PETER KRAUSE
▶ FIELDWORK LOCATIONS: ALGERIA, ISRAEL, NORTHERN IRELAND, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
“How about those Boston Tapes?”
“‘Ant fil mukhabarat?”
“ ‘Krause’ is a Jewish name, right?”
“Comment pouvons-nous faire confiance à un Américain en ce qui concerne notre propre histoire?”
As I conducted fieldwork for my dissertation and first book on the internal dynamics and effectiveness of four national movements across ten different countries, I was challenged with these four questions (and others like them) on countless occasions by former militia members, politicians, academics, and the general public. At the most basic level, they were all asking me the same thing: Who are you? The questioners wanted to know not simply for their own edification but also so they could judge whether I was trustworthy or suspicious, friend or foe, one of “us” or one of “them.” They had a right to ask; after all, I was asking them to share their most personal stories, sensitive documents, and precious time with me—all in societies polarized by recent or ongoing violent conflict.
These stories illustrate how I answered those questions, and how my answers shaped how I see and am seen in the field. I learned a great deal because my academic, national, and religious identities placed me in different roles across my four national movements of study: sometimes natural friend, sometimes natural foe, sometimes natural outsider. However, I also learned that decisions I made about who I am and how I do my work could transcend those differences, and that those selective parts of my identity as a person and a scholar were as important or more important to my relationships in the field and the quality of my research.
HOW ABOUT THOSE BOSTON TAPES?
This question was asked by an elderly taxi driver mere minutes after I had gotten into a cab from the Belfast airport. The question came before I had even told the driver that I was from Boston, let alone that I was a professor at the very institution, Boston College (BC), that had given the tapes their colloquial name in Northern Ireland. Sleepy from a red-eye flight, I immediately snapped to attention with a jolt of anxiety as I understood this unprompted question meant that the issue of the “Boston Tapes” was big news for everyone in the area, not simply for former militants and members of my university.
The so-called Boston Tapes (officially called “The Belfast Project”) were an oral history collection of more than two hundred audiotape interviews with forty-six former members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The idea was that these individuals, many of whom had never given interviews before or admitted their membership in these militant organizations, could speak freely about their role in the Troubles of Northern Ireland (1968–1998), knowing that the tapes would not be released until after their deaths. Unfortunately for most of the interviewees—and a number of others implicated in their confessions—when two prominent individuals died (IRA member Brendan Hughes and UVF member David Ervine) and project director Ed Moloney produced a book and documentary in 2010 based on their interviews, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) learned of the project and subpoenaed the remaining tapes. This set off an ongoing legal battle that has involved Moloney and other members of the project, the justice system and governments of Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States, and Boston College. Although no Boston College faculty members were involved in the project, the fact that Moloney directed it with the support of a BC Irish Studies center and BC’s Burns Library (which was expected to serve as the repository for the tapes) gave the university a visible role in the controversy.
The project itself is unfortunately now an infamous case study in how not to conduct field research, largely because of the overpromising of anonymity to interview subjects and a misunderstanding of the severity of the criminal and political ramifications of the project. My faculty position had enabled me to learn from BC experts in Irish history, access excellent Irish archives at the Burns Library, and meet with key figures including former Irish President Mary McAleese and her husband (and former senator) Martin McAleese while they were on campus. As I sat in the back of that taxicab from the airport, the question confirmed what I had worried about in the preceding weeks: my Boston College affiliation could hinder rather than assist me for this phase of my book.
To add to my concern, the timing of my visit to Belfast couldn’t have been worse. Gerry Adams, then head of Sinn Féin (the former political wing of the IRA and now a leading political party in Ireland and Northern Ireland), was arrested just a few weeks before I arrived based on supposed revelations in the tapes about his alleged time as an IRA leader. The gravity of the issue hit home once again when I was walking to conduct my first interview on the Falls Road in the heart of Republican west Belfast. There on a stone wall in large graffiti letters—underneath a Sinn Féin sign no less—was “Boston College Touts.” In this case, “Tout” means “informer,” and the fact that the charge was so publicly displayed—and not subsequently removed or covered up—had troubling implications given the weighty historical precedents for political graffiti and the treatment of informants in Northern Ireland.
Nonetheless, from my conversation with the taxi driver to my interviews with former militants, politicians, and journalists, I decided to tell everyone up front that I was a professor at Boston College. I could have presented my research affiliation at MIT and hidden my BC connection, but that is not honest, not safe (as it would endanger me and future researchers who would then be viewed more negatively), and breaks the bonds of trust that had been so severely strained in the Belfast Project. I was ready to accept that my access might suffer a bit in order to secure honestly gotten information and understanding of the Irish national movement.
As I contacted potential interviewees, they relayed understandable concerns, leveled serious questions, and made some less serious jokes at my expense. I explained that I began working at Boston College a decade after the project began, that I shared their concerns about their reputation and security, and that my goal was to fairly and honestly analyze the actions and effectiveness of their organizations. In part because of my openness about who I was, I not only gained access to almost every person I contacted—the only concession was that the former members of one faction asked for anonymity in my book, which I granted—but I also gained a deeper education about my case than I ever would have received had I concealed my affiliations.
FIGURE 32.1 Anti-Boston College graffiti on the Falls Road in Belfast.
I learned that the Sinn Féin and former IRA members I interviewed were not surprised by the behavior of the Northern Irish justice system, which they believed always had it in for them, nor were they upset about researchers documenting the history of Republican efforts in the Irish national movement. What they truly disliked about the Belfast Project/Boston Tapes was that its Irish directors had focused on interviewing the minority of former IRA members who were anti-Sinn Féin, anti-Gerry Adams, and anti-Good Friday Accords. Their concerns also made clear to me something that most Americans don’t understand: Although Northern Ireland is generally understood in the American psyche as a settled conflict successfully brought to a happy end, to those in Belfast the embers of the struggle are still smoldering to the point that the recounting and analysis of recent history can stoke them in dangerous ways. Many of my interviewees looked to honest academics to tell stories they felt were often manipulated by journalists or politicians with an agenda. So their concerns were different than I might have expected, and it was the honest presentation of my situation and my previous record of research without a political agenda that gained me trust and access to key figures in the movement. By refusing to hide the affiliation that I was generally so proud to have, I hoped in some small way to help restore the reputation of Boston College with the Irish community.
For other scholars at home and in the field, your academic affiliations play a key role in your reputation because they are often the first thing people know about you. You have less choice with your home affiliation, but you have significant choice with additional affiliations abroad. Affiliating with a local university or research center can open some doors for you, but potentially close others, so make sure you are aware of local developments before you arrive and know the difference. Think carefully about the values of any potential affiliation and its reputation with local communities because that will become part of your reputation. Remember that it’s a two-way street: you represent your affiliations in the field and you have the responsibility to leave it as good or better than you found it. Don’t “ruin” the field for others with unethical or unsafe practices. Above all, remember that the basic choice to conduct fair and honest research can take you far, even in sticky situations where trust seems hard to come by.
‘ANT FIL MUKHABARAT?
“KRAUSE” IS A JEWISH NAME, RIGHT?
Researchers must choose not only which academic institutions they affiliate with but also to what extent they affiliate with governments. Palestinians in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria have asked me, “ ‘Ant fil mukhabarat?” (Are you in the intelligence services?) The answer was (and is) that I am not a member of any intelligence service, never have been, and never have been approached to join, despite the similar suspicions of friends, family, and fellow students in my Arabic programs who have posed this same question to me many times. But the question and the answer are more complex than that.
It is a serious and understandable question, not just because I am a tall white male with a crew cut, but also because Palestinians, as a people without a state, face significant suspicion and repression everywhere they reside. Therefore, they have interactions with intelligence and security officials at a far higher rate than most populations. It is a question not just about bias but also about safety and security, and I am cognizant and respectful of that as a researcher.
Israelis—some indeed part of the intelligence services—ask me a different question with similar intent. Those who have flown out of Ben Gurion airport have experienced the “exit interview,” in which young, trained security officials ask numerous questions to ascertain how much of a threat you pose from their perspective. The one thing they have never asked me directly is if I’m Jewish; instead, we engage in a somewhat amusing but nonetheless serious game of Taboo in which they ask many other questions to find out the same thing: “Do you speak Hebrew? Even Alef Bet? Do you have family here in Israel?” In my experience, Israeli citizens have no such qualms, and a majority of them have asked me directly at one time or another if I’m a member of their tribe. Sometimes they suspect this based on how I look—which is apparently “somewhat Jewish”—but also based on my last name. Krause is indeed a somewhat “Jewish name,” but as the son of a Catholic mother and Protestant father, I am decidedly not Jewish—although I do in fact have some Jewish ancestors.
Their interest in this aspect of my identity is understandable given how important Judaism is to being Israeli and how often Israelis perceive issues of security, bias, and personal interactions—especially on my topics of study—through this lens. It is also such a small religion population-wise that many Jews are excited to meet another one of the fifteen million, just in general, or because they want to play the name game and introduce me to other relatives and friends.
My answers to these and related questions from Palestinians and Israelis mean that I am not one of “them,” but I am also not one of their enemies in their long-running conflict. Instead, I am apparently the somewhat rare non-Jewish, non-Muslim, non-Arab, non-intel officer, non-activist scholar studying Israeli-Palestinian politics these days. Some of those aspects of my identity are chosen for me by my heritage; others I’ve chosen myself. There is no doubt that I have seen some of the glimmer in the eyes of Israelis and Palestinians dissipate when they learn that I am not an active member of their tribe, ethnically or politically. However, as with my experience in Belfast, choosing the long view on my relationship with these communities has paid dividends.
At home and certainly in the field, I try to lead my interactions with passionate inquisitiveness rather than cemented opinions, whether I am talking to those who committed violent acts or to politicians of all national and political stripes. My openness and commitment to as much objectivity as possible has taught me to see each society with more depth and nuance than I would have learned to do otherwise. I am open and honest with myself and others about how my given identity shapes how I see and am seen. But I’ve also found that these chosen aspects of my identity—maintaining an open-mind longer than I naturally would, developing empathy (if not sympathy) for those I study, learning to speak and understand their language, and building trust through multiple interactions in which I am not always the one leading the discussion—have helped me build relationships and carry out even-handed research on sensitive topics, from “price-tag” violence by Israeli settlers to bombings by Palestinian armed groups. When you are interacting with those who believe truth is on their side if only others would listen to them, fairly presenting yourself as someone who seeks to help find said truth without a separate agenda makes you a welcome partner in that effort, even if you are not a conventional ally.
COMMENT POUVONS-NOUS FAIRE CONFIANCE À UN AMÉRICAIN EN CE QUI CONCERNE NOTRE PROPRE HISTOIRE?
“How can we trust an American when it comes to our own history?” I had faced versions of this question in other countries, implicitly or explicitly, but this time it was posed directly by an administrator of the Algerian National Archives. I had been warned by peers and mentors about doing fieldwork in Algeria: “The first country in North Africa you want to do fieldwork in is Algeria!?” But I had been warned the previous year not to go to Northern Ireland during the Boston Tapes controversy, and I had been warned in graduate school to avoid focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict altogether if I wanted to have any professional future. Those experiences had nonetheless worked out. Unfortunately, sometimes even the most honest attempts to analyze history are met with unsympathetic, bureaucratic brick walls. As I learned in Algeria, the best responses to such obstacles are clear-eyed persistence and a viable Plan B (especially if you are working on Middle East politics these days, where, as Marc Lynch points out in chapter 35, the basic necessities of fieldwork—visas, archival access, survey approval, and interviewees—are far from given or secure).
Before arriving in Algeria for the first time, I took two steps that paid enormous dividends: securing a scholarly affiliation and talking to scholars who had previously conducted fieldwork in the country. First, after setting up a meeting at a conference with its director, Robert Parks, I pursued and was granted an affiliation with Le Centre d’Études Maghrébines en Algérie (CEMA) in Oran, which is the only foreign research center in Algeria. Parks was incredibly generous in helping me navigate the process of acquiring a visa on multiple occasions (no easy task), as well as the even more onerous and time-consuming process of submitting a dossier to gain access to Algeria’s National Archives. This process involved filing the dossier during my first visit to the country, followed by a return visit months later, by which time the decision on my application should have been made. Unfortunately, when I arrived in Algeria for my second stay, I proceeded to the archives only to be told by the archivist that I did not yet have access. So began a weeks-long process during which I called, emailed, and finally resorted to walking in person to various Algerian ministries to plead my case, which required use of my semipassable French (given that the Arabic I can speak is of little use in the Maghreb). After days upon days of failure and seeing my time in Algeria slip away, I encountered a kind female official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who found my application and discovered that it had been approved weeks ago! Frustrated but relieved, I showed up triumphantly at the archives the next day and happily handed a copy of my approval to the archivist.
“Yes,” she noted, “you now have access to the archives. You now must complete this form to request specific documents.” Unlike in most other archives, however, the form would then be taken under consideration by “The Committee,” who would render its ruling on my access at some unspecified time. Feeling a bit like an optimistic Sisyphus, I nonetheless eagerly awaited their decision. Of the seventeen documents I requested on colonial Algeria in that first form (I had to make up for lost time!), they granted me access to precisely two. I had thoroughly researched the archive and thought I understood the restrictions, so I was incredulous and questioned why I had been denied access to so many documents. The archivist responded that living people were written about in those documents, and so I could not see them for their safety. I then provided chapter and verse on how we could be quite certain that for the vast majority of the documents—which were on average over sixty years old—every person named in them was dead. The archivist was unmoved, and after a bit more back and forth she challenged me with the question of why they should trust me, an outsider, an American, with their history.
To be fair, I don’t think it was the archivist who was driving the stonewalling. I knew how sensitive revolutionary history was in Algeria, and how challenging the infamous Algerian bureaucracy was to navigate, even for native Algerians. I therefore did not feel entitled to view their documents, but I certainly was frustrated that I had spent months of my limited time away from home trying to gain access, only to be seemingly thwarted at the gates.
Nonetheless, I did not let my frustration get the best of me. Instead, I persisted. I requested ten documents the next day; I got three. The following day I requested fifteen documents; I got six … and so on. My relationship with the archivists improved when they realized that much of my research told a version of the Algerian government’s favorite story: how and why they gained independence from France. Unfortunately, I did not have multiple additional months to turn these drips into a reliable stream of information, so I needed to supplement my evidence elsewhere. That is when my affiliation with CEMA and my legwork before my arrival paid off yet again.
I had sought out scholars who had done work in Algeria before I arrived, most notably William Quandt, who had done serious fieldwork in Algeria in 1966, just four years after the revolution. Not only was Quandt kind enough to share contact information for some prominent Algerian leaders—who I reached out to and interviewed while I waited for my archival dossier approval—but he also granted me full access to his fifty-year-old interview notes from prominent Algerians of the revolution. Realizing they were housed at CEMA, I took a train from Algiers to Oran and was overjoyed at the treasure trove of information I found there. Quandt had interviewed the vast majority of Algerians I would have wanted to talk to, most of whom were now deceased. He kept excellent notes on his questions (which were often similar to mine) and their answers. I used the time I wasn’t squeezing blood from a stone at the National Archives to pore over these interviews and set up more of my own with current and former members of the National Liberation Front (FLN) and other revolutionary groups.
All in all, my experience in Algeria was the most challenging and least productive of the countries in which I did significant fieldwork for my book, but it was still incredibly valuable and far from a disaster because of an extraordinarily helpful institutional affiliation, support of generous scholars, and my decision to persist while pursuing multiple research avenues simultaneously.
WHERE OBJECTIVITY AND SUBJECTIVITY MEET
Comparing my fieldwork experiences across countries and contexts, a few themes emerge. I gained tremendous insight into national movements and political violence by studying cases in which my national and religious identity made me at different times a potential supportive member, a target, or a distant bystander of both the movement and the states they struggled against. This is where objectivity and subjectivity met; observing the shifting perspectives of both myself and those around me allowed me to better research and analyze the dynamics of national movements.
In addition to these inherent aspects of my identity, it was important for me to recognize the significant impact that the more flexible aspects of my identity—from affiliations and language skills to humility, honesty, and empathy—had on how I was received, how I did my research in the field, and how I began to construct who I am as a scholar. I don’t believe there is any one ideal combination of these chosen aspects of one’s identity, and it’s true that not everyone has the same ability to choose. Nonetheless, I prize the pluralism of political science in how scholars seek knowledge, and I hope that our field continues to have a healthy mix of positivists and interpretivists, activists and observers, and even more scholars in the gray areas in between. We learn things we would collectively otherwise miss, and we are stronger for it.
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Peter Krause is associate professor of political science at Boston College and research affiliate in the MIT Security Studies Program.
PUBLICATIONS TO WHICH THIS FIELDWORK CONTRIBUTED:
• Krause, Peter. Rebel Power: Why National Movements Compete, Fight, and Win. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2017.
• ——. “The Structure of Success: How the Internal Distribution of Power Drives Armed Group Behavior and National Movement Effectiveness,” International Security 38, no. 3 (Winter 2014): 72–116.
• Krause, Peter, and Ehud Eiran. “How Human Boundaries Become State Borders: Radical Flanks and Territorial Control in the Modern Era,” Comparative Politics 50, no. 4 (July 2018): 479–99.
