Doing Field Research in State-Mandated Historical Memory Institutions: Institutional Access and Researchers’ Liminality

This case study problematizes the process of institutional access and immersion in the field as central to the fieldwork experience in allegedly bureaucratic institutions established in politicized settings. The dynamic process of public contestation toward these Institutes, doings and undoings of institutional structures, and hierarchies provides the social context of the intricacy of institutional access. I reflect on the quandaries, dilemmas, strategies, and limitations of field research within various dynamic state institutions. Striving for ideal conditions of complete immersion in the field can be either illusory or counterproductive in a context of competing representations on the past and when the stakes are high. Ethnographic sensibility is an important component of fieldwork. Rather than taking sides, or remaining neutral to various respondents and informants, of opposing positions, the researcher needs to show ethnographic sensibility to each. Central issues that structure this case study focus on institutional access, field immersion, advantages of multi-sited ethnography, strategies of overcoming fieldwork limitations, ambiguity of Institute's researchers/bureaucrats, and the reflexivity of the ethnographer. Ultimately, generating knowledge and understanding in political science through field research requires relishing and revealing apparent similarities and latent contradictions.