LA FORMACIÓN DEL CATEQUISTA

This section explains my experiences in finding respondents. I will explain how I faced more challenges while finding the Maoist women ex-combatants and less for non-combatant women, and women earthquake survivors. I will also present how site selection depended upon the respondents’ mobility and their interest in participating in the research.

In December 2013, I went to Nepal to begin my field-work. I started by contacting my previous network, notably the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction (MoPR) personnel to see if they could link me to women ex-combatants. The MoPR informed me that they did not have contact addresses of ex-combatant women, only their names, the reintegration packages they opted for, and the date they demobilised. I then called a Maoist leader whom I had been in contact with while doing my master’s thesis, and I asked him if he could connect me with any women ex- combatants and later, I visited the leader in Kathmandu. He also stressed the difficulty of tracing female ex-combatants. During the first meeting he said, ‘Now after their [Maoist ex- combatants] demobilisation it will be very hard to identify their new location because all of them moved to various locations…all over the country, and I do not have their information…I heard some of them even moved from a first location to a next location’

As I insisted, this Maoist leader then connected me with five other Maoist leaders. Later, at a meeting, I shared my research proposal and study objective, and this influenced his willingness to help. During the meeting, one of the leaders referred me to another local leader in Chitwan district. I went to Chitwan to meet him and afterwards he gave me the contact details of six women ex-combatants. Not all of them accepted my interview proposal; some said they had already been interviewed by other researchers; and others said they were not interested in sharing their stories.

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The first woman ex-combatant who was willing to talk to me on the telephone was Sapana. At the beginning of our conversation, I explained my Ph.D. research topic and the purpose of the study. I shared with her my previous field experience visiting cantonments in 2010-2011 while doing my master’s thesis and meetings with her fellow Maoist ex-combatants. I also introduced myself by providing my family background. This convinced her to collaborate with me. At the same time, she also asked me many questions: why are you interested in our story, why are you doing this study, and what will the discussion be like, and what will happen after doing this type of research? I answered all her queries rationally and clearly. After having a few more telephone conversations, she agreed to meet me. I went to her home, we went to have a tea together, and while having tea, she again asked me many questions. Are you married? Do you have children? Which caste are you from? Where do you live in Kathmandu? How did you end up doing research in a foreign university? What type of job will you get after doing such studies?

Later, when I returned to Chitwan a second time, Sapana introduced me to three other women ex-combatants (Gita, Binita and Usha) They also asked many questions like Sapana, and I answered all their questions honestly. This persuaded the women ex-combatants to support my study which, in turn, made me to decide to carry out the Ph.D. field work in Chitwan district. Another reason for choosing Chitwan is because when I contacted five other women ex- combatants living in Rupandehi and Nawal-parasi districts all of them refused to be interviewed.

While accessing women ex-combatants, I learn that selection of the site in advance did not work where women-combatants were involved. The Maoist women ex-combatants in Nepal, after the ending of the official disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes, returned to various new locations due to lack of opportunities in their previous home-town (original place of belonging before joining the Maoist war), to detach themselves from war memories, or to build a new life and to stay together with their war peers.

Finding women non-combatants was less challenging because they were already living in the local community both during the conflict and after. I started approaching non-combatant women when I started the fieldwork in Chitwan. I began to build networks with the local people and local organisations by going to the local market, attending marriage ceremonies, visiting pharmacies, doing shopping, visiting tailors’ shops, tea shops, and restaurants etc. Whenever I

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visited these places, I chatted with people and asked if they knew women-headed households affected by the Maoist war. The local people cooperated with me and connected me with women non-combatants. The next group of women non-combatants I got in contact with was from SLISHA, an NGO working in Kathmandu district. I attended SLISHA meetings few times and met women who were affiliated with this NGO.

The connection with women earthquake survivors was easier to establish. I interacted mostly with women from Bugamati village (which lies in Lalitpur district of Nepal) because I knew some of these women before the earthquake and was introduced to more women immediately after the earthquake. While surviving the earthquake, I worked with them closely, sometimes the whole afternoon. I helped them to discover relief distribution information, joined them in debris clearance. We shared our crisis stories over tea and became friends.