What is a "researcher" anyway?

So, I know I’ve already posted a about the scary discourse around violence in Johannesburg, but I feel I need to revisit the topic in light of my first few days actually being here. (Any, by the way, I’m certain my daily blogging will wane a bit in the coming days, as my course begins on Tuesday and I hope to actually start my interviewing shortly thereafter).

So, it isn’t only Americans who talk incessantly about safety issues. It feels like everyone here is in constant dialogue about what they have experienced, what they’ve heard has happened recently in their neighborhoods, in the neighborhoods of friends and colleagues, to people they know and people who know people they know. I feel as if I’ve spent my first two days here bearing witness to overwhelming anxiety about the risks people perceive to be a fact of everyday life here. At the same time, nobody talks explicitly about being frightened. It’s the proverbial elephant in the room. They certainly own their experience – talking about “my mugging” or “my smash and grab” (when someone breaks your car window to snatch a purse or bag lying on a seat). But the fear seems to get externalized in this really interesting series of warnings and observations.

For example, it seems like everyone here has a different theory about who are the most likely targets- and that theory is often based on their own location. South Africans will tell you you’re more likely to be targeted if you look foreign, if you stick out. Americans will tell you it is Africans who are more at risk. White people tell you it’s blacks. Lots of folks think it's about being the wrong sort of person in the wrong sort of neighborhood. It also seems to be one of two ready conversations with which to greet strangers- the other, of course, being Rugby. (Joburg itself almost shut down the other night, because there was a match on. Something tells me I'll know a lot more about the game by the time I leave!)

Anyway, my new IHRE colleague Tim made an interesting observation – this obsession about where not to go has become another version of the apartheid era idea of group areas. Though not solely structured by race now, there is this keen sense that certain people belong in certain parts of the city, and that there will be penalties for crossing over into the “wrong” territory.

So, tonight I feel confused about what it means to be a "researcher" in another culture. Does it mean maintaining this observant eye, which feels at times voyeuristic? In bearing witness to the fear of others, I'm also present, and attempting to negotiate my own feelings of anxiety over what I'm hearing. At moments, I feel hopelessly like a stupid American tourist, who just happens to have some sense she is here doing something work-like. As the NYLONers will no doubt perceive, I'm having little trouble "locating the researcher in the research;" perhaps, I'm still at work on locating the research outside the researcher...

An aside: I’m also experiencing the reality of my disability in a harsh, harsh way. For those of you who know me well, you know that the day-to-day reality of my life in NYC is quite navigable for me. Here, it’s a whole different ballgame. I’m utterly and completely dependent on others, because I can neither walk nor take public transport. And so, I’m in this constant state of confession about my vision, my limitations. And it feels burdensome, and people don’t understand. It has been a long while since I’ve felt this way…