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Seeking safe spaces with “no extra ears”: Conducting interviews in a surveillance state
Abstract
Gabriel was a twenty-five-year-old Nigerian man and one of forty-four low-wage migrant workers who engaged in open-ended interviews as part of a phenomenological study aimed at understanding the emotional well-being of temporary low-wage workers: “Thinking about a place like Dubai [United Arab Emirates (UAE)], where walls have ears, I think there is no place to have such conversation other than your […] car because we all know such is not allowed in [the] UAE. […] There are no extra ears listening to our conversation except us .... I feel more relaxed to open up my mind because it is just the two of us... and the sound of chatting can't be heard outside the car. [Also] when sharing my story, I guess some parts were so touching that it brought out tears. If we [were] in a coffee shop, people around [would] have been wondering what is going on .... so your car is more comfortable.” In an authoritarian, highly surveilled state, such as the UAE, pragmatic considerations drive innovations in research methodology. As Gabriel attests, the UAE is a highly surveilled state and using the researcher’s personal car as the interview location allowed the site to be relocated as needed to avoid the attention of passersby. This mobile space also provided privacy and ensured that the ears of surveillance as well as friends and coworkers were kept away. While this space did not lessen the power relations between interviewer and interviewee, it did create a non-threatening, cocooned environment that allowed trust to develop, evidenced by the willingness and freeness with which participants spoke of their circumstances and how they impacted their emotional well-being, which extended to sharing feelings of depression and suicidal thoughts.
Discipline
Sociology
Geographic Area
Gulf
Sub Area
Gulf Studies