Study title

Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan

Individual

The project in its original planning aimed to conduct face-to-face fieldwork consisting of interviews; participant observation; data collection by participants; and joint production of dissemination materials. Fieldwork was to commence in March 2020 in Nairobi, then move to Addis Ababa and Khartoum, with an expected stay of a minimum of 40 days in each setting by the researcher (the PDRA). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all fieldwork had to be reconfigured virtually, and in the end only the conduct of virtual interviews in all three cities was possible and viable. The PIS and consent forms still include sections of agreement for all data collection methods.The shift to virtual fieldwork brought with it challenges and opportunities. Questioning face-to-face fieldwork as the gold standard when researching migration precedes the pandemic, but COVID-19 highlighted the limitations of research methods that take physical mobility of researchers for granted in new ways. Travelling overseas was neither possible nor, had that not been the case, would it have been ethical to travel to the African continent and potentially contribute to the spread of the disease. As a potential way forward, patchwork ethnography has been proposed. While originally aimed at foregrounding inclusivity and conditions under which knowledge production takes place, it provides a useful lens to consider the methodological implications of our move to virtual fieldwork. A key component of patchwork ethnography is to adjust methodological choices to the circumstances of the researcher, in this case COVID-19 enforced immobility, and to focus on multiple encounters designed to capture changing dynamics. For our project, this resulted in turning to proven types of remote, qualitative, synchronous interviews – using WhatsApp, zoom, or telephone calls.The postdoctoral researcher, Mesghina Abraha, conducted all interviews between September 2020 and December 2021. Instead, as originally envisaged, a sampling process based on participant observation of migrant communities, sampling of respondents relied on gatekeepers. In the case of Eritreans, those were recruited through informal networks of Abraha. For the sampling of Ethiopians, we relied on locally based migration researchers identified through our local partners. Gatekeepers for both communities came from faith-based organisations, community schools or other civil society networks. Through gatekeepers and subsequent snowball sampling, the target of fifteen interviewees from each community in each city was reached, and in addition four key informant interviews were conducted (in Nairobi and Khartoum). This adjusted way of sampling resulted in the same type of respondents we would have envisaged had fieldwork taken place face-to-face. What did change in the project was the sole reliance on in-depth-interview data, as the participant observation part and other envisaged methods were not possible. Having said that, such interviews, focused on detailed dynamics in individual everyday lives, are a pertinent methodological approach in the investigation of migrant practices of ‘makeshift’ citizenship in the here and now and the wider study of belonging.Altogether, 30 participant interviews and one key informant interview were conducted in Nairobi, 30 participant and three key informant interviews in Khartoum, and 15 participant interviews in Addis Ababa (with Eritrean migrants). This enforced move to virtual interviews turned out to have a number of clear advantages. While social clues are less visible in remote interviewing, these were not absent as interviewees made pauses; or their voice broke or became emotional, as noted by Abraha. More importantly, interviewees felt more comfortable to discuss sensitive issues in both politically deeply divided migrant communities with a researcher who himself is a UK citizen but of Eritrean origin. Mobile phone apps also made it easier to follow up with interviewees and allowed different ways of probing in a patchwork-style interview process. In fact, many interviews were conducted over multiple sessions and were easy to adjust to interviewee schedules and obligations (even if this meant some unsocial hours for Abraha). Virtual interviews also allowed to follow-up on additional issues that arose during the research process. More generally, the fact that both migrant communities rely on social media apps for much of their everyday activities made the process to conduct interviews in this way more natural and less intrusive than would otherwise have been the case. It also allowed participants to share additional material easily. Taken together, the move to a virtual interview process adds to reflections on the need to adapt traditional forms of fieldwork in times of intersecting crises, climate change and other global challenges. Our data demonstrates that this does not need to compromise research objectives or data quality.All interviews were following a detailed interview guide (the interview guide is part of the submission).