Student Reflections: Learning Ethnographic Field Research in Indonesia

This summer I was able to take the CONF 610 and 727 Research Methods course in Indonesia with Professor Leslie Dwyer. What I found incredible about the research process during this trip was how quickly I learned that research is not a passive exercise. By taking an ethnographic approach to research, I was required to better define my own sense of self and the way I view myself within the broader field of conflict analysis and resolution, all while working to answer my research question. One of the most important aspects of the experience, to me, was learning about the importance of reflexivity in research with the intent to better understand the ethics and positioning of the question I am asking.
I ended up conducting research about some of the interfaith communities in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Knowing that there had been a rise in religious violence in the area, I wanted to see how, members of interfaith organizations made their interfaith experience legible to their own faith communities.

While learning how to define the categories of interfaith and religion within the context of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, I was also learning how I categorized myself. The course was an exercise in pushing against the boundaries of those categories both personally and academically.

Since returning home, I have been asked why I needed to travel to Indonesia to get this kind of research experience. The reality is, of course, that ethnography does not necessitate leaving the country. There are plenty of opportunities for ethnography within even the DC/Metro area. Conducting research in Indonesia, however, allowed me to reconsider the ethics of research through a confrontation with culture.

There was never really a point during the trip where I forgot that I was in a new place with new cultural customs, and I was trying desperately to navigate it. There were times when it felt impossible to view the experience through any lens other than that of my own “otherness,” from the suspicion that I was being positioned by others (and, on occasion, myself) as a tourist. It felt like an ethnographic curse word, and I spent a large part of the experience trying to shrug it off, rather than recognize the historical, political, and cultural significance of that term in Yogyakarta.

It was, however, the conspicuousness I felt as an “other” that lead me to questions about the ethics of my research and the ethics of my interactions. It lead me to question why I was being positioned in a certain way, and what I could do to upset both the frames being placed on me and those I was placing on others. An element of the research that aided me in disrupting these frames came from class readings and discussions on collaboration. I found that research was a process of co-discovery, rather than co-creation, with those I was interviewing and working alongside. By inviting members of the interfaith community in Yogykarta into the questions I was asking, I felt I was able to gain a clearer understanding not only of how interfaith institutions operate in Yogyakarta, but also also the ways in which I was operating as a researcher. Rather than choosing to be fearful of presenting my research findings to the community I worked with, I attempted to share what I had learned with them and asked for confirmation that these findings seemed accurate to their experience. I found it necessary to remember that I was not the expert. Terms like researcher, subject, interpreter, and friend became muddled in this process, but I found that it invoked a sense of community around the work I was doing.

I look forward to the opportunity to do more ethnographic research here in the United States. In the past, I have found that travelling provides a chance to see the community around me with new eyes - I find myself viewing my own research here in the US this way now. In Indonesia, I learned to view research as a more holistic, self-reflexive process. Now that I am back in the U.S., I look forward to continuing to see through that lens in order to further understand myself as a researcher and practitioner.