The Power of Ethnography: What Micro-Level Observation Reveals

• In Event: "Bringing Fieldwork Back In-" To Political Science Research

Abstract

In political science, a discipline increasingly dominated by quantitative and game theoretic methods, ethnography has come to be seen by many as little more than a form of glorified journalism. This perspective seriously underestimates the value of ethnographic research as a productive route to theory-building in political science and related disciplines. This paper will discuss how our understandings of power and contestation are expanded and deepened through ethnographic research.

First, I argue, ethnographic methods allow us to investigate how power asymmetries are reproduced – and are challenged – outside the domain of formal politics. In-depth interviews, participant observation and other ethnographic methods allow the researcher to get a feel for the social milieu of particular communities; the world-views and mixed motivations of various actors within them; and the geographic and cultural spaces – both formal and informal – in which meaning-making and network-building occurs. Such methods enable the researcher to move beyond the over-generalization and reductionism that can accompany a reliance on public opinion surveys alone. More substantively, ethnographic methods provide the researcher with the deep contextual knowledge that is necessary to establish valid causal inferences and to trace complex pathways of cause and effect over time.

Second, in-depth ethnographic research at the micro-level can serve to uncover some important dimensions of macro-level systems and dynamics of power. A central analytic question for scholars with a regional focus on Middle East and North Africa is how authoritarianism is sustained – or challenged – at the level of everyday life. As Asef Bayat acutely observed, authoritarian regimes do not persist only by ruling over their subjects from their perch at the apex of state power, but also by imbrecating themselves into the dynamics of the family, the schools, the media, religious institutions, and the workplace. At the same time, authoritarian governments lack the manpower and resources to fully control all interactions in society at large. Hence room exists for citizens to practice what Bayat calls “the art of presence”, that is, the development of alternate modes of thinking and behavior, and of alternate forms of community, which erode the underpinnings of the regime’s hegemonic project. “The art of presence” can assume a wide range of forms, encompassing individual and collective action within Islamist, socialist and/or democratic frames of reference.

Much of my own research has focused on meaning-making and solidarity-building within what I call the Islamist “parallel sector” – i.e. within Islamic institutions with some autonomy from state control. Using ethnographic methods, I examined how Islamist groups mobilized educated urban youth for “high-risk activism” in Mubarak’s Egypt. Later, I looked at how the participation of Islamist groups in electoral politics generated heated internal debates within Islamist circles about the proper goals of the movement and how best to advance them. My research, as well as that of other political ethnographers, has helped elucidate how collective challenges to authoritarian regimes emerge and unfold, and, critically, when, how and under what conditions different strands of micro-activism come together and establish the foundations for macro-protests, such as during the uprisings of the Arab Spring.

The conduct of ethnographic research in the Middle East is not for the faint-hearted. It requires Arabic, Farsi or Turkish language skills that require years of sustained effort to acquire; it demands substantial time in the field away from regular family and work responsibilities; it often entails the pursuit of research visas and clearances that are not easily obtained; and, particularly when addressed to “sensitive” topics, can place the researcher at risk of deportation, imprisonment and/or bodily harm, as the recent disappearance and murder of Italian Ph.D. candidate Guilio Regeni in Egypt so tragically attests. In addition, it requires deftness and tact, for ethnographic researchers need to navigate an alien environment and forge relations of trust with strangers who might understandably question their identity and motives. Lastly, it requires patience, tenacity and resilience, as the logistical and political obstacles to be overcome are many and the likelihood of setbacks and disappointments is high.

For those willing to embrace such difficulties, however, ethnographic research offers a personally fulfilling means to contribute to knowledge-building and theory-generation in the social sciences. In particular, it can enable scholars to gain a deeper, richer and more nuanced understanding of the micro-dynamics of power-reproduction and contestation, as well as of the ways in which they connect with macro processes of social and political continuity and change.

Author

• Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, Emory University