Stories from the Field: A Guide to Navigating Fieldwork in Political Science

Given my long-term interest in the topic, I wanted to go the extra mile and collect data that was not available in existing open sources. Yet traveling to Chechnya to collect data was not an option in the early 2000s when the war in this tiny republic on Russia’s southwestern fringe was at its peak. My early attempts to approach Chechens based in Russian cities outside Chechnya for interviews were rather ineffective as well. Having fled a wartime hell, people were too fearful of Russia’s omnipresent intelligence services and police to share sensitive information with an outsider like me. The only way to talk to people was by contacting Chechen diaspora communities in the West; thousands of Chechens fled the war and sought refuge in the safe haven of Europe. In fact, the Chechen diaspora was growing rapidly in the early 2000s, increasing from several hundreds to nearly one hundred thousand within a decade or so.

Ironically, at that time I lacked formal training in how to conduct interviews. A former student of German and law, and a current student of international relations, I had no knowledge of the theory and practice of ethnographic research. Moreover, as a graduate of a social science discipline in a post-Communist country, I had only a vague idea about research designs, research questions, and hypotheses, to say nothing of interview protocols.1 Having talked to dozens of eyewitnesses and participants in the war—a unique experience given how sensitive the topic was for the newly emerging Chechen diaspora in the West—I was at a loss as to how to use the valuable data I had managed to collect. Therefore, my first work on the project—which also turned out to be my revised PhD thesis—didn’t explicitly include interviews. I simply didn’t know that I could have made formal use of the data collected during them.²

It was not until the fall of 2006—nearly a year after I finished my PhD thesis and months before my book was published—that I learned about ethnographic research in general, and that I could have made great use of my interview material in particular. This realization occurred during my one-year research stay as a Fulbright-Masaryk fellow at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. I met interesting people at Harvard, MIT, and Boston University and learned—as a postdoc!—about the principles of qualitative social science research. I also took advantage of my access to Harvard’s libraries to familiarize myself with the most up-to-date literature on armed conflict. Two things struck me. First, the mainstream literature on armed conflict focused on macro-level explanations that neglected what I had gathered from discussions with eyewitnesses of the Russian-Chechen conflict. It was not political discrimination, nationalism, or economic deprivation—or any “large” phenomenon—that drove individuals to violence in Chechnya. Rather, violence there had grassroots motivations such as revenge (grievance), honor (social sanctions), and problems with a neighbor (selective incentives). In fact, many former insurgents I had talked to ultimately joined the insurgency not because of political issues (for example, support for the idea of Chechen independence) but rather in spite of political issues (for example, animosity toward separatist Chechen elites). Second, I stumbled onto The Logic of Violence in Civil War, a new book by (fellow contributor) Stathis Kalyvas that had just arrived in Widener Library. Focused on micro-level violence, it was much more in line with the insights I had gained during the five years of my own research—and it was based, among other sources, on interview material, which was thrilling and inspirational!

In mid-2007, I returned to Europe—and back to interviews. But now I was more knowledgeable about what I wanted to do, and I was able to conduct my interviews in a systematic way, organizing them along the lines of my research questions.3 Looking back to the early 2000s, my lack of formal training seemed like a blessing of a kind—or I at least I pretend to think so. Because I was not driven by certain theoretically informed perspectives, I was open to various strands of information and their cardinally varying interpretations. Instead of moderating discussions, I let them flow freely, allowing my respondents to give me as much information—and from as many perspectives—as they deemed necessary. Being a rather altruistic friend, a sympathizer, and a listener—instead of a researcher taking notes—I was seen, I assume, as a more trustworthy and ingratiating person, asking questions in an intuitive and nonbinding way. Of course, this was a time-consuming endeavor, and fortunately for me, I had the necessary time and honestly enjoyed the friendship and hospitality of Chechen families and friends. Yet it also enabled me to gain the trust of the respondents—the biggest asset in ethnographic research⁴—which ultimately paid off, particularly in the later stages of my research.

Initially I sought to explain the unbiased nature of my research, but I soon realized that was doing more harm than good. Particularly in the post-2007 context of my research, my theoretically informed questions about the nuances of civilian targeting, pro-insurgent support, and honor-centered obligation to retaliate were in sharp contrast to the politically flavored motivations of some respondents. They wanted to use me as a channel of communication to the outside world about the war crimes committed by Russia in Chechnya, or about the Chechens’ efforts to obtain and defend their independence from time immemorial. I will never forget a verbal challenge by a sixty-year-old respondent, formerly a highly positioned officer in the ranks of the separatist Chechen Army, about whether I was going to “theorize on the suffering of his people.” This line was indeed painful, having known my respondents for years and having befriended many of them. Against this background, the very idea of using their experience to “build a theory”—and ultimately advance my academic career—resurfaced in my thoughts frequently, challenging the intrinsic ethics of what I was doing.

My personal background has often led others to perceive me as (dis)loyal or as culturally and politically proximate (or alien) to my interviewees. Being of Armenian descent on my maternal side and of mixed Turkic-Jewish descent on my paternal side—and having grown up in Yerevan and Moscow—it was not easy for me to clearly introduce myself in ethnic terms. This was something that Chechen respondents, with their standard post-Soviet politicization of ethnicity, clearly expected. To make things even more complicated, my paternal grandparents were of Noghai origin, having moved centuries ago from the Crimean Khanate-held areas of the northwestern Caucasus to the Yerevan Khanate and having culturally assimilated into the local then-majority Turkophone Turkish-Azerbaijani population. Whether I introduced myself—or was identified by my respondents—as a Turk, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Noghai (Chechens usually expected ethnicity to be defined patrilineally), or as a Muslim, a Christian, or an atheist had profound implications for how respondents viewed me, and whether, to what extent, or with which “sauce” they wanted to share their experiences with me. For instance, a former brigadier general repeatedly expressed fascination with Israel and Jews. Willing to get him on my side, I was quick to mention the ethnic origin of my late grandmother—a piece of information that then, thanks to the interconnectedness of the Chechen diaspora, spread to several other respondents. Shortly thereafter I was characterized as a “Jewish boy” by a segment of the community, and some respondents lost interest in talking to me or questioned my trustworthiness on ethnic grounds. Some went so far as to refer to my mixed-ethnic background as a “mess”; others found me suspicious on the ground of my Noghai origin. As one respondent told me, “You don’t look as a Mongol. Are you hiding something from us?” Upon learning about my mother’s ethnic background, another respondent challenged my “loyalty” to the Chechen cause on the simple ground that Armenians were Russia’s allies. Ever since, I have sought to avoid conversations about my ethnic and religious background, hiding or “correcting” somewhat “controversial” parts of my personal identity to make sure my trustworthiness is not questioned.

Trust, as we all know, is at the core of good ethnographic research. Having carried out interviews with dozens of former fighters, I have come to realize that many reiterate politically held beliefs to justify their past deeds in front of outsiders and, most important, in front of themselves. Usually, during initial interviews, respondents provide “big” motivations for going to war, such as struggle for the sake of Islam or Chechnya’s independence. It took multiple meetings, sometimes over the course of many years, to build the necessary trust for some respondents to admit that their actual trigger was not political or ideological but deeply personal, such as a commitment to avenge a relative’s murder or rape.5 In some cases, my role seemed to be more of a psychiatrist than of a social scientist. It was striking to see how many former insurgents and civilian eyewitnesses of the war had for years sought to push away deliberations on their deeds, hedging against the past to protect themselves emotionally. I recall a tough war veteran who burst into tears telling me a story of a personal loss. In fact, it was only during the interviews that some respondents spoke out and let the burden of the past fall off their shoulders.⁶ Needless to say, this was made possible by the trust between the respondents and the researcher—something that takes years to cultivate but is easy to lose.

Since the beginning of my odyssey, security has been an enormous concern for nearly all respondents. In fact, some Chechen émigrés returning to Chechnya—or their relatives—have been detained, tortured, and killed in Chechnya by the pro-Moscow Chechen authorities. The Kremlin-backed regime of Ramzan Kadyrov has monitored the activities of the Chechens residing in western Europe. The regime has employed violence against the relatives of those leaving “disrespectful comments” toward Kadyrov and his family on social media or elsewhere and has targeted Kadyrov’s personal enemies along with ex-insurgents. In recent years, the situation has been aggravated by the exodus of dozens to hundreds of Western Europe-based Chechen youngsters to Syria, where they joined locally operating jihadist groups. Many Chechen families have grown fearful of Western intelligence and authorities. Years ago, many respondents consented to being interviewed upon finding out that my papers would be published in English-language scholarly journals and monographs—and not in Russian-language dailies accessible by pro-Moscow Chechen and Russian authorities. Today they have become increasingly uncomfortable with the former option as well.

Against this backdrop, conducting research on sensitive topics in the diaspora has become an increasingly tough challenge. Respondents have long routinely refused to sign consent forms, to be audio- or videotaped, or even to give researchers a green light to take notes during interviews, but some have recently asked me not to use data they provided months or years ago. Others have asked me to take extra measures to disguise information that could help identify them. Some respondents have grown increasingly paranoid about communication channels being monitored, about me being critical of or unjust to their cause, or even about me not being entirely reliable. They have distanced themselves from me in an effort to improve their and their families’ security—even to the point of claiming they don’t know me. Despite these challenges, I manage to stay in touch with dozens of respondents and discuss important issues related to my ongoing research, although the openness of my respondents has generally decreased. Because of these changes in the political environment, I no longer provide information in my publications on the cities and times when interviews were conducted, and I have gradually reduced the specific information on the locations of interviews and may provide no location information whatsoever. With the current trend in leading journals to follow the Data Access and Research Transparency Initiative standards, which demand greater data transparency, my interviews may soon come to an end to protect both my contacts and myself. This would be a blow to my work and that of others, but ethical issues regarding the safety of interviewees are larger concerns than whether my next article will be published.