Sistemas Basados en Reglas Difusas (SBRD) tipo Mamdani

The obsession with texts and written evidence among the inhabitants of Nanun was epistemologically interesting but also methodologically challenging. Apart from the important ethnographic work of Skalník, mostly in the late 1970s and early 1980s, not much ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted in Nanun. With the generous help of Jon Kirby and Peter Skalník, I was in the field three times, for a total of sixteen months between 2002 and 2007, in and around Chamba and Bimbilla (August 2002-January 2003; March-September 2005 and August 2006-January 2007). I spent some time in Kikpakpaan and several weeks in archives on a district level (Bimbilla), regional level (Tamale) and national level (Accra). Although I always worked with translators, I spent several months learning Likpakpaln to a working level, and to a much lesser extent also Nanunli. In the field, I got into processes which started before my fieldwork and con- tinued afterwards, but within the given time frame I had the chance of observing several crucial events described in this book, including the Chamba events of 2002 and 2006. Expecting my neutrality to be negated during such events, I was

surprised to find it actually imposed on me. I was worried that my interlocutors would try to ‘seduce’ me to consent (Robben 1995), interpret my encouraging ‘silent’ and ‘uh-huh’ probes (Bernard 1995: 215, 217) as consent and that my pursuit of research neutrality was continuously subverted by my empathy to- wards the people I worked with (Sluka & Robben 2007: 22-23; cf. Kleinman & Kleinman 1997; Das & Kleinman 2001; Nordstrom and Robben 1995; Scheper Hughes 1992). While this dilemma may seem to be a point of departure for contemplating ethical codes for ethnographic fieldwork, the tension between the pursuit of scientific objectivity and empathy towards the people in the field cannot be disentangled from the very basis of ethnographic methodology and often requires context-specific negotiations (Meskell & Pels 1999; Pels 1999; Pels & Salemink 1999: 35).

But what if empathy and objectivity coalesce in the interlocutors’ expecta- tions? People in the field came to know me as that man who wanted to learn the culture and history of Nanun and who, to that end, went round to listen from all sides and see for himself. I have been responsible for this image from day one but this fieldwork strategy was also in line with the role of ethnographic ‘evi- dence’ in the local legalistic discourse. In 1994, the Nanumba Youth Association wrote that:

‘As is widely known and confirmed by independent research (Prof. David Tait 1958, 1961, Skalnik 1958, 1986, 1987, 1989) the Konkomba farmers started to settle in Nanung as refugees only from the 1940’s onwards after they had killed the Zagbli- Lana [Dagomba Chief] and they were received well by the Nanumbas’.12

In 1997, a Konkomba lawyer also referred to Tait, albeit in different tenor:

‘Dr Tate [sic] in his book entitled the Konkomba of Northern Ghana paragraph 1 page 12 says: The Konkomba settled in small communities that stretched over the whole of former Northern Togoland. He like Professor A.A. Boahen agree that the entire Oti basin, because of its fertility has been in full occupation of the Konkombas since the 15th _century’.13

Ferguson, in his research on the Zambian Copperbelt, found that erstwhile modernization theory had been internalized by the local people he encountered. Classic ethnography in the Copperbelt had moved from being a record to an ethnographic artefact because ‘theories originally conceived as external to the social reality they sought to account for have themselves become […] ethno- graphic objects’ (Ferguson 1999: 15-16). Skalník recently reflected on the au- thoritative position of ethnography and noted that the dichotomy between cen-

12

Na Gbantohgu et al On behalf of Bimbilla-Na and Nanumba Youth Association (23-09-1994) ‘Re- sponse to the ‘Konkomba Position paper of conflicts in the Northern Region of Ghana with reference to Nanumba-Konkomba Conflicts Presented to the Permanent Negotiating Team, September 1994’.

13 _{‘Lawyer Jacob Jejeti on behalf of Konkomba Chiefs in Nkwanta District to The Permanent Peace}

tralised and acephalous tribes, ‘first offered by the colonial administrators and later corroborated by anthropologists – has been internalised by both African intellectuals and the general public’, in spite of the current unpopularity of this dichotomy in anthropology (Skalník 2003: 70).

So when my interlocutors said ‘I can’t wait to read your book’, this flatter was eclipsed by tensions between the presence of the people I worked with and how to represent their case (Fabian 1990: 769). For me, it engendered doubts about my expertise (Ferguson 1999; cf. Clifford & Marcus 1986), fear for disappoint- ment about my representation of the complexities I sought to describe (Das 2007: 2; Robben & Nordstrom 1995: 15) and nervousness about what local leadership would use my findings for (Brettell 1993; Caplan 2003:23 ff.; Scheper Hughes (2000). While most people I worked with thought that my research would reveal ‘the facts’, and coupled my witnessing to their testifying, my work was about dismantling such ontological aspirations and trying to represent the ways in which facts fractured. Eltringham’s work on the methodological and ethical challenges of representing the Rwandan genocide helped me with this approach. He proposed to give voice to confusion rather than a sanitised meta-narrative:

‘Conflict is ultimately about disagreement. To properly understand conflict we must give voice to these disagreements and demonstrate how they are articulated. From such a perspective, disagreements about the nature and ‘truth’ of conflicts have less to do with the sanitised, objective and inevitable progression of ‘facts’, than they do with an informed engagement with the confused and confusing words of discursive strategies, partial ‘truths’ and conflicting subjectivities’ (Eltringham 2003: 109).

How to represent confusion without being confused yourself? Like Ferguson in a Copperbelt in crisis, I found that my interlocutors’ messy answers inflicted confusion on me, resulting in ‘a situation where “the natives” as well as the ethnographer lack a good understanding of what is going on around them’ (Ferguson 1999: 19). Analyses of the events I witnessed should not be mistaken for testimonies. From these challenges emerged a casuistic approach, centred on the Chamba dispute. I reflect on this choice in chapter seven.

2

‘Ethnicizing individual criminal

behaviour’ (1931-1981)

‘We agree to refrain from the practice of ethnicizing individual crimi- nal behaviour; that is, for blaming an entire ethnic group for the criminal conduct of an individual who is a member of that ethnic group’ (clause 9).