A few weeks into fieldwork this summer, I was contracted by my host organization and its New York-based partner organization to edit drafts of a research report they were working on. I have done project-based consulting and volunteer work for the New York partner group since 2008, and worked full-time at a different China-focused rights organization for four years prior to graduate school. As a result, my summer research field site was interesting to me not only because of the subject of research, but also because it provided an opportunity to develop a practical approach to conducting fieldwork in the context of multiple commitments. All anthropologists encounter the dilemma of complex and sometimes conflicting commitments during the course of fieldwork, and the chronology of my commitments meant that it was not necessarily easier for me to think like an anthropologist than a practitioner. I have been thinking a lot about two major methodological issues, encapsulated by the concepts of solidarity and expertise, which were significant to the way I positioned myself in the field site.
A quick online dictionary search tells me that solidarity is the “union or fellowship arising from common responsibilities and interests, as between members of a group or between classes, peoples.” When an expert speaks of “standing in solidarity” with the subjects of her ethnography, then, she is expressing an intention to support—or at the very least, not obstruct—the aims of those who appear in her work. Solidarity doesn’t indicate any practical collaboration or hands-on power-sharing per se, but, according to anthropologist Miriam Ticktin, a recognition on the part of the anthropologist that one never produces knowledge alone. It is an intention, a sentiment, and an engagement, which may translate into quite flexible forms of action.
Expertise, on the other hand, refers to special skills and knowledge held by a limited number of individuals, and as such serves to stratify rather than unite, unlike the concept of solidarity. Furthermore, professionalization has been defined as “an informal process begun by practitioners who perceive there to be exacting standards required of their activities which make it necessary to exclude amateurs” (Lewis 2008; O’Flaherty and Ulrich 2010: 2). What does it mean then, when a human rights expert professes solidarity with people living with HIV/AIDS, or when an anthropologist professes solidarity with her informants? Given that capacity building is about the transfer of expertise, what does it say about the relationship between expertise and solidarity in this particular setting? How does claiming expertise transform ties of solidarity? And how does my own expertise in human rights affect the way I listen to my informants and interpret their actions and words? Although I did not find satisfying answers to all of these questions, it was helpful to keep these two problematics in mind as I conducted fieldwork.
Lewis, O. 2008. “To What Extent Was Diplomacy Professionalised in the French System?” International Relations e-Journal. Available at: http://www.e-ir.info/?p-428.
O’Flaherty, Michael and George Ulrich. 2010. “The Professionalization of Human Rights Field Work.” Journal of Human Rights Practice 2(1): 1-27.