Abstract
This chapter presents an overview of the applied methodology and the empirical basis of this book. It deals with the challenges of fieldwork in times of turmoil related to the Arab revolutions in Egypt and Libya and the subsequent civil war in Libya. The chapter highlights the merits of participant participation based on trust, reliability and confidentiality.
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- 1.
My research has been part of two research projects funded by the German Research Association (DFG) and one international research network funded by the European Science Fund (2008–2013). These projects were and are far more than sources of funding. They served as the central platform for academic exchange, which was the basis for the applied methodology and the improvement of my approach. Between 2007 and 2010, my research on Awlad ‘Ali politics in the borderland was part of the project titled “Emerging Forms of Non-state Rule in African Borderlands” headed by Georg Klute. Between 2010 and 2012, I worked on the project titled “African Political Cultures: A Comparative Study in Guinea-Bissau, Libya, South Africa and Zambia” (with Georg Klute, Trutz von Trotha, Elisio Macamo and Mario Krämer). The project was part of the “Adaptation and Creativity in Africa, Technologies and Significations in the Production of Order and Disorder” research center of the DFG. The co-founding of the African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE, http://www.aborne.org) was a starting point for the internationalization of my work, and the Network has enriched my research with the comparative perspective of other researchers. In 2017, I was granted a position as research fellow on the project titled “Political Orders in the Making: a Comparative Study of Emerging Forms of Political Organization from Libya to Northern Mali” (with Georg Klute, Dida Badi and Amal Obeidi), also funded by the DFG.
- 2.
One exception is Claudia Gazzini of the Libya Crisis Group (https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/libya), who has never stopped carrying out research all around Libya, even in the most dangerous places.
- 3.
At their request I will not mention their names here.
- 4.
See “Ethikerklärung der DGV,” Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde, last modified 2016, https://www.dgv-net.de/dgv/ethik/.
- 5.
See David Price, “Anthropologists as Spies,” The Nation., November 2, 2000, https://www.thenation.com/article/anthropologists-spies/.
- 6.
“Past AAA Statements on Ethics,” American Anthropological Association, accessed March 1, 2018, http://www.americananthro.org/ParticipateAndAdvocate/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=1656.
- 7.
See “Ethikerklärung der DGV,” Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde, last modified 2016, https://www.dgv-net.de/dgv/ethik/.
- 8.
In contrast to what would have happened to an East German researcher at the time of socialist rule, the BND accepted my choice and never bothered me again.
- 9.
See Georg Elwert, “Kulturbegriffe und Entwicklungspolitik - über „soziokulturelle Bedingung der Entwicklung“,” in Kulturen und Innovationen, Festschrift für Wolfgang Rudolf, eds. Georg Elwert, Jürgen Jensen and Ivan Korth (Berlin: Dunker & Humblot, 1996), 56ff.
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Hüsken, T. (2019). Research in Times of Turmoil and the Merits of Participant Observation. In: Tribal Politics in the Borderland of Egypt and Libya. Palgrave Series in African Borderlands Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92342-0_2
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