Jala Role: Normative Practice of Collaborative Ethnography in a Hostile Research Frontier,South Omo,Ethiopia

Abstract

This article outlines the significance of a normative social and cultural practice, Jala role, for collaborative ethnography in a hostile research frontier. Based on self-reflective notes and fieldwork details, this article critically discusses the notion of Jala as a methodological enterprise of collaborative ethnography in Omo Valley, Ethiopia. The Jala role enables a pathway to emic perspectives of the right-holders and reflect on the methodological limitation of the predominant focus on the conduct of duty bearer. Its normative value enables modes of self-presentation and access to ethnographic knowledge holders by going back and forth in multi-sited fields iteratively. These features establish the concept of collaborative ethnography as deliberate and explicit collaborations with participants of ethnographic fieldwork. The parties to the relationship have mutual obligations to support each other that neither define collaboration as reciprocation nor let the parties enter into stressful relationships except for a few challenges explored reflexively.

Introduction

Available literature establishes the richness of collaborative ethnography as a theoretical and methodological enterprise to highlight the distinctiveness of ethnographic fieldwork and its resultant knowledge production. However, it has marginal heritage in the larger discussions of ethnography (Lassiter, 2005a; Rappaport, 2008; Crockett, 2017; Aijazi et al., 2021). The methodological pedagogies of this approach largely focus on individual collaborators, and the exploration of the ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘how’ of social norms and practices offers possibilities and limitations of ethnographic collaborations that are not much recognised. Some researchers are sceptical about the presence of an identifiable ethnographic collaboration (Faubion and Marcus, 2009; Sluka, 2012). Individuals are the decisive actors of an ethnographic field and of knowledge production, but the distinct contexts of a research field, including Desalegn (2019) and this article, witnessed identifiable normative social and cultural practices and their potential for ethnographic collaboration in hostile research frontier.

This critical self-reflexive article demonstrates the significance of a normative social and cultural practice for an ethnographic collaboration in a hostile research frontier. My research project seeks to understand how the state-led sugarcane development redefined the socioeconomic rights of the impacted communities as well as the ways the local community members claim rights and engage with the land development. At the outset, several circumstances hampered my ethnographic field practices. I was novice to ethnographic research and I lacked confidence about my approach in the field. As a trained lawyer, my positivist human rights theoretical perspective assumed a predominant focus on the ‘operational methods’ of ‘development actors’ or the duty bearers (Andreassen, Sano and McInerney-Lankford, 2017, p. 3), mainly the sugar industry. However, this duty bearer oriented institutional ethnography encountered challenges of access to the industry and a narrow perspective about the development. Hence, I expanded my focus to include a rural ethnography of the right holders’ perspectives or the local community members in South Omo, where hostilities, tensions and insecurities were dominant. The Jala role I entered and maintained with two prominent individuals of Bodi and Mursi people enabled collaborative ethnography.

Jala is a normative social practice that establishes a solid friendship across ethnic boundaries. It is widely used among the Omotic and Cushitic speaking people of South-Western Ethiopia (Guichard et al., 2014). This bond of friendship is initiated and entered into by individual men, kept and strengthened through mutual visits and assistances. The visits and assistances are the manifestation of gratefulness to the Jala relation by showing the other person one’s own hand or seeing the hands of the Jala when the other party is in need. Pankhurst and Assefa (2008) and Tadesse (2000) have acknowledged the potential of Jala to generate cross-boundary relations, reduce tensions, and permit individuals to have a safe journey in different territories. The normative elements of the Jala relationship could establish a model of exchange in the field, but it may not necessarily establish collaborative ethnography as reciprocation or ‘an act of return’ or ‘giving back for something received’ (Lassiter, 2005a: 17). The role of Jala permits a constant, deliberate, and explicit participation of the parties, which can be employed as a method in ethnographic fieldwork.

The Jala role enabled ethnographic collaboration by offering and defining a mode of self-presentation and in providing security and access for a multi-sited ethnography in an iterative process between right holder and duty bearer during fieldwork. This role was advantageous when seeking to enter into the social settings of my Jala and in seeking membership and security while observing the field and discussing with informants of the study. The role enabled access to the ethnographic knowledge holders of not only the community, but also facilitated entrance into the institutional settings of sugar industry. In the process, I noted that an overarching emphasis in conduct of the duty bearer overlooks the potential of right holders’ perspective. As Merry (2017) and Nash (2015) articulate, with this perspective, the role enabled the documentation of various ethnographic aspects of the social construction and vernacularization of human rights ideas, experiences and practices of the local communities. In turn, these gains ultimately offered the opportunity to expand the scope of the sites from rural into the institutional ethnography by going back and forth between them in an iterative process. The Jala role can facilitate ethnographic research, as long as the parties are committed to the relationship, which may be particularly relevant for longitudinal ethnographic research (e.g. see O'Reilly, 2012).

Between January and December 2019, I held a Jala role when conducting ethnographic fieldwork, during which time I wrote self-reflexive memos on my experiences and used them to think critically about its methodological enterprise for an efficient ethnographic collaboration in an inaccessible and hostile research frontier. The following sections of this article discuss the challenges of my ethnographic field practice, analyse and reflect on the ways the Jala role provided modes of self-presentation and security in the field, and ensured access to a multi-sited ethnography and its resultant predicaments. Finally, this article closes by establishing the methodological enterprise of the social and cultural role of Jala for an ethnographic collaboration while practicing ethnography in a hostile research frontier.

The challenges of an ethnographic research frontier – sugar industries in Omo Valley

My doctoral research project sought to understand a state-led modernisation programme and construct grounded insights about the way it articulates, promotes, or disregards land and livelihood rights of the impacted communities. I also sought to understand the community members’ perceptions and reactions towards the programme. This research focused on a case of Omo Kuraz Sugar Factories in South Omo, Ethiopia. The Omo Kuraz Sugar Factories are run by the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation, a state enterprise (Council of Ministers, 2010), which is the largest state-owned commercial farm ever developed in Ethiopia (Kamski, 2016). Four factories have been established since 2011, incorporating close to 245,000 ha of dry and wet pastoral and agro-pastoral land (Water Works Design and Supervision Enterprise, 2011). The case study aimed to provide empirical evidence and analysis regarding the interaction of actors in order to understand how and why livelihood and communal land rights were articulated, promoted, restricted, or disregarded. The study methodology included rural ethnography in South Omo Zone, specifically in Salamago District, and an institutional ethnography of the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation (hereafter, the Corporation) and the Omo Kuraz Sugarcane Factories (hereafter, the Factories).

In 2019, for this purpose, I practiced ethnography in a very challenging research frontier, recorded self-reflexive memos based on Maxwell (2012) interactive research approach and learned that ethnographic ‘fieldwork’ is ‘politically and epistemologically intertwined’ (Ferguson and Gupta, 1997: 3). To start, from January to May 2019, I experienced futile attempts to conduct an institutional ethnography of the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation, involving archival work and in-depth interviews with various federal and regional government agencies. At that time, access was a critical challenge because the land development was contested and remained very sensitive. I made several efforts to access the Corporation’s corporate files and reports and to set up interviews with specific sector directors. However, this proved difficult. Similar to the individual key informants of the organization or consultants experienced in the study by Lassiter (2005a), responses were negative, ranging from an outright ‘no’ to ‘you can ask my boss’, ‘I am not authorised to tell you this’ or ‘you must produce a letter for this particular question’. I also encountered questions about my identity, the reasons for my presence, and scepticism about potentially being affiliated with foreign media. All of this was not completely unjustified, as researcher access to the institutional settings was restricted following a 2017 warning letter issued from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Repeatedly, officials kept silent and feigned ignorance about my permit application to access the Omo Kuraz Sugar Factories. The permit letter was crucial for my rural ethnography in South Omo Zone because the road to the local communities’ villages, sugarcane farms and the factories are fenced with several security checkpoints. To pass these points one must produce a permit letter from the Corporation management. I regularly explained my ethical obligations and research goals. However, it transpired that the Corporation had been under recent scrutiny and was in the midst of complex performance, financial, social and political crises. The mass uprisings and political crises that occurred in Ethiopia from 2016 and 2018 involved the Corporation and it encountered criticism and political harassment. As a result, the organisational culture was antagonistic to researchers and outsiders and curtailed any access to institutional information and processes. In particular, the factories have been criticised by researchers and international organisations for damaging the environment, violating the rights of local people, and of generally poor performance. These bureaucratic organizational politics and structural norms affected my institutional ethnography work and bore limited fruits, including a few observations, discussions and access to publicly available documents.

As Ferguson and Gupta (1997) noted, these futile experiences of ethnographic research led me to reconsider its methodological distinctiveness and approach. Essentially, the methodological preoccupation I had with the duty bearers overlooked the significance of right holders or perspectives of community members. Initially, my fieldwork predominantly practiced an approach similar to Andreassen et al. (2017: 3), on the ‘operational methods’ of ‘development actors’ or the duty bearers, mainly the sugar industry that has the obligations to reinforce human rights in the development programmes (United Nations Development Group, 2003). Such an overarching emphasis in a political-economic structure tends to overlook the potential of the social construction and vernacularization of human rights ideas, experiences and practices of right holders at the local level (Merry, 2017; Nash, 2015). Thus, I expanded my approach to include a rural ethnography of the right holders, or of the impacted community members. In mid-May 2019, I approached the local administration, South Omo Zonal Administration, which considered my research goals and permitted the conduct of the fieldwork. Additionally, in a permit letter it issued, the administration asked the Zonal and Salamago District Administration Offices to collaborate in the research project.

With this access obtained, the next challenge to consider was the prevalence of security threats and the hostile nature of the rural ethnography in South Omo Zone. For example, in January 2019 I visited Jinka and participated in the ‘17^th Pastoralist Day’. At the time, I was able to assess the security situation of the field. During the festivity, I got the opportunity to observe public forums, visit the South Omo Research Centre, the Zonal Administrations, the Justice and Security offices, meet and discuss with participants including Bodi and Mursi cultural representatives and other key informants, and learn of new developments. Across these meetings, I heard of the prevailing insecurity in the field. This insecurity was differentiated, however. Those with whom I spoke suggested that pastoralists were friendly to nech tourists (white tourists) but chekagn (ruthless) towards Ethiopian highlanders. By then, the pastoralists, mainly Mursi and Bodi people, were engaged in violent protests against the sugar factories, transportation routes, and newcomers. As Scott (2008) argued in Weapons of the Weak, one may see this as their way of expressing their frustrations and protesting against the intimidating behavior of the government.

After having the permit from the Zonal Administration, I assessed the field and its hostilities. I travelled to Hana town in May of 2019 with feelings of insecurity. Hana is the only town in the Salamago District, located 110 km northwest of Jinka. The District covers a 4450 km² land area, which is divided into 21 Kebele administrations – the lowest structure of local government (SOZFED, 2018). Hana town is in Omo-Hana Kebele and was founded following the establishment of a military communication post in 1968. The Central Statistics Agency (CSA) estimated the total population of the district in 2018 as 37,061 (SOZFED, 2018). However, this estimate does not include the augmentation of economic migrants following the establishment of the Factories. Salamago is home to several indigenous ethnic groups including Bodi, Mursi, Dime and Bacha. Bodi and Mursi are pastoralists: they herd cattle in vast grass and forestlands, which are their home and main source of livelihood, though they also practice shifting cultivation of maize. Following regional government resettlement programmes of 2004, members of other ethnic groups also began to reside in the area, including Konso, Sidama, Wolayita and Hadiya.

The May 2019 trip was not the first time I had been to Hana; however, I noticed many changes since I was last there in July 2014. The number of urban dwellers had increased. The town had a new, but unfinished, asphalt road. There were new government offices, residential houses, small businesses, shabby pensions, as well as khat (a leafy stimulant that is chewed), coffee and beer houses. I noticed many young men chewing khat after lunchtime in pensions as well as in coffee and beer houses, a crop that is not traditional to the area. In the evening, young men could be seen drinking beer, dancing, and flirting with young female servants and prostitutes. I also noticed hostilities in the town. Assault by unknown assailants is common at night, related to these insecurities, after 7 p.m. the movement of the people is limited. Some urban dwellers regard such assaults as crimes of the pastoral elites and link it to the land development and the migration of newcomers to the area. Relations are tense between urban dwellers, the majority of whom are newcomers to the area, and indigenous people.

With the support letter, my entry through the local administration level proved successful. The District Administration accepted the letter of the Zone, which granted me additional letters permitting me to pass through the security checkpoints of the sugar factories and requiring the District offices, Kebele offices and villages as well as the sugar Factories 1 and 2 to collaborate in my research. In Hana town, my fieldwork focused on conducting formal and informal discussions with elders, youth and officials, and conducting participant observation, including of non-verbal expression of feelings, actors, roles, relationships, and interactions between the District administration offices and the Factories. I introduced myself to the security, police, and agriculture and pastoralist offices of the District. With the assistance of the Pastoralist Office, I found a research assistant called Geta, who had lengthy experience in Omo Valley and was my guide and translator during the fieldwork.

By considering Jala as a general connecting factor (Yidneckachew, 2012) and its specific practice among Bodi and Mursi pastoralists (Yidneckachew, 2015), initially, I identified it as a possible means of establishing relationships with individual collaborators of the field. However, I was not confident about its methodological significance for an ethnographic collaboration in the field. My research assistant Geta emphasized its significance across the various socio-cultural groups living in the Omo Valley. Foreign ethnographers working in this geography in the past have managed their fieldwork by having host families. For example, in Buffavand’s (2017) ethnographic fieldwork, host families ensured ‘safety and comfort’ in the field. Ethnographers of the area have not reflected extensively on the methodological significance of ‘host families’ nor do they mention Jala roles and relationships. It may be that the ‘host family’ approach is the known and common practice for foreign researchers, enabled by the more friendly stance community members have with foreign tourists. Alternatively, as Geta articulated, it might be the case that Jala is a suitable means to cross social and cultural terrains more relevant for Ethiopian researchers to cross ethnic boundaries and establish relationships. A similar experience is witnessed in the work of Desalegn (2019), also a national researcher, who employed a customary practice named Mijim for ethnographic fieldwork among Gumuz people. In my own case, obtaining the Jala status strengthened my confidence regarding the power of such social and cultural practices as means to establish collaborative ethnographic fieldwork.

To enter into a Jala relationship with a Bodi and a Mursi man, I identified the relevant communities that are proximate and affected by Factory 1 and Factory 2. Based on the purposive sampling method, I selected Gura Kebele from the Bodi communities and Haylewuha Kebele from the Mursi communities. The process of identifying a potential Jala from Mursi and Bodi was not easy. Geta and I had long discussions about the type of households to include and the criteria to use, such as marital status, social recognition, personality, communication skills, participation in community affairs, and engagement with the sugarcane industry. After 2 days of discussion, Geta used his contacts and identified three men from both groups, but I was uncertain about whom to approach. I assessed the proposed individuals based on the criteria, while Geta tried to convince me to select the people he knew the best. With few alternatives on offer and wanting to maintain trust with Geta, I accepted his proposals.

We approached Kalu from the Bodi community and Degu from the Mursi community. Fortunately, they both agreed to friendship – the role of Jala – and collaboration in my research. Among the newly settled people, I decided to focus on the Konso people, who are the major new ethnic group in the area. I selected Dakuba Kebele and conducted observations and interviews with key informants in that community. I also continued exploring options for institutional ethnography, specifically within Factory 1 and 2. For that, however, I decided to utilize an etic perspective and investigate how and why livelihood and land rights are considered, accommodated, or engaged by the development project through a human rights approach.

During the ethnographic fieldwork, I encountered challenges related to language and living in a precarious environment. The majority of indigenous people of these areas do not speak Amharic and on most occasions, I depended on the translation of my assistant. My Jalas spoke some Amharic, but not fluently, and sometimes they would need assistance. Working through translation is time-consuming and often frustrating. To address this, I sometimes used audio recordings and got a more detailed translation from my assistant at night. Additionally, the environment itself posed challenges. The area has hot and humid weather, is home to snakes, flies, and mosquitoes. I walked with the indigenous people in the dense spiny forest, which I found physically challenging and often terrifying. On one occasion, Geta took me and two pastoralists to observe the out-grower sugarcane farm of the Bodi people. On the way, he stopped and told us to look at the surroundings carefully and then pointed out the marks of a snake left on the mud. We stared in the direction of the snake but Geta advised us not to stare because snakes spit venom in the eyes of their targets. If we camped or stayed for a long period of time Geta advised us to stay near to the livestock shelter or else to cut garlic and put it around our tents. I have a fear of snakes and found the ethnographic fieldwork a chilling experience. Reading the myth of the ‘Great Serpent’ conveyed by Buffavand (2016) and hearing stories of Bodi men makes fieldwork enjoyable.

The dynamics of the Jala role for collaborative ethnographic fieldwork

‘He is my Jala’ – a mode of self-presentation in an ethnographic field

While contemplating the ethnographic field, the readings of Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) forced me to consider my personality and my own experiences. Trained in law and legal studies, I am accustomed to the normative and positive inquiries of legal research. However, this project required a grounded research approach to capture the multidimensional reality of the local communities of the Bodi and Mursi peoples. These local people see me as a highlander Ethiopian. I do not speak their language. I have a distinct ethnicity, culture and physical look. While I share a common nationality, these differences make me an outsider and create barriers that need to be overcome. I had to grapple with challenging questions: How can I establish trust and a normal or decent relationship with the community? How can I be tactful, courteous, and interact in rituals and their routine life? What kind of impression am I going to create among the community? Additionally, I am a male researcher so how might I access women’s world, and understand gender relations? How might I comprehend the diverse experiences of women in my research project? These questions challenged my confidence about engaging in ethnographic research.

The Jala role framed the way I was presented within the community and the mode of day-to-day interaction I had with community members. Once, I joined my Jala, Kalu and Bodi people, while preparing farmland, where 20 to 30 villagers were together working on the farm to cultivate maize for the coming rainy season. After noticing an unknown man, an old woman from a corner of the field asked Kalu who he brought. He said: “he is my Jala” and described me as a researcher from Hawassa. It was a positive reception. I participated in weeding and they offered me borde, a local drink made from sorghum. Further, Kalu took me to his farm and residence, where I met his wife and children. He proudly showed me his cattle while also expressing his worry he was worried about a cattle disease that had reduced their number. He has marital relations with two women and has six children with his first wife, while the second wife had recently deserted him. His Amharic is basic to intermediate, and he relies on assistance from Geta, my research assistant. He then took me to other households in his village, Arbujo in Gura Kebele, where he introduced me to the traditional leader and his brother.

I also obtained Jala status in the Mursi community, which similarly created opportunities that would have otherwise been unavailable had I not held such a status. On an early morning in late May, we met Degu in his small village, called Romos, which is found in Haylewuha Kebele. He was wearing the sugar factory security uniform. Geta introduced us, and he responded with a friendly smile. Degu speaks Amharic; he took us to his home and his sister offered us milk. We stayed the whole day with him. He gave us a tour of the resettlement village, introduced me to the village men as his Jala, and we visited their farms and social service utilities. We passed by Factory 2, which is close to Romos village. Over lunch, we discussed my research project and I asked him if our relationship and his participation might affect his official duty at the Factory. He did not hesitate in saying: ‘no problem’. In the afternoon, he took us to the sugarcane plantation and the residences of the farmworkers, where we met day labourers who came from other parts of the country: Wolayita, Kembata, Hadiya, Gamo, Gofa, and Ari among others.

Accordingly, the Jala role embraces the suggestion of Hammersley and Atkinson (2007: 65) about ‘impression management’ among the research participants by framing modes of self-presentation, collaboration and holding a conscious role in the field. I presented myself, openly, as a researcher and Jala of Kalu among Bodi community and the same with Degu among Mursi people. Fundamentally, the notion of Jala defines the purpose of my physical presence in my Jala village: to visit and carry some activity with the Jala. It presupposes that a member of the community has close acquaintance, trust, mutual visits and reciprocal assistance with someone across an ethnic linage. Accordingly, the Jala relation established norms, expectations of courtesy, and modes of interaction during the ethnographic practice. This status enables me to socialise and associate with the community and seek assistance that defined my role, modes of engagement with my Jala and the community. It improved my confidence by enabling trust and collaboration during the field interviews, discussions and observations.

However, after self-presentation and a prolonged discussion, I experience difficulty in soliciting participant consent for informal discussions. On several occasions, people got confused when I asked them to give their consent for an informal discussion that had already started, causing some confusion and irritation: Why was I interrupting? To address this, I adopted the procedure of informing them right away about my identity and research work and asking for consent, and again if I wanted to record the discussion. I also noted the cultural norm that people held high respect for those who were open and kept their word, to whom they listened carefully and replied thoughtfully. The pace of the interviews was well regulated. Participants would provide a single, explicit point at a time and then wait for the translator to convey it. After the translation, they would continue to present their point to share a new idea or respond to my question.

Unlike Slukas’s (2012:122) assumptions of a related experience of Briggs’s (1970) as a ‘fictive kinship’ that bred a fragile relationship, the Jala role facilitated collaborative relationship with the community in the research field. For many people of the Bodi and Mursi communities, my association as a Jala of a member of their group was important. When I mentioned their names, people tended to associate themselves with my Jala by identifying either their bloodlines or strong social relations with that person. For instance, when I told an influential Bodi man that Kalu is my Jala, he expressed their strong social bond by mentioning his cattle contribution for Kalu’s first marriage. By my third round of fieldwork, the people in Gura and Romos communities easily identified me with my Jala. I was greeted with smiles if I mentioned the name of Kalu or Degu. Except a few burdensome expectations and ethical dilemmas I encountered, the Jala role enabled a positive and sustained rapport with my Jala and their community. After the end of the fieldwork, my Jala and key actors of the community continued to inform me about new developments in the field, which enables the potential for longitudinal research and demonstrates the kind of relationship established.

Jala role – a source of security in a hostile ethnographic field

Insecurity was a constant concern in my ethnographic fieldwork. I observed intimidating sporadic gunfire, violence, closure of roads, and hostile relations between newcomers and indigenous people. The Bodi and Mursi peoples have been isolated from other communities and developments of the country; as Clifford (1988: 5) describes, the post-2010 high modernist land development of sugar industry and social interaction trapped them in ‘modernity’s inescapable momentum’ and labelled them as ‘backward’ who ‘will no longer invent local future’. As a result, they are shocked by the rapid changes beyond their control and contested newcomers. Before travelling to Salamago District, I used to stay in Jinka for a couple of days and consult the Zonal Security Administration. Following their advice, I had to reschedule my fieldwork and twice I cancelled trips to Hana and my Jala villages. Once I used the Federal military escort service along certain hot spot areas, namely the road from Jinka to Hana town. At the time, I felt honoured by the military service; however, I was frustrated with their behaviour towards the pastoralists communities, whom they stopped, interrogated and intimidated as if they were aliens. When I was able to ask a soldier why this interrogation and intimidation occurred, he simply responded, “nomadic people speak only with the gun and force”.

In addition to the essential element of the individual collaborator position (Hoffman and Tarawalley, 2014), the social and cultural practice of Jala offers protection in a hostile research frontier. In the field, I observed that my Jalas’ and the normative values of the Jala role provided me individual and social protection and security. In the beginning, most of the time, the individual Jalas accompanied me in the field, where they introduced me to the members of the community and informants, showed me their villages, maize farms, the social services developed by the sugar factories, the sugarcane plantations of the factories, out-grower associations, and the irrigation canals. If I stayed in their village, most of the time, my Jalas and some of the youngsters of the village camped and stayed with me over all of the nights, shared meals and offered me milk and a kind of bread made from maize flour. I felt safe as long as my Jalas’ and their villagers were around me.

Apart from these individual collaborations, in the fieldwork, I observed that the Jala role establishes a kind of normative obligation among the members of the group to offer a hospitable treatment and protection for a Jala of their group member. Sometimes, I travelled within the village without the presence of my Jala and I received very hospitable treatment and protection from the community. For instance, on my second visit to Romos Village, Degu was busy with official duties, so I decided to visit his village with my field assistant Geta to meet a Mursi elder. We left our car at the elementary school and went to the village. After 25 min of walking, Geta left me to find the elder and I waited for him in a communal gathering area. The villagers noticed and greeted me by mentioning my Jala Degu. Two girls came with cattle hide for me to sit on. People noticed that the flies were disturbing me and a woman brought a small fire on a piece of clay and made smoke by adding small pieces of wood that smelled like an olive tree. Children and young boys joined us. Geta finally arrived with an old and strong man who chased away the kids and called for a woman to roast maize for Degu’s guests. Meanwhile, two elderly men, whom I had not meet before, joined us and we had a long discussion. I enjoyed the fresh-roasted maize, while the borde, a homemade fermented drink made from sorghum, made me dizzy. When we returned, the old man ordered two youths to accompany us.

In another instance, the security officers of Factory 2 attempted to spy on my conversations with the people of Bodi, where I noted the collaboration and protection of local communities. This occurred during my sixth round of fieldwork when I attended an event organised by Factory 2 that aimed to create awareness about HIV/AIDS among the factory workers and the nearby villages of Gura Kebele, where I met a well-known Bodi man and my key informant. We exchanged greetings and stayed together during the event. He wanted to tell me about the military operation conducted by the government in August and September 2019. After attending some events, we left to the forest with an elderly Bodi man, who the informant had called to translate our discussion. We were followed by two men wearing the security uniforms of the sugar factory. We found a place to sit under an acacia tree and began a conversation. Uninvited, the security officers joined us and started to listen to our discussion. I was forced to change the topic of our discussion to HIV/AIDS for more than 5 minutes but the security officers neither participated in the discussion nor left us alone. They continued to follow us when we went to a small hut in the Sugar Factory Workers Village where beer was being sold, and they sat down with us outside the hut. The waiter asked me, “what about for them [security officers]?” Simultaneously we replied with the same message but in two languages: “they are not with us”. Their presence made the situation stressful and we were forced to postpone the most crucial topic for later. At the end of the day, I cancelled my travel plan to Hana Town and stayed overnight, when we found ample time and secured space to discuss.

Similar with the practice of Mijim (Desalegn, 2019), the social and cultural practice of Jala has an established normative common obligation to ensure a safe journey and protect the parties who have entered into the relationship. As I experienced, this normative obligation belongs primarily to the host party of the Jala relationship, who is like a consultant of Lassiter (2005a) or an essential individual collaborator of hostile research frontier of Hoffman and Tarawalley (2014). Most of the time, my Jalas were with me during the field observations, discussions with other key informants, accompanied my camping’s and stayed the nights, where they provided and ensured my safety and protection. Without their presence, I also experienced hospitality and protection that arose from the Jala relationship I had with a member of the community. This expound Lassiter’s (2005b) category of a large group of individuals and a community of ethnographic collaborators. The Jala relationship established with an individual also creates normative obligations among the host community to extend its good care and protection as much as it affords and acknowledges the relationship. Therefore, by ensuring a safe journey and protection, the cultural practices of the Jala relationship facilitates security to cross an ethnic boundary, safe journeys through a territory, and protection in a hostile ethnographic research frontier.

Jala – source of access to a multi-sited ethnographic field

Access to an ethnographic field had been a critical challenge of mine. However, in the process, I learned that the Jala role is a methodological enterprise to enable access to the field and facilitate multi-sited ethnography. My Jala is the primary justification of my presence in the rural ethnographic field. Even if the Zonal and District Administration permitted access to the field, among the community and sugar factories, the role of Jala was the source of my presence in the field. Among the local communities, my association with a member of their group through a Jala relation was important and facilitated trust and access to the social domain of the local communities. As a Jala, I carried out participant observation research in eight rounds of fieldwork and accessed ethnographic knowledge-holders.

Similar with the conclusions of Nash (2015), a local or right holders perspective of fieldwork allowed me to comprehend and document how those impacted perceive the modernisation phenomenon and construct grounded human rights ideas, experiences, and practices within their social context and structure. The Jala role enabled me to expand and improve the scope of my fieldwork from the individual Jala household to the villagers, and ultimately to the institutional settings of the sugar factories. The social and cultural role among the local communities facilitated access to the ethnographic knowledge holders of the sugar factories, including the factory workers and their residences, sugarcane plantations, emerging newcomers and flourishing small businesses. Factory 1 is located 21 kms away from Hana and is visible and very close to Gura village. Factory 2 is in Haylewuha Kebele and closer to Degu’s village. While travelling in these two particular villages of my ethnographic research fields, I passed through both factories, the new settlement areas, the sugarcane farms and the factory worker residences. I observed the factories, the sugarcane farm workers, residents, and their interaction with the local communities and listened to the stories of the farmworkers and their experiences with the factories by going iteratively between the local community and sugar factories back and forth.

During my third field visit, I approached Factory 1 but the CEO rejected my access application. I did not get the chance to meet him in person, but in a phone conversation, he said “the factory is a federal government business entity and the District Administration has no mandate to permit your study”. Even though I did not have his official approval, with my Jala I was able to cross security checkpoints, observe the sugarcane farm, stay with the factory workers, and to discuss and observe their routine work. In this regard, I found my Jala to be an essentially positioned individual collaborator, as in Hoffman and Tarawalley (2014). He supported me to gain access to Factory 1, observe the function of the Public Participation and Organisation Department and discuss with the workers. These instances improved ethnographic knowledge about the complex social, political and economic crises of the factories, including the poor project management, technical and financial failures of the contractor (METEC - a beleaguered military firm), financial abuse, social crises, and contestations the Bodi and Mursi peoples.

By contrast, the Factory 2 manager as well as officers in the planning, gender affairs, and public relations departments, were open and engaged with my interview questions. They allowed me to observe the institutional settings and routine functions of the industry. I paid close attention to the Public Participation and Organisation Plan and the Gender Affairs departments, where I encountered questions about my identity and the research I was working on. I described myself as a ‘social development’ researcher from Hawassa University and a Jala of two men, who belong to the Bodi and Mursi people. With this, I was able to begin formal and informal discussions, observe and learn about the Factory’s relationship and dealings with the indigenous people. Nonetheless, I sensed that there were reservations about opening the file cabinet fully. In many instances, the directors and officers rejected my inquiries about the contents of recorded minutes or reports from public participation meetings.

Persistent inquiries, open discussions about the politics of land development in the Omo Valley, and my association with the local community as a Jala paid off. The Factory staff recognised my strong affiliation with the area and the Bodi and Mursi communities, and after some discussions, they granted access to some documentation. That being said, the institutional atmosphere within the factory was tense and there was a great suspicion of outsiders. They allowed me only to read ‘sensitive’ minutes, such as the minutes that record the periodic consultations with the 21 representatives of Bodi and Mursi people, during which time officers stayed with me until I had finished reading the minutes and precluded me from taking notes, pictures or making copies.

After my fifth round of fieldwork, I was able to stay in the Sugar Corporation documentation centre for a week, during which time I had a conversation with one of the directors about a specific report and the Factory’s response. The director asked in surprise: “How do you know?” He was curious to understand how I had gained access to the local communities and the Factories. I described how I had gained an ‘insider’ perspective and the Jala relations I have with the communities. At that moment, he realised that denying my access would probably not justify their side of the story, since he could not break my relationship with the local community. We exchanged views. I showed him some of my pictures; and unlike the previous dismissive environment, he tried to enhance the collaboration and facilitated access to certain documents, interviews, and a workshop at the Corporation.

Despite criticism regarding the potential for bias when holding a role like that of Jala (e.g. Gold, 1958; Bonner and Tolhurst, 2002), the Jala role affords access and opportunities of multi-sited ethnography. Firstly, the distinct nature of my research field expounds the significance of the Jala role to expand access to and opportunity of going iteratively among the ethnographic knowledge holders, including the community, local administrations and the sugar industry. The role did not remain within the community after enabling access to the social domain and familiarity among of Bodi and Mursi people. The relationship facilitated the opportunity to enter into and enable collaborations with the sugar industry. Accordingly, the role has essential elements to establish a rich data set, as described by Maxwell (2012), which requires intensive and focused fieldwork going back and forth among the sources. Secondly, this iterative process offered the opportunity to triangulate the empirical information, validate stories of competing narratives of the right holders and duty bearer, and reduce biases. Perhaps among ethnographers, seamless objectivity is fictitious (Adler and Adler, 1987; Bourke, 2014), and thus it seems better to open oneself up and disclose assumptions, processes, and limitations.

The predicaments of Jala role in an ethnographic field

The relationship I obtained with my Jalas and the communities in which they resided also presented challenges and required conscious engagements of the researcher. The social and cultural norms and practices have an expectation of mutual visits and assistance, mainly between the parties in the relationship. My Jalas had not visited my home but I had paid several visits to their villages, farms and families. They had offered me food and drinks, answered my questions, discussed their personal and community experiences, shared their hopes and fears about the sugar factories, and guided and escorted me during my fieldwork. They had allowed me to observe their households and to talk with their sons, daughters and wives. Culturally, there is a social obligation of supporting my Jala if they are in need of anything that I can provide. I used to ask them what they needed from cities; and I brought a mosquito net, a small solar electricity panel and a phone. I was often asked if I could offer lifts to town, buy mobile voucher cards, or bring areke (local alcohol) from Hana town.

However, the villagers asked for more and I had to ask my Jala to communicate my limitations. Sometimes, my Jala asked for difficult favours. For instance, Kalu asked me if I could help him by bringing back his second wife. Polygamous marriage is common among Mursi and Bodi people. As long as the men are rich enough to pay a bridal price, which could amount to 35 to 40 cattle, it is permissible to establish a number of marital relations. Kalu paid a bridal price of the appropriate number of cattle to the girl’s family and married her. However, she left the marriage, fled to Jinka town and joined the pastoralist girls’ hostel, where she found access to shelter and education. Local culture would have it that since he had paid the bride price, she belonged to him, and he wanted my assistance in bringing her back. I explained that Ethiopian law defines polygamous marriage as a crime and requires the free consent of both parties to a marriage. Kalu’s response was that ‘these are the rules of the government’ and he eloquently argued for the cultural rules of his world that give him his rights, as long as he works hard, owns a large number of cattle and has paid the bride price. We had a long discussion about his feelings, the implications of his decisions, the possible alternative of reclaiming the cattle he paid as bridal price and the criminal charges he could face if he tried to bring her back without her consent.

This situation put me into an ethical dilemma: should I follow the cultural obligation of supporting my Jala or uphold the law. I attempted to influence his decision but it was not possible to change his culturally defined position. As I was about to leave for Jinka, he agreed to support her education plan if she was willing to remain in the marriage during and after her education. He asked me to talk to her, which I did. However, following our discussion in Jinka, she rejected his proposal. I was inspired by her strong commitment to education, her rejection of the culturally sanctioned women’s role, and her plan to represent Bodi women and improve their lives. Although it did not affect his willingness to participate in my research, Kalu was not happy about my attitude towards polygamous norms and girls education. I tried to ameliorate and manage his expectations of standing by his side through a cattle exchange, which is a culturally acceptable bond-establishing factor. I bought a small calf from Kalu, gave it back to him, and asked him to look after it in my name. He was delighted and promised: “I will keep it in your name and drink its milk honouring you. I and my children will remember you with it and its offspring”.

However, the seriousness of the hegemonic masculinity both at the interpersonal dynamics of family and in the public sphere of the pastoralists fostered this ethical dilemma I encountered. Women are invisible in the cultural settings of discussion forums. They do not have the authenticity to speak around campfire. Even if they are around to serve food, their silence seems the rule. However, they hold the burden of the pastoralist livelihood; they assume the principal duty of taking care of children, households, cattle, maise farm and feeding the family. Apart from the approval of their husband for a formal interview, as a male researcher, I found market, farm and social service utilities such as flourmills, health centres and water ponds as forum shopping of the women side of story. Like Kalu’s wife, a few pastoralist women found a way to contest male dominance through access to education.

Conclusion

The literature on collaborative ethnography establishes the importance of deliberate and explicit collaborative relationships with individuals at every stage of the ethnographic process. Whereas, this article demonstrates the significance of a normative social and cultural practice for a collaborative ethnographic fieldwork in a hostile research frontier, adding to that of individual consultants of Lassiter (2005b) or collaborative individuals position of Hoffman and Tarawalley (2014). As Desalegn (2019) observed, an available social and cultural norm may offer a powerful instrument to engage with the social and environmental context of the research and to tackle the challenges of fieldwork. This self-reflection of challenging and often-pondering ethnographic fieldwork critically examined the Jala relationship I established in 2019 in South Omo, Ethiopia. It explored the social and cultural practice of Jala as an identifiable and normative enterprise of an ethnographic collaboration during field research. The individual Jalas played key roles, but significantly, the normative social and cultural values of Jala are enablers of collaborative ethnography by establishing modes of self-presentation, positive rapport, security and access during the fieldwork. Even if the possibility of such a normative ethnographic collaboration depends on its availability in the field, it is hardly possible to acknowledge Sluka’s (2012: 122) scepticism against similar practices as a ‘fictive kinship’ and dismiss its methodological significance for an ethnographic collaboration.

Essentially, the Jala role offers a normative cultural practice to enter into relationships with mutual obligations. It begins ethnographic collaboration with self-presentation as a Jala or close friend to a member of the village that defined and framed the modes of day-to-day interaction with research participants. This role establishes cultural norms and expectations of courtesy and interaction and, as Hammersley and Atkinson (2007: 65) suggest, it allowed the researcher to pay attention to ‘impression management’. Between the individual parties to the relationship, despite the encountered ethical dilemmas, the Jala role enabled strong friendships and relationships, high levels of trust, rights to enter into households and seek assistance. With the community, an open self-presentation as a Jala of a member of the villager offers an intrinsic social value of Jala relationship. Therefore, the Jala role may expand the scope of collaborative ethnography of Lassiter (2005b) by opening possibilities of an identifiable normative social and cultural practice to define modes of collaboration, self-presentation, and impression management between the researcher and key informants in the field.

In addition to the individual role, the Jala relation offers protection and access to ethnographic knowledge-holders in a hostile research frontier. In a similar context, Hoffman and Tarawalley (2014) establish the significant position of an individual collaborator to access ethnographic knowledge-holders. The Jala relationship affords protection during fieldwork and facilitates access to multi-sited ethnographic field. My Jalas and Jala role enabled me to enter into the social settings, provided a reason for my presence in the villages, ensure safe passage, and enabled a way of making progress in the field. Jalas were friends who accompanied me in their villages, connected me with key informants, and explained my presence that facilitated a hospitable treatment, protection and access to ethnographic knowledge-holders.

The locally situated approach of entering into the research field through a Jala role guided a perspective into the right holders’ perspective. Similar to the finding of Nash (2015), this right holders perspective permitted the ethnographic fieldwork to comprehend and document how people perceive a modernisation phenomenon and construct human rights ideas, experiences, and practices within their social context and structure. Such right holder perspectives prevented the research project from the challenges of access and a methodological obsession with duty bearers or the structures of the sugar industry. The Jala role permitted strong relations with community members and facilitated an emic perspective that ultimately enabled my entry into the routine functions of the Factory. In the process, I noted that the factories tended to collaborate with my fieldwork after they came to realise my insider view and Jala relationship with the local community. In some instances, the knowledge gained through the Jala role enabled better bargaining power, improved access to observe the structures and work units of the industry. This allowed me to go back and forth between the local community [right holders] and sugar factories [duty bearer] iteratively. As also described by Merry (2017), this multi-sited ethnography facilitated an opportunity to see the intersection between the local and national level. Even though Gold (1958), as well as Bonner and Tolhurst (2002) express doubt about assuming such a role because of overfamiliarity and biases, I found that the role expanded access and opportunities of multi-sited ethnography and therefore offered a greater chance to triangulate empirical information and validate stories.

The normative elements of the Jala relationship may not define collaborative ethnography as reciprocity. The practice of seeing the hand of others or showing the other person one’s own hand is a cultural expectation of Jala relationships that could establish a model of exchange in an ethnographic encounter. However, it does not establish reciprocation or ‘an act of return’ or ‘giving back for something received’ (Lassiter, 2005a: 17). The Jala role obligates parties to the relationship to support each other; and hence, I regularly ask my Jala anything I could assist with and/or brought things that were needed from towns during my travels. Besides, my Jala and the villagers often asked if I could offer lifts to town, buy mobile voucher cards, or bring areke (local alcohol) from town. At times, this relationship also creates tensions and ethical dilemmas. However, Jala role also offers culturally acceptable bond-establishing practices. Parties to a Jala relationship are expected to stand by and support each other without the consideration of returns. Similar to Lassiter’s (2005a) conception of consultants, the Jala role establishes ethnographic collaboration with key informants of the study as constant, deliberate and explicit participation of the parties in the ethnographic fieldwork process. The Jala relationship is continuous in nature, as long as the parties are committed to the relationship; and ultimately, it is instrumental for longitudinal ethnographic research, as recommended by O'Reilly (2012). In pursuing the research objectives of my study, and as I engage with further research, from this ethnographic experience the Jala role is of my most cherished accomplishments.