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International
Journal of Political Science and Development |
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International Journal of Political Science and Development Vol. 2(1), pp. 12 –19, January, 2014 ISSN: 2360-784X ©2014 Academic Research Journals Review Exploring “Familiar” Spaces in Feminist Ethnographic Fieldwork: Critical Reflections of Fieldwork Experience in Gurage, Ethiopia
Tigist Shewarega Hussen
Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. Email: Tgye.shewarega@gmail.com
Accepted 9 February 2014
The roles
researchers play during fieldwork significantly influences the
research process and ultimately its outcome. However, the
researcher’s agency and subjectivity within the seemingly clear
divide between “insider” and “outsider” positionalities are
extremely complicated. In this study, I focus on my recent work on
cultural marital conflict resolution among the Gurage in Ethiopia,
where I explore some challenges of working in “familiar” yet strange
spaces in feminist ethnographic fieldwork. The Gurage ethnic group
is located in the southern part of Ethiopia. In this article, I will
critically reflect on my fieldwork experience through the spectacles
of “theory of performance” within two broader contexts that have
been examined by different scholars using various different theories
and fieldwork strategies. The first I call “cautious social
performance”, connected with the way I negotiated my identity as a
researcher while at the same time retaining my own identity as a
Gurage woman during fieldwork. The second is “academic performance”,
in which I try to understand the discrepancy between what is
academically required of me to have a proposal accepted by the
Faculty of Arts and what performance is expected of me as a
researcher in the fieldwork in Gurage community. |
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