ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the strategies used to gain access to potential respondents and to deal with government interference in my research project in Rwanda from April to October 2006. I had planned to spend one year in the field (April 2006 to April 2007) but the government of Rwanda revoked my letter of permission in September 2006. I spent a month with government officials, learning the ‘true version’ of how ‘things really are in Rwanda’ rather than ‘wasting’ my time talking to ‘peasants’ and ‘unimportant people’ who ‘are all liars anyway’.1 The Rwandan government took my passport, with a promise to return it once I had been ‘re-educated’ about its initiatives to promote national unity and reconciliation in the wake of the 1994 genocide. Long before this official government interference, I had already traversed the uneven terrain of entering Rwanda, identifying two local partner agencies to sponsor the research, and had successfully gained access to the ‘terribly closed’ rural world of ordinary, peasant Rwandans.2
