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The virtues of improvisation: Ethnography without an ethics protocol

Gaelle Dequirez and Jeanne Hersant
Current Sociology 2013 61: 646 originally published online 23 July 2013
DOI: 10.1177/0011392113484454
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484454
2013

CSI615-610.1177/0011392113484454Current SociologyDequirez and Hersant

CS

Article

The virtues of improvisation:

Ethnography without an
ethics protocol

Current Sociology
61(5-6) 646660
The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0011392113484454
csi.sagepub.com

Gaelle Dequirez
Universit Lille 2, France

Jeanne Hersant

Universidad Andrs Bello/Universidad de Playa Ancha, Chile

Abstract
Research relationships in the social sciences are becoming increasingly codified through
formal procedures set by ethics committees. This article addresses the virtues of
improvisation based on two fieldwork experiences in countries where ethics protocols
are not institutionalized and are left to the judgement of researchers. The first involves
the Turkish minority in Greece, with research conducted in Greece, Turkey and
Germany, and the second involves Sri Lankan Tamil migration studied in France and
Ontario. Based on a comparison of their respective approaches to two identity-based
movements, the authors show how they were able to undertake an ethnographic revisit
of these topics and highlight their political dimensions.
Keywords
Ethics protocol, ethnographic revisit, identity-based mobilization, long-distance
nationalism, Sri Lankan Tamils, Western Thrace
The dominant, quantitative approach to political science has at times been thought to
protect against charlatans, deception and mad men (Kriesi, 1980: 383, translated here).
Gradually, however, it has become apparent that the study of traditional topics in the
canon of political science (e.g. voting, political parties) and the use of statistical methods
alone do not allow us to grasp the full complexity of politics (Auyero and Joseph, 2007;
Fillieule, 1997). The Perestroika movement in the United States challenged the
Corresponding author:
Jeanne Hersant, Universidad Andrs Bello, Quillota 919, Via del Mar, 2531098, Chile.
Email: Jeanne.hm@gmail.com

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hegemonic positivist paradigm in political science which advocated for the mathematical
modelling of social facts (Monroe, 2005; Schram and Caterino, 2006). A lot of research
over the past 10 years has pleaded in favour of methodological pluralism and for a broadening in the scope of political studies to include an ethnographic approach1 that goes
beyond institutional politics (Bensa and Fassin, 2008; Joseph et al., 2007; Schatz, 2009).
We would like to address a corollary aspect of this debate: the issue of ethics protocols, modelled on medical experiments (Mondain and Sabourin, 2009), which highlight
the rationalization process at work in social science research. Ethics protocols are generally found in research sectors which require of researchers a predefined research protocol
in order to obtain funding: a predefined list of conditions under which interviews will be
conducted, where the research will be done and the sample of interviewees, with proof
of all necessary authorizations. As such, informed consent forms place those interviewed
before a research topic and type of interview that were defined without their input.
Sociological interviews, however, are not a simple operation of knowledge production;
they are a social interaction in and of themselves (Bourdieu, 1999), with the unforeseen
elements that such a process entails.
The methodological challenges and unpredictable variables of such protocols particularly with regard to informed consent (Murphy and Dingwall, 2007; Plankey-Videla,
2012; Schrag, 2009) and the anonymity of those interviewed (Fine, 1990) have often
been a topic of debate. Here, we would like to examine the virtues of improvisation permitted by the lack of an ethics protocol, since such an approach is not yet the norm across
Europe. This type of improvisation in the sense of an ability to adapt and be inventive
is beneficial for knowledge production and analytical frameworks.
The approach taken here is based on two fieldwork experiences the study of Muslims
in Western Thrace (northeastern Greece) and Tamil immigration in France which
involved political contexts in which it would have been impossible to obtain the written
consent of those interviewed. The context surrounding both cases is tied to two events
which marked the political landscape of the 1990s and 2000s in the European Union: for
one, the quest for political stability in the new Europe following the EUs political
powerlessness during the war in the former Yugoslavia; and the war on terrorism following the attacks on 11 September 2001 and subsequently those in London and Madrid.
In the first case, this resulted in the desire to promote the state of law and national or
ethnic minority rights in the Balkans; in the second case, it translated into an attempt to
identify the terrorist organizations present in Europe. These two trends led to the dissemination of a large body of non-scientific grey literature, and the related frameworks
for understanding events influenced both researchers and those interviewed. They as
such affected both researchers intellectual work and research relationships.
The lack of an imposed ethics protocol2 allowed us to sidestep this problem by orienting our research differently. By establishing informal research relationships we were able
to conduct a heuristic revisit (Burawoy, 2003: 671) in one case (I); in the other, when
those interviewed were unhappy with the information published the valedictory revisit
(Burawoy, 2003: 672) became a difficult but nonetheless enlightening experience (II).
Both cases involved multi-site fieldwork locations, as well as (physical and intellectual)
return trips between the original territory and migratory spaces. Our contributions here
each point up one facet of these configurations.

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Throughout this article, informality refers to the lack of an ethics protocol, but also to
ethnographys unique approach, necessary for understanding the gray zones of politics
(Auyero, 2007): Research conducted at close range invites the researcher to see differently; heterogeneity, causal complexity, dynamism, contingency, and informality
come to the fore (Schatz, 2009: 11).
Our contributions are based on topics which Auyero and Joseph (2007: 311) consider particularly salient to approach from a political ethnography perspective and which
they call official-rhetoric-confronts-daily-experience (I) and clandestine-connectionscount (II).

I. Courtesy visits and a heuristic revisit in Western Thrace

There are several reasons why the case of Muslims in Western Thrace (northeastern
Greece)3 poses a challenge for research in political science. This minority comprised of
several ethno-linguistic groups but for whom Turkish is the vehicular language is the
subject of a symbolic struggle: its representatives and the Turkish government profess
the Turkishness of the minority while the Greek government recognizes only a religious
minority group. The regions mountain villages were long isolated and cut off from main
communication channels,4 making them a prized site for ethnological observation since
the 1960s (Vernier, 1998). With increased interest in national and religious minorities in
the Balkans following the war in the former Yugoslavia, since the mid-1990s, Western
Thrace has caught the attention of European deputies, Council of Europe representatives,
as well as anthropologists. The reinvention of a local folklore in the 1990s in a context
fuelled by the strong politicization of cultural identities turned Western Thrace into an
over-invested research field (Chabrol, 2008). This situation affected the analytical
approach taken in most academic research: ethnic identities became overbearing in analyses of historical facts and social conflict in the region.
As such, the image of an exotic population (Bourgois, 1990) mired in identity problems was created and disseminated. Most existing monographs do not address the political dimension or social hierarchies. For example, despite the fact that the election of
deputies is a critical moment in the mobilization of identity politics (Muslims have had
their own deputies since 1923), there has been practically no research conducted on the
voting behaviour of Muslims (Hersant and Yatropoulos, 2008). The Turkish identity
movement has not been studied much either.
This movement began in Western Thrace, Germany and Turkey in the 1980s and
1990s, driven by cultural associations whose activities were and are still promoted by the
Turkish government. Recognition by the European Union and European Court of Human
Rights of the discrimination suffered by Muslims in Western Thrace legitimized claims
about the Turkish nature of the minority without however leading to official recognition
by Greek authorities (Hersant, 2008).
This section recounts a heuristic revisit during fieldwork conducted in Greece and in
the migratory territory (Turkey, Germany and Great Britain). Rather than conforming to
the dominant culturalist approach, I conducted a heuristic revisit and took a political
sociological approach to the ethnic issue following the recommendations put forward by
Michael Herzfeld (1987: 8) in his critique of Mediterraneanist anthropology: establishing a connection between the local ethnography and nationalist or regionalist
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ideologies. To do so I analysed the discourse of the oppressed minority as a positioning

tool within the local political field and, paradoxically, as revealing of the dominant position held by members of the Turkish identity movement within this realm. This involved,
to borrow the terms employed by Brubaker et al. (2006), analysing the rhetoric of ethnopolitical entrepreneurs and seeing how ethnicity works in everyday life.

How to tackle a somewhat illegitimate topic?

The initial goal of my research was to address the subject from a totally new angle: legal
and illegal migration to Germany and Turkey. That research topic was unacceptable
however, for many of my contacts and undesirable to both Greek and Turkish authorities.
The lack of official data was compounded by an omert (fear of governmental repercussions or fear that I would stray from the minoritys real problems). This meant that it
was impossible to formalize a research protocol (recordings, informed consent) and further forced me to undertake long and in-depth fieldwork in several countries in order to
establish a network of contacts and reconstruct the migratory routes employed. In August
2002, after a few months of laborious fieldwork in Istanbul and Ankara, I decided to have
a look across the border in Western Thrace.
My attempts to locate municipal records that would allow me to assess emigration
were cut short. For one, the people with whom I met particularly wanted to talk about the
economic issues facing tobacco farmers (an activity traditionally done by Muslims), the
ban on Turkish associations (see Box 1), etc.
Box 1. Turkish associations in Western Thrace

Three associations were created in the late 1920s to promote Kemalism: the Turkish
Union of Xanthi, the Komotini Turkish Youth Union and the Union of Turkish
Teachers of Western Thrace. They have been at loggerheads with Greek authorities
for over two decades due to the presence of the Turk/Turkish adjective in their
names. Although officially banned, their activities never really ceased. Created in
1982, the Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association chose not to
include the incriminated adjective in its name. It plays an important role within the
Turkish identity movement.
In an attempt to please the foreign researcher, they also occasionally made up the data
I requested. Like the mayor of one rural municipality who haphazardly scribbled on a
piece of paper the numbers and percentages meant to answer my questions. The increased
number of fieldwork sites meant short visits; it was as such not possible to form trusting
relationships with local elected officials that would likely have allowed me access to
their records.
Confronted with the reticence and incomprehension of those I addressed, I decided to
change strategies. Since I was dependent on the appointments and availability of my
hosts,5 I decided to let myself be guided by them and to adapt to the rhythm of their social
engagements rather than attempting to lead the investigation. Given the reticence

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I encountered, I stopped seeing migration as my main research topic and changed the
focus of my interviews.
My presence in Western Thrace was important for my contacts: as a European
researcher, I was meant to relay the cause of the Turkish minority. My status as a
doctoral candidate from a Parisian university gave me a certain degree of prestige
and I had the advantage of being external to the local identity conflict. The first person I met was a deputy from the minority with whom I was put in touch via one of
my contacts in Istanbul: I needed to meet with important people who would be
able to explain the minoritys problems to me. Then I spent two weeks with a family
of retired migrant workers I had met in Germany the year before. The success of my
research was tied to my ability to be adopted as a guest (misafir); this allowed me to
delve beyond the circle of local elites promoting the Turkish identity of the minority
that all observers inevitably meet.
Aside from the desire to be hospitable ingrained in the codes of savoir-vivre, the fact
that my contacts temporarily adopted me allowed them to temper my status as a curious
stranger who commits blunders due to her poor understanding of the context, customs
and local rivalries, and especially as a still single 25-year-old living alone in Istanbul.
My guest status combined with being a foreigner (who is thus allowed to deviate from
certain rules) allowed me some crossover between the associative/public, politicized,
male sphere and the domestic, feminine arena that is often much more conducive to discussions about private life, thus allowing me to retrace migrants trajectories. My role
was generally limited to taking part in courtesy visits made by my hosts to their kin,
acquaintances and those to whom they were obliged, or when they received visitors.
These visits were part of a social ritual called misafirlik; they introduced me to an entire
social sphere beyond the associative realm and its set discourse.
Misafirlik generally refers to the form of sociability found amongst women confined
to the domestic sphere of Turkish social space (Aksaz, 2006). By extension, it applies to
courtesy visits (nezaket ziyaretleri) which follow similar codes that outline a system of
hierarchies and social obligations. Misafirlik is central for understanding social codes,
but also for understanding informal political practices; yet the way such ties are formed
and maintained has rarely been studied from this perspective.

From courtesy visits to an analysis of the local political sphere

In Western Thrace such visits are theatricalized and aim to garner publicity during religious holidays and Turkish national holidays, but they are also part of the everyday life
of notables. They are the ones who maintain a connection between the city and economically and socially isolated rural areas. Regular visits to the villages allow people to create
or maintain their notable status, as I observed when staying with the couple of former
migrant workers. Most of their trips to Western Thrace are spent visiting people or
receiving visitors. They had a certain aura of prestige due to their economic success and
the husbands (we will call him Tanl) past experience as an association activist in
Germany. But, while Thrace is now the nerve centre of identity mobilization, Tanls
status as a worker and emigrant meant that he was not part of the locally influential elite.
Despite the summer heat, Tanl never went visiting without a shirt and tie and without

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polishing his car. He and his wife sometimes changed clothes between two visits. The
fact that a foreign researcher was his guest clearly provided a boost to his moral and
social stature.
The visiting ritual is also a hidden facet of election campaigns. Elected officials are
expected not only to receive voters, listen to their grievances and record their job
searches, but also to be present at weddings and circumcision ceremonies, and simply to
pay visits. When it comes to women, they go from house to house, using the codes of
sociability to promote their husbands or relatives candidacy.
Just before the 2004 legislative elections, the outgoing Muslim deputy had to
address criticism about not having sufficiently visited the villages of his constituency
during his mandate. Six months prior, his wife had offered to help with my research
to introduce me to the mayor of a rural municipality where she needed to make a
few visits. I quickly realized that she was actually campaigning for her husband. On
the day of our trip, she stopped the car in front of a patisserie and emerged bearing
several large packages. Letting a shade of annoyance transpire, she alluded to the
purchases she had just made: You can write in your thesis that in Western Thrace we
work for the people.
As planned, the first stop was a visit to the mayors home. I asked a few questions
about migration in his municipality, but quickly the deputys wife redirected the conversation. She asked different questions about the right wingers in the village (her
husband was a PASOK [Greek Socialist Party] deputy) and about their allies. The
deputys wife had another set of visits to make in a neighbouring village. She first
stopped briefly to visit a young bride and offered her some pastries, saying that her
husband was sincerely sorry not to have been able to attend the wedding. We then went
to visit another family that was busy stringing up tobacco in their courtyard. The deputys wife admired their work, calling the journalist that I was to take note and suggesting that I take pictures.
The visits that I attended, as well as the more official ones described in the local media
(notably those made by the Turkish Consul General), allowed me to identify the patently
political side of the oppressed minority discourse political in the sense of being an
access key to the sphere of Turkishness and to the local political sphere.
My guest status was heuristic in the sense that although I clearly played the straight
man role during visits, once such visits were over, I again became part of the domestic
sphere and someone before whom people spoke freely. It thus became apparent that
the discourse of the oppressed minority is less used to voice demands as it is to reaffirm the groups unity and the position of individuals within the group. As such, during a visit to Tanls parents, I heard him explain to a neighbour that it was unacceptable
that minority primary schools be closed in rural areas and that such action was a
reflection of Greek assimilation policy (an common trope in the rhetoric of the
Turkish identity movement). At home the next day, Tanl conversely stated that it was
absurd to demand that minority schools be kept open in villages deserted due to rural
exodus.
On a similar topic, a government policy established in 1993 aims to encourage Muslim
access to university (they are penalized due to their weaker grasp of Greek and the very
difficult admissions examinations) by exempting them from the entrance exam based on

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a quota system. During a conversation, the deputys wife stated that she was in favour of
the previous system and was surprised to learn that in France everyone (even ignoramuses?) can go to university. Another telling example involves the election of muftis,6
one of the primary demands of the Turkish identity movement, which would symbolically allow the head of a religious community to become a leader of the Turkish movement. This is a legal headache in the European context since Western Thraces muftis
have privileges in terms of civil jurisdiction (an Ottoman legacy). Mostly, though, the
strength of this demand within the movement seems to hinge on the fact that its actual
application has never been debated: when I asked two of my very active and influential
contacts in the identity movement the editor-in-chief of the largest local Turkish newspaper and the secretary of the Graduates Association concretely how this demand
could be implemented, they both admitted that they had no idea and suggested that
I contact one of the movements leaders who would surely be better informed.
Based on this, I observed something else: the oppressed minority discourse approved
by European authorities is, locally, a trait of the dominant position of Turkish actors in
the local political sphere. The type of relationships I established in the field allowed me
to avoid the pitfall of either promoting or invalidating the Turkish political and cultural
claims advanced amongst the minority. I was not interested in checking the veracity of
my contacts statements or the sincerity of their actions, but rather I wanted to identify
what such statements and actions said about local social hierarchies and the rules of
political competition.
Indeed, local actors and external observers use their mastery and command of the
discourse of the oppressed minority to ensure the reproduction of a local Turkish elite
amongst the minority. While this elite is co-opted by the Turkish Consul General and
celebrates Turkish national holidays, it also shares the codes and practices of high Greek
society: its members speak fluent Greek, send their children to public secondary schools
rather than to the minority schools, and holiday at the same coastal resorts in the same
region. This double positioning is necessary to ensure the maintenance of social benefits
and guarantee their electoral success, the apex of prominence, in a region where the proportion of Muslims in the population influences electoral outcomes.
Increasing the number of field sites observed allowed me to develop an analysis based
on the notion of a public arena (Cefa, 2002: 53), meaning a transnational space in which
references, myths and heroic figures tied to contemporary Turkey circulate. Access to
this symbolic space is restricted and the issues it is built on are prescribed and arbitrated
from Turkey, by association, political and governmental actors. This arena occasionally
enters the political sphere in Western Thrace where the minoritys politics manage to
become central issues. While in the 1990s, Muslim candidates were not allowed to campaign in Turkish, this is now permitted for municipal and legislative elections. Further,
in the context of municipal elections, non-Muslim candidates adopt a discourse of legitimacy within the Turkish arena.7
The heuristic revisit in Western Thrace was inspired by the culturalist interpretation of
the trans-border configuration found in most existing research. While Sri Lanka has also
been the topic of much research due to the ongoing war, Sri Lankan Tamil migration8 has
been the focus of very little work. Here, it was the valedictory revisit that was heuristic,
pointing to the political advantage for Sri Lankan Tamil migrants of remaining a blind
spot in social science research.
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II. Reconstructing the political dimensions of the Sri

Lankan Tamil migrant community
When I began my research in 2005 there were only three books (Fuglerud, 1999;
McDowell, 1996; Steen, 1993) and a dozen academic articles on Sri Lankan migrants.
This research was either from the field of refugee studies, with a focus on integration,
or from diaspora studies, with specific interest in the ties maintained with the region of
origin and sociability within the diaspora.
In terms of research into the Sri Lankan conflict, while some seek to document the
totalitarian and terrorist nature of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the
Tamil guerrilla separatist movement opposed to the Sri Lankan government, others seek
to legitimate their action. The LTTE are also of great interest to journalists, intelligence
agencies and human rights NGOs, which regularly publish reports, essays and articles
condemning their violent acts. This has affected research into Tamil migration. Books on
the subject regularly mention the LTTEs coercive practices within migratory spaces, but
they avoid actually analysing the political aspects of the phenomenon.
I began my fieldwork wishing to avoid focusing on the war and LTTE. Gradually,
however, I realized their influence on part of the Sri Lankan Tamil migrant community and the great polarization this caused. Most of the very numerous Tamil associations9 are part of a transnational nationalist movement committed to promoting the
creation of an independent state of Tamil Eelam. I begin by showing how an informal
approach to research allowed me to reach this conclusion. The publication of my first
analyses before I had even finished my field research resulted in my gradual exclusion from the field. The reaction of those interviewed, analysed in the second section
below, allowed me to perform a valedictory revisit which furthered my understanding of the internal processes at work and highlighted the impact of external
phenomena.

Informal research in an opaque field

When I began my fieldwork in the Paris region shortly after the December 2004 tsunami,
it was extremely easy to approach the leaders of Tamil associations. Such associations
were the focus of an outpouring of sympathy and compassion for the recent victims.
Their leaders regularly invited me to participate in their activities and gladly told me
about how their organizations were run. The stated purpose of these associations is the
promotion of Tamil culture and the integration of their members into French society.
They present themselves as places of sociability which accompany new arrivals, offer
tutoring, as well as Tamil language, dance and music lessons.
The concept of diaspora struck me as problematic due to its homogenizing nature
given the implicit gender, generational and caste hierarchies that exist. Even more so, it
involved turning a blind eye to the political dimensions (Dufoix, 2003), which seemed
increasingly unavoidable. Indeed, several clues pointed to the fact that the goals of many
of the Tamil associations were connected to the war in Sri Lanka. First, the sheer number
of organizations and activities made their overall running opaque. Many appeared to
work together but I was unable to clearly identify how they were divided by activity sector. The mystery surrounding them dissipated when I began to notice the numerous signs
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of allegiance to the LTTE observable during so-called cultural events: Tiger flags and
portraits of the leader Prabhakaran were the most obvious, as well as halls decorated in
LTTE colours. These associations in the Paris region supported the LTTE and claims for
an independent state of Tamil Eelam. This realization helped me understand their overall
organization (see Box 2).
Box 2. The Eelamist associations in the Paris region in 2008

The Sri Lankan Tamil associations in the Paris region that support the separatist movement are grouped together in the French Federation of Tamil Associations which is
overseen by a Tamil Coordinating Committee (TCC). Two other associations play a
major role in leading the movement: the ORT (organization for the rehabilitation of
Tamils), a humanitarian association, and the OJT (Tamil youth organization). The
Federation also has a committee of Tamil women, Tamil schools (Tamil Cholai) and
local associations generally called Franco-Tamil groups which are often defined by
their geographical implantation (for example, the Franco-Tamil Association of La
Courneuve, etc.).

This was a first constructivist moment (Burawoy, 2003: 669) during my fieldwork. For one, it led me to think about the conditions under which I gathered data and
encouraged me to change my approach to the field and how I presented myself: I narrowed my focus to the Eelamist associations and I sought more specifically to obtain
information about my contacts opinions on the LTTE and the war. Further, it became
essential to find a theoretical framework that would allow me to include the political
dimension underpinning pro-LTTE activism without reducing it to the terror exerted
by the Tigers.
Not having an obligation to get the formal approval of those interviewed for a clearly
defined research project left me a great deal of freedom in how I presented myself and
my goals to those with whom I met. The fact that I was young, a student and a woman
were advantages as I was perceived as inoffensive. That is why I never told any of the
Eelamist activists that I could speak some Tamil. Yet my status as a doctoral candidate
had a flip side and I was not deemed worthy of interviewing the movements senior
leaders (who speak only Tamil and are protected by different intermediaries). I was
slowly able to take part in political events where I was sometimes the only non-Tamil
amongst hundreds or even thousands of people.
I was as such able to improvise by constantly adjusting my behaviour based on my
analysis of interactions with those interviewed. With regard to the theoretical framework,
seeing the Tamil associations supporting the LTTE as a nationalist movement rather than
simply as defenders of a terrorist organization allowed me to avoid taking an accusatory stance. Through the multiplicity of activities they offer, the Eelamist associations
provide an opportunity for cultural reproduction and advantages. The concept of longdistance nationalism (Anderson, 1998: 73) proved most appropriate for describing and
analysing the Eelamist movement in France. The attraction of the Eelamist associations
is indeed tied to the way they address the heteronomy and disintegrating effects of

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migration (Anderson, 1998: 7072): in the new country, the native countrys family
norms and social hierarchies are undermined. Social mobility then becomes tied to factors such as peoples legal status or mastery of French. Taking the marginalization of
migrants as an explanatory factor, the theoretical framework of long-distance nationalism provided a means to better understand the allegiance Tamil migrants felt towards the
Tigers.

The unexpected outcome of exclusion from the field

My analysis of the field evolved alongside the rejection that I gradually faced from activist Tamil circles between 2007 and 2009 following the publication of my first articles.
This unanticipated valedictory revisit forced me, via a second constructivist moment,
to review my research method and interpretations.
The publication of this research occurred within a particularly difficult context for the
Eelamist associations. In May 2006, the LTTE were added to the European Unions list
of terrorist organizations: it thus became illegal to support them. In France, the anti-terrorist sub-directorate of the police began investigating Tamil associations, which they
suspected of racketing migrants to support the LTTE. In 2007, several association heads
were arrested for extortion of funds. Alongside this, the civil war in Sri Lanka had
resumed as of late 2005. The successive victories of the governments armed forces over
the LTTE and the massacre of Tamil civilians at their worst in 2008 and 200910 helped
radicalize Eelamist activists. Their goal was to raise awareness about the plight of Tamil
civilians amongst the media and public authorities, but their support for the Tigers, by
then labelled a terrorist organization, did not make for an easy task.
The publication of a researchers work reveals the distance taken with native categories. My research helped clarify the symbolic and material connections between the Tamil
associations and the Tigers separatist ideology. It showed that beyond the different activities organized by the associations, they had a shared goal of promoting the separatist
cause. Describing them as a nationalist movement, I also showed how the leaders took
advantage of gender and caste divisions (as well as of the atomizing effects of migration).
The fact that I did not mention the Tamil genocide or present the LTTE as a liberation
movement or movement for the defence of Tamil rights, or the fact that I mentioned
caste were interpreted by some leaders as proof of my hostility (Dequirez, 2011).
In 2008, one association leader asked me to send him one of my articles that he had
seen mentioned on the internet, as well as my bibliography. Thereafter, when I contacted
them for interviews, other OJT and TCC activists asked me to send them my publications
before agreeing to meet with me. Some of my contacts no longer answered my requests;
others indefinitely postponed our meetings; they remained polite whilst all the while
distancing me from their milieu. Analysis of this exclusion from the field allowed me to
flesh out my understanding of the movements internal logic and of how the political
context influenced leaders attitudes towards me. Indeed, the way those interviewed
interpret our actions sheds light on their own interpretive frameworks and on the
resources available to them (Venkatesh, 2002: 106107). It notably points up their experience with other information seekers (Venkatesh, 2002: 107) such as journalists and
government staff.

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Regularly confronted with questions and judgement from such sources, those interviewed adapt their discourse in order to counter negative presuppositions and correspond
to what they believe are the expectations of those with whom they deal. When, starting
in 2008, association leaders felt that that the dramatic situation in Sri Lanka was not
being sufficiently covered in France, they undertook a campaign targeted at the media
and elected officials. The campaign focused on topics like the defence of the Tamil populations rights and the humanitarian emergency; they as such hoped to encourage French
intervention or at least for the country to take a stand on the subject. The campaigns
success hinged on the ability to frame events through something other than the lens of
terrorism. To do so, they felt it necessary to avoid mentioning their support for the LTTE
or the topic of castes, for example, which they deemed poorly perceived by the French
population.
Given this, I analysed how the Eelamist organizations interacted with their political environment. The Tamil associations I studied rarely presented themselves as
political organizations, instead insisting on Tamil culture, integration, etc. Elected
municipal authorities needed to contact people in the community first because they
had trouble identifying the specific problems of the population (notably due to the
fact that very few Sri Lankan Tamils speak French) and also because in some cities
they represent a potential electorate. As such, associations with political ambitions
and which supported a terrorist-labelled organization established or maintained connections with local political representatives using strategies adapted for stigma management (Goffman, 1963) and thus managed to borrow halls, participate in local
events and even receive grants.
Moreover, I managed to circumvent my exclusion from the activist sphere by diversifying the field sites observed and my sources of information, and by using everyday
interactions. First, I met with professionals from the health and social services sector
who could introduce me to Tamil asylum seekers and refugees. I also volunteered for six
months in a centre that provided asylum seekers in the Paris region with a postal address.11
I as such noted that Eelamist activists offered to accompany new arrivals in their social
and administrative procedures and often acted as interpreters and intermediaries in helping them find accommodation and employment. These activities allowed them to identify the Tamils living in the Paris region and create a symbolic indebtedness that was
useful when it came time to collect funds for the Tamil Eelam cause.
I also conducted fieldwork in Switzerland, Great Britain, India and, most notably,
Toronto and this further shed light on the movements transnational organization since I
discovered the same organizational structures and divisions of labour as in France. I as
such elaborated on the notion of long-distance nationalism, showing that the marginalization processes of migrants caused by the administrative technologies of states are one
factor amongst others in the embracing of the nationalist project. The symbolic indebtedness and social control exerted by a structured and hierarchical organization also encourage Tamil migrants to become loyal to the Eelamist associations. Confronting those
interviewed with my results thus forced me, on the one hand, to analyse the reasons why
I was excluded from the field and, on the other hand, made me change my research
approach, once again, by improvising. Although trying for both parties, it allowed new
analyses of Tamil political space abroad to emerge.

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Conclusion
This article has attempted to engage a discussion between French political science and
American political ethnography. The authors university education in political science
was rooted more in the tradition of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) and the
tricks of the trade (Becker, 1998) than on a statistics-based approach. This approach is
marginal within international political science and has trouble finding any forum for
debate in most of Europe.12
Improvisation is part of ethnographic work, with or without an ethics protocol; that
does not mean that the heuristic influence of informality should be ignored: it allows for
a detailed analysis of social and political facts which would otherwise only be studied
superficially or within the confines of the trendy analytical frameworks of the time.
Finally, while it may be impossible to dissociate ethical considerations within a research
relationship (Mondain and Sabourin, 2009), their legal and administrative codification
and the hypothetical/deductive principle underpinning their formalization make it more
difficult to take an ethnographic approach. Above all, they may simply be poorly adapted
for certain fieldwork contexts where access is possible only informally.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Jocelyne A.L. Serveau for the translation of this article. Ms
Serveau is a French to English translator specialized in the social sciences and humanities, international development and international relations.

Funding
This research was supported by a 3-year bursary (Bourse dAide la Recherche) from the French
Ministry of Foreign Affairs granted to Jeanne Hersant as a member of the Institut Franais dEtudes
Anatoliennes in Istanbul (2002-2005). We also received funding from the Deutsch-Franzsische
Hochschule (grant ANW-08-10).

Notes
1. Social research based on the close-up, on-the-ground observation of people and institutions
in real time and space, in which the investigator embeds his/herself near (or within) the phenomenon so as to detect how and why agents on the scene act, think and feel the way they do
(Wacquant, 2003: 5).
2. Ethics protocols are not standard practice in France, particularly in political science. The
Turkish authorities that grant research authorizations did not require an ethics protocol
either.
3. Exempted from the population exchange with Turkey in 1924, this minority was de facto recognized as Turkish until the 1960s when the conflict over Cyprus made the Greek authorities
fearful of Turkish irredentism.
4. Western Thrace was the poorest region in the EU until the 2004 enlargement.
5. The villages of Western Thrace are difficult to access via public transportation.
6. Appointed (for life) by Greek authorities based on recommendations from the Muslim
community.
7. Yes, during election campaigns, our Turkishness is recognized (Gndem, 1 October 2002)
(in Turkish).
8. Between 700,000 and 800,000 Sri Lankan Tamils currently live outside their native country;

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9.
10.
11.

12.

Current Sociology 61(5-6)

that is roughly 40% of the islands native Tamil population before the start of the civil war
in 1983.
According to the Official Journal, roughly 100 Sri Lankan Tamil associations were created between
1996 and 2010 in the Paris region, which is home to some 60,000 Sri Lankan Tamil migrants.
The Sri Lankan armys final offensive caused the death of at least 20,000 Tamil civilians
according to a UN Experts Report released in April 2011.
These centres provide a postal address, necessary to apply for asylum status. Asylum seekers
come to get their mail, providing an opportunity for volunteers to monitor how their administrative and social procedures are progressing.
The panels on political ethnography within the European Consortium for Political Research
(Reykjavik 2010) were either composed solely of French researchers or were cancelled due
to a lack of participants.

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Author biographies
Galle Dequirez holds a doctor of philosophy in political science from the University of Lille 2.
She is the author of Processus dappropriation et luttes de reprsentation autour du Little Jaffna
parisien, Revue Europenne des Migrations Internationales 26(2), 2010. She has also published
Lhistoire de Sri Lanka vue par les associations nationalistes tamoules en France, Hommes et
Migrations, 2001, 1291: 7281. She co-edited with Delon Madavan and Eric Meyer, Les
Communauts tamoules et le conflit sri-lankais (Paris: LHarmattan, 2011).
Jeanne Hersant spent two years (2011-2013) as Director of the Department of Sociology branch at
the Universidad Andrs Bello in Via del Mar, Chile. She is now a researcher at the Centro de

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Current Sociology 61(5-6)

Estudios Avanzados (Centre for Advanced Studies) at the Universidad de Playa Ancha in
Valparaiso. She is the author of Mobilizations for Western Thrace and Cyprus in contemporary
Turkey: From the far right to the lexicon of human rights, in Beinin J and Vairel F (eds) Social
Movements, Mobilization and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa (Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2011). She is in charge of a three-year research programme entitled
The Sociology of Chilean Public Administration: Court Clerks and Criminal Procedure Reform
(Fondecyt Iniciacin No. 11121171).

Rsum
Les relations interpersonnelles dans la recherche en sciences sociales sont de plus en plus codifies du fait des procdures formelles tablies par les comits dthique. Cet article examine les
vertus de limprovisation sur la base de deux enqutes de terrain ralises dans des pays qui nont
pas institutionnalis les protocoles dthique laisss lapprciation des seuls chercheurs. Le premier travail sintresse la minorit turque de Grce par le biais de sondages effectus en Grce,
Turquie et Allemagne. Le second projet se penche sur limmigration tamoule en France et dans
lOntario. En se fondant sur la comparaison entre les deux approches distinctes de ces deux mouvements identitaires, nous montrons que nous avons t en mesure de reprendre le questionnement ethnographique sur ces deux sujets et de mettre en vidence leurs dimensions
politiques.

Mots-cls
Mobilisation identitaire, nationalisme grande distance, reprise du questionnement ethnographique, protocole dthique, tamoules du Sri Lanka.

Resumen
Las relaciones de investigacin en las ciencias sociales se estn volvendo cada vez ms cofigicadas
por procedimentos formales estabelecidos por comits de tica. Este artculo enfatiza las virtudes
de la improvisacin vasadas en dos experincias de campo en pases donde los protocolos de
tica no estn institucionalizados y son liberados al critrio de los investigadores. El primer caso
se relaciona con la minoria turca en Grecia, en una investigacin realizada en Grecia, Turqua y
Alemania; el segundo, refiere a la migracin Tamil de Sri Lanka estudiada en Francia y Canad
(Ontario). Basada en la comparacin de nuestros respectivos enfoque sobre movimentos de
doble identidade, mostramos como es posible llevar a cabo una relectura etnogrfica de estos
tpicos y sealar sus dimensiones polticas.

Palabras clave
Movilizaciones basadas en la identidade, nacionalismo a distancia, revisin etnogrfica, protocolo
de tica, Tamiles de Sri Lanka.

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