Interpretation by Proxy? Interpretive Fieldwork with Local Associates in Areas of Restricted Research Access

Researching with ‘Local’ Associates: Power, Trust and Data in an Interpretive Project on Communities’ Conflict Knowledge in Myanmar

“…Overall, we developed basic trust in each other and sufficient agreement to proceed with the planned research. Room for improvement notwithstanding, '[t]he whole research team evaluated the project as a success' (Kušić 2020). Still, despite our attempts to break out of the trap of 'neocolonial domination in research' (Bishop 2005), power structures continued to frame the collaboration and generated specific individual expectations and assessments, which in turn created ever-shifting dynamics of trust and mistrust in the research interaction among and between the two 'teams'.…”

“…For example, the project took place against the background of a history of British colonial power in Burma and a global economic system in which the UK and US are donors of official development assistance (ODA), while Myanmar is among the least developed countries receiving ODA. This global hierarchy crystallised in pay levels of the different project members and the distribution of official accountability for project outcomes and finances, which lay firmly in Northern hands although the Burmese collaborators felt highly responsible for the successful implementation of the workshops including budgets (Kušić 2020). Despite the Northern researchers' active efforts to ameliorate power and work against exploitative research relationships, the questions of who would benefit (most) and how, did come up in initial conversations.…”

“…These included whether the Burmese associates were equipped to implement the workshops in line with the project's interpretivist methodology and what kind of data the collaboration would ultimately generate. The Northern researchers made a conscious choice to give up control over the research associates, which nevertheless did not entirely undo the (structural) power involved in the collaboration (Kušić 2020).…”

“…On both sides, there were also leaps of faith among the 'teams', whose members did not all know each other (well) before the project and had to come together as teams in the first place (Kušić 2020). At the same time, the general willingness to trust each other and enter into this research collaboration was intensified by the fact that getting to know each other was already embedded in trusting social relationships: the Northern researchers knew each other through conferences or previous work and one Burmese collaborator through a personal contact.…”

“…This led some of the Burmese associates to believe the Northern researchers were exploiting them as cheap labour, while some Northern researchers were reminded of other work/research contexts in which they had been confronted with local actors' attempts to raise prices for internationals. This situation created tensions not only between but also among 'teams' (Kušić 2020). It is also an illustrative example of the twodirectional flow of power involved in collaboration processes: the Northern researchers had the power of the purse, the Burmese associates the power of doing (or refusing to do) the work of data generation.…”