Lyotard, quoting Medawar, argues that ‘a scientist is before anything else a person who “tells stories”. The only difference is that he is duty bound to ver- ify them’ (1984 [1979]: 60). In this section, I thus elaborate on how I have constructed the stories that I tell in this thesis by discussing my method- ological choices and reflecting on their effects and implications (Alvesson & Sköldberg 2000). This reflection is of importance since, over all, despite careful planning, ‘my research is the product of circumstance, of serendipity and coincidence, of contingency, of interpretations and being interpreted’ (Wilkinsons in Thomson, Ansoms & Murison 2013: 5; cf. Yanow & Swartz- Shea 2006). And what also must not be forgotten is that ‘stories are like searchlights and spotlights; they brighten up parts of the stage while leaving the rest in darkness’ (Bauman 2015 [2004]: 17). What I discuss thus shows parts of lived reality, but I do not claim to (re)present The Truth or a com- plete oversight of Reality; ‘without selection there would be no story’ (Ibid.). In what follows, I provide detailed accounts of how my plans worked out in
510457-L-bw-ASC 510457-L-bw-ASC 510457-L-bw-ASC 510457-L-bw-ASC Processed on: 23-5-2017 Processed on: 23-5-2017 Processed on: 23-5-2017
Processed on: 23-5-2017 PDF page: 60PDF page: 60PDF page: 60PDF page: 60
60
practice. During these endeavours, my ‘fluent’ knowledge of Chichewa, Ma- lawi’s national language, was invaluable.
Language
Without speaking the language, I would never have been able to do this research in the way that I have done (cf. Undie, Chrichton & Zulu 2002). Throughout this thesis, I draw conclusions based on things that were said in the public space or conversations that were held within my earshot, but in which I was not an active participant. My ability to understand what people are saying, both when they explicitly speak to me, but also when they speak to others, has greatly enhanced my understandings of everyday interactions and the research context in general. This also increased the amount of people that I was able to engage with and the contexts within which this was possible: I was not dependent on a translator or on people’s command of English. As a white person, people usually did not expect me to speak Chichewa and they were often surprised by the extent of my vocabulary, which includes a lot of ‘street language’, most of which I learned from street youth (see photo 3).115 This is a great advantage when talking to youth, but can be quite embarrass- ing when talking to older people. Passersby also often made remarks if they heard me speak: one day, a man started yelling ‘she is stealing our language!’ When I greeted him politely he insisted on shaking my hand, saying he was so proud of a mzungu116 having taken the time and effort to learn the Malawian ‘way of being’.117 His remark points to the importance of language for one’s identity and belonging. When a friend of mine once complimented me on my Chichewa, he added: ‘it’s like you don’t belong, but yet you do!’118 Apparently, my ability to speak and understand Chichewa made me a bit Malawian. My occasional mispronunciations and grammatical errors often helped to ‘break
115 Youth that had not met me before often enjoyed testing my abilities. This in contrast to adults and older people who often felt proud of my linguistic competence and started by speak- ing very slowly to make sure that I would catch everything.
116 ‘white person’.
117 In Chichewa: akutibera chiyankhulo chathu! He linked this to ‘chikhalidwe chathu’, our Malawian behaviors. (Field notes 18-05-2015).
118 Thirty-something, upper-class Zimbabwean business man, long-term resident in Malawi (Field notes 17-05-2015).
510457-L-bw-ASC 510457-L-bw-ASC 510457-L-bw-ASC 510457-L-bw-ASC Processed on: 23-5-2017 Processed on: 23-5-2017 Processed on: 23-5-2017
Processed on: 23-5-2017 PDF page: 61PDF page: 61PDF page: 61PDF page: 61
61 the ice’ and made people feel relaxed: rather than being an all-knowing mzu- ngu, I was the strange girl who had tons of time to talk, in Chichewa.
Although my linguistic errors might have helped me in terms of my position in the field, this also points to the important fact that Chichewa is not my first language.119 (Nor is English, for that matter.) This brings us to the problem of translation, which I have briefly mentioned in chapter 1 (cf. Duranti 1997; Dutton 2002; Leavitt 2014). Even though this problem can never be completely overcome, I hope that through ethnogra- phy and my involvement with Chichewa, I can convey my fieldwork experiences as accurately as possible. I made sure to regularly cross-check interpretations and translations with research participants, my landlady and other Chichewa-speaking friends.120 In essence, my fieldwork and this thesis are translations and interpretations of interpreted translations, which were themselves also interpretations and translations of others (cf. Duranti 1997; Yanow & Swartz-Shea 2006).
Finally, I want to stress that although this section is meant to underline the importance of language, I do not take ‘words’ to ‘mirror the world’ (Jackson 1995: 160). To me, language is performative and through it, human beings continuously fashion the worlds they experience in multiple and often con- tradictory ways; I thus contend that there are no ‘external realities that they have no role in fashioning’ (Bryman 2008[2001]: 19; cf. Besnier 2009; Jackson 1995, 2005, 2006, 2013). Therefore, ‘one must resist thinking that words can capture the nature of what is’ (Jackson 1995: 125). Many narratives co-exists and they ‘help shape and order social life,’ but there is ‘no requirement’ that these narratives should then be ‘universal or even consistent with one anoth-
119 I am in the possession of a B1 certificate for Chichewa (from Talencentrum Lowani), but my (knowledge of) spoken Chichewa is at a higher level. (Reference: Tirza Schipper, director of Talencentrum Lowani).
120 See Annex B on page 178.
Photo 3
510457-L-bw-ASC 510457-L-bw-ASC 510457-L-bw-ASC 510457-L-bw-ASC Processed on: 23-5-2017 Processed on: 23-5-2017 Processed on: 23-5-2017
Processed on: 23-5-2017 PDF page: 62PDF page: 62PDF page: 62PDF page: 62
62
er’ (Van Maanen 2011 [1988]: 157). Thus, what I present here are ‘words, not worlds […] representations, not realities’ (Ibid.: 158).