Inside Ethnography

Researchers Reflect on the Challenges of Reaching Hidden Populations

Miriam Boeri, Rashi K. Shukla, Miriam Boeri, Rashi K. Shukla

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780520970458
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

While some books present "ideal" ethnographic field methods, Inside Ethnography shares the realities of fieldwork in action. With a focus on strategies employed with populations at society's margins, twenty-one contemporary ethnographers examine their cutting-edge work with honesty and introspection, drawing readers into the field to reveal the challenges they have faced. Representing disciplinary approaches from criminology, sociology, anthropology, public health, business, and social work, and designed explicitly for courses on ethnographic and qualitative methods, crime, deviance, drugs, and urban sociology, the authors portray an evolving methodology that adapts to the conditions of the field while tackling emerging controversies with perceptive sensitivity. Their judicious advice on how to avoid pitfalls and remedy missteps provides unusual insights for practitioners, academics, and undergraduate and graduate students.

PART ONE

Becoming an Ethnographer

ONE

Going Native with Evil

Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard

WHEN YOU ARE AN ETHNOGRAPHER, ideally you go native by using yourself as a research tool to understand phenomena from an insider perspective. This implies putting yourself in the shoes of others by immersing yourself emotionally and physically in their lives. This is challenging when the aim of the study is to understand violent acts from the perspectives of those who committed the acts. When the people studied engage in what could be considered “evil” activities of intentionally inflicting pain and suffering on other human beings (Vetlesen, 2005, 2), some research ideals are challenged.

This chapter reflects on the ways the ideal of doing ethnography influenced me to compromise when “going native with evil.” I conducted fieldwork with young South African men who intentionally engaged in violent acts. My aim was to understand the circumstances that made them commit violence and their experiences from an insider perspective. I started by considering participants as capable agents with the capacity to make bounded choices (Cornish and Clarke, 1987). While I acknowledged that they were victims of different forms of structural violence, such as historical inequality, racism, and poverty (Abrahams and Jewkes, 2005; Kaminer et al., 2008), I tried not to reduce them to victims. I was determined to figure out under what circumstances they appeared to have a choice, particularly in the vulnerable moments where they used violence. Although they might have been categorized by a variety of psychological categories of disorders, as an anthropologist schooled in the tradition of relativism, I avoided categorization and engaged with them without preconceptions. My aim was to create a shared space of intersubjective reflexivity that allowed us to create a shared sense of understanding (Tankink and Vysma, 2006).

Doing ethnographic research with violent individuals was a confrontative and sometimes painful experience. I struggled with my inability to live up to some of the most basic dictums of doing good. As an undergraduate student in ethnography, I was taught the following: “become one of them,” “do not judge your participants,” “do what they do,” “accept that participants become friends,” “include different perspectives on your topic,” and “listen to local advice” (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995). In this chapter, I reflect on how these ideals influenced me, and on how others may learn from my experiences and mistakes, to understand that making mistakes is a part of ethnography. I discuss these ideals by showing how they were integrated in my study, my response to the difficulties encountered when assuming these ideals could become reality, and the lessons I learned when reflecting on and questioning my ethnographic assumptions. The power of ethnography lies in the disorienting effects of the unknown and the willingness to get lost. To understand from an insider’s perspective, you need to let go of preconceived assumptions, which can be a scary thing to do.

PURPOSE OF THE CAPE TOWN STUDY

The aim was to understand why young men in Cape Town use violence, and in what ways they avoid using it in conflicts in their daily lives. I was interested in understanding their experiences with using and avoiding violence, and in explaining their reactions as related to the broader contexts of their lives. By combining interviews and observations, I focused my attention on both what young men said about violence and what they did when in conflict situations. Following them into different contexts also provided insights into how narratives about violence were contextually related and may change, depending on the audience.

I engaged in fieldwork from 2005 to 2006, with follow-up studies in 2008 and 2017 (see Lindegaard, 2018). During this time, I conducted more than 130 interviews with 43 men, aged sixteen to twenty-five, in 2005 and carried out extensive participant observations with 30 of them. Ten were in prison for the entirety of the study, while three moved in and out of prison, and the remainder were outside. Participants had experiences with violent acts of varying degrees of severity (e.g., murder, attempted murder, rape, assaults, and armed robberies). Participants were recruited at high schools, via snowball sampling to include those not attending school, and in a prison during a five-month period. Initially, participants showed me around their neighborhood taking photos of people and places that made them comfortable or uncomfortable. They showed me the photos and eventually took me the places where they had taken them in their neighborhood. After establishing rapport I spent more time with them, visiting friends and family, and going out to local bars, night clubs, beaches, and shopping malls (see fig. 1.1). I transcribed the recordings and wrote observation notes. Participants’ were given pseudonyms. In 2017, I started using closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage to analyze interactions in violent conflicts. My research was approved by the ethical commission of the University of the Western Cape and the University of Amsterdam, and by the South African Department of Education and Department of Correctional Services.

FIGURE 1.1. Sipho’s front door in Gugulethu. Photo credit: Marie Lindegaard.

TOTAL OUTSIDER

As an ethnographer I was a clear outsider. I had had no experiences with violent acts. I am a woman, not South African; I have acquired higher-education and am white (most participants were nonwhite). As expressed by one of the warders in the prison where I conducted fieldwork: “You have three things against you Marie: you are white, from far away, and you have a cute face so watch out!” Despite obvious differences, participants’ reflections were not so much about differences but about similarities. As one participant, Drégan, recognized: “If you had been a man, Marie, and you had grown up on the Cape Flats, you would be just like me! You also like danger. Otherwise, you would not have done this kind of work. Some people might think you are a nerd but you cannot be a nerd and do this kind of work. You are just like me! You just happened to live in another part of the world.” Drégan touched upon questions I grappled with myself. What made me different from my participants? What caused our dissimilarities? To understand, my aim was to immerse myself emotionally and physically as much as possible into their lives. This led to confronting a range of inconsistent dogma regarding fieldwork and compromising on ideals to protect others and myself from danger (Ferrell and Hamm, 1998). Many compromises involved dilemmas of being an outsider, not knowing when to express emotions, struggling with understanding my subjects, balancing judgments and generating trust, not knowing when to be honest and when to be less than honest. In retrospect, I wish someone had told me that making compromises was not only wise but necessary when researching violence. The aim to understand and not judge people was the precondition for preventing violence.

IDEAL 1: BECOME ONE OF THEM

My predefined assumptions became apparent as my own emotional responses to engaging with participants emerged. In the beginning, I felt anxious and afraid. I tried to hide these emotions because I was worried that expressing them would endanger my ability to establish rapport and understand acts from their perspective. Fear and anxiety had to be suspended to access their points of view.

One example to illustrate this point is from an interview conducted with Drégan. While I wanted to know about the “evil acts” that he committed, at the same time, I struggled emotionally with handling the details about these acts because it challenged the relationship I was establishing with him. To relate to him and understand him, I needed to feel connected with him. However, my own fear and disgust of the details of his acts made me unable to listen to what he was saying without judgment. Instead, I tried to take control by posing too many, irrelevant questions.

I met Drégan while working for a nongovernmental organization in prison and interviewed him at his house upon release. I was in unfamiliar territory with a person experienced with killing and violence, and this caused me distress. Fortunately, his mother and sister were home in another room, and we whispered at times to prevent them from hearing our conversation. I tried to focus on his experiences but struggled to listen. His story made me upset.

D: So, one evening, I was sitting in the shebeen [illegal bar], this guy asks me for a kiss. I tell him, are you crazy; are you fucking crazy. The guy hits me with a beer bottle. I carried an axe at that time; a small axe. If it was not an axe it was a tagger or a knife; just something; always armed; it was part of the dress code. I take out the axe. Hit this guy but the guy is not alone. Now I am crazy and there is this whole gang. But I have a friend with me as well. He also has an axe but he is crumpling. I come back to that guy that I already knocked out. He is already away. When they see the state he is in, they get crazy. And they see I am all alone, Miss man.

M (INTERRUPTING TOO QUICKLY): Can you explain? I would very much like to hear every detail of when you hit this guy.

D: I was like crazy, Miss man . . .

M (DEMANDING ELABORATION): So what do you remember? Like almost every minute?

D: Like I say, I cannot even remember none of their faces man. The moment when that guy hit me with a beer bottle and I stood up and I hit the first person that I see. I just stood up with my axe. I do not even know if the guy that I hit was the guy that hit me with the beer bottle. They were like a group and I just hit the first guy.

M (INSISTING): And what do you remember from the moment where you hit him?

D: It just feels like everything goes slow.

M (INSISTING): What clothes did he have on?

D: I cannot remember none of that. Because two weeks after that incidence I went back there to look for the guys and we wanted to shoot them. But I did not know who these people were so I had to ask around. I probably spoke with them but I am like gone. I was drunk. I do not notice anybody. I am just in love with myself at the time.

M (INSISTING): So where did you hit him?

D: In here. In his face.

M (INSISTING): How hard?

D: Joh, very hard (laughs nervously). With all the anger and power, you have in your body.

I tried to understand his experience as if I had been a part of it myself, but instead of allowing for elaborations I tried to stay in control by asking questions that at the time seemed relevant. I made the following remark about the interview in my notes afterward: “One of the things, which becomes clear from listening through the interview, is that I do not get all the points. Not because the story is actually that complicated—more because the whole topic makes me confused and emotionally unstable. I think I spend energy on putting myself together instead of focusing on what he says” (field notes).

The interview was highly distressing emotionally. The content would have been more valuable if I was quiet and listening. My own anxiety about the murder made me try to take control, which is not a fruitful approach when the aim is to understand.

In my reflections afterward, I described how it made me feel to put myself in his place:

I felt like throwing up, particularly in the situation with the axe. My stomach turned around and I had to focus on my breathing. After the interview, I felt very heavy. I felt like crying but I cannot cry. It feels like the tears are sitting right under my eyes but they cannot get out. When I got home, I walked up and down the floor unable to sit down. I feel restless and powerless. I am wondering if I violated him by asking him to move to what he called “the dark side.” Am I supposed to cheer him up and handle h...

Table of contents

• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One Becoming an Ethnographer
• Part Two Team Ethnography
• Part Three Navigating the Unusual
• Part Four The Emotional Impact of Doing Ethnography
• Conclusion: Looking Back, Moving Forward
• List of Contributors
• Index