Fieldwork in Abkhazia (2)

While organizing the fieldwork I had many problems to deal with. Since I do not have a good assistant who can organize the people and transport. At the NGO and in the first project I had Martha to help me with everything, some of you who read this blog frequently will remember she recently got married and is living happily in Moscow for the time being. I am looking for her return not that because she will be a great partner in research but also she is a great friend, making your day all the time with her comforting smile. Anyway, when she was in Abkhazia, she comfortably organized people and transport and all I had to tell was when and where to. I realized how much work she had to do when I had to call and recall all my team to fix a suitable group for a region. What can be so hard about is, I want to take all team members to places they have never been. Abkhazia is a small country but local people who are not involved in works that force them to travel around, do not visit any place except for weddings or funerals. And social events means responsibilities as I mentioned before. So many of them do not even realize the historical remains or natural beatuies they pass by. When we are in the field, I want to see these things and I want the team to see them. It should be something more than work, more than running from one respondent to another, it should be something they enjoy doing. I try to take them to places they have never been which is a hell of a job since they are not always available for work and I dont want them to loose that chance to see there.
I want to make sure fieldwork gives them a lot of memories, unforgettable ones, some laugh, some good taste of food if possible. In our first fieldwork, once we were trying to finish a village and it was after lunch time and all our food was finished and everybody was very hungry. I had thought we would be in the city by than and be in a restaurant so I had food enough only for breakfast. From one of the houses that we were making an interview, a man came with fresh home made cheese, freshly baked cheesebread (achoaf) and acika (peppersalt). We wanted to reject it but at the same time very much wanted to eat it. So I was -as traditions required- rejecting nicely. And the host just put it on the seat of the car. When he saw we were too many, he called his wife to bring more and we were presented some more bread. When we were eating it I just thought this is the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. That taste has been unforgettable to all the team, just like it has been to me. And I know that when this story is retold in the field `it is time to eat something!`.
Since now I know the conditions, I make orders on the night before so that we will have enough food in the rural areas. In many parts of Abkhazia, you wont have a chance to find a restaurant and even a small village shop to buy a drink or bread. Villages are self sustained in most senses and only some durables are sold in the village shops (if there is any). Many people go for shopping once a month to the cities or town centres, or they ask for relatives working in the city to bring in things when they come to the village in the weekends. Still, in all the houses you will be offered what ever they have, for sure a cup of coffee (not instant one), very likely a piece of homemade cheese, homegrown hazelnuts and/or fruits, some chocolate and ofcourse homemade wine or chacha (double destilled vodka with about 70 % alcohol). I leave the choice to eat or drink to the team, except alcohol. Since I know it will never end, if they start traditional drink and pray ceremony and I would not like my interviewers to be drunk. So they are strictly forbidden. However, once during the beneficiary assessment, we were in a village where each house is located far from one another. I left the male interviewer alone and asked him to go to three houses nearby (still he had to walk 20 minutes) and and wait for our return in the last one. Though we had the car, we had to travel 40 minutes drive to reach one of the houses. And by the time we returned to pick him, he was in the last house for over an hour and the phones were not wroking in this village. So they made him drink (and he had no other option) so he was all drunk and complaining to me saying it was my fault to leave him there, though I understood and was not angry to him. Somethings are unavoidable.
The climate in Abkhazia, is also a problem for fieldworkers. You may start the day with a warm sun and end soaked up in heavy rain. Many times I had to build up a system to dry wet questionnaires at the back of the car. I wished to buy special trasnparent pancho rain coats for the team but never found something as I wished. Still after many times being soaked in the field, or freezing because of sudden weather change, I have to remind the team to take umbrellas and coats with them in all seasons. Besides, the young people in Abkhazia are really caring for how they look and sometimes I laugh at their choices of clothing for rural fieldwork. They wear white shoes, and ofcourse stop many times to clean them from the mud they had to step on while entering a house or manure they stepped on just by mistake. Short skirts are also funny since they do not have the chance to move comfortably though clothing is not a problem for village elderly as I had seen in rural Turkey. There girls should really care what they wear.
Security is not an issue in fieldwork in Abkhazia, though I care very much about it. What I mean is, we have never been treated badly or threatened in anyhow. OfcourseI do not count a drunk elderly wishing to have a photo with one of the girls hugging her, or a mentally ill kid following us all through the village.
I am sure I have a lot more to say about fieldwork, but I guess all this will be enough to understand how we do it in Abkhazia. If you are interested in knowing about ethical issues or more about our projects you can visit our website.
It is time for abkhaziadiary to be back to daily issues.

Fieldwork in Abkhazia

I applied to attend the meeting of the World Abkhaz-Abaza People's Assembly and said I will stay only for three days. At the airport, to see the joy and excitement of all those people, made me change my mind and I said, I will stay for a week together with the long term group. IT was a good decision. On the second and last day of the meeting, the had prepared a dinner. There I was walking around the tables and stopped by a table full of young people where joyful laughs was heard. I asked if anyone spoke English, and found out these people were the employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia and all spoke English. One of them was very kind and friendly and asked me to the table. I explained to him that I was a sociologist and I would like to know his opinion and feelings about the event. (Than my Russian was really poor, I had no practice at all so I could only communicate with English speakers). This young boy, with glowing look in his eyes, told me how he was happy to see his people smiling, first time since the war. He told me how it was important that Abkhaz should return to their homeland... I said I was interested very much in the topic of return... Than my focus was more on Adygeya though... He said we need sociologists in Abkhazia and I said "will you help me if I come?". "Anything I can do..." Before I get up from that table (a few hours later) I promised him I will come back to stay and work on the topic of return migration/repatriation and any other topic that will be usefull for them. He on the other hand promised to help me with the language school at the university, accommodation, connections and job if I wish. He did everything he could as he promised. Wrote for me many letters, made many calls. Even one year after I came to Abkhazia, I told I will take the job he offered me a year ago, and I am still working in that centre... That boy was Maxim Gunjia, my first friend in Abkhazia, now the Minister of Foriegn Affairs, back than Vice Minister. A person who can be happy with a smile on his people's face. A person who can keep his promises. I was lucky to know him. Because thanks to him, I came to Abkhazia.
Anyway, working with migrant communities is always hard. In the case of Abkhazia, where people have "many others" and always feel the sense of "being the other" it was also hard. There has been moments that I wanted to give up on this topic and leave or live but away from the return migrants. However, there has been always people motivating me for the study of this topic, as many as there were people trying to de-motivate me.
Still my first country wide field work experience came with a position I took in an NGO in 2008. They asked me to do a survey and I said there is no sociology department and I need to educate young people so that what we do will be of good quality.
I organized 4 parallel trainings on field research methodology, with more than 40 people but only 15 of them could complete the training. The second group was 4 months later and just before I was starting the field work on the countrywide political participation and pre-election survey. Though I was a stranger in the field, and my team was unexperienced, we managed to do 1130 Questionnaire interviews- anonym (since the topic was sensitive) in all over Abkhazia. I used the voting regions (36 of them but the last three was combined into 1 since I did not have the full list) as stratas and the team did at least 30 interviews with random people in all stratas.
Anyway, less than a year after the first country wide survey, I established a firm for Social and Market Research (research.bazala.net) and realized a second wide survey- a beneficiary asessment about a development project. The third project came just after that, and we have just recently finished the fieldwork since we had many reasons to delay our work, including elections in December (and pre-election period) which was stressfull though our topic was non political; New Year Celebrations that last about a month (Christmas, New Year, Old New Year, New-old New year, etc....) when people were all drunk; the exams in the university, since many of the team members are students at the university; holiday after the exams, since we all needed a rest; than the loss of Abkhazia's first president Ardzynba...
However, it was hard to work due to these big events, in general it is hard to find the right day and time for interviewing in Abkhazia. Every friday, saturday and sunday are filled with marriages. Many days people are busy with funerals and memorial feasts of their extended families and friends' families. Weekdays, people go to the cities to do some jobs they need to, to shop, and even to work and come back "home" in the village for weekends.
Most team members are enrolled at the university in the weekdays. So we had to work in the weekends which was hard due to social responsibilities of possible respondents. But we managed, by leaving the city as early as 8-8.30 and arriving to the villages just when people are finishing their breakfasts and before they leave their houses.
To be continued

Bazala TV Ad

Life fast and busy...

Everything is in a period of change. Martha Jonua (linguist-social researcher) has left for Moscow-getting married tomorrow.

From GoodbyPartyforMarthaJonua

Dijin Churey (linguist and ethno-musicolog) came to Abkhazia and got married today...With traditional clothes on her, the groom, the tatsayuza (brides' friend who is an unmarried girl from the family of the boy). I wanted to have something traditional too. But time and economic limits resulted in this creative piece. Of course it is a result of 4 day delicate embroidery work by Trapsh Ece from Shelly.

From Achara/Jeug/Wedding/Düğün

I have also prepared an advertisement for the training that will start on Tuesday but I couldnt catch the advertisement on TV tonight because i did not realized the time after I came from the wedding and missed the first 15 minutes of Abkhaz State TV So I can not makes sure if they published it :(

And posters to be hanged tomorrow.

And though it is after midnight and I am dying since in total i slept 15 hours in the last week I feel like sitting here and writing all about these...