15th July, 2024

Tamara Taher

Representing research as relationship is one of those academic “waves of thought” that we see increasing being developed today. Like fascination and wide use of “decolonization”, “relationality” is a way researchers present themselves as aware of the violent and extractive processes of modern research. However, I have been reflecting a lot, while doing research in Amman, on what practicing relationality actually means. While the word is often associated with romantic representations of “indigeneity” which somehow end up cancelling out the complexities and tensions of a context’s power dynamics, I am finding it to have much more to do with a radical critique of the timelines, productivity measures and epistemological questions of research. Relating to contexts, people, different dynamics and dimensions while we attempt to answer the questions we carry with us in the world is not linear. On the contrary, it is often – along with being exciting and stimulating – also unsettling, uneasy and hard. When we look at others not as “informants” and “participants” but as “co-thinkers” and “co-producers” of the world, we need to take their own questions, needs, times, and aspirations out of our mutual relationship seriously. This is not simply a methodological question, but an epistemological one. The feelings, thoughts, availability and interest of the people we interact with during research are not secondary elements of our relationship with them. They rather inform it. This means that tensions about our own epistemic and material relationship need to be looked at as an integral part of the knowledge this research produces and not simply as an appendix that is brought it to prove its “validity” and “value”. In a research that adopts a “post-development” and “convivial” lens, these are crucial questions I reflect on when I think and practice research as relationship. 

15th July, 2024

Ginevra Montefusco

As with all forms of representation, photography is a matter of power. Using a camera can be extractive and violent when not discussed collectively and radically. My use of visual methods is rooted in my consciousness of its dark sides, such as in the tendency to extract images of marginalized people, under the theoretical assumption of “giving voice to the voiceless”. This careless approach allows for the proliferation of sensationalized representations of the “margin”, generalized and simplified narratives built on the viewer's expectation, possibly of decay, exoticism, romantic slowness or backwardness.

I have been reflecting on how bringing a camera to the field influences both those who are behind andin front of it. It is not a neutral object for the person holding it, for it is intertwined with the sensitivity and positionality of the shooter. At the same time it is not a pure extension of the photographer, but a real actor in the field. It has the power to carry precise meanings, stimulate curiosity, as well as crack relationships and create mistrust. To conduct non-extractivist research rooted in relationships, sharing, participation, and informed consent, it is necessary to focus on the potentials as well as risks of this agent, and on how to redistribute its power.

During my fieldwork in Morocco, especially in Sidi Bounouar, I have been reflecting on the relationships I was able to build through the camera, and the ones I threatened. The Sidi Bounouar community’s gatekeepers, all men, immediately encouraged me to take photos in public and private spaces. Indeed, the camera stimulated an interesting and deep exchange with them. Sharing pictures with the participants was very powerful, and emotional, creating more connection, materialising the research work and its aims, and visualizing my emphatic involvement in their work. The presence of the camera-subject intrigued several people acting as an ice-breaker where language barriers hindered contact. In these cases, the camera was perceived as third to me and created a positive meeting space beyond my borders.

At the same time, it has also created friction with parts of the community that are more sensitive to the issue of visibility, namely women. Being always accompanied by community members allowed me a certain ease with the camera, feeling legitimized in having it with me. Nonetheless, the visibility of the camera carried meanings beyond me and my use of it. This unease was made explicit during our participation in Tigri, namely the harvesting of mussels typical of the Sidi Bounouar community, traditionally practised by women.  The women part of our hosting family consented to the photos while harvesting, but some asked to avoid portraits or shots in which they were recognizable. Nevertheless, other unknown women who were harvesting in the same place approached me, telling me I should not take pictures. 

The camera can be a symbol of violence, especially where culturally the visibility and public display of one's body and face are considered a violation, even more so if done by strangers. This episode highlighted, for me, how visibility is a matter of power, which in certain contexts should be negotiated more, brought to a collective discussion, and not only to individual consent.

15th July, 2024

Beatrice Ferlaino

Relationality in the research I am conducting in Sidi Bounouar is connected with the question of what it means to conduct non-extractivist research when priorities and interests are different between the researcher and the people who live in the place studied. This question is deeply connected to how my work interacts with the context and to how much it is capable of considering their interest as part of the research’s objectives. The people that I am working with in Sidi Bounouar are not interested in producing academic knowledge, nor in publishing or presenting our collaboration to the international community in the forms that are legitimated and demanded by the academic world. This means that the co-authorship, the organization of academic conferences, and the participation in the research work intended as academic elaboration are not an option for creating relationality: this is not the path I have to follow if I want my research to be interesting also for the people that are involved not as researchers. I spoke about this with some of the people in the field and during this time I reflected deeply on this issue. I understood that they are interested in participating because this research represents two opportunities: i) on the one side, it presents an opportunity for visibility and it valorizes and recognizes their work and their knowledge that are more and more marginal in the context where they live; ii) on the other side I can be a bridge to communicate with the international networks they are part of (like Slow Food) and I can support in creating new contacts.  

My role, if I want to do relational research in line also with their interests and their “request”, is, therefore, to understand and valorize what I see, witnessing their daily efforts and communicating the fact that in the world their lifestyle is a possibility, exists and can teach us some lessons – both theoretical and empirical. Moreover, they need to be connected, they need to be supported, and recognized, and they want to feel part of a global network, not alone or isolated: the role I have – I think – is to participate in creating networks and consolidating the ones that already exist, not because they are not able to do it without me – obviously –, but because when I work with them I am part of their group, and I feel the desire to use my positionality for promoting their efforts in shaping their context according to their wishes.