Abstract
This chapter situates the nexus between reflexivity and fieldwork through autoethnographic analysis. Specifically, drawing on psychoanalytic and postcolonial thought, this chapter utilizes introspective data from field research conducted in the occupied Palestinian territories to explore how Qalandiya—a neo-colonial militarized border crossing between Jerusalem, Israel and the West Bank’s twin cities of Ramallah and al-Bireh—came to significantly alter the researcher’s conceptions of self and Other. Drawing on first-hand experiences at Qalandiya—reconstructed through monologue style voice recordings, emails with colleagues, telephone conversations, personal diary entries, and memory—this chapter illuminates the discursive impact the field has upon the researcher’s self. Finally, this chapter concludes with a discussion of the ontological, the epistemological, and the ethical implications of pursuing research at neo-colonial sites in organization studies.
This chapter was originally published as: Prasad, A. (2014). You can’t go home again: And other psychoanalytic lessons from crossing a neo-colonial border. Human Relations, 67(2), 233–257.
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Notes
- 1.
The research project in question was for my dissertation, which explored how entrepreneurs engage in strategizing in the context of extreme institutional voids (see Alvi, Prasad, & Segarra, in press; Khoury & Prasad, 2016). The scope of the research project is not directly relevant to this chapter; as such, I will not be discussing it in any additional detail. It is important to note, however, that given that the project required me to examine a geographical region that is marked by extreme institutional voids, I ultimately selected Palestine/Israel as my site for empirical study. A chapter of this scope could not have come to fruition without situating my self, as the researcher, within the social context of this site.
- 2.
It ought to be underscored that, for Nandy, both the colonized and the colonizer are victims of the imperialist project. The process of dehumanizing the colonized subject is perhaps the most insidious of the outcomes that is cast upon the colonizer.
- 3.
I was so amazed by the border crossing that, in one of my initial encounters with it, I tried to document Qalandiya pictorially with my digital camera. Before I could capture a single shot, an assertive voice on the loudspeaker declared that no pictures are to be taken and I must put my camera away immediately.
- 4.
Prior to commencing my fieldwork, I had read Daphne Patai’s (1987) article on the ethical implications of using personal narratives in academic scholarship. While I appreciated and understood, at least at the conceptual level, the ethical considerations for pursuing empirical research that draws on personal stories, and while I had developed my own position on the matter—that is, I strongly believed, prior to moving to Palestine/Israel, that scholars’ principal responsibility is that they do not inflict undue harm onto their research participants—it was not until I arrived in the field that I began to struggle with ethical questions pertaining to the relationship between the researcher and the researched.
- 5.
Interestingly, upon his release from custody, Samir appears to internalize the terrorism he experienced in detainment and he projects it externally onto symbols of authority. For instance, in one scene following his release, Samir walks with his girlfriend in the park and he crosses paths with two police officers. Upon seeing the officers, Samir appears visibly anxious and traumatized and stops in his tracks until his girlfriend takes his hand in hers and provides him with the emotional strength necessary to continue.
- 6.
Critical researchers in the field have made great strides in integrating psychoanalytic thought and reflexivity into organizational analyses; however, the analytical link between the two has been largely overlooked. While some scholars might claim that reflexivity is embedded ontologically within psychoanalysis, therein requiring no further explication, a lucid appraisal of the relationship between the two ideas is potentially very beneficial for organization researchers.
- 7.
It ought to be noted that discussions concerning reflexivity have often included the influential works of Pierre Bourdieu (e.g., Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2009), which I purposely do not engage with in this essay. Loïc Wacquant explains: “Bourdieu’s brand of reflexivity, which may be cursorily defined as the inclusion of a theory of intellectual practice as an integral component of society, differs from others [definition of reflexivity] in three crucial ways. First, its primary target is not the individual analyst but the social and intellectual unconscious embedded in analytic tools and operations; second, it must be a collective enterprise rather than the burden of the lone academic; and, third, it seeks not to assault but to buttress the epistemological security of sociology.” Hence, for Bourdieu, reflexivity is part of a broader project that “aims at increasing the scope and solidity of social scientific knowledge” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, pp. 36–37, emphasis in original). While this definition is useful in offering holistic accounts of reflexivity, which Alvesson and Skoldberg (2009) and others provide, for this chapter, I purposefully limit my consideration of reflexivity to understanding the dialectical relationship between the researcher and the researched.
- 8.
While I reject the notion of objectivity, I was partly inspired by Deepa Mehta’s movie Earth (1998) in selecting Israel/Palestine as the site for my research project. Earth uses the perspective of a Parsi child to examine the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into the Hindu-dominated India and the Muslim-dominated Pakistan (Ansari, 1999). A Parsi perspective is especially interesting, as this group ‘[has] a unique position in Indian history for being neutral, not taking sides in religious and political struggles’ (Ansari, 1999). Through the lens of someone who is Parsi, the contradictions, the dilemmas, and the politics of the partition become especially lucid. I was hoping to achieve a similar outcome by conducting my research in Israel/Palestine, instead of a location to which I had strong ties.
- 9.
In this experience, I may have been exhibiting counter-transference, as described by Georges Devereux (1967). Devereux transported the idea of counter-transference from the clinical setting to describe how social science researchers can be profoundly affected by their experience in the data collection process. Given the intimacy with which researchers engage with fieldwork, this has particular relevance for ethnographic research.
- 10.
Taking a postcolonial interpretation, which is perhaps the most relevant here, the Other is a denigrated socio-political category that is intrinsic to the Orientalist discourse (Said, 1979). Orientalism informs the ideological bifurcation of Western and non-Western cultures and “[invites] the West to control, contain, and otherwise govern (through superior knowledge and accommodating power) the Other” (Said, 1979, p. 48; for an excellent overview on Orientalism and its application in organization studies, see Frenkel & Shenhav, 2006). Said’s (1979) text is replete with examples of Orientalism and Othering in modern history. One example, which is interesting contextually for this chapter, is Rabinowitz’s (2002) critical appraisal of early Israeli anthropology. In it, Rabinowitz (2002, p. 320) concludes that first-generation Israeli anthropologists’ “implicit adherence to certain segments of Zionism ideology and rationalization…prevented them from using their empathy and first hand acquaintance with Palestinians, their insight into the hardships of Palestinian daily life and their comprehension of the stress associated with being Palestinian inside Israel to produce a meaningful critique of Israeli sociology.” This case suggests how affixation with a particular ideology can engender Orientalism and can reify the Othering phenomenon.
- 11.
Interestingly, in each of these examples, the scholars appear to be writing within the broad discourse of feminist theory. As such, gender is central across these narrative discussions. There is surprisingly very little work adopting such genres of writing outside of feminist scholarship. I extend this discussion in Chapter 4.
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Prasad, A. (2019). Autoethnography at Qalandiya. In: Autoethnography and Organization Research. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05099-3_2
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