Doing research among exiled Rwandan army deserters: a reflexive narrative

Ncube, F. (2025). Doing research among exiled Rwandan army deserters: a reflexive narrative. Social Dynamics, 51(1), 97–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2025.2593069This paper reflects on my experiences of doing research among ex-soldiers who deserted from the post-conflict Rwandan military, who believe that they are being “hunted” by their government, allegedly, for political reasons. It attends to practices of doing fieldwork among people whose normal lives are suspended by the perpetual need to navigate the daily threat of discovery by the long arm of the Rwandan state and the very real threat of violence and death in exile. I show how fear, as a profound ontological condition, can shape the process of research. I foreground the materiality of fear and propose that the interlocutors’ consciousness and sensitivity to the hazards that the field is infused with can influence the nature of ethnography. Through fear, politically sensitive research can produce moving ethnography, that is, a kind of ethnography in which the participants and researcher are in an enhanced state of sensory and nomadic comportment during fieldwork. Analysis of data draws mainly on insights from Vigh’s ideas on social navigation, Mbembe’s notion of necropolitics and Deleuzian ideas of the control society. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit necropolitics.substack.com