Sociality Revisited? The Use of the Internet and Mobile Phones in Urban Cameroon

7. Self-reflection and fieldwork methods

347 7 Self-Reflection and Fieldwork Methods This chapter is dedicated to fieldwork methods and self-reflection. Even though the researcher is always a part of the field, a fact which contributes to the “outcome” of research, regarding the topic addressed in this book, this is even more strongly the case: my research and my own being are interrelated in many ways. As an outsider, coming from “the West”, I often experienced imageries and narratives about my own origin – “the world” I come from, and the kind of “lifestyle” I must lead there – very directly, mediated by my own physical presence. Thus, I was in the situation of being myself being “target” of link-up practices and expectations. The topic of research is also interrelated with my personal experiences of New Media use. This familiarity and the close relatedness of my own presence to my topic of research might have been decisive in the perspectives I have adopted in my research. Due to these interrelations, I have decided to integrate this chapter only in the end of the book, in order to allow the reader to connect the descriptions of the previous chapters with the issues I intend to address here. In this chapter, I will reflect on my position as a person and researcher in Bamenda. With this background, I want to relate to applied fieldwork methods, interviewing and participatory observation, the collaboration with my “research partner” Primus Tazanu, and what influences our perspectives had on research and findings. Using New Media in my research – as a working tool and research topic When in the field, New Media were my topic of investigation and my tools to organize my daily work. When in Switzerland, New Media served to maintain contact with people in Cameroon. 348 Linking up, coordination work, and providing contact coordinates in the field As a tool for coordination for meetings and link-up, the mobile phone was my most important working tool, whereas the internet gained more importance when I was absent from the field. When I was in Bamenda the first time in 2003, mobile phones were only about to being widely used or available - neither myself as a “latecomer” in adopting mobile phone technology, nor people I was interacting with in Cameroon had a mobile phone. I remember that it was more difficult to coordinate appointments, and meetings were less spontaneous. I would however not conclude that meetings were less likely to work out, but the handling of spatial and temporal coordinates was less flexible. When returning to Bamenda in 2008, mobile phones were already considered as common. Undoubtedly, the bulk of the coordinated meetings and the number of handled contacts had considerably increased with the mobile phone. Re-meeting people and following up their activities, as well as cultivating social ties had also become much easier. Likewise, the urge to maintain contacts regularly, by link-up calls for example, had risen. My expenditure for phone credit was higher than for accommodation, food, and domestic transport expenses combined453 . While in the field, the mobile phone was a tool to coordinate instant sociality on a local level of presence availability, and the internet rather served instead to maintain transnational ties454 . F70, 71: Using New Media in the field: local coordinating by mobile phone and transnational communication by internet 453 See figure F70. Less often I coordinated meetings by internet. It depended however most often on coincidentally meeting a person online in chat, since email as non-simultaneous media was less feasible to coordinate meetings. 454 See figure F71. 349 The internet and mobiles phone set the coordinates of being accessible, thus, I was always asked for these coordinates myself. Being very mobile, my phone number was my address. I adapted to habits of instant socializing, such as adding contacts by sending or receiving beeps in the presence of the person with whom I intended to exchange phone numbers. I also got used to – most often receiving – beeps, and accordingly interpreting them. For some people it was likewise important to have my email address, since they knew that my Cameroonian number was only a temporary one, or they wanted to have my foreign number, which I had to restrict and explain when not giving it out. In this sense, handing out my contact, phone number, email and chat ID was something, which was part of my daily experience, and which gave me the opportunity...