ABSTRACT
Many anthropologists shy away from politicized issues like SSR and fear to become instrumentalized. However, the way in which international donors, national and local groups interact, and the resulting transformations in the meanings and actual provision of security remains an underexplored and increasingly important aspect of the ‘global flows’ that are studied in the anthropology of globalization. That said, it should be noted that the methods and perspectives that are usually employed in social anthropology meet limitations in this field. The core method of anthropological data collection is extensive stationary fieldwork and participant observation. It requires a sense of empathy and it is not possible to undertake such research if the researcher does not enjoy a certain trust among the people he or she wants to get familiar with. Plus, it involves lengthy stays in the actual localities. This typical way of doing anthropological research is hardly applicable in many parts of the ‘security scape’, especially so in post-conflict settings. If undertaken nonetheless, this research is confronted with the dilemma of avoiding a partial taking of sides with one of the (previous conflict) parties. New forms of anthropological study give an answer to this dilemma to a certain extent. Multi-sited and team ethnographies, or the tracing of ‘travelling concepts’ across groups and deterritorial ‘scapes’45 and analysis of their transformations are such examples.46 However, in a fragmented social space where politically salient group boundaries define the place of a person to a large extent, the researcher will most likely be identified with the specific gatekeepers that provide access to particular communities and thus lose trust or spoil access to other circles. The fact that SSR is generally implemented in a context characterized by the presence of competing political agendas (international versus local and local versus local) aggravates this problem. Social anthropology is thus challenged methodologically and epistemologically. But the quoted examples show that it is nevertheless possible to do meaningful anthropological research in this field.
