he had also drawn a picture of a soccer ball.
“I like football,” he said, “though there are not enough balls here in the camp.”
I began to ask another question, neglecting whatever connection may have formed had I allowed soccer to take center stage. In my eagerness in this interview, I wanted to ask some revealing question, questions that would get to the core of Keto’s being. I had not yet realized that soccer could be the key, that play could reveal the secrets of Keto that words would not. His answer about the number of soccer balls contained a universe of information about how he felt, what he wanted, what he hoped to get from me. I plowed on, oblivious.
“Keto, can you tell me—”
My translator stopped me mid-sentence and paused for a moment. He turned to me. Keto was not going to let me get by that easy, not going to let me miss the connection his answer about soccer balls demanded.
“Before you go on, Keto would like to ask you a question, if it is all right.”
“Of course,” I said. “He can say or ask anything he likes.” I smiled to show without words that I was very happy to answer his questions. The interview still felt more formal than I had wanted my interviews to be. It would take a bit of practice, letting a conversation flow between a child, a translator, and me.
Keto sat up straight and looked me right in the eyes to ask his question.
“How will talking to you about the war help me to get shoesor more food or a blanket?” Or more soccer balls, his question seemed to say. Perhaps he was too polite to throw that in as a dig against my obliviousness. I had much to learn.
I was not sure how to answer. This was a question I had been thinking about since I thought of this project, since I arrived in Africa for the first time a few days earlier. It was a question that would haunt me for the next three years as I returned to Africa to meet other children, as I met children who had become illegal migrants in Thailand to escape the junta in Myanmar, as I met orphans struggling to grow up and build their lives in the stunted economy and traumatized villages of post-war Kosovo. The implications of this question harass me as I write this now.
Anyone who does “field research” (I hate that term; implying pith helmets, Stanley and Livingstone) in communities that are less fortunate than one’s own—whether it be documentary work, social science research, humanitarian assessment, anthropological study, or journalism—has to deal with the moral and psychological tensions, as Robert Coles calls them, that this kind of work creates.
How do you arrive as an outsider among people who are struggling to survive, observe and interview them, take their lives as “material,” and leave? If you are successful, it will be in large part because of the quality of the material (the content of the lives researched) that you have gathered. Your career will advance or your reputation will be made. Yet what of the people you have observed or, to put it another way, exploited ? How does telling their story help any of these children, and how can I sleep at night having taken their stories and left them in war zones, still hungry, still at risk?
There are no easy answers to these questions, and few resolutions to the tensions. I believe there is value in being heard, in sharing your experiences with others. There was a value forthe youths and adolescents I met while doing this work: I communicated their concerns to those who might make changes, I helped to validate their thoughts and ideas, and they began to learn how to express themselves to those with different experiences and backgrounds. There is also the hope that their stories can be used for advocacy, to stimulate more or better assistance to them or children in the same situation as they are.
But there is also the worry that discussing what can often be painful and frightening memories will lead to harm, further traumatization, revisiting
“I like football,” he said, “though there are not enough balls here in the camp.”
I began to ask another question, neglecting whatever connection may have formed had I allowed soccer to take center stage. In my eagerness in this interview, I wanted to ask some revealing question, questions that would get to the core of Keto’s being. I had not yet realized that soccer could be the key, that play could reveal the secrets of Keto that words would not. His answer about the number of soccer balls contained a universe of information about how he felt, what he wanted, what he hoped to get from me. I plowed on, oblivious.
“Keto, can you tell me—”
My translator stopped me mid-sentence and paused for a moment. He turned to me. Keto was not going to let me get by that easy, not going to let me miss the connection his answer about soccer balls demanded.
“Before you go on, Keto would like to ask you a question, if it is all right.”
“Of course,” I said. “He can say or ask anything he likes.” I smiled to show without words that I was very happy to answer his questions. The interview still felt more formal than I had wanted my interviews to be. It would take a bit of practice, letting a conversation flow between a child, a translator, and me.
Keto sat up straight and looked me right in the eyes to ask his question.
“How will talking to you about the war help me to get shoesor more food or a blanket?” Or more soccer balls, his question seemed to say. Perhaps he was too polite to throw that in as a dig against my obliviousness. I had much to learn.
I was not sure how to answer. This was a question I had been thinking about since I thought of this project, since I arrived in Africa for the first time a few days earlier. It was a question that would haunt me for the next three years as I returned to Africa to meet other children, as I met children who had become illegal migrants in Thailand to escape the junta in Myanmar, as I met orphans struggling to grow up and build their lives in the stunted economy and traumatized villages of post-war Kosovo. The implications of this question harass me as I write this now.
Anyone who does “field research” (I hate that term; implying pith helmets, Stanley and Livingstone) in communities that are less fortunate than one’s own—whether it be documentary work, social science research, humanitarian assessment, anthropological study, or journalism—has to deal with the moral and psychological tensions, as Robert Coles calls them, that this kind of work creates.
How do you arrive as an outsider among people who are struggling to survive, observe and interview them, take their lives as “material,” and leave? If you are successful, it will be in large part because of the quality of the material (the content of the lives researched) that you have gathered. Your career will advance or your reputation will be made. Yet what of the people you have observed or, to put it another way, exploited ? How does telling their story help any of these children, and how can I sleep at night having taken their stories and left them in war zones, still hungry, still at risk?
There are no easy answers to these questions, and few resolutions to the tensions. I believe there is value in being heard, in sharing your experiences with others. There was a value forthe youths and adolescents I met while doing this work: I communicated their concerns to those who might make changes, I helped to validate their thoughts and ideas, and they began to learn how to express themselves to those with different experiences and backgrounds. There is also the hope that their stories can be used for advocacy, to stimulate more or better assistance to them or children in the same situation as they are.
But there is also the worry that discussing what can often be painful and frightening memories will lead to harm, further traumatization, revisiting
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