Research ‘on the move’

Methods employed often reflect broader anthropological theory itself; I have often employed mobile methods to answer questions concerning mobilities. I was influenced by Salazar and Smart (2011) who take a critical, reflective look at the mobilities lens in fieldwork, urging scholars to do likewise while harnessing the benefits of a mobilities approach, not to lose sight of other patterns in doing fieldwork. Sheller (2013) deems it to be one of the virtues of the methodological toolkit, being developed within mobility studies, that scholars experiment with various and mobile methods of fieldwork. Though I did follow Sheller’s call,

employing mobile methods to study mobilities is not a necessity. As well as reflecting epistemology, mobile methods also reflect a practical shift in methodology. Cyber research, coined as a mobile methodology by Sheller and Urry (2006), was

particularly useful, both in researching online activism (Chapter 8) and in maintaining contact with research participants after fieldwork to follow up and to clarify on

countless leads and questions I had as I was writing up the dissertation. Sheller writes that:

‘The generative focus on mobilities has led to methodological innovation, as researchers have pushed to find empirical evidence pertinent to the study of mobilities and to invent instruments up to the task of measuring the changing nature of time, space and movement. Some have called for new analytical orientations and new methodologies in order to study especially the more

ephemeral, embodied and affective dimensions of interlocking relational (im)mobilities that are not captured using traditional methods.’ (2013:7)

My ethnographic fieldwork was very much mobile, rather than applying a

programmatic methodology, my research assistant and principal research participants were constantly on the move (performing tasks throughout the NCA and at times Ngorongoro District for the Pastoralist Council). My fieldwork corresponded to the call, by Vergunst (2011), to follow the paths of my research participants while remaining aware that our destinations can differ. I did experience that by conducting ethnography ‘on the move’, by foot or car, the (moving) location informed what was being said and the relation to the landscape was given more context. However, this did not happen to the extent expected by reading the works of Evans and Jones (2011) or Carpiano (2009) concerning mobile methodologies. After all, more ‘static’

fieldwork, i.e. some thirty semi-structured interviews and participatory observation in informant’s homes, also produces highly textured descriptions of landscape, mobility and relation to nature. This is much more similar to what was said while Maasai were herding cattle or walking. Büscher et al. (2010) further note the ground-breaking power of mobile methods given that:

‘Through investigations of movement, blocked movement, potential

movement and immobility, dwelling and place-making, social scientists are showing how various kinds of ‘moves’ make social and material realities […] open[s] up different ways of understanding the relationship between theory, observation and engagement. It engenders new kinds of researchable entities, a new or rediscovered realm of the empirical and new avenues for critique.’ (Büscher et al., 2010:2)

Participatory observation of your research participants (DeWalt and DeWalt, 2011) is an indispensable method by which to transmit context and participants’ narratives

were also employed to enable and facilitate am understanding of identity and mobility and how these are imagined and experienced. In selecting interviewees, not knowing and doubting my research objectives and questions increased the difficulty in both choosing and probing. The textured descriptions, which the interviewees provided me, were made available thanks to the Pastoralist Council employees’ willingness to let me join them in their daily outreach activities across the NCA. Participants came from all corners of the NCA (and also Loliondo) and had diverse socio-economic

backgrounds and age-sets. These included members of parliament, illiterate venerable elders, educated warriors, herders, traditional leaders, veterinarians and young Maasai feminists. The role of the Pastoralist Council must also be discussed in terms of research ethics. The Pastoralist Council is a political body, a part of the NCAA that functions as a counter-weight to the NCAA itself. The Pastoralist Council employees, however, do not have political mandates; instead, they fulfil community outreach duties, many of which are related to ensuring that children go to school, maize stocks are filled and accounting is done at markets (the three PC accountants are mobile bank service providers at markets or other venues with large transactions, since there is no bank in the NCA).

In 2013, I stayed at the Rhino Lodge in Ngorongoro for 7 months. As well as a research permit and a research visa, conducting research in the NCA also requires a document from the NCAA. Otherwise, non-Tanzanians are required to pay

50USD/day to visit the conservation area. I was stopped regularly by rangers and asked to provide documentation. Researchers stay at lodges, the Oldupai

paleoanthropological site, the guest house of the Endulen hospital or at one of the two NCAA camps. Although I would have loved to stay at a boma, and I believe my social network would have easily permitted me to do so, foreigners are not ‘allowed out’

after dark (except when accompanied by NCAA staff, which, technically, the PC staff are). Initially, the NCAA and its conservator showed interest in monitoring my work and I was invited to the Head Quarters to discuss my motives, ‘in the interest of the NCAA and for the benefit of the Maasai people’. Being connected to the PC helped to keep the NCAA calm, but in light of tumult regarding NCAA leadership, the NCAA’s interest in my work faded quickly.

Rhino Lodge is staffed largely by local Maasai.19 This helped me to access all areas of the NCA for in-depth participatory observation and semi-structured

interviews. Maasai lodge employees were helpful in providing insights or

explanations to things that I had observed during the day. My stay in Ngorongoro fundamentally challenged my perceptions and prejudices of ‘modernity’ as well as particular kinds of spectacle, which instead of a conceptually dense examination of performativity was simply to be understood as entertainment (see Chapter 6). My research assistant worked as an accountant for the Pastoralist Council (PC), the

pastoralist representative body at the NCA-Authority (NCAA). Being the smallest and least well-funded branch of the NCAA, its ideal role is as the watchdog of the

indigenous population over the parastatal regime governing the land. Participatory- observational research took place among a very diverse group of people at the lodge, in various villages, at political institutions such as the NCAA Head Quarters, the Pastoralist Council, Party (CCM) gatherings, in schools and clinics, while walking, at the market, on the road and on the savannah. Instead of testing hypotheses, social and cultural phenomena were generally explored with respect to the research questions outlined above. Ultimately, the car and travelling therein, or conducting ‘ride alongs’

(Ferguson, 2011) was a big factor in fieldwork as I would come along with the outreach programmes of the Pastoralist Council (PC) on a near-daily basis.

The PC car became a central meeting point, both for chance encounters with hitch-hikers (women and (young) men), who typically cover many kilometres by foot every day and try waving down any car that is not a tourist vehicle; the car was equally the best-suited place to ask my closest research participants a few questions, as we often spent the entire day in its confines. At times, we would participate in events and not even leave the car; this included weddings, for instance, to which we would make out approach only to remain in the car, have people come up to us offering us soft drinks and engaging in conversation. We took pictures and videos of them; they took pictures and videos of us. Being recognizable to most inhabitants of the NCA, the PC car was a very ‘non-threatening’ vehicle (unlike other NCAA cars, the presence of which often evoke fear) and people placed great hopes in them, asking for rides, asking for money, asking for things and animals to be transported in it, asking for us to discard dead (human) bodies into the bush with the help of the car or to take people to the hospital.

On the move, it became a meeting point, a bank, a place of trade, a display of status and power, an ambulance and a vehicle of curiosity (there would often be someone riding along for no other reason than to just ride along). The car, being the most important conveyance by which to get around for my research and also a major ‘site’ of research, all at the same time, distanced us (the PC employees and myself) from them, the people around us, as having a car that was provided by government money is a huge privilege; however, it also brought us physically closer to the places we were going and to all the people who approached us while travelling. If you are

successful, and being in that car means that you are successful, you cannot easily turn down requests, particularly financial ones.