Abstract
Qualitative researchers are increasingly expected to reflect on how their positionality influences their research experience and how it affects access to information and research participants. In this article, I reflect on the methodological, ethical and practical dilemmas experienced during fieldwork in my own ‘backyard’ for my doctoral degree. I focus on the politics of doing research on the relocation of Basarwa, an indigenous community in Botswana, from their ancestral land, the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, in 2001. Drawing on insights from the wider politics of Basarwa in Botswana, I reflectively consider a series of interwoven issues tied to my positionality as a student affiliated with a university in the United Kingdom, a Motswana from the mainstream society (non-indigenous) researching an indigenous group in an African state. Situating my reflections within the broader literature of researching sensitive topics, positionality, reflexivity and fieldwork, as well as within the specific context of the politics of indigeneity in Botswana, I show how researchers may be caught up in the crossfire of inter-ethnic politics and the wider politics of indigeneity in their home country. I reflect specifically on how I navigated the field in light of the contradictory positionalities emerging from my status as a researcher from the dominant group (embodying power), researching an indigenous, marginalised and politicised group and how these shaped my relationships with participants (elite and non-elites), securing interviews, accessing information and building rapport during interviews. Demonstrating my fluid, unstable and contradicting positionality, my analysis complicates the existing scholarship on positionality, which posits the insider/outsider category in binary and oppositional terms. I argue that any strict classification simplifies intersubjective relations and overlooks the flexible, non-static and complex nature of positionality.
Introduction
Researchers are increasingly expected to focus on how their positionality shapes their data collection and interpretation, as well as their conclusions. This requires researchers to be reflexive in their practices and highlights the need to re-examine how the politics around the subject being researched has shaped the researcher's positionality and interactions with different respondents. Reflecting on positionality in research sheds light on challenges and opportunities in relation to gaining access, establishing rapport and building trust (Kauffman, 1994). Research is ‘an inter-subjective process where both the researcher and the researched are subjects with agency whose subject positions are constantly negotiated and where the politics of the broader context are played out at a micro scale’ (Richmond et al., 2015: 41). In this ‘broader context’, questions arise about the researcher's social, educational and ethnic identities; questions arise, too, about approach and the constructedness of the research process (Hoon, 2006).
The intersubjective nature of the research process implies that data collection and interpretation are relational and socially situated and are greatly shaped by the researcher and the people with whom the researcher interacts (Hoon, 2006). Paying attention to these relations not only informs how researchers navigate fieldwork but it also guides data analysis and choice of method (Bukamal, 2022; Holmes, 2020). Therefore, the researcher's identity or positionality in research is fundamental in shaping the totality of the research process. Positionality ‘reflects the position that the researcher has chosen to adopt within a given research study. It influences how research is conducted, its outcomes, and results’ (Holmes, 2020: 2). However, it may be assigned by participants at different stages of the research. In this sense, it is not predetermined.
Positionality may be understood from three angles: the research subject, the participants and the social context of the research (Holmes, 2020). An open and honest reflection on how positionality affects the research process informs ethical considerations and also helps us appreciate our potential biases and how our values and background may affect how we make sense of the data (Bukamal, 2022; Holmes, 2020). In order to define their role in relation to participants and subject, researchers often identify as insiders or outsiders in relation to participants and the research site (Breen, 2007). Whilst this classification seems straightforward, the realities of research suggest that it is not as clear, watertight and definite as is assumed by some scholars. Below, I flesh out some important aspects of these classifications and their implications for my research.
Insider/outsider positionality
Early twentieth-century ethnography, which involved anthropologists leaving their home countries to study ‘natives’ abroad, was defined by clear-cut distinctions between the anthropologist and the community that was being researched (Mercer, 2007). Hence, the anthropologist was not a member of the group that was being studied. However, these clear distinctions became fluid and blurred as anthropologists increasingly studied familiar social and cultural contexts. Thus, the turn to studying familiar places or one's own community disturbed the rigid boundaries between the researched and the researcher. In this context, a new conception of intersubjective relations developed: insider/outsider. In this framing, ‘insiders are members of specified groups and collectives, or occupants of specified social statuses. Outsiders are the non-members’ (Merton, 1972: 21). In addition, ‘an insider refers to a researcher who shares biological and social characteristics with the group that is being studied and also has intimate knowledge about the group before the actual research’ (Griffith, 1998: 361). An outsider, by contrast, is one who does not share any biological or social features with the group and is also not familiar with the socio-cultural context of the group. A distinction is often made between ‘researchers-at-home’ and ‘researchers-not-at-home’ (Mandiyanike, 2009). ‘Researchers at home’ are those whose sites are familiar to them, giving them prior knowledge of the local context. ‘Researchers not at home’ do not have prior local knowledge and have no connections with their sites (Adu-Ampong and Adams, 2020). This dualism rests on a clear delineation of home, and the field as elsewhere, and posits the two as oppositional and dichotomous categories. However, Hoon (2006: 94) problematises the conceptualisation of home and field and suggests ‘a blurring of the boundaries between “home” and “field”, and (re)conceptualizes them as flexible, shifting and multiple, and reflects upon the researcher's own positions’.
The insider/outsider classifications imply that those who do research ‘at home’ are insiders, and those who do research ‘away from home’ are outsiders (Adu-Ampong and Adams, 2020: 583). Insiders are generally assumed to be familiar with the place and group they are studying by virtue of being members of the group. The reverse holds for outsiders
The researcher-researched relationships are not as definitive, clear-cut and rigid as often assumed. Identities are ‘situational and contingent’ (De Vault, 1996: 35, cited in Mercer, 2007: 3). Subjectivities or positionalities are multiple and overlapping, such that an individual may occupy several positions in a single research project (Merton, 1972). Thus, rather than conceiving positionalities in binary terms or as mutually exclusive, the categories must be understood as a continuum and the researcher as oscillating between two points, ‘moving back and forth across different boundaries’ (Griffith, 1998: 368). Of course, a researcher's biographical data may be fixed, such as gender and ethnicity, but other data are evolving; the power relationship within which the researcher and the researched co-exist, the personalities involved in the research, specific information and even the precise topic under discussion also determine positionality (Kerstetter, 2012). Researchers assume different positionalities in relation to a particular group of respondents and may vary at different times within the research and with the same respondents (Bukamal, 2022; Merriam et al., 2001).
Fundamentally, one's identity – the self – in research is neither singular, neatly defined, nor pre-existent; rather, it is fluid, co-produced in intersubjective relations at different moments and places (Hoon, 2006). The ‘'Self” constantly repositions itself in relation to the “Other” in that particular time and place. In this way, it multiplies across different positions, discourses and circumstances’ (Hoon, 2006: 83). An understanding of the self as co-constructed and shifting disrupts the epistemological distinctions of ‘researcher/researched, self/other, insider/outsider and native/foreign’ as neither category is stable, they are all constantly shifting and ambiguous (Hoon, 2006: 84). It further complicates the assumed dichotomy between the field and home also visible in the definition of an insider researcher as someone who is researching home, depicting home as ‘immobile’, and the outsider as researching away from home, denoting field as a ‘journey away’ (Hoon, 2006: 93). These complexities are at the core of my paper as I attempt to unravel the experiences of my fieldwork.
Fieldwork: the complexities of researching Basarwa
There is vast ethnographic research on Basarwa 1 . However, very few of these researchers have reflected on their fieldwork experiences or on their positionality as researchers on Basarwa or on their reflexivity in response to how they themselves are perceived by the respondents. Notably, post-graduate researchers have widely noted the sensitive nature of any research on Basarwa in Botswana (see Lawy, 2016; Thomas, 2016; Saugestad, 2001) whilst overlooking how different sets of social boundaries of race and ethnicity have played out in interactions with Basarwa or with state officials, and how politics of indigeneity in Botswana have impacted their studies. These different sets of social boundaries do, however, influence and shape the research process and should be reflected upon. Acknowledging that our social, historical and political experiences affect the research process invites a reflexive approach to research. A reflexive approach to positionality suggests that researchers are not detached from the society or the subject of study but experiences greatly inform the research process (Holmes, 2020: 3). According to Holmes (2020: 4) ‘reflexivity can help to clarify and contextualize one's position about the research process for both the researcher, the research participants, and readers of research outputs’. The point is that data collection is shaped by demographic and social backgrounds (Breen, 2007). In the context of my research, a reflexive approach to my positionality regarding this study entailed questions about how my national identity shaped the way I was perceived during interviews by Botswana officials, by representatives of civil society organisations (CSOs) and by Basarwa. How did my non-indigenous status inform Basarwa responses to me, interactions with me, and my own interpretation and understanding of their struggle? Below, I grapple with understanding my fieldwork by reflecting on it.
he fieldwork for my study spanned 11 months, spent in Gaborone, Ghanzi, New Xade and Kaudwane, following my informants. I interviewed three sets of people: the relocatees (Basarwa and Bakgalagadi) 2 , government officials and representatives of CSOs. The objective of the research was to understand the Basarwa struggle against their relocation from their land, the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve (CKGR) to Kaudwane, New Xade and Xere, in 1997 and 2001, supposedly to bring them closer to development and to integrate them into mainstream society. This policy was strongly opposed by Basarwa themselves, and by some local and international organisations. Survival International (SI) and the First People of the Kalahari (FPK) argued that the relocation was a violation of Basarwa's indigenous rights, and their rights to equality and self-determination (Odysseos, 2011). Therefore, I sought through interviews to understand how Basarwa mobilised their experiences with the Botswana state and interacted with their non-indigenous other to construct themselves as indigenous in opposing the relocation; I also sought to understand the field of forces within which the struggle occurred. To this end, I investigated the various ways the Basarwa challenged and contested the government's policy of relocation. My broad research question was ‘What subjectivities have emerged for Basarwa and the Botswana state during the resistance to the relocation?’ The nature of my research brought to the fore the politics of indigeneity in Botswana. In this way, the research focused my gaze on Botswana state policy towards Basarwa and the concomitant contestations. The Basarwa ‘issue’ is considered a sensitive topic, ‘a no-go area’, ‘a hot potato’ in Botswana (see Lawy, 2016; Saugestad, 2001; Taylor, 2000; Thomas, 2016). Indeed, some researchers note that they were warned about the sensitive nature of Basarwa issues, including the CKGR relocation in Botswana political discourse (Lawy, 2016; Thomas, 2016). There is a general fear among foreign researchers of provoking angry reactions from government and, of course, of being denied a research permit or even worse, being declared a prohibited immigrant.
Generally, the Government of Botswana (GoB) has been (is) sceptical about Western researchers’ involvement with Basarwa. Part of the concern stems from the perceived politicisation of Basarwa by researchers and Western philanthropists (Sapignoli, 2018; Saugestad, 2001). Since the beginning of the Basarwa struggle in the early 1990s, the GoB has attempted to suppress the Basarwa political activism through harassment of, threats to and different forms of intimidation of them and their sympathisers (see Saugestad, 2001). Perhaps even more revealing, the campaign against the relocation of Basarwa from the CKGR and the active involvement of SI renewed the GoB's resentment of outside involvement in Basarwa issues. This anti-relocation campaign resulted in a heated exchange – accusations, insults and derogatory remarks – between SI, FPK and GoB. Undeniably, in many ways, the SI campaign was seen as symbolic of the West's pessimistic view of Africa (Resnick, 2009). Similarly, the GoB's response to criticism of the relocation was reflective of African governments’ uncompromising stance on indigenous rights and resentment of Western criticism. The GoB saw the support of Western NGOs for the Basarwa as ‘meddling unnecessarily in a predominantly domestic affair’, possibly with the backing of their governments, as dictating policy on what was primarily an internal matter (Resnick, 2009). In this context, any research that assumes that Basarwa are indigenous is likely to antagonise the government and to be viewed with scepticism, possibly eliciting a backlash from the state. In fact, the GoB's stance on the CKGR relocation essentially framed any critic of the government's policy of relocation as unpatriotic and at war with the Botswana state, ‘in bed’ with the enemy, SI. These dynamics, and the uncompromising stance of the GoB on the Basarwa and CKGR issue, identify the topic as very sensitive and one around which the researcher must tread quite carefully. Below, I reflect on my status during my interviews with members of the elite.
Interviews with the elite (government officials and representatives of CSOs)
In many ways, my research design and choice of methods were influenced by my prior knowledge of the site and the networks and relationships that could facilitate access. Being familiar with the socio-political context, the contestations around indigeneity, Botswana society dynamics (regarding the othering and sometimes essentialisation of Basarwa), and the bureaucratic hurdles involved when dealing with a topic like this, put me in a better position to negotiate my way around interviews.
Elite interviewees were drawn from three different government ministries: the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (headquarters officials and officers of the Ghanzi District Council), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism, and from CSOs. In addition to interviews, I reviewed archival material, policy documents and newspapers in order to interrogate the role of the broader rationalities underpinning the relocation policy and the discourses that were mobilised by Basarwa to oppose the relocation.
Before starting actual data collection, I made an exploratory trip to Ghanzi to identify potential informants and conduct informal interviews with stakeholders there, with the goal of negotiating access to policy documents and archival materials. In addition, the trip was meant for me to better understand the local context and new developments in the CKGR issue in order to be able to ask the right research questions. Given the sensitivity of the topic and the discomfort it invoked in my informants, this strategy was necessary for gaining access to and establishing rapport with informants prior to the actual interviews. During the interviews, it was fundamental that I present myself to the elites as a credible researcher in order to build trust and confidence with participants. Whilst not many elite participants paid significant attention to my affiliation because of my identity as a Motswana, I nevertheless tended to foreground my role as a University of Botswana lecturer, affiliated to the San Research Centre and downplayed my University of Sussex affiliation. The San Research Centre enjoys a degree of credibility amongst CSOs and government officials. My identity as a Botswana citizen was helpful in negotiating access with government officials. Essentially, being perceived by government officials as an insider vis-à-vis the Western researchers who dominated previous Basarwa research increased my chances of success. My apparent insider status meant that I had to navigate research encounters based on my knowledge of Botswana society and the GoB stance on the CKGR issue and the question of the Basarwa. Reflexivity in this context involved my paying attention to how my identity created or closed opportunity for revealing or concealing some meanings, that enabled access and shaped participants’ responses (Berger, 2015).
In contrast to foreign researchers, I claimed insiderness based on my status as a Motswana and, in this way, tempered government officials’ hostility towards research on Basarwa. As a result, although they were often busy, the government officials granted me interview time to demystify the truth and misconceptions around the relocation of Basarwa and therefore saw my research as worthy of their time. A senior government official in the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, tasked with overseeing the coordination of the implementation of the Remote Area Development Programme 3 , noted in our first meeting that he was pleased that the CKGR issue was for the first time being researched by a Motswana, who has clearer perspective of the situation and context than a foreign researcher. This view was not misplaced, since the government has in the past criticised Western NGOs and researchers for what government officers argued were uninformed claims about the CKGR issue and Basarwa generally (see Resnick, 2009). This is instructive for how the insider status (the perception of ‘one of us’) quickly gained me the trust and confidence of this particular officer. Similarly, gaining access to the Ghanzi District Council highlighted my insider positionality. When I introduced myself, the two most senior officials in the Council quickly noted that they knew my family. Here, I observed that in addition to insider status, familiarity with my family was beneficial for me, because they appeared comfortable facilitating access to and interviews with their subordinates.
However, the ‘assigned insiderness’ was not a settled status because I had to negotiate my status with every interview and sometimes at different moments during the interview. For example, in some interviews, my affiliation with a Western university gave me pseudo-outsider status, as exemplified in the responses that I got when I questioned government policy and pointed to the state of poverty amongst Basarwa. In what represented the onset of insider-outsider ambivalence, due to the emerging uncertainty of my position, one civil society leader associated my views with the position of SI. It was apparent that the subtle expectation was that I would, as a Motswana, toe the government line and would not be too critical of the government policy of ‘neutral development’, despite its negative effects on Basarwa. In another example demonstrating the complexity of my positionality, a former government minister and a member of Parliament questioned the authenticity of my research and labelled me an ‘SI spy’. In his words, ‘Why would you want to study the relocation of Basarwa from CKGR now when it happened many years ago. I suspect you are an ‘SI spy’ and your research is meant to incite Basarwa to reject development programmes’.
The nature of the topic and challenging government policy quickly diffused my insider status and rendered me an outsider and ‘in cahoots with SI and the rest of Western researchers’. In this instance, questioning my stance as an interviewer affected the interview. Interestingly, questioning the participants’ claims about the levels of poverty amongst Basarwa was a result of my understanding of context as an insider, which an outsider may have lacked. Outsider researchers might not critically engage with information shared due to their lack of an inside view. Sabot (1999) agrees that ‘Local elites respond differently to fellow compatriots and to foreign researchers’ (cited in Mikecz, 2012: 485). According to Sabot (1999), foreign researchers are trusted more because they are not perceived to pose any threat to the interviewees’ status and position, especially if the results are published in a different country. Participants in such a situation are more open and willing to share intricate information with outsider researchers because the researchers are not invested in the politics of the researched communities and are therefore not likely to share or question what they are being told.
Adu-Ampong and Adams (2020: 588) note that desisting from questioning the stance of elite participants is important for negotiating access and cultivating approachability, and for ‘“getting in and getting along” in the field’. According to these scholars, the chance of success in getting access to the research is enhanced if the researcher has connections and knowledge of the respondents. In some instances, to secure interviews, I relied on my connections and acquaintances to put in a word for me and assure potential participants of my professionalism. However, even with these connections, given the sensitivity of the topic and defensive nature of government officials, I carefully gauged the tone and stance of respondents in order to decide which way the interview would proceed (Masilo, 2021). I took a cue from Richardson (2014, p. 186), that ‘reading the atmosphere during each interview…knowing when to ask the right question, at the right time…knowing when to be silent or to omit questions…(and)…knowing when to speak…’ is helpful. Generally, as I learnt the dynamics of my field, I adjusted my interviewing approach to starting interviews with the very broad questions of what happened in the CKGR during the relocation, what has been happening and where we are now. These questions were meant to allow the interviewee to direct the flow of the interview and speak on issues that they thought were worth sharing. Not only did this generate rapport, it also ‘facilitated easy transition to the most controversial and sensitive questions’ (Masilo, 2021: 117). For this reason, in addition to reading around the topic, I reviewed newspapers published during the height of the CKGR debacle to understand the views of the individual government officials about the topic.
Most elites have superb communication skills and may easily dominate an interview, contest research methods and theoretical assumptions, and, in some instances, ‘the researcher may easily find him-or herself in a situation of being patronized’ (Mikecz, 2012 : 484). Indeed, whilst interviews are meant to get insights into an issue, one of my interviews with a representative of a CSO turned out to be more about a defence of her organisation's approach to the CKGR anti-relocation campaign. In that interview, I was subjected to severe criticism of the University of Botswana scholars’ negative views of Botswana's CSOs. The interviewee said, ‘UB professors are too quick to say Botswana's civil society is very weak’. Here, it was clear that my background as a university lecturer had a significant impact on the way in which the interview unfolded. Thus, although my professional credentials and affiliations facilitated access in some instances, in this case, insider status and professional association were a baggage despite the fact that my views about the CKGR struggle or Botswana or CSOs were not publicly known. I also experienced a difficult case of gate-keeping by the same CSO representative, who refused to share with me contacts of other key people that were involved in the issue. Thus, as a local, I was often entangled in the local politics of the research subject and could be denied consent or be given highly censored information.
In addition, some interviewees may be concerned about the confidentiality of data (Kerstetter, 2012). For example, one interviewee expressed his concerns about confidentiality. In his words, ‘I do not want to hear this interview in Gabzfm’ 4 (Masilo, 2021). His concerns were not unfounded, as official information (even recordings of internal meetings), including on the CKGR issue, has been leaked to the media in the past. Here, my insider status raised confidentiality concerns for the participants. As a result, whilst I often used a digital audio-recorder to record interviews, some interviews were recorded by hand. However, whereas junior officers were not comfortable being recorded, some senior officers were oblivious to the tape recorder. Understanding my positionality allowed me to reflect not only on the nuances and particularities of each interview and the tone of participants’ voices but also on my positionality. Having background knowledge of CKGR politics and Tswana culture allowed me to be innovative and to be creative in order to access information. Mandiyanike (2009) notes that, notwithstanding all advantages that come with insider status, an insider may be denied information about certain things that may be readily available to an outsider. In light of this, I used appropriate tools ‘if the respondents agreed that I do so’. In some instances, I popped into offices for informal conversations. Through this approach, I was able to access detailed information about the relocation and its politics without asking direct questions and without an audio-recorder rolling.
The sensitive nature of the CKGR issue and the fact that some officials spoke to me without proper authorisation made it difficult to verify certain key claims. The responses of those who had been authorised were guarded because of wanting to ensure consistency with the government’ policy and narrative. Mikecz (2012: 483) notes that the location of the interview process can influence responses. Responses obtained in an office can represent the official, public relation version. However, interviewees often deviated from the government discourses as soon as they became comfortable in the interview.
The regulations that guide access to and disclosure of information also added another layer of complexity because they proved a challenge for both securing interviews and accessing files. For example, in terms of the Public Service Act of 2008, public servants cannot release information that has come to their attention during the course of their duties without authorisation from their supervisors. In some instances, this authorisation was not forthcoming. And as a result, I was denied information that should have ordinarily been available even without authorisation. For example, the Botswana High Court (in Lobatse) refused me access to important information such as the case material and transcripts for Roy Sesana, Keiwa Setlhobogwa and Others & The Attorney General, Misca No 52 of 2002. 5 The insider position was not always advantageous since in some instances I was denied information on grounds that I knew that government policy prohibits outsiders from looking at material without proper authorisation.
Interviews with Basarwa
Given the methodological approach and the focus of this thesis, participants’ views, perspectives, everyday realities, experiences and meanings were central to data collection. This approach was necessary to address the questions driving this study, namely the examination of social relations and the political and social contexts that account for the Basarwa subjectivities that have emerged in the struggle against the relocation. In line with this approach, I conducted forty interviews with CKGR relocatees in the resettlement areas of Kaudwane and New Xade (Masilo, 2021). Through this approach, my aim was to get Basarwa's main account of their experiences and perceptions of their relocation and the justifications for opposing the relocation. In this manner, interviewees’ accounts of what transpired, how they made sense of the relocation and how they constructed themselves as indigenous in order to oppose the relocation were a key focus of the interviews. Within this context, the complexities generated by my identity as a non-indigenous, a Motswana, from mainstream society alongside the politics of researching Basarwa in Botswana came to play.
The GoB has sought to promote ethnic unity and ethnic equality through the neutral development policy, in terms of which ethnic background is not considered in development policies. Instead, all people are to be treated the same, including Basarwa (Gulbrandsen, 2012; Saugestad, 2001). In line with this policy, indigeneity is not recognised in Botswana (Saugestad, 2001). Although that aspect of the status of Basarwa in Tswana society has, over the years, improved in some areas, Basarwa continue to experience deeply rooted inequalities at all levels. Basarwa remain marginalised and excluded politically, socially and economically (Mazonde, 2004). In fact, these structural issues form the core around which their indigeneity is constructed. Basarwa argue that under the neutral development policy pursued by the Botswana state, they have endured different forms of injustice, including displacement from their traditional territories and discrimination because of their distinct mode of subsistence. Thus, as a Motswana researcher, the positionality that Basarwa assigned me was not distinct from the unequal inter-ethnic relations that exist; rather, it is greatly defined by them. In view of this, positionality and reflexivity here meant asking, ‘What are the structural relations between me and my object of study? How are they constructed, by me and by them? Where am I subjectively located? How far can I go into the subject, and which conclusions are inescapable from my positioning versus theirs?’ (Mphinyane, 2001: 182). Paying attention to how Basarwa construct themselves as indigenous also meant my understanding the way they interact with their non-indigenous others, including non-indigenous local researchers. Thus, I had to actively reflect on the way in which this perceived and actual powerlessness and vulnerability might obscure the way I made meaning and sense of their narratives or overemphasised certain aspects and disregarded other aspects of Basarwa narratives. In this sense, situating my Tswana background and socio-economic position in relation to Basarwa was a key element of my reflexivity in this study. My non-Mosarwa status made me an outsider in the sense that I was unfamiliar with their traditions, values and customs and did not share their experiences of marginalisation and injustice. Even though language distinctions between Basarwa and Tswana positioned me as an outsider in relation to Basarwa, as a Botswana citizen, my nationality and my familiarity with the environment, local political dynamics and local knowledge positioned me as an insider. This fluctuating insider-outsider status created opportunities and also posed challenges for data collection.
The challenges posed by my insider-outsider position were more apparent when I tried to negotiate interviews with Basarwa. This was particularly the case with interviewing Basarwa in New Xade, who are perceived to be hostile to outsiders, non-Basarwa. Therefore, in relation to Basarwa, I straddled the insider-outsider positionality. This was not fixed because it constantly shifted, subject to the status that the Basarwa participants imputed to me. I found that my positionality was shaped, on one hand, by my sense of being part of Botswana society, and perhaps sharing the experience of Basarwa. On the other hand, I observed that sometimes my sense of being a part of Tswana society and its experiences did not always find agreement with them. For example, since I am a part of the dominant Tswana society, Basarwa conflated me with the government. On occasions when participants saw me as being part of the government, this view was used to withhold consent or to withhold any self-incriminating information or to express frustrations. Associating with the government played out in many distinct ways. Some participants withheld consent for fear of retribution and possible loss of government benefits, such as the destitute ration, if they spoke negatively about the government. Thus, social and economic marginalisation was a major determining factor of whether the Basarwa participants gave or withheld consent. In an encounter that best reveals this complexity and how the pre-existing power structures of Tswana society complicated this study, a potential participant who denied consent reasoned as follows: ‘They cannot relocate us from our land and come here to ridicule us with their interviews. Why didn’t you seek our views before the relocation?’ The quotation highlights the Basarwa's resentment against the government and anyone they associate with it. The ‘they’ in the quotation also demonstrates how, in some instances, Basarwa conflated me with the government by virtue of my Tswana identity, and therefore saw me as part of the oppressive dominant society, a criticism that a non-local researcher would have easily escaped. There is a general feeling amongst Basarwa that not only are they subject to many forms of injustice at the hands of the Botswana state, but that the Botswana society has also failed to challenge the government policy on Basarwa. Mphinyane (2001) almost suggests that the intervention of SI, as much as it is despised for its seemingly aggressive and unwanted interference, fills in the gap that insiders, citizens, have created by not calling out the government for its unjust treatment of Basarwa. Mphinyane (2001) suggests that, as Batswana researchers, we have not actively played our role in advocating for the rights of Basarwa. But we have simply documented these injustices.
The ethnic dimension of positionality is strongly connected to the CKGR struggle, and Basarwa-state relations have actively shaped my interactions, as a local researcher, with Basarwa. Notably, my nationality was the key element of my identity that impacted my research interactions. One of my research assistants noted that generally New Xade communities are more receptive to Western researchers. Indeed, LaRocco et al. (2019) note in their discussion of their fieldwork experiences that they were seldom denied consent because of the perception that, as Western researchers, they might influence government positively. In this context, Western researchers’ positionality (race and class) strongly shaped how they were viewed by rural communities in their research. Berger (2015) notes that participants may be keener to share information with an interviewer who is sympathetic to their cause or who may be useful for their struggle. This was not surprising as I had been forewarned about the hostility of Basarwa towards local researchers. Considering the above complexities, I negotiated the ‘insider-outsider’ status using several techniques, such as introducing myself to the village chiefs in the two settlements where I conducted interviews. To further negotiate access and to dilute my outsider status, I also engaged two Basarwa research assistants. The use of local research assistants moderated the outsider identity. The research assistants were crucial in providing contextual background and for navigating the politics of CKGR relocation in the respective communities. To gain the trust of participants, I endeavoured to demonstrate my long-term engagement or interest in their struggle dating to as far back as 2006. This helped in building rapport and presented me as somebody who was keenly interested in Basarwa issues and is not just doing research to satisfy academic requirements.
Hostility towards local researchers is as much a result of intra-social relations as of research fatigue. Undoubtedly Basarwa are one of the most-researched communities in the world. LaRocco et al. (2019) agree that rural communities like New Xade attract a large number of researchers, and this has resulted in research fatigue. Research fatigue has also heightened communities’ tendency to question the motives, objectives and possible benefits of research projects, or to request a reward for participating in the study. Conducting fieldwork on ethnic minorities and over-researched communities requires the researcher to pay attention to these impulses, and to reflect on their implications and how they influence interview processes. Importantly, researchers must pay attention to how denial of consent or withdrawal may affect their methodological and theoretical frameworks and their data. In the Foucauldian framework, which guided my thesis, I read the Basarwa tendency to withhold consent and question the motive of research as agency, resulting from a subjectification process of years of injustice and disposability in Botswana society.
Agency and subjectification, and cultural homogenisation inherent in the notion ‘Basarwa’, are contesting categories that I assigned to the communities in both New Xade and Kaudwane despite the fact that they are different groups who see themselves as having different customs, histories and so on (Saugestad, 2001). By challenging their homogenisation and representation in my study, Basarwa revealed and reinforced my outsider positionality. Understanding my positionality and being reflexive thus entailed being cognizant of the performances, the boundaries, convergences and divergences as well as intersections in my socio-cultural view of Basarwa.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have discussed the problem of researching ‘home’, as a citizen and member of the dominant group, affiliated with a Western university. I have reflected on the subtle dimensions of the self, the other and the intersubjective relations of negotiations in the field through reflexivity. I have also discussed my status at different moments in the research process, including the personal experiences around which I constructed my positionality. The identities of being a Motswana and a student affiliated with a Western university generated the cross-cutting ties of local, non-indigenous and insider-outsider researcher. As the above discussion of my fieldwork experience has shown, these categories are not diametrically opposed positions. Throughout my research, my positionality oscillated and shifted depending on the respondents’ perception of me and circumstances related to gaining access and rapport. In a similar manner, Breen (2007: 165) says about his research experience that ‘the insider/outsider dichotomy is simplistic, and that neither term adequately captures the role I occupied throughout the research’. As a local researcher, I found myself inextricably trapped in the politics of indigeneity, which is also intertwined with the politics of who gets to speak for/with Basarwa in their struggle against the many injustices that they suffer at the hands of the Botswana state. In the context of these politics, as a Motswana, perhaps with in-depth knowledge, my attempt to critically engage with elite participants came across as being critical of government, buying into the agenda of the West, and into SI claims, all of which annoyed the GoB. My remarks quickly made my status as a Motswana questionable, and I was stripped of the insider status that I had been initially assigned and on the basis of which I was received. By engaging officials and questioning some of their claims, I was quickly converted into an outsider, a non-Motswana, for what they saw as Western essentialist views and lack of contextual knowledge. These remarks altered my positionality and forced a reflection on my interviewing approaches. I had to carefully gauge the interview and pay attention to the mood and the interviewee's positions and perceptions of the subject matter to be perceived as a credible researcher.
Of course, researchers are often under pressure to construct their research in ways that do not disrupt long-held assumptions and truths in order to gain approval in the discipline. Similarly, to avoid being considered a threat, I had to eschew the government officials’ construction of Basarwa. I had to walk a tightrope, balancing the demands of academic research and staying true to my theoretical and conceptual frameworks while maintaining access and good relationships. Insider positionality is, in this sense, a perspective an individual academic can construct or enact. Rejecting the idea that the researcher must either be an insider or an outsider opens a greater possibility of reflection about how positionalities constantly shift based on our embodied and assumed identity and the exigencies of fieldwork. Thus, this uncertainty creates the necessary flexibility for engagement with the messiness of fieldwork. The researcher adapts their positionality in response to interviewees’ imputed status. This projected positionality, therefore, cannot ‘pre-exist’ the interview, as strict outsider/insider categorisation assumes. Positionality is contingent on the situations and experiences in the field, and ‘the kinds of roles that are assumed are hardly static, but are evolving constantly’ (Shaffir, 1991: 77 cited in Hoon, 2006: 92).
This fluidity is particularly present in the context of research with indigenous peoples and on sensitive topics. Indigenous subjectivities are flexible, malleable and constituted and enacted in interactions with others, including the researcher. The fluid nature of indigeneity complicates the binary between indigenous and non-indigenous, Motswana and non-Motswana. Essentially, the researcher is ‘neither here nor there’ in relation to the researched; rather, positionality is subject to discourses around indigeneity or to the identity that the indigenous value at a given time.
Crucially, applying sensitive topic frames and perspectives on indigenous research helps us understand how the researcher's identities are performed continuously in every interview situation, and how they are affected by the politics of the topic. The distinction between the researcher and participants here is not only premised on a huge cross-cultural difference in value systems and norms but is also expressed in the nature of their politics. Indeed, positionality in sensitive topics, such as indigeneity in a social context where it is strongly contested and denied, is a complex construction and is shaped by social and political structures, historical events and global politics that are rendered visible in intersubjective research relations. Based on an analysis of experiences from my research, I argue that intersubjective research relations are not determined and shaped by local socio-political dynamics only but also by macro politics of North-South positions on indigeneity. Therefore, it is imperative to ‘ground the “local” understanding in the politics, circumstances, and economies of a particular moment, a particular time and place, a particular set of problems, struggles, and desires’ (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008: 9, cited in Blix, 2015: 175).
The researcher must therefore constantly assess how best to navigate different positionalities as they emerge in the research process. The researcher must attempt to ‘go with the flow’ by embodying categories that may work at a particular time (Adu-ampong and Adams, 2020). I assumed multiple subjectivities throughout the research. At different points, I was a critic of government policy, an ambivalent researcher, sympathetic to Basarwa, knowledgeable and then ignorant about the issues at hand, depending on the contingencies I encountered during the interview.
Footnotes
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The fieldwork was funded by the University of Botswana.