Rumours, fears and solidarity in fieldwork in times of political turmoil on the verge of war in Southern Yemen

Abstract

ABSTRACTMy fieldwork took place in Southern Yemen at a time when this region was marked by insecurity, prosecutions and detentions. As a fieldworker, I was challenged by a context best described as political turmoil on the verge of war. The fact that my paternal family lives in Southern Yemen facilitated access to the field, but also complicated the fieldwork experience, as I found myself closely bound to the society I was trying to understand and to the politics at play. My position as an involved outsider and a temporal insider [cf. Hermann, T. (2001). The impermeable identity wall: The study of violent conflicts by ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. In M. Smyth & G. Robinson (Eds.), Researching violently divided societies: Ethical and methodological issues (pp. 77–91). London: Pluto Press., p. 79] defined the scope of my research on Southern Yemen and the Southern Movement. Using an autoethnographic approach, and based on three personal experiences from my visits and fieldwork in Southern Yemen in recent years, this article describes, reflects and analyses how rumours, fear and solidarity in a dangerous fieldwork setting affected my position as researcher, the choice of my research topic, access to the field and acquisition of data.