For ‘emotional fieldwork’ in critical geopolitical research on violence and terrorism

doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2012.11.007

Political Geography

Volume 33, March 2013, Pages 31-41

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2012.11.007 Get rights and content

Abstract

In recent years, there have been exhortations for scholars working in the area of critical geopolitics to be more committed in initiating ‘primary fieldwork’. These appeals are predicated on the belief that the subdiscipline's apparent over-reliance on secondary (re)sources neglect the ways in which political processes and dynamics ‘play out’ on the ground. Not denying the validity of such observations, I further argue that critical geopolitics needs to take into account the fieldwork process which can arguably shape the progression and outcomes of research. Drawing on my ‘field’ research on violence and terrorism in the Philippines, I propose that thinking critically about how emotions are intertwined in the conduct of fieldwork can provide a pathway to appreciate the unpredictable nature of the research process and the wider contexts/agencies that shape research outcomes and knowledges produced. Crucially, the witnessing of violence/terror is emotionally demanding, often bequeathing the researcher with fully embodied experiences of the ‘real’ situation on the ground. It opens up the researcher to different emotional engagements and connections with his/her respondents, which in turn allows for critical reassessments of issues pertaining to danger, ethics and responsibility. In this sense, ‘emotional fieldwork’, as I term it, has much to offer to critical geopolitics if incorporated as part of the subdiscipline's methodological consciousness. It not only provides researchers with useful navigational guidelines to traverse the tricky research terrains of working in ‘dangerous’, conflict-plagued regions but it also provides the basis for weaving more accurate and situated narratives that complements and advances deconstructivist critiques of dominant geopolitical discourses in and around certain locales.

Highlights

► Critical Geopolitics needs to take into account the emotional dynamics arising from fieldwork. ► ‘Emotional Fieldwork’ provides a pathway to appreciate the unpredictable nature of the research process.► ‘Emotional fieldwork’ in violent settings repositions issues of danger, ethics and responsibility.

Introduction

Section snippets

Field diary: emotions in violence and terrorism research

In recent years, geographers have engaged in strong pleas for primary ‘field’ research to be embraced as one of the core pathways in the ‘doing’ of critical geopolitics (Dowler & Sharp, 2001; Hyndman, 2003, 2004; Megoran, 2006; Sparke, 2005). The genesis for such appeals can be attributed to the subdiscipline's apparent over-reliance on secondary accounts for empirical data (re)source (see e.g. Ó Tuathail, 1996 for his work on Bosnia and Berg, 2000 for work on Estonia/Russia). This in turn

The doing of research: emotions in violence and terrorism research

In recent years, geographers have been increasingly cognizant of the emotional dynamics that are transpired through the doing of fieldwork (Davidson, Bondi, & Smith, 2005; Laurier & Parr, 1999; Parr, 2006; Widdowfield, 2000). Such a trend cannot be divorced from the view that emotionality is no longer deemed as obstructing the advancement of scientific inquiry, an irrelevant state of being that is apart from and counter to knowledge production (see Bondi, 2005; Bondi et al., 2005). Rather,

Violence and terrorism in the Philippines

Before going into a concerted discussion about how emotions are closely intertwined with the conduct of violence research, this section will provide a brief background to the empirical study in which this paper is premised upon. My interest in terror and violence in the Philippines stems from the widespread exhortations that terrorism in the country's southern island of Mindanao (see Fig. 1) constitutes one of the most potent risks to the security of Southeast Asia. Acting US ambassador to the

Situating risk and safety in Mindanao: terrorism or state neglect?

Any research related to terrorism and violence has to put issues of risk and safety at the heart of discussions, claims political scientist Raymond Lee (1995). Rather than routinely select themselves out of potentially hazardous studies, Lee goes on to argue that researchers should evaluate explicitly the possibility of danger, its potential sources and how it might be managed or exacerbated by particular actions. Careful, objective management seems to be the key in Lee's conceptions; emotions

Field diary on risk and safety in Mindano

The above narration is a clear illumination (upon reflection) of the critical disjuncture between my preconceived trepidations of risks and safety and my embodied experiences of such emotions. Throughout the course of my fieldwork, the death threats of bombs and kidnaps remained elusive, forming part of extraordinary circumstances rather than the mundane everyday encounters. Conversely, the fear of getting into a road-related accident was very ‘real’ and even debilitating at times. Indeed,

Lived encounters with violence: from detached to embodied methodologies

Insofar as the perceptual guides material actions, my prior imag(in)ings of risks and safety in Mindanao shaped my intended choice of methodologies and reactionary strategies. Although part of my aim is to intervene in the sweeping generalizations proffered by the discourse of terrorism in the Philippines through grounded, in-depth interrogations of local communities' aspirations for peace, I was reticent about immersing in the field for a substantial period of time (more than 6 months) for the

Field diary on violence and bodies: witnessing terror

Excerpt from Field Diary
Date: 23 February 2009
I had a friend, Felix, in the community who was introduced to me by a respondent I interviewed in the earlier part of the year. Felix is a fun and life-affirming man, who loved life, parties and his fellow human beings. The reason why I grew so close to him was that he always seems to have the ability to ease the tragedies of violence for me, through his laughter and his positive attitude towards life. I could talk to him about the war in Mindanao

Field diary on violence and bodies: a failed friendship

The first vignette captures the unsettling story shrouding over the hanging body of a familial—not only butchered but exposed—which presents a powerful statement on death, (in)dignity and the nature of human existence. It can be seen that my interactions with Issa are intimately and geographically entangled, an intimacy and emotionality that is perhaps not adequately captured by the ethical framing of “normative interventions” as “caring from a distance” (Barnett, 2005; Silk, 2004). Images and

Conclusion

Excerpt from Field Diary
Date: 20 March 2009
Today I passed by a rubbish dump and managed to talk to a group of children there. They were digging for (in their words) “treasures”—essentially papers, cans and refuse—in hope of selling them or exchanging them for food. I asked one girl if she was from the area. She nodded in a way that caught my immediate attention: It struck me from her expression that she might thought back to the time of the devastating fighting that had reduced her province

Field diary: emotions in the research process

This final vignette reproduced from my field diary arguably epitomizes the essence of this paper—my unintended interactions with the group of children, the unexpected witnessing of ‘terror’ and violence through the ‘face of the other’ (Levinas, 1961) and the collapse of emotional distance between me and the little girl are clear manifestations of the messiness of research. Indeed, as argued throughout this paper, the doing of violence and terrorism research forces the researcher to confront the

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For ‘emotional fieldwork’ in critical geopolitical research on violence and terrorism

Abstract

Highlights

Introduction

Section snippets

Field diary: emotions in violence and terrorism research

The doing of research: emotions in violence and terrorism research

Violence and terrorism in the Philippines

Situating risk and safety in Mindanao: terrorism or state neglect?

Field diary on risk and safety in Mindano

Lived encounters with violence: from detached to embodied methodologies

Field diary on violence and bodies: witnessing terror

Field diary on violence and bodies: a failed friendship

Conclusion

Field diary: emotions in the research process

Emotion, Space and Society

Emotion, Space and Society

Political Geography

Geoforum

Women's Studies International Forum

Political Geography

Geoforum

Political Geography

Emotion, Space and Society

Geoforum

The cultural politics of emotions

Ways of relating: Hospitality and the acknowledgement of otherness

Progress in Human Geography

De-constructing border practices in the Estonian–Russian borderland

Geopolitics

Making connections and thinking through emotions: Between geography and psychotherapy

Transaction of the Institute of British Geographers

Fear and the familial in the US war on terror

Gender and critical geopolitics: Reading security discourse in the new world order

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

Imperialism, domination, culture: The continued relevance of critical geopolitics

Geopolitics

The act of witnessing: Violence, poisonous knowledge and subjectivity

Emotional geographies

Fieldwork in trenches: Participant observation in a conflict area

A feminist geopolitics?

Space and Polity

Getting personal: Reflexivity, positionality and feminist research

The Professional Geographer

The divine kingship of the Shulluk of the Nilotic Sudan

Formations of violence: The narrative of the body and political terror in Northern Ireland

Ethnographic states of emergency

Taking Butler elsewhere: Performativities, spatialities and subjectivities

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

Danger, fulfillment, and responsibility in a violence-plagued society

The Geographical Review

Young Muslim men’s experiences of local landscapes after September 11 2001

The issue of masculine identities for British Muslims after 9/11: A social analysis

(Young) men with big guns: Reflexive encounters with violence and youth in El Salvador

Bulletin of Latin American Research

Beyond either/or: A feminist analysis of September 11th

ACME

Global traumas and public feelings: Viewing images of catastrophe

Consumption Markets and Culture

Banal terrorism: Spatial fetishism and everyday insecurity

A critique of critical geopolitics

Geopolitics

Bearing witness or the vicissitudes of listening