Gaining access to Namibian and South African LGBT social movement organizations was complicated at first. Conversations with local activists proved important to how I selected SMOs to study and obtained permission from SMO leaders to carry out intensive ethnographic observation at their offices. I had to prove that I was trustworthy to staff and members. I prepared a short, jargon-free research proposal that explained the parameters of my research; I made it clear that I was interested in observing the SMO’s meetings and activities. I stated that I wanted to learn about how the SMO presented itself publicly, interacted with different audiences, and decided to work on or withdraw from certain movement campaigns.
An archivist at the Gay and Lesbian Archives put me in touch with the director of Behind the Mask. After meeting with the director, I learned that the organization would be suitable for my study because staff monitored the media and participated in LGBT movement activities within and beyond South Africa. Through Behind the Mask, I was able to learn about the current state of LGBT organizing in Namibia, and staff put me in touch with the directors of Sister
Namibia and The Rainbow Project (TRP). Fortunately, in February 2006, both directors of Sister Namibia and TRP traveled to Johannesburg for a meeting with LGBT organizations from South Africa and Zimbabwe. I met with both directors and gained permission from them to study their organizations, even before I set foot in Namibia. I obtained access to three LGBT SMOs quickly and easily, but getting access to the Forum for the Empowerment for Women (FEW) proved difficult. I present an excerpt from my fieldnotes, which exemplifies the series of negotiations I had with the director of FEW before she granted me permission to observe the SMO’s activities.
In her effort to protect FEW after negative encounters with researchers (she didn’t go into detail), the director wanted to ensure that researchers wouldn’t publish anything that portrayed the organization in a negative light. She had an investment in preserving FEW’s reputation as an organization. She characterized previous researchers as taking information from FEW, without giving anything back. She seemed especially angered that researchers left participants’ lives unimproved with their research results (Fieldnotes, 18 November 2005).
The director’s past interactions with foreign researchers inclined her to deny my request to study the organization, and her comments illustrated how important the SMO’s public visibility and reputation were to her. Coupled with subsequent meetings with the director and the public relations officer, my presence at Behind the Mask enabled me to obtain access to FEW because I was not a “fly-in, fly-out” type of researcher the director distrusted. It took a couple of months to cultivate the trust of the director of FEW, an example of how forging research relationships can require a great deal of time and energy (Reinharz 1992).
Delineating the boundaries of my inquiry was important because I wanted SMO staff and members to understand that I was not interested in telling stories of pain or in exploiting their members. Many Namibian and South African LGBT persons experienced negative sanctions associating with disclosing their sexual and gender orientations, making them “interesting” objects of study to outsiders like myself who wanted to understand the persistence and permutation of violence in these postcolonial countries. I did not want to objectify or exploit LGBT persons and their narratives of suffering or tragedy, and I clearly stated that I would leave the site of observation if staff or members began to disclose personal information, such as how they experienced and handled violence. The use of research participants’ stories because of their violence or difference violates basic feminist ethical principles because it reduces research participants to objects, denying them agency in the research process (Reinharz 1992; Steady 2004). I am not suggesting that the only narrative that Namibian or South African LGBT persons
are capable of recounting is one of suffering. Rather, I mean the most common narratives selected by students of the Namibian and South African LGBT movement are those of violence, poverty, and limited choice (Dirsuweit 2006; see also Mbembe 2001). Though I do not deny that such narratives are worthy of study, I was more interested in focusing on organized expressions of agency (McDonald 2002; Steady 2006): LGBT social movement organizations. With such a focus, I attempt to dispel the notion that to be a sexual or gender minority in the global South is to lead a life mired in difficulty (Lewis 2004).
My focus on organizational choices and practices facilitated my access to SMOs and to activists. First, my object of scrutiny was not the individual activist, but rather the SMO, which is reflected in my ethnographic observational template and interview questions. In this way, I did not stray into the realm of private experience; when I interviewed SMO staff and members, I was interested in their public experience with the SMO. Second, my focus on the SMO allowed me to construct SMO staff and members as experts on SMOs. Some staff and members seemed to appreciate the valorization of their expertise during the interview. A few times, respondents made remarks such as “I didn’t realize I knew so much” or “I can’t believe I’m saying this much about” a particular SMO. Respondents did not necessarily know how much they knew about the organizations, and this may have proven to be an important source of validation for them.
Organizations also viewed me as a resource. I was able to contribute to SMOs by performing routine or special tasks if staff needed assistance. I wrote an annual report for one organization, composed and copy-edited a few stories for Behind the Mask’s website, taught a couple of communication classes for FEW about how to walk away from tense situations, assisted a FEW staff member with her curriculum vitae as she applied for a paid internship, answered the telephone if Sister Namibia or The Rainbow Project staff were in a meeting, copy- edited articles for an edition of Sister Namibia, assisted visitors in identifying materials for research or personal use at Sister Namibia and The Rainbow Project’s resource centers, and participated as a guest interviewee on The Rainbow Project’s “Talking Pink” radio show about bisexuality. I also shared my collection of news media articles related to same-sex marriage to Behind the Mask and the Gay and Lesbian Archives as they tried to encourage the South African Joint Working Group to pursue same-sex marriage.