Entering the Global Field: Talk, Travel and Narrative Practice in Ecuadorian Prisons
Author | Dr Jennifer Fleetwood |
Introduction
Before I was an ethnographer, I was a backpacker. In 2002, I spent two months in Ecuador learning Spanish and 'travelling', like many other middle-class, white British kids. During a month long stay in Quito, I heard I could visit Brits imprisoned for drug trafficking. With little deliberation, I noted down the instructions and the following Wednesday set off for the men's prison with my passport, the name of the inmate I would visit, and a carrier bag of cigarettes, chocolate, and toilet paper (these being the things I thought a prisoner from home might like).
Garcia Moreno prison is downtown, high up on the side of the valley about ten blocks from the presidential palace. The San Roque neighbourhood is poor and rarely visited by most Quiteños, let alone tourists. On a clear day, the views across the city are spectacular; small comfort for the long queue of visitors lined up outside under the baking midday sun. I had never visited a prison before, but was soon ushered through bag and body searches, jostling alongside prisoners' friends and family members, most carrying packages (one family even carried a mattress). Guards painstakingly unpacked suitcases full of clothes and stabbed birthday cakes and tubs of food for contraband. Finally, near the main door, we handed over our identification and the name of the prisoner we were visiting was carefully entered, by hand, into a hefty ledger. Finally, our credentials checked (we were stamped on our forearms for every search), we were finally ushered inside.
Built in 1875, Garcia Moreno prison is star shaped, like London's Pentonville. The walls are thick stone with small windows: its corridors dark and cold in contrast with the equatorial sun. We passed the kitchen where inmates stirred cauldrons of slop over massive fires, and quickly arrived in the centre of the 'star'. Here, visitors enter the prison. There is no visit room. A short, scruffily dressed man found me in the crowd and asked who I wanted to visit: we quickly established that the man I planned to see had left and instead he took me to El Britanico, the British man. He led me up two flights of stairs, dirty with stagnant water and rubbish and along the second floor balcony to the end, banging noisily on a heavy cell door, which was locked from the inside. A small metal grate slide to the side, and two eyes frowned. 'I've come to visit', I said, holding up my bag of gifts. A moment or two later, the door clanked open. 'I'm Paul', he said.1*
This article offers a 'confessional' about how I came to undertake fieldwork with drug traffickers imprisoned in Ecuador with the aim of 'explicitly demystifying fieldwork… by showing how the technique is practiced in the field' (Van Maanen, 2011:73). Fieldwork for my PhD was begun during my undergraduate degree, finally published some years later (Fleetwood 2014). As the above account shows, getting into prison was remarkably straightforward. In fact fieldwork for my undergraduate dissertation was undertaken during visit days. I eventually sought formal research access, but only many years after access had been established informally.2* Although methodological issues around formally gaining access to criminal justice institutions are important, this article is instead concerned with the sociological and cultural dynamics that enabled me to enter prisons in Ecuador as an outsider. This fieldwork, researching international drug trafficking, offers some insights into entering a global field, by examining the ways in which new categories of in/out are constituted. Drawing on field notes, I consider how entry was gained, especially storytelling as a central aspect of the culture of drug traffickers in prison and the backpackers (like me) who visited them. My account is prefaced by a review of how ethnographers have successfully gained entry into global fields that are criminal or deviant. This article is mainly concerned with how I gained entry into the men's prison. Although my fieldwork spanned three prisons in the end, this was the first site and so represented my initial entry.
Entering global research fields
The influence of globalisation on crime and criminal justice institution is firmly established (Aas, 2013; Bowling & Sheptycki, 2011; Findlay, 1999). Yet, criminologists tend to undertake research at 'home', or to undertake projects bounded by the nation state. In contrast, sociologists such as Burawoy call for ethnography that engages with, and seeks to understand processes of globalisation (2000). Doing so means rethinking fieldwork, 'combining dwelling and travelling' to engage with fields that stretch across the globe (2000:4; see also Büscher & Urry 2009; Letherby, 2010). Rather than engaging with one place (as with traditional ethnography), Burawoy argues for fieldwork that is multi-sited, but also grounded in local history (2000), thus able to grasp the macro sociological processes that shape daily life. Rather than studying globalisation itself, Sassen offers two ways of thinking about global/globalised sites. The first is the trans-nationalised local, in other words local practices that now have a transnational or global dimension (2007). The second is the globalised sub-national (the globalised local): spaces, places and social practices profoundly re-shaped by processes of globalisation (ibid).
Such global fields arguably present particular challenges to establishing entry, yet, many of the same issues are still in play. Ethnographic researchers' tales of 'getting in' are a recognisable sub-genre of the fieldwork confessional, and advice for the novice ethnographer abounds (Brewer, 2000; Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). For ethnographers of crime and deviance, prior connections count for a great deal, ensuring the researcher can be trusted, or at least that he/she is not police (see for example Pearson 1993; Hobbs 1993, 2001). On the other hand, ethnographers without personal connections must typically negotiate social distance and power imbalances as a prerequisite to building trust and rapport (see for example Goffman, 2015:215). An array of relationships to the field have been typologised, from complete participant (i.e. complete member) to complete observer (Gold, 1958). Adler and Adler propose several membership roles that ethnographers can adopt (1987). What kinds of roles can global ethnographers adopt? How do ethnographers gain entry into global fields? In a globalised world, do personal connections matter?
Entering transnational fields is especially challenging for ethnographers interested in crime and deviance. Transnational crime, by its nature, happens in many places at once, stretching across the globe. An excellent example of multi-sited ethnography is Scheper-Hughes' ethnography of organ trafficking (2004). As well as contacting and interviewing those who had donated or received organs, she also posed as an organ-buyer as a way of gaining entry to medical establishments (ibid). This methodology reflects the kinds of temporary social interactions that characterise the international organ trade, as well as Scheper-Hughes’ status as a US citizen, allowing her to adopt a membership role, albeit temporarily. Similarly, Brotherton and Barrios' transnational ethnography of Dominican deportees (2011) draws on fieldwork undertaken in New York and the Dominican Republic. They traced Dominican deportees’ experiences of social exclusion through deportation (and in some cases their illegal return to the USA), producing rich insights into how social exclusion (via the criminal justice system) operates transnationally. Both researchers had a degree of 'insider' status owing to personal biography: Barrios migrated to the USA from Puerto Rico as a child and had 'insider' contacts in the Dominican community in New York. Brotherton (also an immigrant to the USA from the UK) also undertook ethnographic research of the legal processes that facilitate deportation while acting as an expert witness (2011: 27).
Ethnographers of crime and deviance have more commonly researched globalisation at the level of the sub-national (i.e. the globalised local). Nonetheless, the distinction between local and transnational may not be so clear-cut. Hobbs' decades-long ethnography began as a distinctly local study of criminal sub-cultures in London's east end (1995). Nonetheless, his ethnographic fieldwork elucidates the ways in which local and transnational crime is connected, noting that transnational crime is 'local at all points' (1998: 419). Likewise, ethnographic research on international drug trafficking has made ample use of local 'hubs' in the transnational drug trade, for example Patti and Peter Adler's classic ethnographic of the international cocaine trade (1993). Full membership roles were not appropriate, and so they became peripheral members. They note that entry was gained via persistence, and drawing on aspects of shared values and identity. Damian Zaitch's ethnography of Colombian traffickers in the Netherlands drew on his biography as an Argentinian. He notes: 'Neither Dutch, nor Colombian myself, I often felt fortunate to be in the intermediate position of a "quasi-native" researcher' (2002:13). Despite being 'quasi-native', he reports engaging in the kinds of activities typical of ethnographic field researchers: 'They asked me all sorts of favours and things: juridical advice, translation of documents, housing, money, books, email and mail addresses to receive post, or jobs. I was also expected to learn salsa and to drink and smoke with them. I did most of these things and some more.' (2002:15).
Both Adler and Zaitch undertook ethnographic fieldwork 'at home'. Researching globalised sites abroad presents particular issues for gaining access due to global social inequalities. Hoefinger undertook fieldwork on the bar girl scene in Cambodia (local women who undertake transnational sex - sometimes - with foreign men) (2013)...
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