By Edwin Rwigi and Anifat Ibrahim
At 3:41 p.m., I sent a WhatsApp message, “Hi Lucilla*. I live in the outskirts of the city, and I would like to avoid the traffic out of the CBD if I can help it. Should I still be on standby? I’m at the moment at Java Kenya-Re close to the High Court of Kenya.” No response. For a better part of the late 2000s and 2010s, the Java chain of coffee shops embodied the cultural zeitgeist of Nairobi’s urban landscape, capturing the middle-class aspirations of the city’s youth as was enshrined in Sauti Sol’s breakout ballad, Lazizi. In this song, a young man propositions a would-be partner, telling her he would take her out to Java to have a cuppa while they daydream together. Well, I have done my fair share of daydreaming today. It is now six o’clock. It has been five hours of waiting in downtown Nairobi to meet the former member of Nairobi’s County Assembly. I make yet another phone call. This time, Lucilla picks up and tells me that she has been held up in meetings all day in another part of the city. She assures me that we can meet tomorrow instead. (Field Notes: Waiting for potential research participant, Downtown Nairobi – Edwin, 12 March 2025)
Judging by past experiences and conversations with peers, it is not uncommon for researchers on fieldwork to find ourselves in-between interview schedules, caught in moments of both planned and unplanned waiting before making in-person contact with our interlocutors. We tend to think of waiting times as ‘white spaces’, the void in-between the ‘actual’ labour of data collection – a scheduling limbo. On inspired and good days (like really, really good days), we can quickly and creatively regather our mental energies for some form of productive output over unpredictable pockets of time. On not-so-inspired days, scrolling through social media reels might help kill time.
We often tend to think of these seemingly mundane and ‘everyday’ – and on occasion grossly inconveniencing – ho-hum experiences of research mark-timing as just part of the fieldwork game. Time for a researcher while on fieldwork is currency with immediate and downstream implications. Unscheduled waiting could mean inconveniencing subsequent planned interviews and spending more than was planned for that extra cup of overpriced coffee while keeping hope alive that we have not been stood up. Waiting time may also trigger anxieties over fieldwork productivity; this is perhaps more true for doctoral researchers like ourselves. But is there, methodologically speaking, a redeemable quality to these waiting periods? Can they perhaps contribute meaningfully to the research process, if not offer valuable data points in and of themselves?
Reflecting on our own fieldwork experiences in Nairobi (Edwin) and Lagos (Anifat), as Africans undertaking doctoral training in a global north institution in their home countries of Kenya and Nigeria, respectively, this is an invitation to reconsider ‘waiting time’ in fieldwork.
For the most part, the subject of fieldwork waiting has been explored by ethnographers, perhaps for obvious reasons, seeing that ethnography tends to require and even celebrate extended periods of fieldwork, the longue durée, where researchers work towards being embedded in communities they are researching. When analysing ‘waiting,’ ethnographers tend to focus on how communities of interest construct, perform and make meaning of it (for example, see Ayaß, 2020; Janeja & Bandak, 2018). There also have been reflexive analyses of researchers’ experiences of waiting while conducting fieldwork, but these too have largely been produced by ethnographers (Ambujam, 2023; Magolda, 2011; Palmer et al., 2018). While our research methods are not ethnographic in nature, we share the aspiration to be reflexive in our work and interactions with participants and the research spaces we both (co)-create and are invited into. This blog article reflects on a specific experience of fieldwork waiting – the kind experienced while negotiating access to, and anticipating contact with, potential research participants for interviewing.
Leaning into the idea of research ‘white spaces’ – a term borrowed from the world of visual art – we believe that waiting times offer unique opportunities to gather 1) reflexive insights into our own positionalities and performances of research and 2) contextual data about our research sites and participants. White space in visual art refers to the empty space surrounding the focal point of a composition. While seemingly appearing to be blank, white space helps create balance in the composition by emphasising the viewer’s focus on the central imagery. In the same way, waiting time in the field could be perceived as research material that helps us better focus on the research setting and participants and our roles.
Waiting and the rituals of negotiating access
As most researchers working with primary data can attest, the period between first contact and actually meeting our research participants typically involves a waiting process. This period often involves a carefully calculated and strategic display of symbolic credentials curated alongside other information that aims to provide legitimacy and elicit interest from participants. The challenge lies in reaching participants who may be research fatigued, have competing priorities for their time, or simply mistrust researchers or what they perceive we represent.
Waiting, for us, has provided an opportunity to reflect on the manner in which we negotiate access. It goes without saying that being ‘natives’ does not guarantee automatic access to our participants of interest. We find ourselves doing some kind of symbolic code-switching where we strategically play up or play down our University of Manchester and UK affiliation in a delicate balance meant to discursively portray ourselves as authentic, local, one-of-us, Jenny from the block in some instances, and in other instances, as important, legitimate, and I-promise-you-it-will-be-worth-your-while-and-no-I’m-not-desperate-but-I-really-need-this-interview.
We have found ourselves relying on several approaches with varying degrees of success for our individual projects. These have included leveraging networks both locally and abroad through our supervisors; using formality and honorifics in our communication in line with cultural expectations and the social status of potential participants; switching languages and dialects; and being strategic about our medium of communication, such as using university email addresses to lend an extra layer of credibility rather than phone calls or WhatsApp messaging.
Waiting as a method for analysing researchers’ positionality on the field
We also recognised that our embodiment of the ‘researcher’ role, both deliberate and inadvertent, carries different meanings and implications for the various stakeholders we encounter, from gatekeepers to participants themselves. We have come to appreciate how the waiting period offers insights into the power dynamics of the worlds our research introduces us to while also allowing us to reflect on our own presence and comparative ‘power’ in these contexts.
Our presence as researchers may unwittingly offend or disrupt the sensibilities of social hierarchies, orders and existing power dynamics that we might not fully understand. Some of our foibles have included accidentally accessing restricted areas of City Hall and exiting through the Governor’s private entrance, inviting public servants to interview without the express written authorisation of their institutions, asking the ‘wrong’ questions on record when interviewing a political fixer-cum-goon, transgressing contextual gender norms, or unknowingly scheduling back-to-back interviews with rival youth group members at the same venue where they run into each other. Some of these incidents have yielded unexpected research opportunities, turning our missteps into fortuitous moments of discovery. We are not advocating for cultural insensitivity but rather acknowledging that despite our best efforts at contextual awareness, missteps can sometimes yield unintended research value.
Bearing the above in mind, researchers can use the waiting period to account for their positionalities and address power dynamics at play while navigating the field. As a reflexive practice, researchers can ask: what aspects of social identity – both mine and my participants’ – such as class, race, age, or gender, might create barriers to research engagement or affect their broader attitudes toward participating in academic research?
Crucially, these waiting spaces can be opportunities to create deeper rapport with potential participants. For example, if a researcher suspects some government officials are delaying participating in the data collection process, the researcher should not only follow up with them on their availability for the interviews but rather provide additional evidence that reassures the potential participants that the data collection is intended solely for academic purposes and would not put anyone at risk. This can be as simple as providing these potential participants with the opportunity to seek clarifications from the researcher or providing additional documentation if these potential participants find it helpful.
Waiting as a tool for discovery in the field
The waiting period on the field should not just be written off as ‘lost time’. Careful not to come off as hippy-dippy, we have come to believe that it is in the waiting spaces that the field unexpectedly reveals itself to us in small but potent doses. Sometimes, this revelation comes through serendipitous gossip – told to us or others in our vicinity – that unlocks a mental puzzle and reveals a hitherto hidden pattern. Other times, it is the opportunity to observe and participate in unplanned events which occur during our aimless loitering or unintentional ‘deep hanging out’ in the field.
There are stories of researchers going into the field to collect data about a particular area of interest only to discover other fascinating data points that could be explored further during their there or postponed for future research. However, it is noteworthy to state that not all researchers will stumble upon accidental discoveries during their time in the field. It takes curiosity, intentionality, and open-mindedness about the research setting for a researcher to make lemonade out of the lemons waiting in the field.
We moreover recognise the value of embracing and even planning ‘down-times’ while in the field. These times have offered us the opportunity to review already collected data, analyse the gaps in data collection and re-strategise our data collection approaches. By exploring these opportunities, waiting periods have become methodological opportunities that make our data collection process more adaptable to field conditions.
Embracing waiting as a method
This blog calls for social researchers to be comfortable with things not going as planned in the field and recognise that waiting offers unique opportunities to negotiate access, address one’s positionality, discover other research interests, and re-strategise the research design. We encourage social researchers to embrace their downtimes in the field and seek ways of improving field research practices during the waiting period. We hope that researchers can reflect critically on their own waiting times and realise that waiting is not a place of liminality but a methodological arsenal at their disposal.
It is also a reminder that despite our best efforts, there is only so much planning we can do to bend the full reality of the field to our wills and desires. There are no guarantees on the outcomes – sometimes the waiting simply remains waiting. As we write this, Edwin is yet to secure a much-desired appointment with Lucille. Perhaps this too is part of the method.
References
Ambujam, M. N. (2023). Waiting as Productive Fieldwork. https://allegralaboratory.net/waiting-as-productive-fieldwork/
Ayaß, R. (2020). Doing Waiting: An Ethnomethodological Analysis. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 49(4), 419–455. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241619897413
Janeja, M. K., & Bandak, A. (Eds.). (2018). Ethnographies of waiting: Doubt, hope and uncertainty. Bloomsbury Academic.
Magolda, P. M. (2011). Accessing, Waiting, Plunging in, Wondering, and Writing: Retrospective Sense-Making of Fieldwork. In P. Atkinson & S. Delamont (Eds.), Sage qualitative research methods. SAGE Publications Ltd.
Palmer, J., Pocock, C., & Burton, L. (2018). Waiting, power and time in ethnographic and community-based research. Qualitative Research, 18(4), 416–432. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794117728413
Photo by Andreea Popa on Unsplash