My research with Kenyan border officers is mostly located at so called OSBPs (One Stop Border Posts). During the last years, Kenya has rebuilt its border structures into large, “modernised” architectures. In the context of war against terror, Kenya additionally tightens security along its national boundaries. Certainly, access to OSBPs as high security zones of the nation state differs from access to “classical” anthropological fields of rural, marginalised and often illiterate communities. There, an anthropologist will rarely be asked for research permits or introduction letters (so that some researchers do not even bother to get them). At the border setting however, first meetings with my interview partners often started with the request to see these documents. Bureaucratic ways to get research permits take time and patience. If even in Germany I feel my head is almost bursting when dealing with administrative issues, no wonder it did even more in the unfamiliar environment of Nairobi. At the OSBPs, officers belong to various departments, and those differ in their inner logics and hierarchies. Some request a national research permit, others need to see a letter from the county, or an introduction letter proofing my affiliation to Kenyatta University, while other times my passport and visa became relevant. At first, access to the field seemed never to be completed, new barriers arising out of nowhere.
But finally, it went on well, and even better than I could ever expect. I could visit the border posts as often as I wanted, I was hosted by officers in their government houses, I joined armed police convoys into contested border areas, and I was taken on border patrol. As much as the paper work, networking and personal recommendations played a major role for my project. I also feel that a friendly, open, honest and empathic approach was resulting in a similar attitude towards me. Well, and at times, I think I was simply lucky to be meeting the right people. However, a more crucial aspect I need to reflect on is my appearance as a white, female, young doctoral student from Europe. My white privilege to access my field of research became especially visible when I talked to Kenyan anthropologists, who told me that they faced different problems to access field sites in Kenya. For instance, they were sometimes mistaken as spies (according to their ethnic membership either for the government or for the opposition).
Another topic is age and gender. Feeling that I was often taken for a naïve young student, I wonder: would people approach me with the same level of trust and openness if I was a grey-haired male professor? Most of my informants are male officers, posted into remote areas, far away from their families. I found out that while age and gender might be a door opener on the one hand, I also had to learn to be careful and to mind my own security. The great majority I met were kind and trustful guys, but at the same time I encountered awkward situations. Some left me in astonishment, like when I found out that I was given the nickname Samantha by custom officers (a white robotic sex doll, that got a lot of attention in Kenyan social media). Or when in the beginning of our conversation a District Commissioner loudly asked for an erotic massage while all his clients could hear him through the open door of his office. After a while, certain requests and comments became normal sounds of the setting and appeared rather harmlessly. But every now and then, the line was crossed either verbally or physically. It is rarely discussed, and no one will prepare you for this in methodology lectures during studies. That sexism is a topic for all female researchers everywhere in the world (a critical reflexion on the #me-too debate in Anthropology was done by Dr. Elizabeth Watt). Our experiences can only be a hint on what local women are facing every day. Just as one of my friends commented on the life in Malaba: “It is not that bad, men will not rape you immediately.”