New Series Published: ‘Fieldwork in the Global South: Methodology, Agency, and Care’
As part of a series of six articles, the guest editors discuss intimacy, care, local politics, and institutional requirement while conducting fieldwork-based research in the regions they call home.
Acknowledgements: This thread is part of the ERC StG 2019 TAKHAYYUL Project (853230). We would like to thank the editorial assistants M Zişan Köker and Hazal Aydın, and those who participated in this conversation, including Ala’a Shehabi, Hannah Sender, Yuan He, Elena Kucherenko, Gulnar Hasnain, Nicki Kindersley and Natalie Garland. We also thank the reviewers of individual papers and the editors of Allegra Lab, Till Mostowlansky and Faduma Abukar Mursal.
Articles first published and made available on Allegra Lab.
Individual articles and entries:
Introduction: Conducting Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Global South by Fatemeh Sadeghi and Sertaç Sehlikoglu (eds.)
The Transformative Potential of Intimacy: Turkish Coffee Talk and Ethnographic Listening by Hazal Aydin
On Commitment by Mezna Qato
The Ethics of Researching the Far-Right in the Global South by Sumrin Kalia
Street Books in Tehran: Collective Mentality and Decolonizing Research Engagement by Fatemeh Sadeghi
Ethics without the Ethics: The Institutionalized Committees and the Question of Integrity by Sertaç Sehlikoglu
Introduction: Conducting Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Global South
by Sertaç Sehlikoglu
Conducting field research in the Global South comes with its own challenges in various stages: pre-field, during fieldwork, and post-fieldwork. This thread contributes to the existing and somewhat frayed topic from the perspective of native scholars; simply put, those whose expertise aligns with the geography they grew up in. Instead of repeating the old and deeply Eurocentric insider/outsider dichotomy, we bring in the unique strengths and challenges such positionality entails in methodology: intimacy, care, complex relations with local politics, and vis-a-vis institutional bureaucracies including the academy itself, university as an establishment, diverse funding bodies, and ethics review boards. The combination of nativeness and the Global South (in our cases Pakistan, Palestine, Iran, and Turkey) creates unique dynamics for ethnographic fieldwork and, in our view, necessitates a separate conversation.
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The Transformative Potential of Intimacy: Turkish Coffee Talk and Ethnographic Listening
by Hazal Aydin
Until the fairly recent turn towards therapy and mental health of educated middle classes in Turkey, talking with one’s neighbor, family, or friend substituted what people seek out in therapy today and continues to do so like in many other places. One of the indispensable components of these therapeutic conversations, perhaps alongside when smoking a cigarette, has been those held around Turkish coffee. Turkish coffee talk (Türk kahvesi muhabbeti) is one of the simplest and most mundane ways of forming intimacies: drinking Turkish coffee and sharing whatever is weighing one’s heart to find compassion and relief. The ethnographic research in the context of Turkey and the intimacy of the relationship that is formed between the researcher and the interlocutor resembles the dynamics of Turkish coffee talk. There is nothing inherently Turkish about this form of conversation, nor is it limited to the boundaries of the nation-state. However, therapeutic relationality emerging with the Turkish coffee talk pushes me to think about the possibilities intimacy generates in ethnographic research, as well as the emotional and ethical challenges it poses for the ethnographer. Drawing from my ethnography with theatre industry workers in Turkey in 2020 and Uzbek women care workers in Turkey in 2021, I will discuss the importance of building samimiyet (genuineness/intimacy) with our interlocutors, how listening carefully contributes to that, and how that space of intimacy can be fruitful for ethnography while also creating emotional and ethical dilemmas for the researcher.
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An audio note on Commitment
by Mezna Qato
“We have to sit with the structural inequality of our work, and not try to dance around the obligation of asking how we should mitigate its harms. How do we use ourselves to forge, for all of us, better conditions of life?”
The Ethics of Researching the Far-Right in the Global South
by Sumrin Kalia
It was a hot sweltering Sunday afternoon in the bustling city of Karachi. I had come to the Bahar-e-Shariat mosque for ethnographic data collection for my research on Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan. Tehreek-e-Labbaik is an Islamist political party that has pursued an extremist, violent anti-blasphemy politics under the banner of “Sanctity of Prophethood.” It consolidated as a party in 2017 and participated in the 2018 elections in which it emerged as the 6th largest party and managed to win two provincial assembly seats. The party’s rapid emergence and success have come as a surprise to many in Pakistan.
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Street Books in Tehran: Collective Mentality and Decolonizing Research Engagement
by Fatemeh Sadeghi
“ Street books possess an aura, making them special and different from the books of the bookstores, which are primarily cultural commodities. As soon as they are on the streets, especially on Enghelab Street, they become political.”
Wandering through the central streets of Tehran, you will invariably come across the ubiquitous street booksellers and their stalls. As you approach the city center, particularly along Enqelab Street (Khiaban-e Enghelab) near the University of Tehran, their numbers multiply. Enqelab Street carries heavy memories of some heated political and historical moments in contemporary Iran. In quieter times, however, it is the hub for street booksellers, offering a vast array of reading materials. The variety of books available is astounding, ranging from officially licensed publications to censored, prohibited, and underground books, which are copied and distributed secretly. In some instances, you might find books that are readily available in the neighboring bookstores, but there is a stark difference between them. Street books possess an aura, making them special and different from the books of the bookstores, which are primarily cultural commodities. As soon as they are on the streets, especially on Enghelab Street, they become political.
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Ethics without the Ethics: The Institutionalized Committees and the Question of Integrity
by Sertaç Sehlikoglu
I would like to use this opportunity to reflect on the long journey of ethics that I, as the PI of a project taking place in eleven non-European countries, dealt with over several years. I raise the multiple challenges that emerged in the bureaucratic process in relation to politics of knowledge-making as native scholars. By native scholars, I do not aim to discuss nativeness – which is addressed in this collection by Mezna Qato. Instead, by using the term, I simply refer to the scholars whose expertise aligns with the geography they grew up in and the complexities this brings to the operations of ethics bureaucracies.
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