Since the work of Malinowski and his establishment of the ‘field’ in anthropological fieldwork, this concept has for decades implied a structure that is spatially and culturally bounded (Coleman and Collins 2006; Gupta and Ferguson 1997). Coleman and Collins (2006: 4) suggest that the uniqueness of the anthropological discipline has been grounded in a “particular vision of fieldwork” in which the ethnographer travels to a faraway world and
immerses him or herself into a culture virtually untouched by outsiders. In traditional ethnographic studies, the field is a single location in which to study a particular culture, customs, and lived experiences. However, according to Appadurai (1991: 191, 196), this traditional anthropological model of the field fails to accurately represent the rise in the movement of people and thus the exchange in their cultural values and experiences:
As groups migrate, regroup in new locations, reconstruct their histories, and reconfigure their ethnic “projects”, the ethno in ethnography takes on a slippery, nonlocalised quality, to which the descriptive practices of
anthropology will have to respond… The landscapes of group identity -the ethnoscapes- around the world are no longer familiar anthropological objects, insofar as groups are no longer tightly territorialised, spatially bounded, historically self-conscious, or culturally homogenous… The task of
ethnography now becomes the unravelling of a conundrum: what is the nature of locality, as a lived experience, in a globalised, deterritorialised world?
Considering that the diaspora discussed in this thesis has been displaced from their homeland of South Sudan, have lived in refugee camps in Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda, and have been resettled or have moved as economic migrants to places like the UK and US, any single field location would fail to accurately represent the transnational nature of their relationships. Therefore, in reference to Van Hear’s (2003) refugee diaspora model (see Chapter 3 section 3.3), the populations chosen to be studied in this research project represent two of his three domains; a nation of first asylum and nations of resettlement. However, due to the current civil war in their homeland of South Sudan, it was impossible to conduct research in all three of Van Hear’s domains.
I chose Kakuma refugee camp as the centre of this research project due to its current and historical significance within the globally dispersed South Sudanese diaspora. Kakuma has been open to South Sudanese refugees since 1992, and who have since always
represented a significant proportion of the camp’s population. Unlike camps in Uganda, Kakuma is primarily home to the wave of refugees who were originally displaced during Sudan’s second civil war (1983-2005) rather than the current war in South Sudan (2013-
present). Although both of these waves of refugees can be classified as protracted, the extent to which Kakuma’s South Sudanese population has been in a protracted state of exile is a good example of the refugee system’s inability to fulfil their policy agenda and to provide the people under their care with the support that they need to facilitate a solution to their exile. Finally, due to the significant resettlement programmes of the Lost Boy community, primarily to the US but also to Australia and Canada, Kakuma can be classified as a hub of the South Sudanese refugee diaspora.
Since this thesis examines transnational relationships, I thought it was important to explore both sides of these family networks, remittance senders and remittance recipients, through the utilisation of multi-sited ethnography. Marcus (1995: 96) originally defined multi-sited ethnography as a “strategy or design of research that acknowledges
macrotheoretical concepts and narratives of the world system but does not rely on them for the contextual architecture framing a set of subjects.” According to Falzon (2009:1-2) “the essence of multi-sited research is to follow people, connections, associations, and
relationships across space (because they are substantially continuous but spatially non- contiguous).” Since transnational relationships are inherently not bound by the limitations of physical spaces for the maintenance of familial bonds and the transfer of economic resources, neither should the research methods used to examine them.
Ester Gallo suggests that when multi-sited research follows issues of migration and the movement of people it is necessary that methodological and research choices reflect the needs and limitations of each site. Even when studying the same population within multiple locations, unpredictable choices of those being researched make field sites appear
“disconnected and incoherent with each other” (Gallo 2009: 88). She argues (2009: 89) that this is because “multi-sited ethnography is rooted in the recognition that the ‘field’ of ethnographic inquiry is not simply a geographical place waiting to be entered, but rather a
‘conceptual space’ whose meanings and confines are continuously negotiated by the ethnographer and their informants.” Therefore, as the ‘field’ in ‘field site’ becomes less defined, the conception of anthropological study becomes ever-more open and unpredictable, a reflection of complex human activity.
The transnational relationships represented in this study were strongly influenced by cultural values, experiences of migration/displacement, and policies developed by multiple nations and cultures. As demonstrated primarily in Chapter 6 of this thesis, the remittance senders and recipients of this population shared values which were grounded in their traditional culture; however, these values were also noticeably altered by their experiences after migration into their new nation of residence. Those fortunate enough to be resettled or to migrate by choice to the US or UK tended to be relatively financially stable and were therefore responsible for financially supporting family members who were living in refugee camps or in South Sudan where wages were notoriously unreliable. In comparison,
remittance recipients, restrained by a combination of displacement and refugee policies, often developed a sense of dependency on their loved ones abroad who could financially support them through the hard times.
These complicated relationships were built on a foundation of strong cultural values of responsibility towards those considered kin, despite the distance between family members or the limitations placed on their lives. The strongest family networks developed regular and extended lines of communication, sometimes over the phone but increasingly through applications like Skype, Facebook, and WhatsApp. For example, as discussed further in Chapter 5, several participants in this study chose to maintain their relationships over family group chats in order to facilitate a continuous conversation between all participating
relationships were transformed into a virtual world, in which everyone continued to care and worry about one another but were increasingly aided by technological platforms.
Although two of my field locations, San Jose, California and London, do not hold the largest South Sudanese communities in either the US or the UK, they were both of significant size and easily accessible during the course of my studies. The participant observation among these communities also led to my introduction to several members of the South Sudanese diaspora outside of these locations whose participation in this study was facilitated by phone and Skype calls. The location of these participants outside of San Jose and London included Salt Lake City (Utah), Dallas (Texas), and Phoenix (Arizona) in the US as well as
Manchester, Leeds, and Edinburgh in the UK.
Figure 4.1 is a representation of where and when I conducted my fieldwork. The first phase, carried our in San Jose, was completed as part of my Master’s thesis (Patterson). However, many of my participants gave second interviews, particularly among remittance senders after I conducted the majority of my research in Kakuma between November 2017 and July 2018. Similarly, during my time in Kakuma I was also able to conduct phone interviews with men and women who at the time of their participation had lived throughout the US and UK.
Figure 4.1 Field Sites and Dates of Fieldwork
Population Location Dates or Fieldwork
Remittance Senders San Jose, California, US August 2015- April 2016 Remittance Senders London, England, UK June 2017- November 2017 Remittance Recipients Kakuma, Kenya November 2017- July 2018