Two student fieldworkers tell the story of their fieldwork experience with M., a refugee living in the United States. Their account provides a thought-provoking framework for understanding how misunderstandings can arise during the course of a project.
–Nancy Kalow, Instructor, Center for Documentary Studies
When we started this project, our goal was to meet with resettled refugees in the United States, listen to their stories of their pasts, their transitions to America, and their hopes for the future. We (the two authors of this paper) met with M. three times for this project. M. was such a beautiful and complete storyteller that we did not even have to ask him any questions during the meetings; we simply sat and listened to him talk for hours. As we were leaving our final meeting with him, he asked us about getting the money he was told he would receive for participating. He told us specifically the money is not why he ultimately decided to talk to us, but he would not say no to any little bit that could help him. So we went back to our advisors, who planned and organized this project, and shared M.’s message with them. It was at this point we learned money was not promised as part of our refugee partners’ participation. After many back-and-forth’s between us, M., our advisors, and the resettlement aid organization who put us in contact with M. and who explained the project to him, M. said he no longer wanted to participate. He did not want us to use his story. After a couple of weeks we discovered the root of the misunderstanding and we explained it to M. He understood, he told us he did not blame us and he still trusted us, but he could not let us go through with the project. It was not about the money, but it was to show “them” “they” cannot treat “us” this way; they cannot lie to us. This paper is an account our interactions with M. and analysis of why he may have revoked permission to use his story. It is also a rumination on the ethics of moving forward when doing fieldwork.
We parked outside the apartment complex, unconsciously moving to the rhythm of a nearby party. Early Halloween decorations swayed similarly in the wind. M. opened the door, bundled up because of a fever or cold. He made it clear he didn’t want us to record that first day, but simply to give us a feel for his narrative. His roommate made a loud international call in the next room, then joined us, listening to M. M. had told his story many times–to his roommate, various government agencies, and now to us. He wanted the recording to be the last time he told his story. He had moved past it, he said; now he felt ‘free.’
The second time we met M. he was buoyant. He was nearly recovered from sickness, had got his license, and had got hold of a car. It seemed as if his new-found mobility was translated into his words and hand gestures–they flowed freely, with rapid-fire energy. We went to a new location to record with a quiet background. After we asked the first question M. verbally danced–with essentially no interruption–for an hour and a half. We were mesmerized. He took us through his time in his home country and his entry into a neighboring country. It took us effort to listen in silence and not make exclamations or nod too vigorously. M. came across as someone who minded his own business, who was politically disinterested and who left his home country out of a desire for governmental and militia forces to leave him alone. He told a particularly moving story about how he helped a neighbor who needed a fridge, and made exhortations towards religious peace. M., who had served as a tour guide at one point in his life, was an exceptional storyteller and our recording was audio gold.
The third time we met M. was similar to the second. He was slightly more subdued, but spoke with the same ease and narrative flourish. A single question once again launched him off on an hour and a half journey. He ended by speaking of the present, of his happiness at being in the United States where he feels safe, where he is not at the risk of losing everything, where he has control. We asked M. for pictures of his shop back at home or pictures of him, but he refused, saying he didn’t want to be visually identified, and he still had family manning that shop. He instead gave us a photo in which he felt he wasn’t recognizable. He happily took a photo with us that he hoped to showcase at his 1-year-in-America party. Right before we parted ways, he mentioned he had been told he would get a small sum of money from whoever recruited him for his participation in this project. We told him we didn’t know anything about it, but we would ask.
We emailed our advisors who had met with M. before we interviewed him to give him background on our project. They didn’t know anything about offering him money and said none of them had ever mentioned it. A couple uncertain days passed. M. texted us asking about this and we conveyed their message. He didn’t believe this – he remembered the sum – and asked to be put in contact with our ‘boss’. After a series of tense coordinating texts he was able to talk to our advisors. They told him firmly that no one from their side had mentioned offering money for an interview. If he remembered something about it, it must be misinformation of the refugee agency which had given us his contact information. The representative from the refugee agency, who had told my advisors about M., was unreachable. M. misunderstood who the representative was and claimed that they weren’t working at the agency. We knew this to not be true. A series of unanswered phone calls were made.
M. kept texting us and we finally talked on the phone. We told him again that no one on our end had mentioned money and it must have been the refugee agency. M. told us he wanted to cancel the interview. The recording was incredible, and we already had his signature, but we could never go forward with sharing someone’s words if they are against it. M. said he understood that it wasn’t our fault; he blamed ‘them’, i.e. whoever had told him about the sum. “It’s not about money,” he said heatedly. “Even if they give me ten time as much money, I will not give my recording. I want to show them that they cannot do this to us.” We promised to put him in contact with our advisors again.
Our advisors eventually got in contact with the representative from the refugee agency. It turned out they had mentioned an honorarium for guests invited to Duke as visiting speakers to a class, but likely did not say directly that there would be money for participating as an interviewee. Our advisors tried to get the representative to contact M. to explain and apologize to him, but we are not sure if that ever happened. Our advisors explained the situation to M., but he still refused to let us use his interview. M. stopped texting we about the situation. We wouldn’t use his interview. End of story.
We see M.’s reaction as a way to exercise his own agency over his life and his story. For most of his life his story has been in the hands of others who used it and manipulated it for their (and they would say for his) ultimate goals. M. told his story, including all of its most painful details, in multiple countries on his way to getting resettled to the United States. He told his story even once he got to the United States to aid organizations who were helping him transition to life here. When he told these stories, he could not leave anything private; he had to tell the story that would exact the most pity from the next country on his journey to convince them he was deserving of asylum and aid. In this way of storytelling, not only did M. have to downplay his personal agency to make him seem like a helpless victim, but he also had no control over who heard it and who it was shared to. In these ways, his story had always been in the hands of others.
We believe M. first agreed to our project because we were giving him a platform to tell his story the way he wanted and needed to make him proud for what he did to help others and in a way that was healing to help him move forward from his past to fully embrace his future life in the United States. We were not there to pry for the most intimate details of his past or to mold his past to make him into the image of a certain or “ideal” refugee. We were just there to listen to whatever he wanted to share in the way he wanted to share it.
We believe this is why, when M. reached a point when he lost trust in us and our project, he was so adamant about not letting us use his story, even when the misunderstanding was resolved. This was his way of regaining control over his story. The story we had was the one he molded for himself, and suddenly (we think he felt) it was again being taking out of his hands and given to people who were not solely working for him, but had their own agenda and might use the story in ways he was not being told. After all, if we lied to him before, we could easily do so again. M. wanted to show people in the United States that he was not a ‘helpless refugee’ or a victim who could be molded at the hands of others. We believe this was especially important once he got to America and finally got the freedom and power to move forward and form his own future. The United States, he always believed, was the place where he trusted he would finally have agency over his life, including his past and his future. And when this agency was taken away from him when he was lied to, it was the ultimate betrayal because it was in the country where he trusted this could never happen. So by reclaiming his story, by saying he did not want us to use it, it was his chance to exert the agency over his past he knew he could have in America. Thus he could take one step further in developing his personal power and obtaining the life he saw for himself when he came to this new country.
The loss of M.’s oral history exemplified the challenge of employing “best practices” on the part of the refugee agency. The representative had not been precise when talking to M. and had answered our advisors quite late. Had the refugee agency taken responsibility earlier, M. may not have backed out. The key word here is ‘may’. This experience taught us that sometimes miscommunication is unavoidable. We do the best we can to repair the damage, but if we fail, so be it. We should never feel that we own someone else’s story; M.’s belongs to him alone. He was happy to share it to help raise awareness of refugees, but not if it cost him his agency or made him the victim of perceived wrongs.
