PAUL STANILAND
▶ FIELDWORK LOCATIONS: INDIA, SRI LANKA, SINGAPORE, THAILAND, MYANMAR, NORTHERN IRELAND
I’m a walker, and always have been. When I go to a new city, I get situated in my hotel or apartment and then immediately head out the door. This is a straightforward approach in Paris or New York; it can be a bit more complex in Srinagar, Yangon, or Belfast. Yet it has retained its appeal across fieldwork cities, in part out of a natural distractibility and restlessness; in part out of the loneliness that accompanies arriving in a new place; and in part out of a desire to avoid the haggling and hassles of finding someone to drive me to a destination of which I ultimately am not even sure.
But in large part I walk because it teaches me important things every time. The usual plan is to take a real paper map or guidebook and come up with a very rough goal—some tourist site or prominent attraction as a starting point. Walking is often supplemented by public transportation or a taxi/auto-rickshaw—Delhi, Bangkok, and Singapore, for instance, are sprawling cities with often prohibitive heat that makes walking everywhere a death wish.
Regardless of the precise way I get to where I want to walk, a certain sense of wandering is essential, unlike a trip for a meeting or interview for which the duration and target are clearly set. In recent years, a smartphone has become a valuable companion to a paper map, especially in places where formal maps are hazy guides to reality. A bottle of water, a snack, a book (paper or an ebook), digital camera, a local newspaper or two, and some pickpocket-proofed cash come along. The same black Timbuktu messenger bag has accompanied me on every trip into the field since 2010; respectable enough for taking to interviews but durable enough for dust, rain, and rides in auto-rickshaws.
What does this give me, beyond something to do? In this chapter, I outline four benefits of fieldwork by foot: (1) understanding the lived experiences of war, (2) seeing how social and political cleavages manifest themselves on the ground, (3) identifying questions and puzzles as an outsider, and (4) learning to benefit from getting lost. The first two are specific to conflict environments; the third and fourth are more broadly valuable regardless of location.
THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF CONFLICT
Walking makes clear the lived experience of people in an environment of war. In Colombo, Sri Lanka, at the height of the war with the Tamil Tigers (LTTE), barricades lined many streets, SMS alerts would occasionally let me know about bombs and security threats, security screening checkpoints were common, and armed police and soldiers on the streets were visible on every trip. A think tank I was affiliated with was on one of the common routes of the president’s motorcade, and I spent many an afternoon commute home dripping with sweat waiting for streets to be reopened as members of the security forces kept vigil.
Srinagar, in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, presented an even starker geography of conflict. In Colombo, the majority of the population could not plausibly be supporters of the LTTE—it was the Tamil minority that occupied the focus of the security forces. In Srinagar, in contrast, the majority of the population was potentially rebellious, creating a wider suspicion and more pervasive tension. Shutdowns and occasional militant attacks combined with massive levels of state security presence to create an urban environment dotted with checkpoints, fortified outposts, loitering police and paramilitaries, and Army and Home Affairs truck columns rumbling through the narrow, crowded streets. This became even more apparent on several occasions when I was in Srinagar for hartals—the shutdowns called for by separatist leaders that left the security forces as the primary population out on the streets.
Amid these smoggy displays of insecurity was the curious alternative world of Kashmir’s tourism industry, with street vendors and houseboat operators seeking to win the cash of visitors. The two could never be separated, however; even along tourist-centric Dal Lake, security posts and Central Reserve Police Force detachments were inescapable.
In all of these contexts I was something of an irrelevance. Because I represented no security threat, I never felt the harsh glare of the state directly on me, making my experience very much unlike the lived experiences of the local population. But just navigating and keeping an eye on the visible manifestations of conflict created a visceral feeling of claustrophobia and uncertainty, even in me. The standard hassles of traffic, uneven sidewalks, stray dogs, and finding the next bathroom had layered atop them a set of constant low-level calculations. Where was I allowed to go? Where might a bombing or shooting, however rare, be most likely? Should I keep a distance from the security forces in case they were a target? Should I smile at checkpoints or look serious? What could I take photos of without getting in trouble? What kinds of documentation should I keep with me at all times, even when just out for a stroll? What would I do if there was a security incident?
I grew to be a jaunty, often wildly out of place, walker skirting around barbed wire with a messenger bag over my shoulder, both pretending a certain cluelessness and showing an all-too-genuine cluelessness in my interactions with the written and unwritten rules around me. It provided a glimmer of insight—admittedly still very distant—of what daily life must be like in these areas, and the frustrations and fears that accompany war.
By contrast, my fieldwork in Nagaland was primarily by car—long, bumpy rides through gorgeous but distant hills when not stuck in grinding traffic jams in India’s Kohima and Dimapur, staying in a hotel on the outskirts of town, and seeing the sun set early every night. I never got a feel for the day-to-day of the place that I did in other places. I was on the same roads as the Army convoys, saw the Assam Rifles signs on the side of the road, and glimpsed police out of my car window, but I felt much more like an insulated researcher-tourist than a participant in anything approaching real life.
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CLEAVAGES ON THE GROUND
Along with the security infrastructure in conflict zones, social cleavages become most visible when at ground level. Northern Ireland was my first conflict field site, and it was a remarkably walkable and accessible one as they go. I still remember with extraordinary detail my first walks through Belfast neighborhoods such as Sandy Row and ethnic interfaces along Donegall Pass. Later wanderings took me into various other neighborhoods all over the city. Although there was a security infrastructure of walls and cameras, it did not rival the active militarization of other conflict zones.
Instead, the challenge was knowing the political and social meaning of where I was—was this a Protestant neighborhood? Catholic? Neither, like downtown and South Belfast? Where was I going, and would I be getting myself into trouble by crossing from one neighborhood into another? In some places these were not issues, but in others they most certainly were, and I knew enough to know that I didn’t know which was which. North Belfast was the hardest to navigate, with its bricolage of small ethnically defined neighborhoods, and I spent the least amount of time there. Urban ethnic segregation brought home a core reality of modern Northern Ireland—even if peace largely prevails, political cleavages map onto everyday life in an unavoidable and stark way. I was in Belfast for parts of two “marching seasons”—when Protestant lodges hold parades that can be sectarian flashpoints and sources of deep tension, and the geography of basic life can be further disrupted. Learning how to get around was more important because I was not ethnically identifiable. In South Asia, I was obviously a foreigner, but in Northern Ireland, other than being noticeably nerdier than the average person, I was indistinguishable from local citizens. I would not be automatically classified as politically unproblematic.
Friends, colleagues, and friendly passersby were essential sources of insight into how to navigate this landscape. Fieldwork’s greatest value is immersion in a world different from one’s own, a new set of referents, jokes, daily rhythms, and dangers. The transition from fancy coffeehouses in South Belfast to the Fall Roads or East Belfast, and getting from one to the other, became a matter of easy routine after a while, but it was certainly far from obvious during my first week. The social aspect of this learning makes clear how important it is to find people with whom to talk. Before setting out for a new city, I cast about ahead of time on social media and by reaching out to friends for contacts, whether they are professionally relevant or not. As an introvert who rarely strikes up friendships in chance encounters, having some friendly faces waiting for me is a huge help.
PRODUCTIVELY BEING AN OUTSIDER
The dusty pleasures of going on foot are not restricted to conflict zones. A crucial third benefit from walking is productively realizing how much of an outsider I am, and letting that guide my intellectual curiosities. It is easier to see puzzling interactions, curious signs, and unexpected buildings when on foot than when gliding by in a taxi.1 This is not a feeling of alienation or loss, but instead one of abiding curiosity. My scholarly brain only works well when it sees puzzling things that challenge existing categories. I am far less skilled in almost all ways than almost every other political scientist, so finding interesting questions that drive new concepts, theories, and comparisons is the life blood of my work. This is why being an outsider can be profoundly productive rather than simply disorienting or uncomfortable.2 Bringing a camera also keeps me looking out for unusual and distinctive sights, keeping an eye out for the interesting angle or striking contrast.
This is true even in the most seemingly sedate and anesthetized of environments. I came to really enjoy Singapore by combining its subway with walking, especially in Singapore’s Little India and in the residential neighborhoods far from the glittering malls (which I was also quite happy to frequent). The richness and layered complexity of Singapore, from the way its markets work, to its cuisines, to its ethnic composition, were more apparent and tangible when it was literally all around me. I found myself driven to learn more when I got back to my guesthouse or when meeting friends: How exactly did the government assign people to public housing? Which roads were legacies of the British, and which came in the aftermath of independence? Why was there a shopping mall that had lots of Burmese people and restaurants? How many Bangladeshis live in Singapore, and when and how had that labor flow begun? Who precisely were these people driving fancy cars, and how did they relate to the grumblings I’d recurrently heard about both rich and poor foreigners moving to Singapore? A city that is often stereotyped as a boring, puritanical realm of air-conditioned conformity will always instead be a fascinating, complex, and incredibly rich political and social experiment to me, in ways good, bad, and simply interesting.
In Srinagar, this outsiderness drove a different set of questions than those about the nitty-gritty of insurgency and counterinsurgency that occupied my primary focus. I noticed a clear set of “middle-class” Kashmiris on my urban sojourns, found in comfortable coffee shops, glimpsed in nice houses in neighborhoods like Raj Bagh, and wearing stylish clothes and carrying nice phones. Who were these people, and more specifically, how did they make their money? This led to questions to my friends and interviewees about the political economy of Kashmir, the answers to which helped me move beyond standard clichés about Kashmiri tourism into a much murkier set of agricultural entrepreneurs, government employees, and, most interesting, politically connected families who benefited from the infusions of money that have accompanied Indian counterinsurgency. This element turned out to be crucial to my interpretation of why India was unable to fully stabilize Kashmir—some of the “development” funding provided by Delhi was essentially used to buy the quiescence of social constituencies and classes in ways that undermined governance, fueled local resentment, and made Delhi’s proclamations of liberal democracy seem obviously, blatantly hypocritical. Sons of these social sectors would be among the leaders of the resurgent militancy of the mid-2010s. Despite having some degree of opportunity within the Indian system, they turned against what they perceived as the selling out, corruption, and opportunism of the comfortable classes.
THE PERILS AND PLEASURES OF GETTING LOST
Finally, there is a lot to be said for getting a bit lost. Living in Delhi was one of the most influential experiences of my life, for many reasons. But one of the things it helped me do was accept more chaos and going with the flow than is my natural inclination. Whether in Old Delhi, Civil Lines, the endless streets off Connaught Place, or even the leafy enclaves of South Delhi, there are many ways to get a bit turned around, even if not fully and irrevocably lost. Letting go was good for me. I had to negotiate with hard-charging rickshaw drivers in Hindi to get back to where I’d started; I saw parts of the city that I never would in an air-conditioned hotel car; and I experienced in a visceral way both the painful inequalities and vibrant microecologies of a vast and ever-growing metropolis. I spent a lot of time in central, chic Defence Colony, Pandara Park, and Jor Bagh. Even in these comparatively easy, upscale, and predictable locales, I wandered into back alleys and came upon scenes of suffering and celebration; encountered unexpected parades, festivals, and weddings; and kept an eye out for new political posters and shifts in the rhythms of the neighborhood. No day was precisely the same. Some of these experiences were stressful and tiring; others genuinely relaxing. All of them made me a better person and researcher.
There are also sometimes more tangible rewards for getting lost. I remember a particularly bizarre and ill-fated trip to Fort in downtown Colombo to try out a guidebook-recommended restaurant in a hotel. The restaurant turned out to be closed, the area incredibly heavily fortified (including the Central Bank of Sri Lanka building that the LTTE bombed in 1996), and a beating sun made the entire expedition feel like an increasingly futile endeavor. But why take a taxi back home to sit alone watching satellite TV? So I kept walking, sweat filling every pore in my body—only to come across a famous bookstore I’d heard of but had never had a chance to visit. The combination of air-conditioning and interesting book purchases made the morning mostly worthwhile, especially compared to the alternative of just sitting around.
My bias toward walking endures, but recent fieldwork trips are ever-shorter and more focused as family and professional obligations limit the time I can spend overseas. And I feel that loss. A cab or even river taxi in Bangkok isn’t quite the same as making a go of some walking. Delhi is a vastly easier city to get around in now that I have the money to hire a car for the day, but it is a less interesting and provocative one. So even now, when I get the chance to do fieldwork, I try to make a plan to get out into the world a bit. When I was recently in Delhi, for instance, I made it a goal to take a nighttime walk down Sansad Marg or a quick late afternoon hop over to Lodi Gardens after a day of meetings and seminars. It can be a sweaty and dusty way to see the world, but it is also an immersive, addictive perspective on ways of living very different from my own.
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Paul Staniland is associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago.
PUBLICATIONS TO WHICH THIS FIELDWORK CONTRIBUTED:
• Staniland, Paul. Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2014.
• ——. “Armed Politics and the Study of Intrastate Conflict,” Journal of Peace Research 54, no. 4 (July 2017): 459–67.
• ——. “Kashmir Since 2003: Counterinsurgency and the Paradox of ‘Normalcy,’ ” Asian Survey 53, no. 5 (September–October 2013): 931–57.
NOTES
1. Although my work is not ethnographic, I very much agree with Lisa Wedeen’s insistence that “There is never nothing going on”: Lisa Wedeen, “Reflections on Ethnographic Work in Political Science,” Annual Review of Political Science 13, no. 1 (2010): 255–72, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.11.052706.123951.
2. This is a way in which fieldwork can identify anomalies and outliers that drive concept- and theory-building. See Ronald Rogowski, “The Role of Theory and Anomaly in Social-Scientific Inference,” American Political Science Review 89, no. 2 (June 1995): 467–70, https://doi.org/10.2307/2082443.