Navigating an inconvenient difference in antagonistic contexts: Doing fieldwork in Aceh, Indonesia

Abstract

This article discusses the challenges of doing fieldwork in an antagonistic context. Such an antagonistic context can emerge when a non-Muslim researcher conducts fieldwork in a Muslim country that experiences humanitarian intervention and reconstruction efforts after natural disasters or the end of conflict. This particular setting can create a conflation of Islamic and Western (liberal) values while a political settlement is about to be consolidated. The case discussed in this article is located in the province of Aceh in Indonesia, where a political settlement of a conflict which lasted more than 25 years converged with a massive influx of foreign aid for disaster mitigation vis-à-vis the desire to apply Islamic Law (shari'a). The combined effects of reconstruction efforts and political and armed conflict, forged a problematic co-presence of Western and non-Western values, which affected the relations between the (Western) researcher and (non-Western) researched by creating tension or even hostility between the two. The article argues that methodological dilemmas stemming from such a setting require a relational approach drawing on empathy, sameness and the personal, thereby taking into account emotions when conducting fieldwork. For this particular case I suggest an approach based on teamwork crossing cultures and gender among the research team members. To deal with constraints in such a setting, the article proposes to contextualize any potential difference between the researcher and researched, and to explore various relational elements drawing on psychoanalytical approaches and/or cross-cultural positioning through and in teamwork

Islam, legal geography and methodological challenges in Indonesia

“…In the following, I situate positionality in the context of cultural and social protocols and present how I dealt with it through my organisation of the fieldwork, which included a combination of different sources or "multi-sited fieldwork" (Braverman 2014;Bennett & Layard 2015). Such multi-sited fieldwork aims to balance any positionality in a non-Western setting (Gillespie 2016, and see Chapter 2 of this collection) different avenues of research, and seeks to both avoid relying one-sidedly on known and like-minded contacts alone, and respond to the "politics of Islamic law" (Hussin 2016, p.15) Positionality in religious contexts has long been, and continues to be, both a sensitive and politically significant topic in Indonesia (Schenk 2013). Consequently, research on the Muslim judiciary and on the role of religion in political processes or how religion inf luences the course of everyday life, needs to pay attention to social and cultural expectations and protocols (e.g.…”

“…In the third section, I present possibilities for ways of carrying out research where legal geography and Islam are at stake. In so doing, I build on the argument that positionality is crucial in ethically sensitive contexts and requires a collaborative research approach that includes different positionalities and thus responds to different expectations and opinions (Schenk 2013). Here I extend this argument by highlighting how engagement with the Muslim judiciary inf luences, and is inf luenced by, the researchers' and the participants' positionalities, and take account of the different positionalities of the researchers involved.…”

Post-disaster research: Is there gold worth the rush?

“…Nonetheless, one may wonder whether it is appropriate for outsiders less familiar with the affected places, who may lack prior cultural and language skills, to converge upon places where people are struggling to rebuild their lives and livelihoods, and have other priorities than answering questions about the recent events (Schenk 2013 ). Ethically these outside researchers may sit on the fence, as suggested in the larger field of development studies (Cooke 2004 ; Sidaway 1992 ).…”