Gendered Challenges to Fieldwork in Conflict-Affected Areas

Abstract

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, towards 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, 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 r...