Fieldwork Ain't Always Fun: Public and Hidden Discourses on Fieldwork
Author(s): Baz Lecocq
Source: History in Africa, Vol. 29 (2002), pp. 273-282
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3172164
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FIELDWORKAIN'T ALWAYS
FUN: PUBLICAND
HIDDEN DISCOURSESON FIELDWORK'
BAZ LECOCQ
AMSTERDAMSCHOOLFORSOCIALSCIENCERESEARCH
I
BeforeI start, I would like to stressthat the followingis in no way
meantas a complaint.NeitherwouldI likeyou to thinkthatI am disgustedby fieldworkin general,and fieldworkin Mali in particular.
The point that I want to get acrossis that the personalemotionalexperienceand state of mindduringfieldworkhave an impacton the
way fieldworkers,in beingtheirown instruments,practicetheirresearch.Wewouldliketo believethat thisemotionalstateis one of euphoria, but in realityit includesnegativeexperiencesand feelings.
Thesefeelingsshouldbe accountedfor-not just personally,but also
professionally.
II
Thereexists a dichotomybetweenopen and hiddendiscourseabout
experiencesin the field amongsocial scientistspractisingfieldwork.
Thisdichotomyis as old as fieldworkitselfandgainedsomeacknowledgmentof existenceafterthe publicationof Malinowski'sDiary in
the StrictSenseof the Term(Malinowski1967). Thisdichotomyconsists of a representation
of fieldworkexperiencestowardscolleagues
and the largeraudienceas ideal, unproblematic,
and amongthe best
a
can
have
in
life.
It
is
almost
like a holiday.It is
experiences person
in
an
informal
the
that
some
dareto speak
only
setting,usually pub,
of the danger,nuisance,despair,and generalinconvenienceof it all.
'This paperwas orginiallypresentedat the seminar"FieldworkAin'tAlwaysFun:
Methodological,Practical,and PersonalProblemsin ExtremeFieldworkSettings,"
AmsterdamSchool for SocialScienceResearch,7 December2000.
History in Africa 29 (2002), 273-282.
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274
Baz Lecocq
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,IndianaJones does exist.
This dichotomy springs directly from the approach taken towards
ethnographic fieldwork, which can be labelled as "Malinowskian"or
"Firthian."In essence, it consists of an extensive stay in the field, during which one seeks to understand the society or events under study
through participantobservation, with a strong emphasison participation. The explanatory power of this nowadays standard form of fieldwork researchis largely derived from the idea that the field worker in
question has full mastery of the studied society's ways and culture. To
admit that one is not at ease, stressed, or simply desperate for a decent meal is to imply incomplete mastery of culture and custom and
therefore a denial of one's authority.Thus, the open discourse on the
beauty of fieldwork serves to support the credibilityof data presented
in the ethnography written-the "being there" as Geertz (1988) has
called it. Taking a detached viewpoint when writing up ones book, yet
explicitly or implicitly stating that "one was there," has long served
as a criterion of authority. In professional discourse among practitioners of the field, the "just-like-a-holiday"attitude to questions about
one's stay in the field serves to maintain or establish one's credibility
as a capable researcher.While everyone knows that fieldwork is not
always fun, not too many are willing to admit this in public since it
might damage their reputation.
However, this practice has been under successful attack by feminist
anthropologists and historians, who stress the relation-especially the
power inequality implied-between researcherand researchedand the
impact of this relation on both the society under study and the researcher.Yet I feel that this critique has not gone far enough. Feminist
anthropology and history theorists, in their critique on "objectification" and its consequences on the presentation of material, focus on
the possibilities of empowerment of the field and the fallacy of
pseudo-objectivity in more objectivist approaches, as opposed to the
proposed deconstruction of object and subject in a more postmodern
style (e.g., Gluck/Patai 1991; Wolf 1996). But like the ethnographers
before them, feminist fieldworkers do not deny the beauty of it all.
They do not question the impact of a severe sickness, foul-tasting
food, or outright hostility of the society one tries to integrate in on
one's mental attitude and one's final appreciationof the field. Positive,
and especially negative emotions, within the field at large, and its effects on analysis and writing, are scarcely dealt with.
It is exactly this problem that I would like to address here. The
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Publicand HiddenDiscourseson Fieldwork
275
open denial of the "pain of fieldwork" in favor of the "fieldwork
holiday myth" seems to me to be equal to not accounting for the setup, design, and scale of accuracy in a laboratory experiment. With
this analogy I do not mean to hint to ideas on objectivity.To the contrary, taking into account, and accounting for one's personal feelings,
angers, and frustrations only form extra arguments to refute the notion of objectivity,since they form the strongest denial of impartiality.
I do mean to say that not accounting for all of one's attitudes in and
towards the field in one's professional life and writing, is to some extent cheating both the audience and oneself. It is simply denying one's
own humanity in a discipline that has human behavior as its central
focus.
Fortunately, notable changes to this pattern of non self-involved
fieldwork representation are emerging. The humorous account of
fieldwork by Nigel Barley (1983) in The Innocent Anthropologist is
not only an easy to read book. His sense of humor seems to me to be
the natural defense line of the professional self when accounting for
the personal unease in memory. Barley was one of the first to address
the myth of the "fieldwork holiday," juxtaposing it to his personal
feelings, tastes, and distastes. In his Worksand Lives, Geertz (1988)
analyzes anthropological texts, not for their ethnological or theoretical value, but for what they tell us about the profession and the writers. However, even a giant like Geertz deemed his own personal inflection on the field unworthy of mentioning. He chose to analyze the
big authors instead.
Narayan, in her penny-dreadful-stylearticle "ParticipantObservation" (1995) makes rather the inverse point of how professional attitudes inflict on personal life. A beautiful example of blunderingin the
field, learning from it, and presenting the resulting insights as victory
through error is Shryock's (1997) Nationalism and the Genealogical
Imagination. Many of the contributions in Fieldwork Under Fire deal
with personal implications in the field. Daniel 's work, CharredLullabies, on violence in Sri Lanka puts the relation between emotions, observations, and representation at its most poignant when he writes
(1996:4):
All this to follow trails,to confirmand confute rumours,to understandif and why what I had heardwas true,and alsoto act as courier
for familymembersand friendswho were separatedby violence,terrorand death. Stories,stories,stories!I have neverknownfor sureif I
am theirprisoneror theirjailer.
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276
Baz Lecocq
III
So much for these points of theoretical and bibliographicalinterest. I
would now like to turn to some personal fieldwork experiences in
northern Mali and the ways in which they have affected my attitude
to the field, the events I study, and the explanations I might provide
for them. To remain to some extent within the Malinowskian tradition, I will use excerpts from my personal diary. Again, let it be absolutely clear that this reminiscenceof feelings about "I-witnessing"-as
Geertz would call it-are in no way meant to be plaintive. I present
them here as examples of the impact of emotional states during fieldwork on analysis and the argumentsone puts forward as explanatory
for the phenomena one studies.
Not all diary entries are spectacular and many might tell fancier
tales of adventure. But the point is exactly that one does not have to
be confronted with terror or personal life threats in order to become
convinced of the explanatory value of almost undefinable feelings.
The "aha erlebnis" needed to spark off some magic in writing might
not necessarilycome from a particularhidden messageconveyed in an
overheard conversation. It might well come from the dreadful ennui
of day-to-day existence. The first event described had a major impact
on my search for the causes of the Tuaregrebellion, which is the subject of my current research. It also greatly influenced a furtherchoice
of informants. It is set in the city of Kidal, the main site of my research, at the end of my first week of "being there." The main characters are Mohamed: a Tuaregrebel singer/songwriterof fame, and Ag,
a Tuaregfrom another region working in Kidal on irrigationschemes.
Diary, 30/11/98. Epilogue to Mohamed, hopefully end of story.
Yesterday,29/11/98, Mohameddroppedby in the end of the afternoon. He was totally drunk,reallyabsolutelyplastered.He almost
couldn'tstandon hisfeet anymore.Hefloppedin a chairand started
to searchhis pocketsfor a lighter.He didn'tfind one. I did not feel
like having him around and asked myself how I could lose him. I
couldn't.He said that he drunktoo much. I agreedand said that he
could bettergo home and sleep it off. He couldn'tsleep becausehe
thought too muchabout his people and the future.He shoutedthat
he was a rebeland that Malianlaw could "go up theirs"'Theblacks,
they have everything,there is too much racism,we don't have any
rightsin ourown country.I drinkmuch,but I am an artist.'He spoke
thicklyand sodden, mixedwith a grittingof his teeth that was as audible as the creakingof a ships'rigging.He had an extremelymean
lookin his eyes. 'Me, I don't haveany moneybut I don'tcare.Others
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Publicand HiddenDiscourseson Fieldwork
277
are too rich,they takeeverything.I don't careabout anything.I'ma
rebeland if I die a rebelI wouldn'tcare.'He got out of his chaironly
to keel over halfway on handsand feet, as in doing stretchingexercises to touch your toes. Whiledoing this, an enormoushand grenade fell out of his breastpocket.'That'sa grenade.Me, I'ma rebel,
it's Russian[the grenade],I don't care about Mali,I do what I want',
et cetera. He fell back in his chairand I asked myself how I could
dodge an exploding hand grenade, consideringmy weak physical
state.Againhe searchedhimselften timesfor a lighter.Heopened his
handbag, rummagedthrough it, found a big hand gun, but no
lighter.He shouted hakefiou[do you have a light?]to Adamaand finallystood up to find a light for his cigarette.(Beforethat, he had
emptied half his cigaretteand filled it up with dry powderedhash.
For this joint he had found a light, and he had smoked it. I had
smelledit. 'Thatis not heroinor cocaine, it'shashish.It is not haram
[forbidden]in Islam,it is not alcohol, but I drinktoo much.') He
stayedawayfor a long time on his searchfor a light. I followed him
and found him with Ag, at whom he was scolding:'You,you are a
thief. Youtake everythinghere. I know you, you blackstake everything.' Ag had enough of it and went into his house. Mohamedfollowed him in. Nouhoumand some boy beckonedme fromthe corridor. I went towardsthem. 'He has a grenade,'they said in panic.Ag
stormedout of his house. 'That'snot normal!Yourguest there has a
grenade. That'sabsurd,you should not let people like that come
here.' Mohamedblunderedout of Ag's house, callinghim slave and
akli [slave] in both languages [Mohamedwas speakingTamasheq
mixedwith Frenchand Arabic].Ag took his motorbikeand droveoff
to the gendarmeriestation. Mohamedwalkedto the gate, we followed him. At the gate he waved a bit with his grenade.'If he [Ag]
stays here I'llbreakthis place down, I'llbreakthis place down if he
stays here.' Finally,he stumbled away .... It appears that this is not
the firsttime that Mohamedpullsthese kindsof tricks.Issouftold me
that he occasionallywaveshis gun at 'blacks.'Mohamedseems to be
mostly inspired by racism .... After he had left, I broke down. I said,
half crying,that I had not invitedhim over and that he was not my
friend.I smokedfive cigarettesthat night. just when I had given up
smoking!
This is were the diaryentryon the matterends for that day, but
some other things should be told. Ag, the man threatenedby
Mohamed,had first gone to see the gendarmerie.All gendarmesin
Kidalwereof southernMalianoriginsat the time. These had asked
whetherthe assailantwas a Tuaregor not. WhenAg said thathe was
a Tuareg,the gendarmerierefusedto intervene.Theyconsideredthe
matter"internalbusinessof local society."They could not be bothered to intervenein the eternal local quarrels.It was only when
Mohamedstartedwavinghis grenadeoutsidethe gendarmerie's
office
that they arrestedhim. After his unsuccessfulcall on the law, Ag went
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Baz Lecocq
to see Iyad ag Ghali. Iyad ag Ghali is considered one of the most powerful men in Kidal, and he is also the head of the clan to which
Mohamed belongs. Ag explained the case to Iyad, telling him to control his clansman, which Iyad promisedto do. Ag is a Tuaregof noble
origins of a dark complexion who is not from the area. Since Ag is a
stranger in Kidal, he needs protection from local powerholders, who
can prevent these sort of things from happening.
IV
Let me now explain how this event shaped my furtherresearch.After
Ag had explained his visit to lyad ag Ghali, I realized that if even a
Tuareg 'stranger' needed to place himself under direct protection, a
foreigner like myself definitely needed to do so. Before my arrival in
Kidal, I had wanted to avoid local powerholders as much as possible.
I had wanted to work with local poets, rebel songwriters, and former
lower rank rebels. Other researchershad worked enough with former
rebel leaders, I thought. But having been confronted with one of the
most famous Tuareg songwriters and lower-rankrebels the way I had
been, I started to doubt this approach. I needed to visit the mighty
and powerful after all, even if it was only to obtain protection. I
ended up spending most of my time working with these people, despite previous plans. This choice of informants can be justified in
many ways which I will not elaborate here. (It is striking, though, that
researchersnot only rationalize the events they study after they happened, they do the same with their own makeshift and impromptu behavior.) The point is that, first of all, I ended up working with them
out of personal fears.
Second, Mohamed's scolding and threats to Ag were largely inspired by racism. Despite the fact that Ag was a noble Tuareg, his
dark complexion sufficed for Mohamed to call him a "black slave."
Mohamed's perception of Mali was informed by racism too. I had
been confronted with Tuareg racism before and I had ignored it in
embarrassment.In the archives I had read reports by colonial administratorsthat overtly stated that Tuareghostility towards the southern
Malians in the 1950s was rooted in racism. I had discardedthis as colonial bias. I had read some works that gave racism as the main cause
for the Tuareg rebellions, but they had often been written by former
colonial officers. I had discarded them as neo-colonial gibberish.
Somehow, I needed Mohamed's hand grenade being waved in my face
while he was foul-mouthing about "the blacks" to bring the message
home that the Tuaregrebellion might very well have been inspired by
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PublicatndHiddenDiscourseson Fieldwork
279
racist motives. I finally decided to pay attention to this matter, which
proved interesting and rewarding. That this brings other feelings of
unease is outside the scope of this paper.
Let me now turn to less important and less dramatic events that
are nevertheless exemplary of how one's state of mind can shape research. The following is set in Bamako and antedates my stay in
Kidal. Together with a colleague, I went to visit the Maison des Anciens Combattants-the veterans' office-which representsthe veterans of the Frenchcolonial army and the Malian army.
Diary 22/01/1998
Anotherday wasted. I didn'tgo to the archives,but to the veterans'
office. That'show things go here: slow, bumpy and clumsy.The
wrong way, and sometimesthe right.It startedwell. We met the directorof the place,and sincethiscountryis so goddamnhierarchical,
and veteranseven moreso, you can only talkto those sortof guysbosses. We presentedourselvesand saidwhat we wanted.... AfterwardsI spoketo a slightlyyoungerveteran,MisterS., and I told him
that I wanted to knowmoreabout the dailylife of Maliansoldiersin
the northand such likethings.He went backinto the boss' office.He
returneda while later.He had probablyaskedand receivedpermission to speak.He told me that the commandingofficerin Kidalwas
called Diby SilasDiarra,that they builtthe firstbarracksby heating
the rockswithfire,then coolingthem down whichmade them burst,
and how they triedto gain the confidenceof the populationby cultivatingvegetablegardensand learningthe nomadshow to tend gardens by buyingtheiryields. He told about how the armycommanders acquiredmoreand morefunctions.I told him that I wouldlove to
talksome morewith him and he agreedto do so. I told him I would
be backin the afternoon.He agreed. I was there at 2 PM,he arrived
at 3PMand told me that unfortunatelysomeone had died and that I
should come back tomorrow.That was a couple of hours wasted.
Then I went to the Institutdes SciencesHumainesand missedout on
M. Back to Arreida,where I took the wrong minibus going to
Badalabougou.It only stopped afterthe bridge. Got out. Tookpicturesof the Nigerfor the sakeof it and walkedback.Endedup at Fast
food Kanda,ate some and took the minibusto Sougounikoura.Got
backhome at halfseven, a day wasted.TomorrowI'llgo backto the
veterans office, hoping that S. will be there and that he hasn't
changed his mind, hoping that I can tape the conversation.Then I'll
go to the Institutdes SciencesHumaines,and not to the Commissariatau Nord or the archives,hoping it won't be in vain. I took a
long shower and brushed my teeth for about an hour, but I still
didn'tfeel clean. I cleanedthe bathroomto have the idea that something got done today.
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Baz Lecocq
Looking back at these notes and the rest of my stay, it wasn't such a
bad day after all. I received permission to interview former Malian
soldiers who had fought against the Tuareg in 1963. I came back the
next day, had the interview,and was allowed to tape it. The interview,
especially the bit about gardening, is extremely useful in describing
the situation in the early 1960s in the Adagh n Ifoghas region, which
is the focus of my research. But since my feelings at the moment itself
were so negative, stressed as I was about the casualness of things and
the amount of time anything took, I didn't look at the interview for a
long time. The personal state of mind not only has an impact on one's
view on matters studied, it is decisive on whether or not one does see
anything in the first place, or even on whether or not one wants to see
anything at all. The next bit is also set in Bamako, but it could have
been anywhere or anyone.
Diary 05/02/1998
and it occurred
Badconscienceday. I was havinglunchat I'Expresse
to me that I had learnedbut one thing:how quicklyone acquiesces
in the idea that life isn'tfair.Howquicklyone becomes indifferentto
inequalityand misery.I never give to beggars anymore,I'm suspicious about pricesand towardsthe people I do not understand(why
do I alwaysthinkthat people take the piss out of me when I don't
understandthem, whereasthey could just as well be talkingabout
the weather?)Inshort,I'mtotallyindifferentand blindto abuse. But
then, I wasn'tanymore.I fullyrealizedthat what I was spendingon
my lunchwouldsufficefor threedaysof existence,all in, forthe average Bamakois.Then I thought of how luckyI was to have been born
a white guy in WesternEurope.Withoutwantingto be politicallycorrect to myself,it's the simpletruth.Then I realizedthat this did not
necessarilymakeme happier,psychologywise. Takefor instancethe
guy with the walkmanaroundthe corner.He alwayslooksintensely
satisfiedand happy,despitebeing black,Malianand appallinglypoor.
This could be exemplary material on how scholars think "ordinary
people," that is, non-anthropologists or scholars working outside the
West, think about Africans. And we publicly condemn it. See, for example, the introductionin CharlesPiot's Remotely Global (1999). But
then again, I was having the very same sort of thoughts and surely,
others have them too. A colleague fieldworker explained that the answer he would have most liked to give to people who were incessantly
asking him whether he would convert to Islam was: "No. And I have
all the money, and you don't, and I'm going to keep it." The dilemmas of one's attitude and thoughts in the field and in writing, as a person and as a professional; the juxtaposition of one's political correct-
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Publicand HiddenDiscourseson Fieldwork
281
ness to one's ideas in private moments, and one's personal status in
the host society, are always there. They can leave one feeling miserable about oneself both in the field and back, and this feeling has to
be accounted for. One can assume that an academic audience will be
well aware of this dilemma, having similar experiences. But an authoritatively written book (are there any other??) makes sure to conceal these dilemmas. Most do so successfully.
V
Fieldworkers are their own instruments. The idea that this self-made
instrument could be anywhere near objective is far behind us. Theories of the self as object and subject in the field, interacting with the
society under study and therefore changing that society are as commonplace as quantum physics. But, whereas a physicist might hope to
come out of the lab unchanged, a fieldworker hoping to come out of
the field without personal alterations is naive. No account of fieldwork is complete without an evaluation of one's position in the field,
remarks about method of observation, informants, power relations
between self and subject, implications of one's actions in the field and
so on. Yet the authority of one's work towards both colleagues and
the larger audience remains firmly based on the idea of the total mastery of one's field. Few anthropological monographs or histories
based on fieldwork make clear statements about the researcher'spersonal appreciations of the society under study, personal dilemmas,
and state of mind when in the field. In other words, the process of
change that the fieldworker is subjected to remains obscure in the final presentation. Many monographs make statements about self and
field in the introduction and then again somewhere in the conclusion
or epilogue. But in the middle section the changes undergone by the
author and their consequences for understandingand analysis are left
to be guessed at. One still presents oneself, if at all, as a stable factor.
Yet, accounting for personal changes is crucial for the audience to
understand the working of the self-made instrument. I have given
some examples of my own state of mind on three subjects-fear of
physical harm, anger over my own lack of acceptance of Malian
wheeling-and-dealing, and feelings of guilt and frustration over my
own functioning in and thoughts about Mali, both as a scholar and as
a person. I have tried to show how I think these subjects have implications for insights in the material gathered and the appreciation of
the phenomena under study. I could have given more examples of
other subjects that many of us are no doubt familiar with: trying to
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Baz Lecocq
live and work in temperatures between 350 C at night and 500 C in
the shade. Having to resist continuous attempts of conversion, coping
with dust, dirty water, fatigue, and dangerous creeping fauna when
venturing out of the city, et cetera. I have omitted elaborations on
these and many other nuisances for lack of space and out of fear for
being seen as unfit for my job. And it is precisely this fear that should
be overcome in order for fieldworkers to give full account of their
work.
References
Barley, N., The Innocent Anthropologist: Notes From a Mud Hut
(London, 1983).
Daniel, E., CharredLullabies (Princeton, 1996).
Geertz, C., Worksand Lives, the Anthropologistas Author (Stanford,
1988).
Gluck, S. and D. Patai, eds., Women's Words:The Feminist Practice
of Oral History (London, 1991).
Malinowski, B., A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term (London,
1967).
Narayan, K., "ParticipantObservation" in R. Behar and D. Gordon,
eds., Women WritingCulture (Berkeley,1995), 33-48.
Nordstrom, C. and A. Robben, eds., Fieldwork Under Fire (Berkeley,
1995).
Piot, C., Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa (Chicago, 1999).
Shryock, A., Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination: Oral
History and Textual Authority in TribalJordan (Berkeley,1997).
Wolf, D., ed., Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork (Boulder,1996).
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