that most of my meetings with my main supervisor fall in this category: uplifting, humanising and quite literally pulling my whole self above the surface, in order to breathe. But also, they include seminars with prominent academics (as well as their books) from diverse fields, for example Cynthia Enloe in feminist military

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studies (2014), Veena Das in the anthropology of violence (2007), Jenny Edkins in global and local politics (2019) or Berit Bliesemann de Guevara in knowledge in peace and conflict studies (2017).

Concluding Remarks This chapter addresses the post-fieldwork stage of my doctoral journey and the ways I sought to separate myself as a researcher from the field. Usually, a tight attachment and empathy with people in field seems a desirable advantage and indeed, it is. However, it may also impede the analytical ‘progress’ requested in doctoral writing to succeed. To separate myself from the residents of Veracruz meant to re-gain my perspective, to allow my imperfect writing and ultimately, to push my doctoral writing above the surface. The task was to re-humanise this process again. As long as a complete separation between the researcher and the researched remains impossible, this chapter explores a tiny disruption in the process that enabled an openness that followed, thanks to many along this journey.

References Bliesemann de Guevara, B. 2017. Intervention theatre: Performance, authenticity and expert knowledge in politicians’ travel to post-/conflict spaces. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 11 (1): 58–80. Burlyuk, O. 2019. Fending off a triple inferiority complex in academia: An autoethnography. Journal of Narrative Politics 6 (1): 28–50. Daigle, M. 2016. Writing the lives of others: Storytelling and international politics. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 45 (1): 25–42. Das, V. 2007. Life and words: Violence and the descent into the ordinary. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dauphinée, E. 2013a. The politics of exile. London: Routledge. Dauphinée, E. 2013b. Writing as hope: Reflections on The Politics of Exile. Security Dialogue 44 (4): 347–361. Dauphinée, E. 2015. Narrative voice and the limits of peacebuilding: Rethinking the politics of partiality. Peacebuilding 3 (3): 261–278. Edkins, J. 2019. Change and the politics of certainty. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Enloe, C. 2014. Bananas, beaches and bases: Making feminist sense of international politics, 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. Huisman, K. 2008. “Does this mean you’re not going to come visit me anymore?”: An inquiry into an ethics of reciprocity and positionality in feminist ethnographic research. Sociological Inquiry 78 (3): 372–396. Inayatullah, N. (ed.). 2011. Autobiographical International Relations: I, IR. London: Routledge. Muppidi, H. 2015. Politics in emotion: The song of Telangana. London: Routledge. Sylvester, C. 2010. Feminist International Relations: An unfinished journey. Cambridge Studies in International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 31

The Politics and Practicalities of Writing Birte Vogel and Roger Mac Ginty

Introduction So you have come back from fieldwork and have to write up. While fi ­ eldwork is often a break from the ordinary, writing can involve long hours in front of the computer trying to make sense of field notes, interview transcripts and the jumble of memories that are in your head. Hopefully you have taken really good notes and kept a fieldwork journal over the past months—it will make life easier now. Yet, there are a range of challenges ahead. This chapter considers two aspects of writing up. The first is the actual act of writing. Whether it is a PhD thesis or a journal article, the same actions will be involved. The chapter will share a couple of practical tips that might make the process easier. The second aspect is textualisation or the politics of writing. All acts of writing are political to some degree, but the act of writing on conflict-affected societies on the basis of fieldwork is peculiarly political and is attended by a number of practical and ethical issues. Writing up fieldwork is often an attempt to render the thoughts, observations and experiences of others into a written format. The format is often a very particular one of a PhD thesis, journal article or book chapter. These bring with them the risk that we write over peoples’ experiences, that we write them out of the equation altogether, or that we misinterpret what they meant and how they see the world. B. Vogel (*)  Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK e-mail: [email protected] R. Mac Ginty  School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, Durham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_31

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In other words, writing up fieldwork is a highly sensitive and political exercise. Ethical challenges and dilemmas don’t stop when we return home to the desk but we should ask a new set of questions. At the heart of writing up—and indeed fieldwork—is the question of whether a person, especially an outsider, can ever accurately reflect the experiences of others. It takes a certain amount of conceit—to use Patrick Chabal’s (2012) term—to believe that we can reflect and mediate the experiences of others. This is especially the case in relation to those living in ­conflict-affected contexts in which individuals and groups may have witnessed and lived through events and processes that are far removed from our own. The difficulties of writing up are compounded by the peculiar, and rather traditional, formats that are usually open to academics. It seems incredible that the colour, texture, vibrancy and pure emotion of many contexts have to be rendered into a 8000-word journal article or thesis chapter that conforms to a prescribed style of fonts, line spacing and referencing. But let’s start with the process of writing. Few things are as frightening as an empty word document.

Writing Everyone writes in their own way and so this section makes no attempt to be prescriptive about how best to write. Instead, Roger Mac Ginty reflects on how he writes and offers ‘tips’ on what works for him. In recent years, I have struggled to carve out time for writing. A mix of family demands, an increased administrative load and the sheer busy-ness of academic life have meant that writing projects have suffered. In particular, I have felt that email dominates my time and while I type all day it is usually sending and responding to emails. In order to remain productive, I have had to adopt a number of tactics to try to protect writing time and to improve the quality of my outputs. These have (mainly) worked for me but they might not work for others. #1: Put Writing in Your Diary Teaching and meetings go into our diaries but we tend not to cordon off time for writing. If we don’t specifically block-off writing time in our diaries, the danger is that the time will be seen as blank and therefore will be eaten up by last minute Skype calls and meetings. So I have begun to put writing in my diary (‘Writing 8AM – 12 NOON’) and treat it like a meeting that cannot be re-scheduled. Just as I would not cancel a class or an important meeting, I now jealously guard writing time and do my best to protect it in the diary. #2: Set a Daily Word Target On writing days I set myself a 1000-word target. The target is realisable. If it was too high, I might very well miss it and thus feel that I had ‘failed’. There is a danger that feelings of failure and doubt can become magnified and we

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suffer from a writing paralysis. By having a realisable (and respectable) target of 1000 words, I can feel that I have made real progress and that sets me up for the next day of writing. I can only keep the 1000 words per day rate up for about four days. After that I would have to spend some time—usually a few weeks—taking notes, reading and editing. But four days at 1000 words per day is enough to get the heavy-lifting of a book chapter or a journal article out of the way. It will take a lot of polishing but material down on paper (or screen) is ‘banked’. #3: Write Messily I write first and insert full references later. I do not use referencing software as I have found it to be very untrustworthy (for a start, it cannot deal with my name). Instead, I just write and insert full references later. If a reference is at hand, I will insert it or I will simply write ‘REF’ as a reminder to myself, but I would rather use my writing time to get my words on screen than track down whether the year of publication was 2007 or 2008. The result might be a messy draft but at least if you have something to improve on. #4: Work with Your Biorhythms Some people are early birds and others are night owls. Whatever you are— work with it rather than against it. I write best in the morning and so would not dream of grading or engaging in admin tasks on the morning of a writing day. The morning is for writing and the afternoon is for editing what I have written, answering emails and those dull administrative tasks. In the optimal case I will have a four-hour writing block in the morning. But unfortunately life does not always allow that: travel, other work commitments and family demands mean that I cannot always get my morning writing time. I have tried to counteract this with what I call ‘guerrilla writing’—that is, writing when and where I can. It is not always successful. I remember trying to write a paragraph for a book chapter with a small child sitting on my head and a dog nibbling my slipper (with my foot in it). The writing had to be abandoned. But I have come to a realisation getting four uninterrupted hours to write in the morning may not always be possible—so guerrilla writing may be necessary. #5: Get Feedback as You Write If possible, I try to get feedback on drafts of my work—even if it is messy. Good, critical feedback is invaluable. People are often busy and I understand completely if they don’t come back to me with feedback. But often my informal reviewers are aware of a literature that I have missed or will have a different disciplinary perspective. Psychologically, I think, the informal feedback process helps me believe that my writing is moving forward towards publication. Early in my career I was very nervous about showing draft work to others and very sensitive about criticism. It does, of course, take a certain

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amount of bravery (or resignation) to show unfinished work to peers and others. We are usually very aware of the gaps and weaknesses in our own work. Sharing our work with others is confessional and exposing. We don’t want our self-doubt to be reinforced by harsh criticism. But critique is an inevitable—and very useful—part of the academic process. I used to send draft work to colleagues who would only give positive feedback. While I liked hearing that, it wasn’t useful and I send material to people who I know will not be afraid to point out weaknesses. Good critique is invaluable and it is better to get it during the writing process rather than from Reviewer 2. I also grab any opportunity—brown bags, invitations to give seminars, teaching—to float ideas I am writing about. Some of the best feedback I have ever received has been in masters classes when I incorporate some ideas into a class. If it can survive a good MA discussion, it might just survive Reviewer 2. #6: Write as Soon After Fieldwork as You Can Fieldwork is often an immersive experience and many things are put on hold to allow people to go on fieldwork. So it is understandable that—after fieldwork—people need to decompress, take a break, and catch up on all of those professional and social things that have been put on hold. Yet, if possible, it is wise to write up as quickly as possible. Fieldwork is not just about the tangible data that is brought back in the form of interview and focus transcripts. It is also about the experiences (the sights, sounds, smells, attitudes, etc.) that one has. These often non-verbal and non-text phenomena are a crucial part of fieldwork evidence, but they are prone to fading memory. That is why it is useful to try to write up—even a messy first draft—as quickly as possible. The need to reflect the fieldwork atmosphere, in addition to the findings, illustrates the importance of maintaining a fieldwork journal. I travel with a little notebook that I use for note-taking during interviews. But I also use it to jot down impressions and thoughts each evening during fieldwork. I find these impressions (that there are very few police on the streets, that school children are well turned out, that everyone has a mobile phone) are invaluable in reminding me of the context of where an interview took place. More than that, the notebooks take on a tactile quality. The coffee stain on a page might remind me of the café where an interview took place and the demeanour of the other customers. An oily and dusty stain on another page might remind me that I was constantly covered in sun lotion and just how hot the place was. An odd scribble in the marginal might remind me that the interviewee asked for a particular point to be off-the-record. #7: Check Your Citations Our writing is full of bias. One easy way of checking who we are representing is a quick reference check. What’s your gender balance? Do you cite scholars from your case countries? Scholars of colour? All of this comes down to issues

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of power and agency (discussed in more detail in the next section). It can be useful exercise to reflect on your fieldwork—its sights, sounds, challenges, exhilarations and disappointments—and then check your citations. Does a citation list of Western scholars—some of whom have possibly never been to your fieldwork location—adequately reflect your fieldwork? Decolonising and re-balancing reference lists take active effort and are not easy. #8: Press Send There is no such thing as the perfect essay, article, book chapter, dissertation or thesis. There will come a point though when you cannot do any better without feedback or a break. It is better that a draft is out there getting feedback (even rejection) than sitting in a file. Even if a manuscript is rejected by a journal you are likely to get feedback that will help you improve it. A ­manuscript squirrelled away on a file might as well not exist. The advice to ‘press send’ is not offered in a glib way. We might feel nervous about sharing our work with others and the possibility of criticism. Yet, we have to think of the purpose of writing. Partly it is about the acts of reflection and ­sense-making that the individual will go through as part of the process of writing. But partly it is about writing for an audience and thus working our work accessible. If we don’t share our work, then we have to ask the fundamental question: What was the point of the fieldwork? In addition to the eight ‘tips’ listed above, there is the issue of prevarication. There is rarely the perfect moment for writing; the table might be wobbly, the room might be too cold, and there might be noise next door. Rather than being real barriers to writing, it may be the case that they are invitations to prevaricate. At the end of the day, we have to take active steps to carve out time and space to write. Tweaking the angle of your chair, repetitively tidying your workspace or perfecting that playlist is not the answer. Harsh as it sounds, getting on with writing is the answer.

The Politics of Writing up Writing is not only a technical exercise, it also is deeply political and its ethics should receive the same attention as other aspects of knowledge production and fieldwork. The key issue that concerns this section is representation: Is the writing that we produce representative of the fieldwork that we conducted? In turn, this shines a light on the representativeness—or otherwise— of the fieldwork we conducted. As an author, we have significant power—and responsibility—to narrate the experiences of others. While we might want to be respectful and faithful to the experiences of those in the fieldwork zone, we also have to pay attention to the strictures of academia. A PhD thesis or journal submission must be presented in a particular way. This means that we have to walk a tightrope and find a way that satisfies our both conscience (and responsibility to

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fieldwork ‘subjects’) and academic gatekeepers. To the extent that we have agency in the matter, writing up presents us with a number of choices and challenges. Four of these choices or challenges are covered in this section. The first of these choices or challenges relates to the issue of voice. More specifically, to what extent does the author’s voice dominate or does it facilitate the voices of interviewees, communities or contexts? Much will depend on the topic, discipline and what is considered ‘acceptable’. For example, ethnographically and sociologically inspired work tends to be more ­people-centric than traditional Political Science and International Relations. A good ‘rule of thumb’ for judging the extent to which interview and focus group subjects have been allowed a voice is whether or not the reader can ‘hear’ the vernacular in passages that include interview or focus group excerpts. Substantial passages in clusters, often deftly pieced together by the author, can allow local and expert voices to come to the fore. In such cases, the author’s voice is implicit. It consists of facilitating fieldwork subjects and allowing their stories to be told. Of course, however subtle this might be, this amounts to an intervention by the author. The voices of interviewees are always mediated by authors, but this can be done in a light-touch way. In other cases, excerpts from fieldwork interviews and focus groups are heavily edited and used sparingly and only in ways that might support a pre-packaged argument. The second choice or challenge follows on from the first. To what extent is the author tempted to impose order on the fieldwork context? Obviously, any writing project, and especially one connected with the PhD thesis or academic work, has to be comprehensible and must conform to certain scholarly strictures. Yet, within these strictures, to what extent is the writing up project about forcing a complex social reality into a neat analytical framework? The advantages of an analytical framework are many, but principally it gives us a structure that allows for the systematic analysis or comparison of data. It is, instead, messy, complex, dynamic and difficult to comprehend. Thus, during writing up, many authors grapple with the contradiction between being faithful to what they observed and experienced during fieldwork and the scholarly demands for neatness, deference to ‘seminal concepts’ and a culture of citing ‘big name scholars’. Finding a way along, this path can be difficult and it is useful to be mindful of the power of authors to impose alien concepts and narratives on others. This issue is connected to the often made criticism that we gather data ‘abroad’ and theorise ‘at home’ (Richmond et al. 2015). More broadly speaking, this means that we often use white/Western scholars and their concepts to theorise our data, and local scholars to discuss and contextualise the empirical data rather than using their theoretical and conceptual approach to frame the analysis. Key here is the extent to which research is inductive or deductive. In other words, to what extent is the research driven by the data gathered or to what extent does it begin with social theory and move towards data collection? It

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seems unlikely that anyone will embark on field research with a completely open mind (Galdas 2017). Indeed, one of the key messages of this book is that fieldwork requires significant preparation. Even if one strives towards an inductive and grounded theory approach, it is very likely that we will have biases and assumptions that shape our view of the research topic. The key is to have an awareness of our biases during the research and the writing up. The third challenge or choice is very much related to the last one: Who do we cite, and why? When a friend first told me, she reviews her reference list to check the gender balance before sending articles out for review, I first noticed that while I was critical and aware of academic citation practices and had to acknowledge that some of my own reference lists didn’t look particular balanced either, I thought this was great way to reflect on who we academically speak to and with. It only takes a few minutes, but tells us much about who we represent in our writings, and most importantly, makes us aware of these choices. Feminist scholars in particular have argued that female authors and other marginalised groups are less likely to be cited in academia (Ahmed 2017). Likewise, Delgado already discussed racial citation bias in 1984—but mainstream academia has lost little of its ‘whiteness’ since. This is surprising given how much we think about and justify the choices we make during fieldwork in terms of who we talk to and include and exclude from our study. Why do we not make the same choices when we are picking books and texts to read and cite them? Would the fieldwork data be considered rigorous and balanced if you had only spoken to one ethnic group, and all of the participants were from the same demographic and gender? This would be unlikely (unless, this of course supports the research question). The same should then be applied to the literature we are consulting. It is important as we usually use it to scaffold the fieldwork we conduct in terms of drawing on key concepts or arguments, or setting up the fieldwork context. There are still a range of challenges with balancing our citations once we acknowledge that we should. Citing a diverse range of sources beyond the usual suspects can be difficult, and brings to the fore a host of other ethical questions. The literature we engage with is already heavily filtered through different layers of privilege, or the lack thereof. For example, female scholars often publish less than their male colleagues as they tend to have heavier teaching loads. Scholars from the global south are less likely to publish their work in the ‘standard’ academic journals for a range of reasons. These may include language barriers, a different academic writing culture, a lack of access to academic journals and books that mean the contributions do not cite some of the ‘usual suspects’ in the area (and Reviewer 2 will suggest that they have missed some ‘key literature’—reject!). This structural exclusion, and the political economies of publishing, means the knowledge we have access to is already limited. Further, whose voice counts and should be prioritised? A quick ‘author count’ of male vs female authors might tell us something about the gender

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balance of the reference list but leaves out many other identity markers such as race, ethnicity, geographical location and career stage. In some countries, the local literature will be dominated by male authors. So is it better to make sure you have a good gender balance if that means citing less local scholars? Or should we cite more local scholars and accept the citations will be heavily biased towards male voices? An important step in this regard is to be aware of these biases in our own and other scholars’ writings, and the possible pitfalls when choosing whom to read and cite. Again, we should think about our writing as a sample of fieldwork: Who did I talk to and who did I ignore (and why)? While we always have to justify these choices in the methods chapter or section, there seems to be less of a culture to justify the literature we select. Engaging with this question matters for knowledge production: citations become a site of power, as citations ‘are the materials through which, from which, we create our dwellings’ (Ahmed 2017: 16). The body of literature we use to ‘make sense’ of our data and interview voices will determine much of how we read and what we find in the empirical material. Constructing this frame more carefully by paying attention to whose ideas we build on is as important as justifying our fieldwork interviewees. A fourth and final point to make in relation to fieldwork writing up concerns the security and anonymity of fieldwork subjects. Often the writing up of fieldwork is conducted away from the fieldwork site. This can allow us greater objectivity and the ability to place the fieldwork site and fieldwork data into a wider context. It is important, however, to remember that while we might be able to physically remove ourselves from a fieldwork site, and psychologically remove ourselves from the pressures of the location, this fieldwork site will continue to be everyday location for our contacts and their families. Guarantees of confidentiality, anonymity, or of reporting or giving back should be regarded as just that: guarantees. This might mean devising a system whereby interviewees and research subjects are anonymised or placing a PhD thesis under embargo for a number of years. In some contexts, especially small communities, it might not be enough to change or remove interviewees’ names to keep their identities protected. The experiences and details of interviewees’ lives presented in our writings might make them easily identifiable in their community. It is important not to underestimate the reach of authoritarian regimes and others that take displeasure in local actors talking ‘out of turn’ with researchers. The chief point of this chapter is that writing up is a challenge and a responsibility. It is a crucial part of the fieldwork process and involves ethical, practical and political issues—just like the fieldwork itself. If we want to be truly reflective as academics, it cannot stop once we return from fieldwork. Nor do stay ethical dilemmas abroad.

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References Ahmed, S. 2017. Living a feminist life. Durham: Duke University Press. Chabal, P. 2012. The end of conceit: Western rationality after postcolonialism. London: Zed Books. Delgado, R. 1984. The imperial scholar: Reflections on a review of civil rights literature. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 132 (3): 561–578. Galdas, P. 2017. Revisiting bias in qualitative research: Reflections on its relationship with funding and impact. International Journal on Qualitative Research 16 (1): 1–2. Richmond, O.P., S. Kappler, and A. Björkdahl. 2015. The ‘field’ in the age of intervention: Power, legitimacy, and authority versus the ‘local’. Millennium 44 (1): 23–44.

CHAPTER 32

‘Each Word is Powerful’: Writing and the Ethics of Representation Angela J. Lederach Learning to ‘Remove the Umbrella’ ‘Writing is a responsibility. I have to think about each word, because each word is powerful,’ Dionisio Alarcón Fernández (2017), a campesino (small farmer), poet, and social movement leader from Colombia’s northern territory of Montes de María reflected as his hand drifted over the worn notebook on his lap. Dionisio’s formal education ended after he reached the second grade. As the son of a single mother, the historic inequalities that exclude rural, campesino communities from access to public education coupled with the social marginalization of growing up in a woman-led household cut short his ability to finish schooling. He did not, however, stop writing. Sitting next to me on a white, plastic chair, his head tilted to the side, he read the handwritten words on the page as I transcribed the text into my computer. We placed our chairs at the edge of a lookout located at the highest point of the Alta Montaña, the community Dionisio calls home. The late afternoon light danced across the hills and valleys of Montes de María, a territory disproportionately affected by the armed conflict in Colombia, as we discussed violence, peace, and the ethics of writing. The idea for the article emerged after Dionisio and I co-facilitated a workshop on the use of research as a tool to support community-based peacebuilding efforts in Colombia. The 2017 Action Research Network of the Americas International Conference formed part of a wider celebration that marked the thirty-year anniversary of the first conference on Investigación

A. J. Lederach (*)  Anthropology Program, Cultural and Social Studies, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_32

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Acción Participativa (Participatory Action Research, IAP) held in Cartagena in 1977. The conference afforded us an opportunity to examine the nexus between research, violence, and peacebuilding. We designed the workshop to unpack common, extractive research practices that campesinos, like Dionisio, have experienced in the Alta Montaña, where people increasingly find themselves under the gaze of researchers interested in Colombia’s emerging ‘postconflict’ landscape. We did not end with critique, however. Instead, we outlined alternative research practices that campesinos in the Alta Montaña have developed as a central part of their movement, the Proceso Pacífico de Reconciliación e Integración de la Alta Montaña (Peaceful Process of Reconciliation and Integration of the Alta Montaña, Peaceful Process). Rather than viewing research as externally devised and conducted by individual experts, the facilitators of the workshop, including Dionisio along with Hernando González Meléndez and Glenda Jaraba Pérez, called for outside researchers to enter into their established, collective processes. ‘We need the support of academia,’ Dionisio reflected after he finished reading his handwritten essay, ‘but academics don’t often move beyond analysis. In order to feel that it is raining, you have to get wet, you have to remove your umbrella.’ This image, offered as a side reflection over the course of our long and slow Sunday afternoon conversation, later became the title of the essay that Dionisio, Hernando, and Glenda published in the academic journal, Economía y Región (Alarcón et al. 2018). The guidelines offered in their co-authored article, ‘Removing the umbrella to feel the rain: A lesson for the academy from the Alta Montaña,’ underscored the need for research to integrate the intimate knowledge born of lived experience with theory. ‘We are not just objects under the gaze of academia,’ they assert, ‘but also actors in the elaboration of profound studies in our search for transformative peace’ (Alarcón et al. 2018: 5). The guidelines that Alarcón et al. (2018) outline have fundamentally shaped my approach and engagement with research ethics, informing the lines of inquiry I pursue, the methods that I use, and how I frame, translate, write, and disseminate what I have learned. In particular, Alarcón, González, and Jaraba contend that peace research requires long-term engagement, the integration of youth and women as key actors in knowledge production, adequate and visible recognition for the contributions that campesinos make to research reports, and the return of final publications to the communities who participated in their creation. Months after the published article appeared in Economía y Región, I asked Dionisio where the metaphor of the umbrella came from. We were seated close to the ruins of a church destroyed in the armed conflict as we talked over tinto (coffee). ‘I found that image in the moment,’ he explained, ‘Normally they have an editor that edits that [image] out and takes away that voice.’ He gestured to the ruins,

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You see, what it means to live the suffering here. Here, this is where we ­experienced the bombings and the armed confrontations. Here, I cradled my son to my chest, because in that moment I was thinking if the bullet hits me in the back, at least my body will fall on top of him and he will survive.

For outsiders like myself, the beauty of the panoramic views that stretched out before us as we talked and sipped tinto belied the memories of violence also etched into the geography, of the Alta Montaña. Dionisio’s visceral and embodied memories of fleeing direct combat with his small child held tightly against his chest in order to provide the only protection available against the imminent threat of flying bullets remains alive in his body and the landscapes he calls home (Santos-Granero 1998; Theidon 2009). These living memories—or what people in the Alta Montaña call ‘memoria viva’—served to remind me that I would never fully understand or be able to narrate the subjective and lived experiences of suffering, love, and solidarity held within the entorno (life-world) of Montes de María (CNMH 2018). Removing the umbrella, therefore, required not only immersion into the cotidianidad (everyday), but also the close accompaniment from—and collaboration with—campesinos in the Alta Montaña. Indeed, as Alarcón et al. (2018) admonish, research must move ‘beyond the academic bubble, to take root in our land, with our social processes of peacebuilding’ (5). Knowledge born from lived experience has rich and significant insights for theories of peace, violence, conflict, and healing. Yet, campesino concepts, narratives, and social analyses are too often edited out, spoken over, and extracted—reduced to mere ‘data’ in need of scholarly interpretation, rather than theories in their own right.1 This process of invisibilización (to render invisible) has harmful consequences, including the circulation of partial and biased research findings, which do not account for the lived realities and practices of peacebuilding found in places like the Alta Montaña. As Alarcón, González, and Jaraba under score, Most of the academic studies…that have been done in the territory have imposed their own agendas…extract information in ways that appropriate our knowledge, without recognizing the participation and the existing capacity found in our territories…Usually, [researchers] come for a short time, they do interviews, and then they leave – never to communicate with us again. These research practices do not result in precise findings because they lack contextual understanding of the dynamics of the territory. Without active participation of the communities, academic studies obscure key knowledge for peacebuilding, ways of knowing that emerge from lived experience. (2018: 4) 1 In

her work on memory, violence, and reconciliation in campesino communities ravaged by the war in Peru, Kimberly Theidon similarly questions the ways in which ‘some individuals and groups have “theory,” while others have “beliefs.”’ For Theidon, ‘the words “theory” and “belief” are inscribed within an imbalance of power’ that entrench ‘the dichotomy between producers and consumers of knowledge’ and render invisible the ‘sophisticated theories Quechua-speakers have elaborated about violence and its effects, about social life and their struggles to rebuild it’ (2009: 9).

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‘Writing’ understood as a ‘responsibility’ requires an ethical stance—a refusal to edit away the voices and contributions of people like Dionisio, who live and move through the landscapes of memory etched into the territory. ‘With the umbrella, it is also this,’ Dionisio explained, ‘it is an understanding of what those decisions and moments mean. With literary expression, I try to capture all of those images.’ He became quiet, reflecting for a while before continuing, ‘This is the knowledge that emerges from those of us that lived this… in our own words, our own ways of speaking.’ In this chapter, I take Alarcón, González, and Jaraba’s guidelines—born from their lived experiences and current engagements in a community-based research process—as a central starting point to reflect on the ethics of research and writing in contexts of violent conflict and unrest. In recent years, scholars have cast a critical lens on the violent effects of knowledge hierarchies, constructed through the everyday practices of international peacekeeping missions, and noted the inadequacies of conflict analysis limited only to the state and international system (Autesserre 2014; Bolten 2012; Hinton 2010; Hughes et al. 2015; Lombard 2016; Mac Ginty and Richmond 2013). In conversation with campesinos in Montes de María, this chapter offers a reflection on the ethical contours of representation for scholars conducting fieldwork in contexts of armed conflict and political unrest. As a white, North American researcher from a prestigious university in the United States, I ask what it means to approach ‘writing’ as a ‘responsibility’? In particular, what ethical obligations emerge when I recognize myself and my research as deeply implicated in the wider ecology of international peacebuilding interventions that have—and continue to—shape the context in which I work? Through participatory methods, I have come to understand research, not as a means to an end, but, instead, as praxis. For Pilar Riaño-Alcalá (2006), a commitment to research as praxis requires attention to ‘how the researcher engages with the subjects and communities studied, how the institutional academic realm interacts with various communities, and how research methodologies ensure meaningful interactions and dialogue’ (169–170). Research as praxis—the continuous2 dialectic between reflection and action—decenters the final research product to foreground and prioritize ongoing, collective processes, which extends into the writing process. Manuel Salamanca has pointed to the ways in which the linguistic shift between the English ‘peace research’ and the Spanish ‘investigación para la paz’—research for peace—shapes distinct orientations to the field of peace and conflict studies (Salamanca Rangel 2018). This subtle linguistic difference also gestures toward the contributions that Colombian scholars, in particular, have made to the construction of politically engaged research methods within the field 2 As

bell hooks (1994) underscores, writing against common misconceptions of Freire’s conceptualization of praxis, ‘he never spoke of conscientization as an end itself, but always as it is joined by meaningful praxis’ (47). Similarly, Víctor Negrete repeatedly reiterates the central commitment of IAP methods to continuous and permanent collective processes (2013).

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of peace and conflict studies (Bouvier 2009; Fals Borda 1986; Jiménez Ahumada 2004; Negrete 2013; Riaño-Alcalá 2006; Rodriguez 2012; Vega and Bayuelo 2008). The Colombian tradition of investigación para la paz (research for peace) along with the methodologies of participatory action research, born in Montes de María, is foundational to my research and approach to ethics. To this end, I advocate for an understanding of ethics—like knowledge—as situated (Haraway 1988). The questions, dilemmas, and lessons that I reflect on in the pages that follow emerge from my own positionality in dynamic relationship with the particular history and sociopolitical context of Montes de María. Different ethical challenges also emerge from the focus of my research questions on the politics of peacebuilding in Colombia as well as my commitment to engage in participatory action research methods (Fals Borda 1986; Jiménez Ahumada 2004; Negrete 2013). I, therefore, do not offer a strict formula or rigid framework to ensure ethical writing practices. Rather, in dialogue with campesinos in Montes de María, I outline the lessons I have learned through engaging in collaborative research methods in order to reflect on the ethics of representation from the plural standpoints of peace and conflict researchers. I begin with a brief history of the nexus between knowledge, collective resistance, and violence in Montes de María. I then unpack the lessons that I have learned through engaging in an ongoing process of collaborative research with campesino social leaders in Montes de María, giving particular attention to how moments of failure and recognition for the limits of my understanding have played a vital role in my own process of conscientización and current engagements in investigación para la paz (research for peace). Throughout the chapter, I intentionally foreground and place the theories of my campesino colleagues—as legitimate intellectual interlocutors—in conversation with academic scholars to reflect on the ethics of representation.

Knowledge, Violence, and Resistencia3 in Montes de María, Colombia Catalina Pérez, an older, energetic campesina leader with a contagious laugh, sat across from me under the shade of a large Caracolí tree, reflecting on the history of the campesino lucha (struggle) for peace in Montes de María. In response to the oral consent process, followed by my request to record the interview, Catalina (2017) threw her hands in the air and declared, ‘¡Claro! (Of course!) – and [use] my own name and everything,’ she added, ‘I no longer hide anything.’ Catalina endured state-sanctioned violence, including arbitrary detentions and death threats, as a result of her role as a key organizer and rural educator in the Asociación Nacional de Usuarios Campesinos (ANUC), one of the largest campesino movements in Colombian history. 3 In

Colombian Spanish, resistencia has multiple valences. The term can mean both ‘resistance’ and ‘resilience’ and is often used in ways that include both as mutually reinforcing processes.

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The intensification of violence eventually forced her to displace, resulting in her exile from her beloved and native land. Today, Catalina situates her engagement in community-based peacebuilding within her wider, lived experience of campesino organizing in Montes de María. The threat that the powerful, nationwide campesino movement, which emerged in the 1970s, posed to the elite power structure in Colombia not only resulted in violent state repression, but also early expressions of paramilitarism that eventually etched a ‘route of terror’ across the landscapes of Montes de María. ‘We were very golpeadas por el Estado (abused by the state),’ Catalina explained, If one went out while reading a book, then one was marked as a guerrillera. They would take away our notebooks, our books, our histories. We started to bury them out of fear, and when we would dig them out, the books had rotted.

As Catalina underscores, knowledge became a key site of state violence and territorial control in Colombia. The threat that campesino knowledge production posed to elite political structures resulted in state-sanctioned campaigns of violence against teachers, community educators, and grassroots leaders who knew how to ‘speak well.’ The state drew on racist and colonialist tropes of campesinos as timeless and backwards in order to legitimize widespread accusations of campesino community leaders who offered public, sociopolitical analysis of the armed conflict as guerrilla insurgents. In particular, the state targeted campesino intellectuals engaged in community-based research and popular education processes in rural communities, a central part of ANUC’s organizing efforts. Beginning in 1970, in collaboration with ANUC representatives, local academic scholars based in Montes de María began to develop and employ a new methodology: investigación acción participativa (participatory action research, IAP) (Fals Borda 1986; Negrete 2013). Led by Sociologist, Orlando Fals Borda, these scholars challenged positivist approaches to social science, driven largely by US and European academic centers. Instead, early advocates of IAP explicitly engaged in collective research processes as a vital tool for building a nonviolent campesino movement. To do so, they argued for new forms of knowledge production that centered subjectivity, experience, and affect through what Fals Borda (2009) called ‘sentipensamientos (feeling-thinking)’ methods. Influenced by the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire,4 proponents of IAP methods viewed research as praxis and engaged in a wider pedagogy of 4 In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire (1970) writes against ‘banking system’ approaches to education, advocating instead for ‘problem-posing’ inquiry. For Freire, education for liberation (and as a ‘practice of freedom’) requires conscientización through critical reflection, collective deliberation, and democratic process. Liberation emerges from praxis—the continuous dialectic between action and reflection (1970). In 1977, Orlando Fals Borda organized the ‘First World Symposium of Participatory Action Research,’ held in Cartagena, Colombia, with Paulo Freire as the keynote speaker (Hall and Tandon 2018).

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‘aprender haciendo5 (learning by doing)’ (Pérez 2010: 114). The early, participatory action research teams, therefore, positioned research—not as a project with an end—but, rather, as part of a permanent process of collective organizing. The IAP research teams—which included local academics and campesino community leaders like Catalina Pérez—engaged in a critical retrieval of the long history of campesino organizing and collective resistance found in Montes de María (Pérez 2010; Robles and Rappaport 2018). The teams facilitated community spaces where people could reflect on their ‘history and life’ in order to ‘defend, connect, and improve’ the ‘positive elements’ of campesino culture as the foundation for social change (Negrete 2013: 30). To this end, IAP researchers explicitly engaged in reclaiming the beauty, power, and wealth of knowledge that already existed in campesino communities, unearthing the long history of collective struggle that had allowed communities to flourish even in the face of historic inequality and violence. By foregrounding the richness of campesino culture and the deep history of collective resistance, IAP researchers sparked new ideas, strategies, and creative practices for social change. As Negrete (2013) explains, It was our intention to know, in depth, these past struggles…in order to make more effective those of that moment and to value … the efforts of previous generations. Efforts, which remained mostly unknown by the popular sectors and distorted or condemned by the dominant groups…We retrieved (rescatamos) figures of exceptional significance, who marked the beginning of a new vision, for our regional and national history. (12)

The IAP research teams also produced materials about the history of campesino organizing in Montes de María in accessible formats, including booklets, graphic novels, and radio programs (Negrete 2013: 39). Participatory knowledge production became a powerful tool for political organizing. In response, the state began to criminalize campesino knowledge production as a form of rebellion. As a result, ‘speaking well’—or being able to offer critical, social, and historical analyses—became a dangerous, life-threatening endeavor. Over the course of the armed conflict, the state drew on the dual-discourse of security and criminality to erode the distinction between armed revolutionary organizations and nonviolent social mobilization, normalizing systematic violence against campesino leaders (Pérez 2010).6 As Catalina poignantly and painfully recalled, the systematic targeting of teachers, community leaders, and IAP researchers led campesino intellectuals and educators to bury 5 Philosopher

John Dewey outlined the pedagogical philosophy of ‘learning by doing’ in Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (Dewey 1916). 6 As Pérez (2010) writes, ‘With Turbay Ayala and the “Security Statute” of the government we realized what we call the first direct and official presence of paramilitarism. However, we had seen the beginning of this phenomenon in the struggles of 1971, when the landowners began preparing themselves. In other words, since the 70s they contracted and paid thugs to selectively eliminate campesino leaders’ (161).

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books, hide educational materials, and ‘lower their profiles.’ Stigmatization against campesino intellectuals continued long after the state declared Montes de María a ‘postconflict’ zone. In 2010, Jesus Chucho Pérez (2010), one of the key organizers of ANUC, explained the challenges that campesino leaders continued to face in the aftermath of war, The challenge with campesino leadership is that now people can no longer speak out…if someone speaks of the problems with the land or landowners, the next day someone appears at the doors of their house. For this reason, a compañero recently commented, “The campesino leadership has more fear today, because they do not let us speak openly”. (174)

Catalina’s lived experience illuminates the ways in which knowledge became a key site of resistance and violence in Colombia and contours the ethical dimensions of research and writing today. In reclaiming the vital role that campesino ‘figures of exceptional significance’ played in the collective struggle for peace and liberation in Montes de María, early IAP proponents engaged in a critical historical retrieval—constructing theory and history from below. The threat that their research posed to elite power structures in the country resulted in the systematic repression of campesino leaders, silencing and burying the long-standing tradition of campesino knowledge production. In this way, knowledge—who can participate in it, who can have it, and who can give it public expression—is profoundly implicated in the violence leveled against campesino social leaders in Colombia. In this context, Catalina’s insistence on being named at the start of the interview takes on a more profound meaning. To reclaim one’s name is an act of refusal and an ethical stance that forms a central part of campesino peacebuilding practices aimed at reweaving the social fabric of Montes de María—buried and frayed, but not destroyed—by the armed conflict.

Naming, (In)visibility, and the Ethics of Representation ‘I want you to use my name,’ Dionisio interrupted me midway through the oral consent statement I had carefully developed as part of my commitment to uphold ethical research practices for the Institutional Review Board (IRB). I had just finished explaining the confidentiality measures I had created to protect the identity of those who agreed to participate in my research. ‘Dionisio Alarcón Fernández,’ he repeated slowly, pausing in order to give me ample time to write out his full name into the notebook that lay open in front of me. I had not started the audio recorder yet and felt uncertain with how to proceed. I wrote down his name and attempted, again, to translate why I had committed to use only pseudonyms as part of the IRB protocols I had developed in order to guarantee his safety. ‘If you use this interview, I want you to use my name,’ he repeated, concluding, ‘We cannot be silenced anymore.’

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Over the course of my research, the issue of naming emerged time and again. Once I turned on the audio recorder, following the oral consent process I had established, campesino leaders would inevitably pick up the recorder from the table, place the microphone as close to their mouths as possible, and annunciate their full names into the device. Being named and recognized, this simple gesture signaled was the most significant part of the interview. ‘Que mi nombre sea registrado (that my name be registered),’ Einer Martínez Sierra, a social leader who had endured state-sanctioned violence as a result of his commitment to community work, declared before the start of one interview (2017). As social leaders across Montes de María repeatedly located the desire to be named within their wider, lived experiences of the armed conflict, I became increasingly uncomfortable with the inherent tension between the protocols I developed for the IRB and campesino notions of ethics and well-being. The shared experience of being silenced, rendered invisible, and denied voz (voice), which figure centrally into campesino narratives of the war, reconfigured how I began to think about security, violence, and vulnerability. Conflicted, I flagged their requests to be named in my notes, making a commitment to return to the issue later. When I drafted my first article to submit for publication in the midst of ongoing fieldwork, I could no longer avoid the subject. I brought translated copies of the near-final draft to one-on-one meetings with those quoted in the text in order to discuss my analysis and receive feedback. During these meetings, I once again returned to the confidentiality protocols I had agreed to in my IRB. I noted how the continued political and social unrest in the region required heightened attention to security, ensured through anonymity. After I opened the conversation up for feedback, each person once again reiterated that they could no longer allow security threats to silence them and render their processes invisible. The discourse of security, they explained, had generated fear and normalized violence against their communities for decades. ‘Our identities as Afrodescendent campesinos have been very silenced,’ Naun Alvarez Gonzalez, a coordinator of the youth wing of the Peaceful Process, the Jóvenes Provocadores de Paz (Youth Peace Provokers) movement explained to me, When a leader, a woman campesina, a young person is doing advocacy, they look for a way to silence our voices. That also has made us think that we must be organized, be united…Today, they will have to silence a whole pueblo,7 a whole territory, and that is why we are organizing (2017).

As Naun articulates, the particular experiences of violence that campesinos endured, which included repression and invisibilización, shape their understandings of security today. In particular, campesino notions of security

7 Pueblo,

here, signifies ‘the people.’

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require attention to collective, rather than individual, practices of well-being and solidarity. After listening to people discuss their practices of collective security to being named, I eventually admitted that my remaining concern had more to do with the fact that I could not violate the IRB protocols. In falling back on Western-defined assumptions about security and vulnerability, my protocols undermined campesino practices of nonviolent collective protection and well-being, which centered visibility—rather than anonymity—as vital for their security. The experience brought the paternalistic politics embedded within the protocols I had developed to ‘protect’ my ‘human subjects’ into sharp relief. Yet, I could not see around my own (and my institution’s) framework for thinking about ethics, violence, vulnerability, and security. I had effectively reduced ethics to specific protocols developed ‘on a desk, far removed from the territory,’—a common critique that I heard campesinos level against the limitations and harmful effects of external peace interventions. In the end, we developed a creative compromise. I used pseudonyms for individuals, but named the social movement and the communities that had contributed to the analysis. This provided a layer of individual confidentiality without erasing or rendering invisible their wider, collective movement. At the time, I felt relieved and satisfied with the decision—grateful for their intimate understanding of the challenges posed by legalistic protocols. Months later, however, when I delivered the published version of the article, and witnessed the disappointment that came from reading their words— masked in the name of another—I realized that I had actively participated in the violence of invisibilización. In response to this experience, I wrote several amendments to my IRB protocols. I drew on campesino definitions of security as necessarily tied to visibility, noting that I would use pseudonyms for individuals unless my research subjects explicitly asked me to use their names. The IRB approved my amendments.8 As an activist scholar, committed to politically engaged research, the limits of my own understanding for what was at stake in naming—and my inability to respond to alternative notions of ethics, security, and well-being—raised profound questions: In this context, what does it mean to reclaim one’s name, to refuse to be silenced? And how, as a writer, do I participate in—or disrupt—the violent processes of silencing, which figured centrally into campesino narratives of the armed conflict? The disjuncture between my internalization of Western frameworks for approaching security and campesino notions of collective well-being impeded my ability to initially conceive of an alternative approach. In the end, the simple creation of an amendment to the IRB proved to be an effective response. 8 In her participatory research with Akwesasro:non, Elizabeth Hoover similarly provided her collaborators with the choice to be named or not as part of her informed consent process (2017: 19).

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While writing is often discussed as something that is done after leaving ‘the field’, implicitly locating theory as inherently external to the campo (field, countryside), my experience in Montes de María illustrates the generative possibilities that collaborative research has for theories of violence, peace, and resistance. In particular, in confronting the limits of my own understanding, I recognized the need to engage in ethics as a situated, dynamic, and participatory process. When scholars approach ethics through rigid and legalistic procedures shaped by Western epistemological frameworks, we can unintentionally cause harm. Instead, engaging ethics as situated requires ongoing attention to one’s positionality in relation to the cultural, political, and historical landscapes in which one is working. For researchers engaged in fieldwork in contexts of armed conflict and peacebuilding, this requires close attention to the experience and history of knowledge as a site of power, resistance, and violence. I am not, therefore, advocating for the use of names in all conflict research. To do so would not only be unethical, but dangerous. The careful, clear, and adamant practices that peace and conflict scholars have developed to ensure the safety of research participants in contexts of violence offer significant practices and ethical considerations for undertaking fieldwork in contexts of violent conflict (Nordstrom and Robben 1996; Fujii 2012; Ramírez 2014; Wood 2006). Their commitment to ethical rigor has fundamentally shaped how I think about the ethical contours of my research in Colombia. Nor am I advocating for the public release of raw field notes and transcripts. The increasingly common demand to share raw data, generated in contexts of political violence, places peoples’ lives at risk and requires vigilance and care on the part of researchers.9 To this day, I maintain an elaborate system of pseudonyms in all of my notes and transcripts and keep all of my files in secured and password-protected locations. The conflation of raw transcripts with final manuscripts is a false one. While I have ultimately come to the conclusion that the final decision of what name to use in a text is not mine to make, I have a responsibility to create a process of informed consent that includes sharing written work with the campesino peacebuilders who have shaped and ‘nurtured the studies’ that inform what I write (Alarcón et al. 2018: 4). Indeed, research participants are not merely consenting to the use of their names, but also to the particular ways in which I position their words, social critiques, and analyses within a wider framework. ‘Names,’ Robin Wall Kimmerer reminds us, ‘are the way we humans build relationship’ (2013: 208). 9 For

an excellent example of how to address the increasing pressure to ‘share data’ in the name of research transparency and remain vigilant in ensuring the safety of research participants, see Roxani Krystalli’s memo, ‘Negotiating Data Management with the National Science Foundation: Transparency and Ethics in Research Relationships.’ https://www.academia.edu/40020447/ Negotiating_Data_Management_with_the_National_Science_Foundation_Transparency_and_ Ethics_in_Research_Relationships.

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What I am advocating for is greater engagement in collective and participatory approaches to research, which inevitably will trouble the categories produced primarily in white, northern institutions. This, in turn, requires an understanding of ethics as emergent through co-constructed processes and categories developed within local contexts. Sharing drafts of my writing with campesino interlocutors forms part of a peer-review process that has generated new lines of inquiry and constructive criticism, leading to significant clarifications, which would not have emerged otherwise. In designing legalistic protocols on a ‘desk, far removed from the territory,’ I failed to engage in ethics as part of a participatory process, built from decades-long practices of collective protection and well-being found within the territory. These moments of failure helped me to interrogate who I positioned as ‘expert’ and ‘victim,’ ‘scholar’ and ‘subject’ in my writing. In doing so, I came to recognize the ways in which I had reproduced the common, yet harmful, practices that campesino leaders critique in their discussions of external peace interventions in the region—a central line of inquiry in my research. This experience has made me alert not only to the names that I use, but also to how I organize and structure my writing to position campesino narratives and analyses as sophisticated social theories, rather than ‘data’ in need of scholarly interpretation. In particular, I have come to understand the act of naming as a central part of tracing a radical, alternative genealogy for peace research.

‘A Literary Way’: Research as Praxis ‘Well, I would say that it is bastante (largely) academic,’ Dionisio sat across from me, sipping a tinto and eating a freshly baked chepacorina, a sweet bread traditionally made in El Carmen de Bolívar (2018). Earlier that morning, I had presented a translated and incomplete draft of my dissertation to over twenty-five campesino representatives from the Peaceful Process. I was at a halfway point in the writing and had returned to Montes de María to receive feedback from those who had played an integral role in the research process. Dionisio had agreed to meet with me afterward to discuss the document. While he remained complimentary of the wider project, his initial reaction stayed with me. Our conversation meandered throughout the late afternoon and eventually led us to a discussion about the recent launch of the Alta Montaña’s historical memory book, A Forest of Living Memory (2018). ‘We have created a very important and also nuanced work, from different points of view,’ Dionisio reflected, It is not just a story, we do not tell what happened here in a linear way, but in a literary way, where we find a variety of ways to say things. And that is why this, for me, is a literary work… written according to how we conceive it and with simplicity that permits understanding. We are not academics, many of us are not educated, but all that we have done so far has a great literary value.

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I asked him to explain further the differences between a literary approach to writing and other academic accounts he had read. ‘I have read some [books] where the story is told in a way that is, let’s say flat. This happened, and then this happened…written in a linear way.’ He paused, his head tilted sideways as he reflected, before concluding, ‘What we have done is an obra (a work of art).’ Dionisio’s reflections on the rich theories embedded within campesino storytelling once again guided how I approached the revision process. As Dionisio gently suggested, my dissertation reflected Western norms of academic writing. Rather than positioning and foregrounding the voices, theories, and analyses of campesinos, I had edited out their ‘ways of speaking,’ drawing on well-known scholars and canonical literature reviews to frame and situate their narratives. Upon returning from Montes de María, I took a more literary approach. I revised the pages where I led with academic literature, using quotes from campesinos in an instrumental way. As I revised the structure of the writing, new insights emerged, bringing clarity to the narrative thread that connected the plurality of voices at the center of the project. My analysis and writing improved. Although I will never fully understand the lived experiences of my colleagues in Montes de María, my commitment to ‘remove the umbrella’ and work within—rather than outside of—their collectively defined processes of decision-making and community organizing structures afforded new insights into their daily work and vision for peace. Participatory action research generates different kinds of theoretical insights through engagement with the ‘multiple contradictions’ and plural standpoints that shape everyday community organizing in the Alta Montaña (Hale 2008: 22). Engaging in—and creating spaces for—research as praxis also requires time, resources, and a commitment to prioritize wider, collective processes over final products—like a dissertation or chapter contribution. These research practices do not find an easy home within the neoliberal university. In contexts where translation is required, the labor and time required to share written work also increases. Yet, to allow the institutional demands for increased ‘productivity’ to guide the research process too often comes at the expense of the well-being of those most affected by armed conflict. The tension between ethics and the demands for productivity requires close attention to how ‘success’ is measured within the field of peace and conflict studies. The criminalization of campesino knowledge production as a key strategy used to exert power and normalize systematic violence against social movement leaders in Montes de María contours the ethical dimensions of research and writing. The uncomfortable disjunctures that emerged as a result of the limits of my understanding have led me to embrace an understanding of ethics as a situated, dynamic, and continuous, collective process. This, in turn, has reconfigured how and who I engage with as an expert, peer, and mentor.

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Throughout this chapter, I have traced ongoing conversations with people like Dionisio, which have taken place over several years, in order to reflect on my process of learning to ‘remove the umbrella.’ I have illustrated the ways in which campesino conceptual categories and ‘ways of speaking’ generate insights for theoretical, methodological, and ethical engagements in the study of peace and conflict. In particular, I have shown how research understood as praxis decenters the final research product and prioritizes, instead, ongoing and collective processes of deliberation as central for investigación para la paz (research for peace). This approach troubles an understanding of writing as external and linear—something done only after leaving ‘the campo (field).’ Most importantly, the clear critiques that have emerged through ongoing conversations with campesinos in Montes de María have helped me to work against the tendency to erase, background, speak over, and for grassroots peacebuilders in northern Colombia. Instead, I have come to engage with their narratives as lived, embodied, and spoken forms of social theory that cannot be separated from the practice of peacebuilding. These efforts will always remain partial. As an author, I continue to have the power to edit, frame, and shape the narrative and theoretical framework of a particular text. Yet, creating a process of peer review with campesinos in Montes de María has fundamentally changed how I understand and write about violence and peace in Colombia. While situated within the particular context of Montes de María, the campesino theories of violence, peace, resistencia, and knowledge that I have presented in this chapter offer significant insights into the ethics of research and writing for peace and conflict fieldwork. As Dionisio reminds us, ‘each word is powerful.’ Acknowledgements    The reflections presented here were generated through a collaborative research process with the Proceso Pacífico de Reconciliación e Integración de la Alta Montaña, the Jóvenes Provocadores de Paz, Sembrandopaz, and the Espacio Regional de Construcción de Paz de los Montes de María. I am indebted to the accompaniment that I received from the individuals who participated in this collaborative research process. In particular, I am grateful for the careful feedback that I received on earlier iterations of this chapter from Dionisio Alarcón Fernández and Naun Alvarez González and for early conversations with Larisa Zehr that alerted me to the significance of naming. I want to thank Paola Benavides Vasquez and Silvia Olivar Lozano for support with the research. I am also grateful for the support I received to carry out this research from the Fulbright, USAID NDIGD, Kellogg Institute for International Research and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. I am particularly grateful for the Kroc Institute’s support of a return visit with the purpose of sharing my findings and written drafts with the communities with whom I work in Montes de María.

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References Alarcón, Dionisio, Hernando González, and Glenda Jaraba. 2018. Quitarse El Paraguas Para Sentir La Lluvia: Una Lección Para La Academia Desde La Alta Montaña. Economía & Región 11 (2): 331–338. Alarcón Fernández, Dionisio. 2017. Personal interview. El Carmen de Bolívar, Colombia. August 22. Alarcón Fernández, Dionisio. 2018. Informal conversation, field notes. El Carmen de Bolívar. December 4. Álvarez Gonzalez, Naun. 2017. Personal interview. El Carmen de Bolívar, Colombia. September 9. Autesserre, Séverine. 2014. Peaceland: Conflict resolution and the everyday politics of international intervention. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bolten, Catherine. 2012. I did it to save my life: Love and survival in Sierra Leone. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bouvier, Virginia Marie (ed.). 2009. Colombia: Building peace in a time of war. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace. CNMH. 2018. Un Bosque de Memoria Viva, Desde La Alta Montaña de El Carmen de Bolívar. Informe del Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica y del Proceso Pacífico de Reconciliación e Integración de La Alta Montaña de El Carmen de Bolívar. Bogotá: Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica. Dewey, John. 1916. Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan. Fals Borda, Orlando. 1986. Historia Doble de La Costa: Tomo IV, Retorno a La Tierra. Bogotá, Colombia: Carlos Valencia Editores. Fals Borda, Orlando. 2009. Una sociología sentipensante para América Latina. Bogotá: Siglo del Hombre. Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury Press. Fujii, Lee Ann. 2012. Research ethics 101: Dilemmas and responsibilities. PS: Political Science & Politics 45 (4): 717–723. Hale, Charles (ed.). 2008. Engaging contradictions: Theory, politics, and methods of activist scholarship. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hall, Budd, and Rajesh Tandon. 2018. From action research to knowledge democracy: Cartagena 1977–2017. RevistaColombiana de Sociología 41 (1): 227–236. Haraway, Donna. 1988. Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies 14 (3): 575–599. Hinton, Alexander Laban (ed.). 2010. Transitional justice: Global mechanisms and local realities after genocide and mass violence. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge. Hoover, Elizabeth. 2017. The river is in us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk community. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Hughes, Caroline, Joakim Öjendal, and Isabell Schierenbeck. 2015. The struggle versus the song—The local turn in peacebuilding: An introduction. Third World Quarterly 36 (5): 817–824. Jiménez Ahumada, Rosa. 2004. Desarrollo y Paz En Los Montes de María: Una Propuesta Desde La Región. In Dimensiones Territoriales de La Guerra y La Paz, 503–518. Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

470  A. J. LEDERACH Kimmerer, Robin Wall. 2013. Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Minnesota: Milkweed Editions. Krystalli, Roxani. Negotiating data management with the national science foundation: Transparency and ethics in research relationships. Research memo: https://www. academia.edu/40020447/Negotiating_Data_Management_with_the_Natonal_ Science_Foundation_Transparency_and_Ethics_in_Research_Relationships. Lombard, Louisa. 2016. State of rebellion violence and intervention in the Central African Republic. London: Zed Books. Mac Ginty, Roger, and Oliver Richmond. 2013. The local turn in peace building: A critical agenda for peace. Third World Quarterly 34 (5): 763–783. Martínez Sierra, Einer. 2017. Personal interview. El Carmen de Bolívar, Colombia. June 29. Negrete Barrera, Víctor. 2013. IAP: La investigación acción participativa en Córdoba. Montería: Publicaciones Unisinú. Nordstrom, Carolyn, and Antonius C.G.M. Robben (eds.). 1996. Fieldwork under fire: Contemporary studies of violence and culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pérez, Catalina. 2017. Personal interview. El Carmen de Bolívar, Colombia. October. Pérez, Jesús María. 2010. Luchas Campesinas y Reforma Agraria: Memorias de Un Dirigente de La ANUC En La Costa Caribe. Bogotá, Colombia: Puntoaparte Editores. Ramírez, María Clemencia. 2014. The familiar and the foreign: Local and visiting researchers in highly violent areas. DSD Working Papers on Research Security 8. Social Science Research Council, Bogota, Colombia. Riaño-Alcalá, Pilar. 2006. Dwellers of memory: Youth and violence in Medellín, Colombia. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Robles Lomeli, Jafte, and Joanne Rappaport. 2018. Imagining Latin American social science from the Global South: Orlando Fals Borda and participatory action research. Latin American Research Review 53 (3): 597–612. Rodriguez, Mery. 2012. Colombia: From grassroots to elites—How some local peacebuilding initiatives became national in spite of themselves. In Local peacebuilding and national peace: Interaction between grassroots and elite processes, ed. Christopher Mitchell and Landon E. Hancock, 69–92. New York: Continuum. Salamanca Rangel, José Manuel. 2018. Otros Saberes, Otras Paz-Es. Paper Presented at the Latin American Studies Association Congress. Barcelona, Spain. Santos-Granero. 1998. Writing history into the landscape: Space, myth, and ritual in contemporary Amazonia. American Ethnologist 25 (2): 128–148. Theidon, Kimberly. 2009. The milk of sorrow: A theory on the violence of memory. Canadian Woman Studies 27 (1): 8–16. Vega, Jair, and Soraya Bayuelo. 2008. Ganándole Terreno Al Miedo: Cine y Comunicación En Los Montes de María. In Lo Que Le Vamos Quitando a La Guerra: Medios Ciudadanos En Contextos de Conflicto Armado En Colombia, ed. Clemencia Rodríguez. Bogotá, Colombia: Centro de Competencia en Comunicación para América Latina. Wood, Elisabeth. 2006. The ethical challenges of field research in conflict zones. Qualitative Sociology 29 (3): 373–386.

CHAPTER 33

Perspectives on “Giving Back”: A Conversation Between Researcher and Refugee Jessica Field and Ali Johar

Introduction Qualitative and quantitative research with refugees is fraught with ethical complexities, not least because it is often undertaken in politically and physically insecure environments with participants who have been traumatised and are vulnerable (Mackenzie et al. 2007: 299). This situation of insecurity and vulnerability is often what motivates researchers to connect with refugees, in the hope that they might be able to contribute to a wider understanding of the context/subject and also to a change in the refugees’ challenging circumstances. Jacobsen and Landau (2003) have termed this as the “dual imperative”: namely that refugee research has to be academically sound and policy relevant. Ethics sits at the heart of academic integrity and demands that researchers “do no harm” (Anderson 1999) in their research endeavour—in other words, they do not exacerbate existing difficulties or create new challenges for refugees and, where possible, seek to contribute to peace outcomes. This latter responsibility, and the second part of the “dual imperative”, therefore also requires researchers to think about the idea of “benefit”. What does “policy relevance” or “improved outcomes” mean (and to whom)? Are these

J. Field (*)  O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India e-mail: [email protected] University College London, London, UK A. Johar  Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, Delhi, India © The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_33

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goals enough to justify taking time and energy from already vulnerable refugee research participants? Are there other ways that researchers should “give back” to refugee groups that share their stories and experiences? What are the risks and impacts of balancing academic research with activism? There are no easy answers to this question and perspectives differ across contexts and research relationships. This chapter is our attempt to grapple with these questions from two different perspectives working in a shared context: that of a researcher and a refugee in Delhi, India. The pages that follow have emerged from a series of reflections and conversations that followed a research project led by myself, Jessica Field, engaging with the Rohingya community in Delhi, which included Ali Johar, as a research participant. Ali and I first met in the summer of 2017 and, as well as providing important data based on his own experiences, he was instrumental in connecting my team with relevant research participants in the two main Rohingya refugee settlements in Delhi. After finishing this piece of research (Field et al. 2017; Tiwari et al. 2017), Ali and I stayed in touch—often attending the same events or communicating about changes in the Rohingya’s situation in India (Johar and Field 2018). During these conversations, it emerged that the community had seen a large spike in journalistic and academic interest since the August 2017 refugee exodus from Myanmar. Some of this was very welcome; press coverage for a vulnerable refugee group at risk of deportation can serve as an advocacy tool and academic research can document evidence of vulnerability or offer critical analysis of emerging policies. However, not all of it was well-intentioned, with some individuals reportedly using the media to spread misinformation (Tripathi 2017). Nor was it always methodologically sensitive, with “drive-by” interviews that had no informed consent, debriefs, or means for follow-up. Moreover, the sheer scale of the attention when a burst of it occurred was a little overwhelming. As a researcher working with this refugee community while they received increasing media attention, I was also a little unsure at times how to tread. Was it appropriate to return for follow-up interviews when there were more urgent things for the Rohingya to worry about, such as the threat of deportation? What should I do to “give back” to a community who were so generous in giving my research team their time and experiences? What is the line between research and advocacy—should there be one? When we were invited by the editors to contribute something to this important book on ethics in peace and conflict research, we saw this as a good opportunity to explore some of those challenging questions around what ethics means in practice, and the moral maze of “giving back” through research, in this case working with refugees who give their time and energy for research interviews. What follows is a brief background of the situation of refugees in India, and a profile of Ali and myself, to give you some context to the discussion. We then proceed with a semi-structured discussion that was conducted via email correspondence in September and October 2018.

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Context and Biographies Rohingya Refugees in India The Rohingya community have been present in Myanmar for centuries, primarily occupying the Rakhine state area of the region. Since the military took over leadership of the country in 1962, this Muslim minority population have experienced systematic marginalisation and discrimination. This has culminated in regular large scale, violent assaults across Rakhine state, which have displaced millions over the years. The most recent series of attacks from August 2017 have been widely acknowledged, including by the United Nations, as an act of genocide (United Nations Human Rights Council 2018). While the global majority of the Rohingya refugee population are residing in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, there are sizeable populations in countries throughout the region, including India—some of whom have resided in the country since attacks in Myanmar in the 1990s. The Rohingya refugee population in India are approximated to number around 40,000—though this statistic is one circulated primarily in media outlets and difficult to verify. Delhi and nearby Haryana are home to around 1500 Rohingya refugees, the majority of whom are incredibly poor with low levels of education and literacy. At present, India has no domestic laws that recognise and protect refugees, and it is not signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or any regional frameworks. Thus, all are technically considered within the Foreigners Act of 1946 and Citizenship Act of 1955, just like any other category of foreigner. There are currently 208,571 refugees registered with UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) in India (UNHCR 2018), though the number of de facto refugees that have sought refuge and to make a life for themselves within India’s borders may be higher, due to regional conflicts, political instability and the impact of environmental hazards across India’s porous borders. Refugees from Tibet number around 108,005 and Sri Lanka 61,812—these groups are officially recognised by the Government of India as refugees and have historically been provided Registration/Refugee Certificates, which enable them to live and work in the country and avail certain public services. The remainder fall within the UNHCR’s mandate and are a mix of refugees from Asia and further afield, including Myanmar (21,442, primarily Rohingya and Chin refugees), Afghanistan (14,129 mixed Sikh, Hindu, Christian and Muslim refugees) and Somalia (964) (UNHCR 2018). The majority of those under UNHCR’s mandate live and work within Delhi, or the National Capital Region (NCR), which extends to parts of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. This concentration in/near the capital is partly due to UNHCR’s location in Delhi, with status determination processes and humanitarian support requiring regular visits and assessments. In 2017, the Government of India, ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), shifted its protection policy towards the Rohingya from one of

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tolerance to one of unwelcome and hostility. The government is currently attempting to deport all Rohingya refugees from the country, classifying them as “illegal migrants” (Field et al. 2017). This anti-Rohingya and anti-refugee rhetoric has emerged in India against a backdrop of rising Hindu nationalism and during a time when the Indian government is attempting to strengthen relations with Myanmar. The recent mass exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar, and the Government of India’s attempts to deport the community, has meant that Rohingya refugees in India have maintained a relatively regular presence in Indian national news. As a result, there have been spikes of academic and journalistic interest in their experiences of forced migration and their conditions in India. As an English-speaking youth leader and ­well-educated member of the Delhi-based Rohingya community, Ali Johar has been at the forefront of research engagement working with researchers, being interviewed and facilitating interviews for others.

Author Biographies Ali Johar, Rohingya Refugee Youth Leader Based in India Ali Johar (Maung Thein Shwe) has volunteered as a medical community service provider with Bosco-UNHCR in Delhi since 2013. He is also the founder of the Rohingya Literacy Program, a Rohingya Youth Leader, a mentor for the Genius Burmese Rohingya Youth Club and a “Global Youth Peace Ambassador” recognised by the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development (RGNIYD), under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India. In recognition of his work towards peace and development, in 2017, Ali was awarded South Asian People’s Choice Youth Leader Award by International Youth Committee. He was born in Rakhine (formally known as Arakan) in Myanmar. At the age of 10, he fled from the Buthidaung Township of Rakhine state in Myanmar due to communal conflict and took refuge in Bangladesh. He completed his secondary schooling in Bangladesh; however, he fled to India in 2012 due to insecurity in Bangladesh. Today he is pursuing a bachelor’s degree from the University of Delhi and intends to become a human rights expert to help his people. Jessica Field, British Academic Based in India and London Jessica Field is an interdisciplinary historian and social scientist from the United Kingdom who has worked on humanitarianism in India and elsewhere since 2012. Jessica worked as an Associate Professor at O.P. Jindal Global University, Haryana, from January 2017 until September 2019, where she taught and researched refugee studies, forced migration and modern humanitarian history. While she has looked at various humanitarian crises in her years as a researcher, Jessica’s project on refugee self-reliance in Delhi (funded by

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the International Institute of Environment and Development) was the first time she had engaged with the Rohingya community. What follows is an exchange between Ali and Jessica that took place at the end of 2018 on the topic of refugee research, ethics and what “giving back” can look like from a variety of perspectives.

Ethics and “Giving Back”: A Conversation Jessica: Ali, why have you agreed to be a part of research projects as an interviewee and facilitator? Ali: Every Rohingya has a tale to share. But I feel there has not been enough awareness in the global communities, especially among the policymakers, although the Rohingya community are counted as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. Being a friendless community, we feel anyone trying to help us with any little or big things is a big help for us. It has always been the writers and students who brought our issues to larger platforms where our voice otherwise did not reach. Jessica: Yes, the possibility of using research to “give a voice” to a community who might not otherwise have a platform is probably most strongly associated with journalism, though it has also been a driver of many strands of social science and anthropological research, particularly among ­activist-academics. And, as you point out, if undertaken with due ethical considerations it can be a two-way interaction, with the researcher learning more about the Rohingyas, and the Rohingyas connecting with larger platforms. Are there other reasons that you think academic research is important? Ali: Yes, I feel a research paper is something which keeps our issues recorded and highlighted. I have come across a lot of people who are unaware about identity and dignity, which includes researchers as well. Because most people think we were driven out from our homeland because of communal conflicts, which is how they describe it, but there is so much which has remained untold. We want to let the people acknowledge our experiences and listen empathetically. The world community must know we are being forced to become displaced just because of our very existence and identity, but we want a dignified life. Jessica: For me, as an academic researcher, it is the recording of experiences I am particularly drawn to—this is something I feel more skilled at doing than conventional “activism”, which I understand as direct action for change, such as campaigning. As such, I am drawn to what you say about wanting Rohingya experiences to be recorded empathetically, and the importance of dignity in the research process. This respectful engagement is obviously important during the interviews and fieldwork itself, but also in the final write up, where lived experiences are translated to black and white text. As scholars have written elsewhere (Crow 2013), the anonymisation process of academic research does not mean that an account may be acceptable to those who are written about—and if it is not acceptable then there is a question about whether it should be published at all.

476  J. FIELD AND A. JOHAR Ali: I myself agreed to be interviewed and facilitate because most of the community members even don’t know why we are being forced to become refugees, although we have a homeland to call home. So many think the problems in Myanmar are just communal or racial. It is not only people from outside of Myanmar but also from within Myanmar ignoring the fact that there other factors at play including foreign interest, economical and political power. And it is because we have mentally grown-up just like that way; we have just accepted whatever has been forced on us. As the famous proverb says, “Birds born in the cage think flying is an illness”. Jessica: So, as well as the researcher learning more about the Rohingya experience, there is also the potential—through researcher-refugee interaction—for the Rohingya community to learn other perspectives on their own displacement? I certainly didn’t think of this opportunity when we connected for the first time for my project in 2017, and I feel quite foolish for not considering it as part of the research interaction process. It brings to mind a reflection by the anthropologist Nencel (2001, cited in Lammers 2007: 73) who said: A good anthropologist always tries to protect the group participating in her project… However, because the research group is envisioned as vulnerable, it is often assumed they find it difficult to protect themselves, overlooking the fact that most vulnerable people are continuously protecting themselves and usually more experienced in this area than the anthropologist. I think this oversight occurs regularly in research with refugees, and by humanitarian actors too, because both areas of research/work begin from the starting point of vulnerability and therefore are not necessarily orientated to account for refugees’ own resilience and survival strategies. This is wrong and often counter-productive. Jessica: Ali, what is your perspective on ethical research? What does it mean for a researcher to be ethical? Ali: For me ethical research means trying to bring up or highlight the real issue which is faced by the researched group in a very careful way. People who are interviewed should not feel confused or they should be well informed about all the data which is being collected from them, like where it is going to be used, who are the readers or who the targets are and how it is going to benefit them. Respect for the participants should also be maintained with human dignity. They should feel secured enough while expressing themselves otherwise the person will not be able to speak his/her real mind. They must be assured of the confidentiality of the personal data being shared, which should not be public in a way that might lead to their identification. Sometimes some researchers just highlight the points they needed, but for an ethical research it should be the perspectives of the participants which are more valued. No participant should be forced to share anything, which the participant is unwilling when even the participant became a friend of the researcher. As a main note I must say that it is very important for the researcher to ensure he/she is well introduced to the participant.

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Jessica: If these are the ideals, then what have been your personal experiences of “being researched”? Ali: I have been researched by several people with different purposes. Most of them are from media and academic institutions and have been very nice people. I have still contact with some of them even after years. But from some of them who said they’re going to get back very soon I am still waiting to hear with whom I have shared a lot spending my valuable time but still waiting for the outcome. For some I am a man struggling for my identity and for some I am just a client who has nothing to give except time. I have been interviewed by international and national medias, researchers and scholars from various colleges and universities, government agencies, national and international NGOs, writers, etc. Also, I was invited to speak in gatherings of interested people. Jessica: My institution [O.P. Jindal Global University] has been one of the organisations that has benefitted from your time and thoughts, too. We were delighted to have been able to invite you speak to students at my university in November 2017, though I was once again conscious of taking up more of your time when you have so many pressing day-to-day challenges. Do researchers have a responsibility to “give back” to the refugees that give their time for research? What does “giving back” mean to you? Ali: With research projects, it is the researchers’ responsibility to make sure the data provided by the participants are analysed well and given a capable platform so that the research can make a difference for the community or the topic in a positive way. Sometimes, the researchers do not follow up. This, in my opinion, is wrong. Researchers should look to give back to the community through volunteering, connecting organisations, contributions, etc.— something which makes differences for the community. Such as by giving money or giving time. Giving back to the community should touch many people’s lives or empower the community. Even the teeniest good deed can ignite change and positively impact the community by providing a renewed sense of hope. Researchers can also offer his/her skills to volunteer in the community. Another form of giving back to a vulnerable community can be facilitating the empowerment of some selective leaders or members of the researched community who are struggling to become a better version of themselves. These individuals might have the potential to be leaders who can actually help their community’s development or highlight their issues of concern to the relevant authorities or people in power. This is a responsibility for the students who are writing a thesis for graduation or master’s degrees, as their writing will not reach a wide audience, unfortunately, so they can help in other ways. From my experience, I can recall a group of students from University of Delhi who raised funds to sponsor scholarships of 14 secondary school Rohingya students. Jessica: I completely agree that researchers can be prone to not following up and this is wrong. I have been guilty myself of very delayed follow-ups and I have felt it affect communication and trust between me and my research contacts. Follow up, sharing findings, and seeking feedback on these findings from participants is an essential part of any ethical research project—otherwise the interviews are purely extractive.

478  J. FIELD AND A. JOHAR On the wider question of “benefits” from the research, there has been much more discussion and debate (Jacobsen and Landau 2003; Hynes 2003; Rodgers 2004; Mackenzie et al. 2007), and it is something I certainly find challenging when planning new projects as there is not a set formula to follow. Mackenzie et al. (2007: 301) note that researchers have an “obligation to design and conduct research projects that aim to bring about reciprocal benefits for refugee participants and/or communities. The notion of reciprocity involves negotiating a research relationship with participants that not only respects, but also promotes their autonomous agency and helps re-build capacity”. I think this framing most closely reflects what you are saying about how research needs to have three main features: (i) human dignity and respect for Rohingya agency at its core; (ii) it must work towards empowering the community through capturing and sharing stories in a way that means Rohingya can learn as well as policymakers; and (iii) it must offer ways of engaging beyond the report, whether that be through volunteering, networking, or monetary donations. It’s interesting because the latter point about monetary donations remains a contentious issue in the social sciences, even though payment has long been an acceptable way of incentivising or compensating participation in the medical and psychological sciences (Head 2009). I have never paid refugees or others for participation in my research projects, I have only bought soft drinks or food if the interview has occurred in a café or public space. However, I have frequently been hosted in the homes of participants and have been offered tea and snacks, as it is a part of Rohingya culture to welcome guests in this way. This is still a situation that makes me anxious and happy in equal measure—anxious that I am in some way materially disadvantaging a refugee who is already giving me their time and attention, but also happy to have the opportunity to develop a relationship with someone who I hope to remain in contact with for some time, and for whom my research might have some real relevance. I am not sure I always get the balance right. Jessica: What have been your biggest disappointments when engaging with researchers? Ali: Sometimes, some researchers try to ignore the fact the person who is giving time from the community has also a life. His/her time is also valuable. He/ she is also involved with a livelihood. He/she also has challenges in the life. Jessica: Yes, I think this is a particular challenge for Rohingya refugees in the Delhi and Haryana context because the main settlement areas are so visible and accessible to researchers, NGOs, well-wishers and others that may want to visit. When public interest in the Rohingya plight peaks in India (whether for positive or negative reactions to unfolding events), significant numbers of people then descend on the settlement where your family, friends and fellow refugees live to ask questions, conduct interviews and take photographs in order to “share your stories”. Yet, as you say, you and fellow refugees living there have to work, care for family members, attend schools or colleges, and basically survive. Or refugees simply may not be comfortable with the

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increased attention given the whole host of other daily challenges that arise with being a poor Rohingya refugee in Delhi. I must admit, I feel that my researchers and I have made this mistake. We ill-timed a second phase of our research in November 2017 as we did not consider some of these factors. During this time the international media was covering the mass exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar in light of the August 2017 genocide, and Rohingya refugees in Delhi were incredibly preoccupied with the Government of India’s escalating threat to deport the country’s Rohingya population. My researchers were returning to participants we had previously interviewed and built relationships with over the previous year, but this time we were understandably met with anxiety and silence. We were seeking to learn more about Rohingya leisure practices after learning in our first phase of research that sport and music were important to the community, particularly the youth. However, the timing for these questions around leisure was inappropriate—and we were rightly pushed back on why we were asking such irrelevant things in that moment. As one female Rohingya refugee explained to us, “whatever time you have is taken up with worrying”. Next time if possible, I would like to aim to put more time into the ­relationship-building and the fieldwork stage of any project so that I have the flexibility to come back again if the timing for an interview conversation is wrong, and so that I have a stronger relationship with participants so that I can more sensitively read when might be an appropriate time to visit. In this sense, mitigating the extractive nature of research can perhaps be seen as a part of “giving back”. Jessica: Ali, what would you advise researchers of the future to do differently? Ali: For an effective result, spend as much as time you can among the community. When people feel the researcher is no more an outsider the community open up more. The more the researchers spend time with community the more the researchers get deeper facts and then their research is more accurate and relevant. This is about building a trusted relationship. This is especially important if you are collecting data from refugees or people who have survived violence. There are researchers whom I have chosen not to reply to if their questions were regarding my security or identity, but there are also people whom I shared as much as possible from side because trust had been built and the questions were sensitive. An unwise question can make the participant uncomfortable or put them through trauma. Jessica: Yes, I completely agree, as this deeper relationship can change a researcher’s perspective on what is important or relevant beyond the p ­re-planned research questions. Mackenzie et al. (2007: 301) explain that this type of relationship-building in a research context is a basic principle of respect for a person; a researcher must understand and engage with different perspectives and experiences and “construct research relationships that are responsive to [refugees’] needs and values”. Unfortunately, the academic research project cycle is often not conducive to this type of longer term and more embedded engagement, as funding for research projects can be quite low and/or with a short time limit. However, while this structural issue does urgently need to change, I think it’s clear from your own experiences of working with researchers that respect, dignity and empathy are a vital part of the researcher-refugee relationship and they have no minimum price or time limit.

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“Impactful” Research and “Giving Back”—Two Different Things When undertaking a new research project through a formal institution—such as a university, think tank or NGO—researchers will often be required to think about how research participants might “benefit” at multiple stages of the research process. During the proposal drafting process, researchers will be expected to think about “impact”, which has long been the raison d’être of NGO work but is also growing in importance in social science research. From an academic institutional perspective (i.e. universities, research funders and research councils), “impact” means that research proposals and outputs must increasingly show a “demonstrable contribution” to improving society and the economy (ESRC 2019). This can include influencing the development of policy, practice or law, reframing debates or capacity building among other things, and to prove success in this area, a researcher must trace the golden thread from publication output to policymakers taking up ideas and implementing change. Grant winning, research awards and career development can depend on success in these “impact” areas. During the application process to get ethics approval for research from the Institutional Review Board (IRB, or Research Ethics Committee/Board), researchers will be expected to think about, among other things, “compensation” for participation. Questions may include examples such as, “Will the research participants receive reimbursement of expenses or any other incentives or benefits for taking part in this research?” While payment for participation is a common practice in medical and psychosocial studies, it seems much less common in qualitative social science research—or, at least, much less spoken about as a standard practice (Head 2009: 336). Where a research project engages with vulnerable participants, such as refugees, payment for participation can be seen as having exploitative potential due to its inducement (Paradis 2000: 846). A refugee may feel less likely or able to refuse or withdraw participation in a project because the money is much needed, and this raises a whole host of ethical concerns around harm to participants and further imbalance of power between researcher and participant. Paradis (2000: 847) has written about how a researcher may wish to offer services, such as running errands, to participants in order to “give back” to those who have been so generous with their time. These are non-material benefits that refugees might gain from research, and they align with Ali’s comment above that a researcher might volunteer services or make other contributions to the refugees that participate in their projects. However, thought must also go into the wider harm this may cause by benefiting, and potentially elevating, some refugee participants over others in the same community who did not participate in the study. But is asking for a significant amount of a refugees’ time to interview them without pay when they are likely to have other urgent needs and responsibilities not harm in itself?—especially when you consider that, at least in the Delhi and Haryana context, you are unlikely to

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be the first and only journalist or researcher to ask them for their time and participation. This latter point brings us to the third major stage where a researcher is likely to be confronted with the question of how to “give back” to refugee research participants: in the field itself. This is “ethics in practice” where the researcher may experience unanticipated dilemmas and will have to make on-the-spot decisions about what is the ethically sound thing to do in these contexts. Should a researcher purchase tea and snacks from a street food stall when they have just interviewed the refugee shop owner about their livelihood or does that constitute indirect monetary compensation? What level of contribution and/or visibility should a researcher have if they are invited to be part of a refugee advocacy campaign that has political undertones? Some of these decisions are small, and some may be much larger and emerge later on in the research process. Almost all are associated with “uneasy feelings” and no clear “right” answer (Blee and Currier 2011: 405). As our conversation above demonstrates, what is not acceptable is an “extractive” approach to research where the researcher swoops in and records participants’ stories without investing time in the community or ­relationshipbuilding, and without following up afterwards. While it may be true that what is learnt from an extractive approach could have significant policy impact over the longer term, and may well be fully IRB compliant on paper, it is not without a negative impact on the interviewed community. Similar to Ali’s personal experience, Pittaway and Bartolomei (cited in Hugman et al. 2011: 1277) have recorded instances where refugees have become “fed up” with researchers “stealing our stories, taking our photos and we never get anything back, not even a copy of the report”. It can break trust between the community and other researchers/aid professionals, lead to a rejection of the solutions that emerge from the research or even risk leading to emotional or material harm through broken promises or “re-traumatisation” if issues are mishandled or misrepresented (Pittaway et al. 2010: 234). As Paradis (2000: 853) writes, “the researcher should also support the participants in acquiring the means to use the research for concrete changes in their own lives”. A “reciprocal research” approach (Mackenzie et al. 2007; Hugman et al. 2011) can enable this through its focus on relationship-building and the co-equal exchange of ideas and benefits to be gained from the study between the researcher and the participant. In research with refugees, this requires the refugee participants to be actively involved in all stages of the study and part of the decision-making around what counts as a “gain” or “impact” (Hugman et al. 2011: 1279).

Ethical Research in Practice To end this chapter, it is useful to reflect on what we, as researcher and refugee, might do differently when next confronted with a similar set of circumstances.

482  J. FIELD AND A. JOHAR Ali: For me the change would be in preparation for interviews. Sometimes I was not well-prepared while being interviewed or speaking before a gathering. For instance, once when I was discussing the situation of the Rohingya, someone asked me what makes me different from other refugees, as I am a stateless too? Only after answering the question I realised I have missed the main point and that I was not aware of it. So, it is equally important for the participants as well that they describe themselves in an appropriate way. This requires preparation before interviews, which also means that the interviewers have to allow time for that. Jessica: Looking back on my research project with Ali and other Rohingya and Afghan refugees in Delhi, what I would change is the amount of time I spent on relationship-building and fieldwork. The research grant itself was limited in timescale and amount (with only 12 months for the whole project), but I definitely underestimated the amount of time me and my team should have been spending with our research participants in order to develop relationships that would offer more meaningful exchanges. While we did return to our interviewees when we had a draft report to show the fruit of their time and to seek their thoughts and comments on our analysis, it was only one meeting and in retrospect was more of a consultation than co-equal participatory engagement. While I have remained in contact with some of the Rohingya community in Delhi, such as Ali, I can imagine that to other refugee participants, we were just one of a number of “drive-by” interviewers that took their time during that difficult year. In future projects I will seek to employ the “reciprocal research” model outlined by Mackenzie et al. (2007) and Hugman et al. (2011), and write more relationship-building time into project proposals. Research institutions need to seriously consider embedding this approach within their grant calls, too. One thing I will continue to struggle with is how to balance academia and activism. Since beginning research with the Rohingya in Delhi in 2017, I have struggled to balance what I am trained and feel confident to do—i.e. qualitative research and writing for academic outlets—with what is more urgently needed—i.e. active campaigning against the injustices the Rohingya are facing politically and socio-economically in India at the moment. I often find conventional activism on refugee issues uncomfortable because it blurs what I thought was a relatively well-defined line between my work (which I try to undertake in a somewhat detached and analytical manner), and my personal life (which is inherently emotional, political and a sphere in which I wear concern for certain causes and people on my sleeve). When I attend advocacy and campaign events organised by the refugee and NGO community, I feel that this is an immediate and tangible way I can act on injustices I have been researching about, as well as a way to “give back” to the refugees that have shared their experiences with me. When I have the opportunity to advocate for change through writing in mainstream media outlets (as opposed to pay-walled academic journals), I feel excited to contribute to the chorus of other voices demanding change. However, these situations also make me feel uneasy, as bridging the gap between academic work and activism has meant opening out to both emotions and criticism. Emotionally I have felt guilty that I should have been doing more direct action for refugees long ago, and also that the meagre activism I have

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recently begun has been insufficient and short term. Working in this type of activist context, my academic outputs have felt stale and irrelevant, especially as it can take up to two years for a journal article to be published. Moreover, I worry about receiving criticism for using refugee and activist links to further my career rather than for social change. While this type of “opportunism” is never my intent and I have not, to my knowledge, received such criticism, it is not an uncommon experience in a world where direct action activism is seen as an all-consuming life choice, rather than one tactic among many for social change (Pickerill 2008: 1). These “confessions” are less of a search for sympathy—I am aware that I come from a position of exceptional privilege in the researcher-participant refugee power structure. They are more of a prompt for new researchers to think about the role and reality of emotion in research (for themselves as well as for participants), particularly in conflict or displacement contexts where research, vulnerability, injustice and activism co-exist (Brown and Pickerill 2009).

References Anderson, Mary. 1999. Do no harm: How aid can support peace—Or war. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Blee, Kathleen M., and Ashley Currier. 2011. Ethics beyond the IRB: An introductory essay. Qualitative Sociology 34: 401–413. Brown, Gavin, and Jenny Pickerill. 2009. Space for emotion in the spaces of activism. Emotion, Space and Society 2: 24–35. Crow, Graham. 2013. Going back to re-study communities: Challenges and opportunities. Progress in Development Studies 13 (4): 267–278. ESRC [Economic and Social Research Council, UK]. 2019. What is impact? https:// esrc.ukri.org/research/impact-toolkit/what-is-impact/. Accessed 11 January 2019. Field, Jessica, Anubhav Dutt Tiwari, and Yamini Mookherjee. 2017. Urban refugees in Delhi: Identity, entitlements and self-reliance. Urban Humanitarian Crisis Working Paper Series. IIED, London. Head, Emma. 2009. The ethics and implications of paying participants in qualitative research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 12 (4): 335–344. Hugman, Richard, Eileen Pittaway, and Linda Bartolomei. 2011. When ‘do no harm’ is not enough: The ethics of research with refugees and other vulnerable groups. British Journal of Social Work 41: 1271–1287. Hynes, T. 2003. The issue of ‘trust’ or ‘mistrust’ in research with refugees: Choices, caveats and considerations for researchers. UNHCR Working Paper No. 98, November. Jacobsen, Karen, and Loren Landau. 2003. The dual imperative in refugee research: Some methodological and ethical considerations in social science research on forced migration. Disasters 27 (3): 116–295. Johar, Ali, and Jessica Field. 2018. Fire reduces Rohingya camp to ashes, exposing India’s refugee policies. Refugees Deeply, April. https://www.newsdeeply.com/ refugees/community/2018/04/30/fire-reduces-rohingya-camp-to-ashes-exposing-indias-refugee-policies. Accessed 11 January 2019. Lammers, Ellen. 2007. Researching refugees: With power and questions of giving. Refugee Survey Quarterly 26 (3): 72–81.

484  J. FIELD AND A. JOHAR Mackenzie, Catriona, Christopher McDowell, and Eileen Pittaway. 2007. Beyond ‘do no harm’: The challenge of constructing ethical relationships in refugee research. Journal of Refugee Studies 20 (2): 299–319. Paradis, Emily K. 2000. Feminist and community psychology ethics in research with homeless women. American Journal of Community Psychology 28 (6): 839–858. Pickerill, Jenny. 2008. The surprising sense of hope. Antipode 40 (3): 482–487. Pittaway, Eileen, Linda Bartolomei, and Richard Hugman. 2010. ‘Stop stealing our stories’: The ethics of research with vulnerable groups. Journal of Human Rights Practice 2 (2): 229–251. Rodgers, Graeme. 2004. “Hanging out” with forced migrants: Methodological and ethical challenges. Forced Migration Review 21: 48–49. Tiwari, Anubhav Dutt, Jessica Field, and Yamini Mookherjee. 2017. Urban refugees in Delhi: Refugee networks, faith and well-being. IIED Urban Humanitarian Crises Working Paper Series. ISBN: 978-1-78431-553-5. Tripathi, Salil. 2017. The reluctant philanthropist: India’s untenable position on the Rohingya Crisis. The Caravan, October 1. https://caravanmagazine.in/perspectives/india-untenable-position-rohingya-crisis. Accessed 9 January 2019. UNHCR. 2018. Factsheet India. February. United Nations Human Rights Council. 2018. Report of the detailed findings of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, September.

Index

A Academic freedom, 4, 6, 125, 143 Accent, 137, 227, 300, 325, 331, 340 Access, 2, 4–6, 27, 41, 49, 51–58, 66, 68, 74–76, 80, 93, 95, 96, 103, 105, 106, 109, 111, 112, 117, 119, 120, 126, 127, 134–137, 139, 142, 143, 156, 158, 170, 171, 176, 177, 190, 198, 201, 209, 211, 214, 215, 225, 231, 234, 237–242, 244–247, 267, 276, 299, 300, 315, 318, 329, 331, 332, 339, 357, 360, 366–369, 373– 376, 382, 384, 385, 387, 389–391, 396–398, 400, 401, 404, 415, 423, 425, 428, 429, 431, 432, 451, 455 Accommodation, 51, 119, 197, 303, 313, 314, 318, 349, 385, 387 Activist, 66–69, 72, 88, 133, 134, 136, 137, 139, 164, 235, 241, 242, 244, 246, 292, 301, 341, 342, 346, 383, 386, 416, 422, 437, 464, 475, 483 Alcohol, 109, 360 Alternative plans, 76, 171 Analytical framework, 256, 281, 283, 284, 286, 291, 436, 450 Anonymity, 36, 121, 150, 180, 214, 249, 257, 267, 269, 452, 463, 464 Anthropology, 48, 85, 86, 89–92, 132, 169, 177, 226, 264, 266, 275, 395, 409, 410, 443

Anxiety, 9, 142, 186, 217, 270, 360, 374, 437, 479 Assumption, 3, 6, 18, 55, 66, 67, 78, 80, 88, 170, 189, 194, 195, 203, 204, 216, 226, 227, 249, 254, 265, 304, 323, 332, 345, 356, 357, 384, 391, 392, 451, 464 Audio recordings, 138, 346, 347 Auto-ethnography, 227 Awkward, 110, 135, 321, 323, 329, 343, 361, 427 B Bar, 2, 22, 104, 106, 109, 110, 141, 167, 178, 179, 247, 296 Bias, 2, 61, 85, 132, 151, 163, 168, 210, 212, 215, 250, 252, 253, 268, 302, 311, 331, 372, 409, 419, 430, 448, 451, 452 Body language, 111, 255, 287–289, 334, 368 Borders, 74, 89, 95, 109, 110, 164, 165, 249, 253, 254, 367, 383, 400, 473 Brokers, 8, 41, 43, 51, 68, 75, 126, 254, 370, 395, 397, 404 Budget, 11, 22, 52, 54, 55, 95, 124, 125, 299–301, 313, 345

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021 R. Mac Ginty et al. (eds.), The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2

485

486  Index C Censorship, 282 Child abuse, 203 Child soldiers, 234 Civil society, 164, 229, 240–242, 244–246, 265, 301, 383, 428 Class, 68, 87, 90, 111, 133, 143, 152, 168, 226, 253, 275, 276, 302, 304, 312, 384, 390, 414–416, 423, 426, 430, 437, 446, 448 Clothes, 78, 115, 254, 342 Coffee, 14, 76, 78, 86, 87, 104, 106, 110–112, 240, 245, 249, 301, 448, 456 Colonial, 87, 88, 91–93, 95, 195, 226, 276, 355, 396, 397, 412, 421, 424, 425 Colonialism, 92, 421 Community, 9, 10, 47, 49, 50, 52, 54, 55, 59, 61, 68, 70, 75, 76, 78, 105, 107, 108, 111, 119, 120, 123, 125–127, 132–140, 142, 149, 151, 154, 156, 158, 160, 164, 172, 190, 192–195, 197, 199, 202, 203, 211, 225, 226, 229–235, 240, 244, 246, 250, 251, 264, 267–269, 271, 273, 274, 315, 322, 323, 325, 327, 332, 334, 339, 344, 345, 354, 359, 360, 370, 384, 385, 389–391, 409, 412–414, 416, 417, 430, 431, 452, 455, 458, 460, 461, 467, 472–482 Confidentiality, 121, 279, 283, 452, 462–464, 476 Conflict transformation, 204 Consent, 28, 30, 56, 74, 136, 190, 196, 200, 214, 225, 257, 324, 326–329, 459, 462, 463 forms, 30, 31, 57, 74, 121, 321, 328, 333, 362 Constructivist, 323 Contacts, 5, 6, 11, 30, 52, 55, 60, 70, 75, 76, 89, 116, 118–122, 135, 136, 139, 141, 142, 164, 165, 169, 173, 175, 177–180, 183–185, 208, 219, 228, 233, 238–247, 263, 269, 273, 276, 281, 288, 312–314, 343, 344, 348, 361, 366, 369, 370, 390,

397, 401, 404, 415, 428, 429, 431, 441, 452, 477, 478, 482 Conversations, 12, 40–43, 52, 66, 67, 73, 80, 81, 87, 94, 96, 97, 109, 111, 119, 121, 124, 125, 127, 164, 165, 168, 170, 173, 178, 180–182, 184, 198, 212, 224, 228, 231, 240, 244, 245, 247, 250, 253, 254, 256–258, 272, 276, 283, 284, 291, 301, 307, 313, 319, 325, 327, 329, 330, 333, 340–342, 345, 348–350, 367, 371, 388, 390, 399, 402, 414, 423, 426, 433, 434, 438, 442, 456, 458, 459, 463, 466, 468, 472, 479, 481 Co-production, 69, 191, 395 Corrupt, 9, 153, 154, 203, 268, 411 Culture, 2, 14, 50, 53, 132, 133, 136, 190, 194, 197, 229, 233, 255, 258, 264, 274, 286, 304, 318, 339, 340, 342, 343, 356, 374, 418, 434, 450–452, 461, 478 D Data collection, 54–56, 59, 71, 72, 76, 96, 102, 127, 139, 156, 172, 217, 247, 258, 369, 386, 388, 398, 408, 413, 416, 418, 419, 424 gathering, 48, 54, 55, 78, 116, 126, 326, 398, 400 protection, 5, 26, 38, 214 storage, 27 Decolonisation, 191, 226, 395, 449 Deductive, 450 Diary, 73, 79, 89, 408, 412, 438, 446 Disability, 90, 97, 373, 409, 430, 431 Displacement, 40, 234, 411, 483 Doctoral research, 175, 185, 263, 267, 269, 274, 275, 306, 343, 386, 391, 434 Documentary, 223, 225, 233, 235, 282, 343, 345–348 Domestic violence, 197, 203, 314 Donors, 19–21, 48, 51, 105–107, 111, 178, 200, 395

Index

E Early career researcher, 1, 11, 18, 41, 56, 60, 78, 85, 164, 169, 176, 307, 310, 314, 317, 358, 409, 418 Elites, 4, 25, 67, 68, 75, 86, 87, 153, 154, 156, 158, 159, 179, 192, 245, 297–302, 342, 395, 460, 462 Embarrassment, 47, 160, 366, 374 Embeddedness, 168, 177, 266 Emotional labor, 41, 373 Encryption, 5, 214 Epistemology, 66, 71, 72, 76, 169, 226 Ethical dilemmas, 2, 3, 36, 37, 214, 263, 266, 275, 276, 452 Ethics, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 17, 18, 23, 25, 26, 29–32, 36–38, 42, 43, 50–52, 66, 74, 95, 98, 105, 109, 110, 116, 117, 126, 140, 143, 147, 163, 167, 174, 192, 197, 204, 253, 271, 299, 309, 313, 325, 326, 358, 360, 388, 389, 419, 436, 449, 455, 456, 458, 459, 463–468, 471, 472, 475, 480 Ethnographers, 52, 91, 132, 134, 217, 230, 235, 265, 275 Ethnographic approach, 86, 132, 138, 144, 209 Ethnographic methods, 36, 71, 144, 177, 410 Ethnography, 6, 7, 37, 68, 86, 94, 132, 135, 139, 173, 186, 209–212, 216–218, 226, 229, 231, 235, 264, 368 Ex-combatants, 175, 177, 178, 180– 183, 185, 359, 365, 366, 369–372, 374 Expats, 77, 78, 179, 185, 387, 391 Expert, 8, 65, 67, 68, 70, 72, 74–76, 85, 122, 127, 143, 178, 237, 239, 240, 280, 298, 395, 400, 404, 434, 435, 450, 456, 466, 467, 474 Extraction, 52, 70, 71, 91 F Facebook, 69, 210–214 Facilitator, 233, 381, 456 Fake news, 215 Family, 3, 4, 11, 47, 71, 95, 97, 107, 134, 151, 169, 172, 180, 184, 194,

  487

197, 216, 217, 224, 227, 232, 252, 280, 282, 283, 288, 291, 314, 316, 317, 361, 362, 372, 378, 403, 408–410, 412, 413, 415–419, 423, 427, 428, 446, 447, 478 Feminism, 308 Feminist, 37, 39, 72, 86–88, 90, 92, 94, 306–308, 311, 312, 314, 315, 318, 368, 369, 372, 385, 386, 422, 423, 442, 451 Field notes, 35, 36, 138, 139, 159, 445, 465 Fieldwork journal, 11, 12, 112, 445, 448 Film, 96, 118, 223, 224, 233, 235, 343–351, 428 Findings, 12, 24, 38, 56, 61, 62, 68, 73, 76, 79, 93, 96, 140, 142, 149, 196, 200, 208, 211, 212, 215, 216, 229, 234, 238, 255, 259, 289, 292, 310, 332, 340, 343, 354, 356, 358, 362, 386, 389, 399, 413, 418, 422, 427, 442, 448, 450, 457, 477 Fixers, 5, 43, 50, 68, 167, 180, 238, 300, 359, 395–399, 401, 404 Focus group discussions (FGDs), 192, 195–197, 200, 201, 370 Focus groups, 13, 18, 52, 61, 62, 68, 193, 197, 199, 223–225, 233, 247, 347, 370, 450 Food, 14, 149, 195, 205, 270, 275, 349, 361, 373, 427, 438, 478, 481 poisoning, 119 Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), 22, 23, 28, 29, 31, 75, 117, 165 Friendship, 14, 78, 95, 134, 180, 185, 215, 231, 398, 399, 402, 404, 416 Funding, 2, 8, 11, 21, 32, 35–37, 40–43, 51, 79, 95, 157, 160, 165, 170, 173, 189, 200, 240, 275, 301, 307, 326, 378, 397, 399, 401, 404, 410, 427, 429, 441, 479 G Gatekeepers, 9, 20, 49, 55, 57, 75, 126, 135, 136, 139, 143, 178, 179, 183, 197, 200, 238–247, 263, 269, 271, 274, 344, 381, 385, 390, 450

488  Index Gatekeeping, 9, 39, 43, 53 Gender, 3, 4, 30, 31, 48, 76, 78, 87, 90, 93, 94, 108, 112, 179, 195, 200, 203, 245–247, 250, 252, 253, 255, 276, 306–309, 312, 314–316, 344, 366, 367, 371, 372, 374, 381, 382, 386, 390, 392, 414, 416, 417, 423, 424, 426, 430, 437–439, 451 Gender-based violence (GBV), 200, 202, 203 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), 27, 28, 74 Geography, 55, 85, 91, 102, 103, 384, 411, 457 Giving back, 9, 10, 70, 435, 452, 472, 475, 477, 479, 480 Goodwill, 51, 185, 348 Gossip, 349, 360, 414 Grounded research, 190 Grounded theory, 451 Guilt, 12, 97, 273, 274, 279, 304, 310, 378, 423, 427–429, 438, 442 H Health and safety, 17, 23, 26–29, 163–165, 169 Hidden transcript, 360 Home, 4, 11, 19, 20, 22, 51, 59, 68, 88, 90, 95, 98, 103, 104, 110, 121, 123, 124, 148, 164, 198, 201, 203, 212, 216, 218, 227, 244, 247, 270, 273, 288, 299, 302–304, 318, 322, 344, 345, 348, 359, 374, 383, 384, 390, 403, 408, 412, 414–416, 418, 434, 438, 446, 455, 457, 467, 473, 476, 478 Homesick, 303 Human rights, 40, 118, 159, 160, 234, 240, 263, 265, 267–269, 272, 274, 275, 281, 282, 303, 400, 474 Human subjects, 43, 58, 464 Humility, 2, 110, 185, 292, 361, 419 I Identity, 3, 12, 54, 97, 132–135, 176, 191, 196, 230, 245, 250, 252–255, 263, 276, 291, 301, 307, 308, 325,

331, 360, 365, 368, 369, 371, 377, 382, 383, 386–390, 392, 409, 422, 424–426, 439, 452, 462, 475, 477, 479 Illiteracy, 31 Impact, 3, 7, 9, 13, 27, 47, 48, 50, 53–56, 58, 59, 61, 73, 79, 87, 109, 111, 126, 133, 135, 147, 153, 159, 183, 193, 229, 230, 232, 235, 239, 250–252, 254, 256, 263, 265, 268, 269, 275, 276, 307, 322, 332, 354, 381–384, 386, 389, 395, 399, 408, 409, 424, 431, 473, 477, 480, 481 Imposter syndrome, 97, 309, 312, 339 Indiana Jones, 2, 85, 87, 93, 95, 96, 98, 167, 168 Indicators, 49, 137, 192, 193, 195–197, 200 Indigenous communities, 234, 263, 267, 268, 275, 417 Inductive, 132, 204, 436, 450, 451 Informal conversations, 135, 249, 441 Informants, 51, 53–55, 57, 59–61, 75, 87, 90, 91, 93, 98, 102, 136, 142, 176, 179–182, 185, 208, 209, 211–214, 216–219, 229, 237, 239, 241–245, 266, 365, 366, 369–372, 374, 377, 434, 435 Informed consent, 31, 57, 71, 74, 118, 465, 472 Infrastructure, 51, 56, 96, 149, 232, 234, 239, 242, 373 Insider, 76, 87, 135, 183, 214, 253, 254, 332, 339, 386, 388–391 Institutional Review Board (IRB), 7, 17, 35, 50, 118, 122, 143, 462–464, 480, 481 Insurance, 8, 13, 17, 22, 23, 26–28, 110, 147, 163, 165, 208, 313, 326, 389, 431 Interlocutors, 4–7, 27, 36, 39–41, 147, 210, 228, 250–258, 287, 339, 340, 344–347, 349, 350, 367, 391, 396–399, 404, 422–424, 426, 430, 437–439, 441, 442, 459 International Relations (IR), 85–94, 97, 98, 308, 353, 356, 433, 450 Interpretivist, 71, 72, 323 Intersectionality, 368, 382, 423, 431

Index

Interview, 2, 4–6, 12, 13, 24, 27, 35, 36, 38, 47, 52, 53, 55, 57, 59–62, 65–81, 95, 96, 101–106, 108–113, 119, 121, 122, 136, 138, 139, 141, 150–153, 155, 159, 164, 166, 170, 177–186, 198, 203, 208, 211, 212, 218, 224, 227–229, 231, 237, 238, 241–243, 245–247, 250–254, 257– 259, 264, 269, 270, 273, 279–285, 287–289, 291, 292, 296, 298–303, 310, 321, 323–330, 332–335, 358–360, 362, 365–367, 369–372, 375, 377, 378, 396, 400, 404, 408, 414, 423, 425, 429, 441, 445, 448, 450, 452, 457, 459, 462, 463, 472, 474, 475, 477–480, 482 Interviewees, 1–6, 9, 10, 57, 60, 66, 68, 71, 73, 75–78, 80, 81, 93, 102, 105, 109, 122, 137–139, 153, 160, 177, 181, 182, 237, 238, 240, 253, 255, 269–271, 299, 370, 429, 450, 452, 482 Interviewing, 18, 19, 69–71, 79, 80, 102–105, 107, 108, 111, 121, 125, 134, 139, 155, 175, 250, 271, 280, 281, 289, 291, 302, 323, 325–327, 359, 412, 423, 428 Intimidation, 152, 197, 268 J Journalists, 47, 48, 60, 67, 70, 115, 119, 123, 127, 141, 215, 229, 240, 242, 246, 300, 398, 481 Judgement, 3, 10, 18, 29, 49, 59, 123, 166, 167, 432, 438 K Kidnapping, 22, 75, 165, 224 Knowledge, 8, 10, 21, 28, 29, 38, 47, 54, 55, 60, 67, 69, 71–73, 75, 77, 79, 80, 86–91, 95, 96, 98, 101– 103, 109, 112, 113, 116–118, 122, 141, 158, 159, 166, 179, 186, 191, 192, 210, 226, 234, 250, 254, 257, 258, 264, 265, 274, 276, 281, 285, 304, 307, 323, 326, 332, 346, 351, 354, 355, 360, 361, 367, 369, 371,

  489

373, 377, 378, 382, 397, 417, 430, 443, 456–459, 465, 468, 483 local, 52, 127, 265, 313, 353 production, 79, 96, 116, 126, 127, 226, 250, 251, 259, 260, 373, 377, 389, 449, 452, 456, 460–462, 467 L Language, 14, 38, 339 course, 218 skills, 119, 182, 263, 340, 341, 343, 344, 356, 368 Life-history, 177 Livelihood, 115, 269, 306, 478, 481 Local, 2, 4, 5, 9–11, 13, 20, 22, 24, 51, 54, 55, 60, 68, 70, 75, 86, 89, 98, 104, 105, 107–112, 115, 116, 118–120, 122, 124–127, 135–137, 140, 141, 148–151, 153, 154, 156, 158–161, 166, 167, 172, 175, 179, 182, 184, 190, 192–195, 197, 198, 201, 205, 225, 228, 231–233, 240–242, 244, 245, 254, 263, 264, 267–270, 298, 304, 312–314, 332, 341, 342, 345, 348, 350, 354–362, 368–372, 382, 384, 387–389, 395–400, 411–413, 415–417, 422, 428, 438, 443, 450, 452, 460, 461, 466 Local turn, 354 Location, 2, 5, 7, 9, 41, 47, 48, 50, 51, 54, 59, 68, 89, 101–103, 107–112, 120, 125, 135, 141, 148, 149, 166, 169, 171, 172, 176, 195, 199, 203, 214, 227, 251, 298, 315, 345, 370, 382, 384, 386, 452, 465, 473 Logistics, 4, 66, 73, 103, 117 Luck, 108, 110, 137, 139, 143, 297, 298, 300, 301, 311, 385, 410, 442 M Mapping, 62, 193–195 Maps, 31, 53, 75, 149, 192, 193, 231, 242, 271, 334, 397, 412, 418 Marginalised, 176, 183, 190, 228, 230, 256, 451

490  Index Media, 4, 55, 59, 60, 118, 212, 215, 339, 401, 410, 428, 472, 473, 477, 479, 482 Memoirs, 98 Memory, 132, 133, 139, 193, 212, 228, 279, 282, 285, 288–291, 330, 417, 422, 426, 429, 445, 448, 457, 458, 466 Motherhood, 317, 369, 371, 372, 408, 411, 413 N Narratives, 9, 39, 60, 71, 80, 87, 93, 94, 102, 134, 147, 150, 154, 182, 192, 201, 210, 211, 213, 215, 216, 218, 223, 224, 243, 255, 256, 265, 279, 281, 282, 284–291, 314, 345, 355, 357, 360, 362, 383, 385, 410, 412, 439, 450, 457, 463, 466–468 Native speaker, 350 Negotiation, 41, 72, 105, 106, 165, 197, 232, 243, 258, 268, 269, 345, 423, 435, 439 Neoliberal, 143, 227, 229, 356, 357, 359 Neoliberal university, 73, 235, 467 Networks, 3, 4, 9, 29, 37, 42, 52, 54, 55, 68, 80, 95, 101, 107, 108, 113, 116–122, 125, 134, 136, 160, 166, 180, 184, 185, 190, 198, 204, 208, 211, 238, 241–244, 246, 267, 300, 342, 344, 349, 397, 400, 417–419, 429 Non-combatants, 315 Non-state armed actors, 29 Notebook, 140, 180, 271, 272, 321, 330, 331, 439, 448, 455, 460, 462 Notes, 5, 6, 12, 29, 32, 59, 71, 73, 75, 94, 95, 125, 134, 139, 169, 170, 173, 181, 205, 212, 217, 242, 257, 258, 263, 269, 283–285, 288, 303, 329, 330, 345, 346, 348, 367, 382, 392, 400, 408, 419, 437, 439, 447, 463, 465, 476, 478 O Off-the-record, 181, 448 Orientalism, 226

Outsider, 2, 54, 76, 87, 116, 126, 135, 137, 175, 176, 225, 227, 228, 253, 254, 266, 311, 315, 325, 332, 339, 355, 360, 386, 387, 389, 391, 425, 446, 457, 479 Over-researched, 48–50, 53, 58, 60, 62, 69, 140, 142 P Parenting, 408–410, 412, 413, 418 Participant-observation, 218, 219 Participatory action research (PAR), 53, 90, 189, 191, 192, 197, 199, 202–204, 230, 233, 456, 459–461, 467 Participatory approach, 189, 466 Participatory observation, 90 Partnership, 53, 385, 397, 401 Patriarchy, 194 Patronage networks, 190, 201 Peace and conflict studies, 17, 22, 29–31, 40, 47, 50, 67, 85, 86, 88, 96, 238, 242, 353, 358, 360–362, 443, 458, 459, 467 Peacebuilding, 22, 28, 50, 54, 79, 157, 179, 239, 241, 244, 246, 265, 297, 353, 422, 455–460, 462, 465, 468 Perpetrators, 4, 58, 177, 178, 233, 266, 272, 279–283, 285, 290–292, 304 PhD student, 1, 4, 12, 19, 26, 27, 29, 41, 56, 67, 75, 80, 85, 89, 93, 94, 122, 131, 132, 140, 164, 165, 167, 170, 172–175, 177, 233, 269, 311, 333, 335, 358 PhD supervisor, 3, 154, 433 Photographs, 112, 138, 281, 282, 428, 478 Police, 18, 23, 65, 66, 71, 103, 106, 107, 109, 122, 170, 172, 203, 207, 228, 242, 272, 298, 314–316, 367, 400, 411, 448 Policymakers, 52, 67, 69, 389, 475, 478, 480 Positionality, 61, 62, 94, 116, 123, 169, 204, 226, 230, 250, 251, 253, 254, 256, 259, 260, 276, 325, 329, 331, 333, 354, 358, 362, 368, 381, 382, 386, 390–392, 395, 397, 410, 422, 428, 431, 437, 438, 459, 465

Index

Positivist, 66, 71, 72, 195, 218, 250, 308, 310–312, 318, 460 Post-traumatic stress disorder, 217 Power, 8, 19, 30, 31, 36, 37, 39, 41–44, 49, 50, 59, 62, 67, 71, 77, 90, 94, 101, 102, 104, 105, 111, 112, 119, 127, 153, 154, 156, 182, 190, 191, 194, 196, 200–203, 226, 235, 237, 240, 242, 243, 247, 268, 299, 308, 317, 318, 323, 332, 334, 350, 359, 368, 370, 371, 382, 384, 386, 389, 396, 397, 401, 422, 425, 426, 430, 433–435, 438, 449, 450, 452, 457, 460–462, 465, 467, 468, 476, 477, 480, 483 Practitioner, 21, 24, 51, 52, 66, 67, 69, 76, 191, 385, 386, 390, 392 Precarity, 41, 307, 312, 313 Preparation, 7, 52, 55, 57, 66, 70, 73, 76, 79, 143, 164, 201, 213, 239, 265, 334, 345, 376, 384, 385, 408, 436, 451, 482 Privilege, 3, 5, 10, 12, 13, 40–43, 73, 85, 94, 95, 154–156, 171, 179, 227, 274, 276, 304, 307, 350, 386, 389, 390, 418, 419, 421–432, 437, 451, 483 Publishing, 3, 6, 38, 85, 120, 280, 335, 357, 451 Q Qualitative, 37, 39, 41, 51, 54, 67, 102, 103, 113, 163, 164, 169, 170, 176, 177, 197, 237, 250, 251, 253, 254, 259, 292, 322, 324, 325, 332, 365, 370, 377, 433, 471, 480, 482 Quantitative, 37, 169, 177, 202, 322, 325, 471 Quotations, 74, 331 R Race, 87, 88, 90, 92, 152, 216, 250, 276, 331, 355, 368, 381–384, 386, 387, 389, 423, 424, 426, 430, 431, 452 Recorder, 57, 180–182, 283, 301, 328, 462, 463

  491

Recording, 1, 11, 59, 112, 178, 181, 205, 212, 217, 235, 288, 299, 314, 329, 347, 475 References, 41, 55, 86, 225, 231, 342, 345, 346, 367, 447–449, 451, 452 Reflexivity, 43, 72, 93, 94, 116, 259, 308, 309, 323, 325, 354, 368, 382, 383, 385, 386, 391, 392, 433 Refugee Camp, 49, 56, 68, 382, 383, 385, 392 Refugees, 70, 79, 107, 216, 250, 252, 383, 471–474, 476, 478–482 Regeni, Giulio, 4, 5, 75, 94, 165 Relationships, 3, 10, 18, 21, 30, 37, 38, 43, 53, 55, 66, 70–72, 80, 87, 102, 108, 109, 112, 123, 124, 134, 135, 139, 140, 154, 157, 164, 170, 171, 178, 184, 185, 189–193, 195–198, 203, 204, 210–212, 217–219, 225–227, 229–235, 238, 239, 246, 249, 251, 253, 263, 264, 275, 292, 297, 303, 307, 308, 310, 317, 322, 325–327, 329, 332, 335, 361, 362, 370, 383, 389, 396–399, 402–404, 410, 414, 415, 417, 418, 423, 424, 431, 434, 438, 459, 472, 478, 479, 481, 482 Representation, 86, 87, 93, 96, 108, 120, 153, 158, 160, 193, 196, 198, 230, 260, 289, 383, 389, 449, 458, 459, 462 Research assistant, 12, 31, 43, 67, 116, 119, 122, 148, 184, 224, 250, 345, 346, 348–350, 387, 396–398, 422–424 Research design, 1–3, 5, 8, 10, 14, 54, 61, 66, 70, 72, 400 Research Excellence Framework, 311 Research fatigue, 48, 54, 55, 105, 142 Research participants, 2, 6, 17, 36, 37, 41, 42, 49, 55, 57, 60, 61, 68, 74–76, 90, 116, 118, 121, 137, 176, 251, 253, 254, 256, 258, 309, 310, 315, 316, 331, 389–391, 424, 425, 431, 433, 437, 438, 465, 472, 480–482 Respect, 7, 30, 62, 70, 103, 110, 112, 178, 185, 201, 203, 204, 219, 228, 232, 264, 266, 269, 272, 274, 276,

492  Index 277, 331, 354, 357, 360, 366, 369, 372, 374, 399, 402, 404, 414, 421, 425, 428, 476, 478, 479 Re-traumatizing, 57 Risk, 4–8, 21, 23, 25, 26, 29, 36, 40, 41, 43, 51, 57, 74, 94, 107, 108, 110, 111, 116–120, 122–126, 137, 163–173, 176, 179, 182, 215, 231, 256, 258, 310, 312–314, 317, 326, 385, 387, 411, 434, 435, 438, 440, 445, 465, 472, 481 assessment, 23, 24, 27–29, 31, 75, 95, 98, 117, 121–123, 164–166, 172, 173, 269, 313, 384, 385, 389, 422, 436 aversion, 125, 165 S Safe spaces, 104, 106, 196, 309, 318 Safety, 5, 27, 30, 36, 40, 66, 74, 75, 78, 80, 97, 98, 102, 103, 107, 116, 117, 141, 163–174, 176, 179, 201, 241, 269, 271, 298, 299, 307, 312, 313, 315, 326, 366, 384, 385, 412, 419, 438, 462, 465 Sampling, 148, 155, 211, 327 Security, 3–5, 7, 10, 11, 22–24, 27, 30, 40, 74, 75, 79, 86, 88, 89, 91, 92, 95, 96, 109, 117, 119, 120, 138, 140, 153, 163–166, 173, 197, 201, 213–215, 238, 239, 241, 242, 244, 247, 271, 301–303, 309, 313, 315, 318, 326, 346, 374, 382, 384, 385, 387, 390, 397–399, 401, 402, 404, 411, 422, 433, 452, 461, 463, 464, 479 Self-censorship, 6, 210, 213, 214, 216 Semi-structured interviews, 192, 237, 264, 299 Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, 13 Sexuality, 87, 90, 250, 430 Sexual orientation, 97, 386 Side-by-side, 321, 323, 324, 327, 330, 332–335 Silence, 9, 43, 58, 72, 76, 136, 141, 176, 284, 286, 290, 305–307, 315, 316, 318, 319, 342, 357, 409, 463, 479

Snowballing, 68, 136, 177, 180, 185, 245 Social media, 6, 69, 88, 96, 123, 208, 209, 211–214, 217, 418, 426 Social networks, 126, 139, 389, 418 Soldier, 180, 214, 280, 281, 286, 289, 290 Storytelling, 38, 39, 168, 192, 198, 467 Stress, 2, 13, 79, 118, 123, 124, 142, 163, 190, 217, 290, 296, 374, 412 Supervisor, 10, 11, 26, 122, 124, 163, 165, 171, 172, 178, 264, 265, 269, 311, 313, 322, 374, 434, 437, 438, 442 Surveillance, 2, 5, 6, 42, 49, 115, 116, 118, 213, 216, 315 Surveying, 197 Survey questionnaires, 52 T Tape, 138 Tape recorder, 47, 140, 299 Teaching, 8, 61, 73, 85, 115, 143, 160, 182, 237, 275, 292, 335, 378, 409, 417, 446, 448, 451 Terrorism, 74 Textbook, 86, 88, 104, 110, 131, 132, 138, 326, 350, 362 Torture, 279, 316 Transcription, 73, 283, 329, 346, 347, 455 Translators, 5, 12, 50, 158, 192, 254, 256, 259, 300 Transparency, 36–38, 40–43, 61, 116, 203, 212, 465 Travel funds, 208 Travel restrictions, 31, 75, 426 Triangulation, 72, 193 Trust, 12, 25, 52, 55, 57, 71, 98, 108–110, 112, 121, 137, 142, 178, 183–185, 204, 241, 246, 249, 275, 276, 279, 283, 303, 314, 318, 319, 325, 349, 350, 369–371, 377, 398, 438, 477, 479, 481 Truth, 51, 72, 91, 93, 98, 101, 127, 184, 215, 237, 285, 289, 296, 297, 302, 325 Twitter, 6, 69, 76, 167, 212–214, 312

Index

U Unintended consequences, 189, 204, 275 V Victims, 13, 39, 56, 58, 155, 265, 266, 268, 272, 273, 280–285, 291, 304, 311, 356, 374, 381, 466 Video recording, 139 Village headman, 150 Visa, 2, 5, 27, 238, 343, 361, 421, 429 Visibility, 36, 410, 438, 464, 481 Vulnerability, 79, 93, 126, 173, 374, 415, 463, 464, 471, 472, 476, 483 W Well-being, 11, 91, 98, 116, 123–125, 169, 373–375, 463, 464, 466, 467 Witness, 148, 152, 154, 230, 280–282, 289, 290, 311, 316, 407, 442 Women, 69, 70, 87, 97, 108, 109, 112, 148, 155, 157, 159, 192, 193, 195,

  493

197, 199–201, 203, 223, 242, 244, 246, 247, 252, 306–310, 314–318, 346, 348, 349, 367, 372, 374, 378, 384, 392, 410–412, 414–416, 425, 427, 431, 456 Workload, 124, 373 Writing, 2, 3, 9, 20, 37, 38, 40, 43, 44, 58, 70, 86, 90, 94, 139, 141, 157, 161, 164, 168, 172, 173, 177, 186, 207, 212, 215, 218, 225, 232, 240, 258, 259, 265, 275, 280, 298, 311, 312, 316, 335, 397, 410, 433–435, 437–443, 445–452, 455, 458, 459, 462, 465–468, 477, 482 Writing up, 3, 139, 233, 240, 392, 433, 439, 441, 445, 446, 449–452 Y Youth, 74, 94, 104, 154, 178, 192, 193, 195, 197, 199, 200, 215, 234, 456, 463, 474, 479