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Abstract
Fieldwork in the study of terrorism remains the exception, allowing for scores of publications to be produced each year with little or no contact with the perpetrators of terrorist violence and scarce direct observation of the social realities in which it occurs. While examining some of the serious drawbacks and pitfalls such research can entail, this article makes a case for more fieldwork in terrorism studies, arguing that it can bring greater depth to our understanding of terrorist violence. The discussion focuses on a common assumption – the existence of the ‘terrorist’ as subject – and a common practice of terrorism studies – the concentration on extraordinary events at the expense of ‘ordinary life’ and ‘ordinary people’ – and how they are called into question by the material gathered during field research conducted in the Southern Philippine region of Mindanao. The article concludes with a reflection on some of the challenges facing researchers in danger zones, from their dependence on local knowledge for security to the need for methodological flexibility when faced with the complexity of research in conflict areas.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Jeroen Gunning and Luca Mavelli for comments on this draft. I also thank all those who guided and encouraged me during my research in the Philippines, in particular Irene M. Santiago and Retired Brig.-Gen. Edgardo Gurrea, without whom this would not have been possible. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the BISA Annual Conference at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, December 2007.
Notes
1. I conducted four weeks of field research in Manila and Mindanao in late 2007, including in conflict areas around Cotabato City and North Cotabato. This fieldwork was undertaken as part of my doctoral research entitled: ‘Talking to “terrorists”: conflict transformation in Northern Ireland and Mindanao.’
2. A few authors, approaching the study of terrorism from a post-structuralist perspective, have challenged the notion that there is such a thing called a ‘terrorist’, mainly on the grounds that terrorism is best understood as a totalizing discourse in which counter-terrorism turns into the ‘only prudent course of action’ (Zulaika and Douglass Citation1996, p. ix). These scholars ‘question the very possibility of defining, and thereby giving a satisfactory account of, the facts categorized as terrorism’ (p. xi). This paper however considers that there are acts that can be classified as terrorism, and although its definition remains elusive, argues that it can be broadly understood as a violent means aimed at triggering political change by affecting a larger audience than its immediate target, which is broadly deemed illegitimate. For a more detailed discussion of this position, see Toros and Gunning (forthcoming).
3. With his first wife replacing him as governor and his second wife elected as mayor of the largest town, his power could not be underestimated.
4. I became aware of the case of Akbar because I happened to be in Manila when the bomb attack on parliament killed him.
5. In making this point, Jesus Dureza said that he was expressing his personal opinion and speaking in a private capacity rather than as secretary of state in charge of the peace process.
6. This information was gathered in informal conversations with participants in the workshop as well as through various small group sessions in which participants were asked to discuss the interaction between violence and ‘ordinary life’ in Mindanao (Katig Citation2007).
7. Although what is being examined here is not anthropology, this argument can arguably be adopted for the study of any social process.
8. Furthermore, a local does not carry the colonial baggage of a western doctoral student picking at other people's scabs to find out if ‘they’ bleed the same blood ‘we’ do.