Organització d'activitats congressuals

I did fieldwork in what I defined as my home city. My ‘research community’ was even closer; Nejmeh club stadium was situated a mere ten- minute walk from the house where I was born and had spent my childhood. It was in the electoral district where I voted, that is the one in which Hariri was elected as a member of parliament. I knew Beirut well and I have studied, worked and lived in different neighbourhoods within it. As such I could easily be categorised as an ‘insider’ researcher, yet defining oneself as an insider is merely one of

With reference to the stage of data acquisition for the ‘indigenous’ researcher, Altorki and El-Solh (1988) discuss issues of ‘access’ as being influenced by kinship ties. They also consider how a ‘role in the field’ can be influenced by class origin, education, indigeneity and gender in addition to a multiplicity of variables including age, marital status, religious affiliation, ethnic/minority status, topic, location, political realities, personality and sex segregation.

My access to the sports community and my role within it were no doubt shaped by several of the variables better summarised as a web of relations and connections that I was part of or had access to. While kinship ties were of importance to many of my research

participants, I had little recourse to such ties as I am of Palestinian origin with no extended family in Lebanon. Instead I found that my network of personal and professional

relationships was far more instrumental. To give a few examples, my first sports related interview was secured for me by a football referee who I had previously worked with; this man also worked as a driver in a non-governmental organisation in which I was employed.

Access to Nejmeh was through another ex-colleague, whose work with the Ministry of Youth and Sports on youth-related legislation put him in contact with a Nejmeh official to whom he introduced me. I had not realised the power of such personal networks until I tried to get access to Al-Ansar Sporting Club, Nejmeh’s rival football club. After months of unsuccessfully trying to get access to the club management, I discovered that the club’s Vice President at the time, Karim Diab, attended university with the husband of a close friend of mine. This connection meant that I was granted access to the club from the highest authority: the Vice President’s personal email address and phone number were made available to me almost immediately following a one line email sent by that friend.

Reflecting on such networks is important to both ‘identify power relations embedded in the research process’ as Crossa suggests (2012: 115), and to understand how I as a researcher became part of the web of clientelist relationships that I ended up studying. Returning to the example of Al-Ansar sporting Club, it was my educated middle class background and not my family ties that allowed me access to Karim Diab and through him to Al-Ansar club.

The implications of these relationships on my perceived role in the field were only evident later. Having such informal access to Diab led club members and fans to assume that I had

the same political views as Diab³⁰. This might have been the result not only of my choice of gate-keeper, but also how I related to that gate-keeper. For example, during one of the earliest Al-Ansar football games, making use of the small size of the stadium we were in, I left my seat in the ranks with the fans to thank Diab for allowing me access and to update him on the progress of the research. Still new to the football community at the time, I only noticed later the performative aspect of that move, and the impression that it projected of me and my ability to casually approach and talk to Diab.

While my access to Diab was possible because of class and personal relations, it was perceived by fans as representing political and sectarian belonging and, by implication, placed me in a position of power, as a broker who has direct links to people with authority, that I did not necessarily have or use. I soon realised that some fans were trying to send messages to Diab about the performance of the club or the politics of Future Movement through me; messages that I not only missed at the beginning of my research, but that were never relayed.

The second key element that influenced my role in the field and is worth elaborating on is my position as a female researcher studying a predominantly male community in a relatively sex segregated cultural context. This has at times meant easier access to some research participants, but it has also required me to be vigilant about maintaining the limits of relationships with the mostly male research participants. The period at the beginning of my research was mired by too many unwanted sexual advances and continuous scrutiny of the

‘appropriateness’ of my behaviour to the perceived gender roles I was supposed to play.

Looking at day-to-day conflicts within the football community that I have witnessed or been told about, I know that often these were small inter-personal power struggles that were deliberately exaggerated or staged as performances of ‘masculinity’ for my benefit.

My limited knowledge of football was another element which situated me as an outsider in the Nejmeh community. Until I started this research I had not been to a single football match and did not know much about the rules, technique, or history. I did not know the names of star players nor those of the Lebanese Football Association members, but most important of all, I did not know what football fandom really meant and how is it that an individual comes to love a club so deeply.

30 Karim Diab was politically aligned with Sunni leader Saad Hariri and is the son of the coordinator of the Future Movement at the time Salim Diab.

A fourth element to take into consideration was the familiarity of research participants with anthropological research and their past experiences with inquiring visitors. Within a community that was little researched, my interest in the club and my research participants’

experiences and perspectives were a source of pride for many. Most fans were eager to speak to me about the club they cherished despite not fully comprehending what it was I was attempting to do. My role approximated to that of others they knew, like reporters and filmmakers. I was often introduced by them as a journalist, who as one fan expressed it ‘has been trying for two years to do a reportage about Nejmeh’. My presence reinforced for them the value of the club; it was worthy of research and documentation.

The above are but a few of many examples of the web of relations that I was entangled in, and they show some of the factors which influenced both my access to the field and perceptions of my role within it. These examples support Crossa’s affirmation of the importance of the ‘relational aspect of a researcher’s position’, or ‘how researchers’

identities are shaped by multiple mobile and flexible relations and how that makes a difference to the research process.’ (2012: 115). I was perceived by some as insider, a Beiruti, Lebanese, Arab, who was assumed to share similar world views and beliefs, while for others I was also an outsider to the world of football, a Palestinian, an academic, a woman, and a member of a higher social class. There was no one role that was assigned to me unanimously by all research participants nor one that lasted for the duration of my fieldwork. The implications of my many supposed roles and perceptions varied from one research participant to another as I worked across various social classes as well as different political and sectarian affiliations. Bearing in mind anthropology’s reflexive tradition, I was constantly engaged in negotiation and reflection both on these roles themselves and on the influence they exerted over the ways I perceived the context within which I was doing research.