Data, disasters and disquietude in ethnography: learning by trial and error how to behave like a civil servant in Malawi

Abstract

PurposeIn this article, I answer the call to normalize and discuss how ethnographers navigate failure in the field by sharing my own experiences from long-term fieldwork in Malawi. I highlight, particularly, my own struggles with feelings of failure and the role of my interlocutors in helping me navigate and understand these situations.Design/methodology/approachMy argument is based on more than 18 months of ongoing in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in Malawi, where I study the everyday practices of civil servants active in disaster governance, focusing on those working for the Malawi Government Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DODMA).FindingsI use ethnographic vignettes to show how my interlocutors tried to teach me what being a Malawian civil servant is all about, which often came most forcefully to the fore in moments where either I or they deemed that I had failed to behave like one.Originality/valueThis adds new empirical data to the discussions on the various manifestations and roles of failure in ethnographic research, underlining how frictions and feelings of failure are a difficult yet productive and central part of fieldwork and ethnographic data creation.