An Inside Story: Tales from the Field — Doing Organizational Research in a State of Insecurity

Abstract

Doing successful organizational research is difficult. Doing the same in difficult circumstances proves worthy of discussion. This short paper illustrates the reali ties experienced by a management researcher while doing doctoral field work in Sri Lanka. Everyday life in Sri Lanka means the routine experience of dangerous, difficult and challenging circumstances. Here we seek to provide an insight into how best to manage the worst circumstances. Future researchers undertaking research not only in Sri Lanka, but also elsewhere in South Asia, and in places in the world where there is a state of insecurity, might benefit from this research experience.

One source of insecurity derives directly from the state of emergency that has gripped Sri Lanka ever since the Tamil Tigers began their campaign of terror, designed to try and induce the state to allow them a separate homeland in the north and east of the island. The other source of insecurity flows from respondent per ceptions of research as 'strange', in itself. Each is a source of ontological insecu rity : the one leads to conditions that make it more difficult to be a researcher, while the other leads to conditions that make it more difficult for others to know what being a researcher means.