While an ethnographer's role is multi-faceted as well as contradictory and difficult to grasp, not only for themself, but also for their research partners, to whom they may both become a friend and remain a stranger, it is often also a suspicious role. This is especially true for a 'disputed territory' like AJK where foreigners (but also local Kashmiris) are seen as potential spies and are therefore closely monitored by various special branches of the police and civil and military intelligence agencies, the most prominent and powerful of which is Pakistan's military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Pakistan's surveillance in AJK illustrates the ongoing conditions of coloniality that structure politics and power relations in the region. AJK is part of the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India, and it is under the control of Pakistan. The region's relationship with Pakistan embodies the historical predicament of the Kashmir dispute, i.e., it is ambivalent and reveals both the political marginalisation of AJK within the Pakistani nation-state and the importance of this region in sustaining Pakistan's military-shaped nationalism, with India as the aggressive and dangerous enemy that constantly threatens the existence of the Islamic nation. Pakistan's "saviour nationalism" (Ali 2019: 16) in relation to Kashmir holds that, in contrast to the parts of Kashmir across the 'border' – the military *Line of Control* (LoC) *–* AJK is 'free' (*azad*) from Indian occupation. However, this 'freedom' has come in the form of great political and military dependency on, and domination by, Pakistan (Snedden 2012).

AJK – like Gilgit-Baltistan, the other part of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir – is neither an autonomous state nor a province of Pakistan but a disputed, and therefore highly militarised, region shaped by processes of "postcolonial colonialism" (Sökefeld 2005: 939). In these borderlands and domains of ambivalence, Pakistan's political and military rule in the name of 'national security' is revealed by, among other things, a distinctive culture of surveillance and suspicion (Ali 2013; 2019).

Historically, the emergence of AJK is linked to politics during colonial times, which resisted autocratic rule in the former state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and related discrimination against Muslim subjects. In the turmoil of the partition of British India in 1947, Kashmiri Muslims in the southwest, the south of today's AJK, started an armed uprising against the Maharaja of J&K, who had ruled under the auspices of the British and was yet to decide about the future of the state. To end autocratic rule, the political leaders of the Kashmiri uprising deposed the Maharaja and formed the rival 'Provisional Azad Government' of J&K. The Maharaja turned to India for military support to suppress this local struggle for *azadi* (freedom) and subsequently declared J&K's accession to India. The resulting war between Pakistan, supporting the Kashmiri freedom fighters, and India ended in 1948 with a UN-negotiated ceasefire line that later became the LoC, dividing J&K into Indiancontrolled J&K and Ladakh, and Pakistan-controlled AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan (Snedden 2012; Hayat 2020).

Although the 'provisional' AJK government at times favoured accession to Pakistan, the Pakistani government has always refused to recognise AJK as a province of Pakistan, as the region's integration into

the nation-state would undermine Pakistan's claim to the entire J&K territory (Snedden 2012). At the same time, neither Pakistan nor the UN recognises AJK as a sovereign state and alternative government for J&K. The UN has referred to AJK only as a provisional 'local authority', while Pakistan, with the consent of the local Kashmiri leaders, has taken control over all matters of the state relating to defence, foreign policy, negotiations with the UN and Gilgit-Baltistan. To this day, Pakistan claims to be protecting AJK from the Indian threat and supporting the local state temporarily until the people of Kashmir – through a UN-led referendum – determine the political future of the entire J&K state, including AJK. In practice, however, Pakistan has integrated and dominated AJK through different forms of bureaucratic, constitutional and military domination (Snedden 2012; Hayat 2020).

Moreover, in its role as (temporary) protector of AJK, Pakistan often uses this claim as a justification for its political and military presence in the region. Indeed, without its financial support and political protection, the Azad government – established initially as a war council – would not have been able to survive and runits own local state beyond the ceasefire. At the same time, however, local people are suspicious, with their loyalty to Pakistan being constantly called into question, mostly because of the possibility of propagating Kashmir's independence (cf. Snedden 2012). Ultimately, this suspicion of Kashmiris has led to Pakistan's continued control and surveillance of the local state, society and politics in AJK through intelligence agencies, with agents hailing mostly from Punjab or other parts of Pakistan, and locals serving as informers. The culture of suspicion and surveillance that Nosheen Ali (2013; 2019) notes for Gilgit-Baltistan essentially exists in AJK as well:

The military-intelligence regime accomplishes its rule in the region not only by rendering its citizens suspect and using this suspicion to further its control, but also by promoting suspicion among citizens and hence disrupting local political solidarity and resistance against the military regime. Apart from suspected subjects, it thus also produces suspicious subjects. (Ali 2013: 109)

Apart from creating mistrust among Kashmiris (and towards foreigners), as anyone could be a potential spy and informer, Pakistan also resorts to other mechanisms of domination and control. By 'lending' officers to AJK's administration, for example, the government in Islamabad can appoint loyal Pakistanis to the most influential political positions in AJK, including the chief secretary, who acts as the intermediary between local government and the administration (Snedden 2012). Moreover, AJK's politicians and officials are bound by the constitution to ensure loyalty to the political ideology of Kashmir's accession to Pakistan. The requirement to sign a declaration of loyalty has regularly silenced and prevented candidates from pro-independence groups from contesting elections and seeking state employment in AJK (Snedden 2012; Mahmud 2021).

Foreigners are exposed to a similar regime of suspicion and surveillance, as well as additional regulations and monitoring. Unlike Kashmiris and Pakistanis, for example, they must obtain a non-objectioncertificate (NOC) from Pakistan's Ministry of Interior to travel to AJK. When I travelled by public transport, the bus was usually stopped at the border crossing between Pakistan and AJK. Officers checked the vehicle for suspicious passengers, and as a white woman, I often attracted the attention of the vigilant officers, who would ask me to get off the bus and follow them to a nearby barrack. There, they checked my passport and papers, including my visa and NOC. They asked me why I was travelling to AJK and where I was staying in Muzaffarabad. Then they took my picture and wrote down my details in a thick notebook. I was also sometimes checked on the street or at my home in Muzaffarabad. Since various civil and military intelligence agencies operate in AJK, it remained mostly unclear to me whether it was always the same agencies who checked me, why they kept checking me and the same papers again and again, and whether the checks were spontaneous or planned in order to intimidate me and the people with whom I worked and lived. Usually, the officers explained that it was all for my safety and that they were only doing their duty.

In AJK's ambivalent relationship with Pakistan, the lines between protection and control, care and suspicion are often blurred. Moreover, the country's national security concerns regarding foreigners are multiple and complicated and relate not only to the enmity with India, but also to the imperialist politics of the US. These concerns range from abductions of tourists by Islamist groups, to operations by foreign intelligence agents in the Kashmir dispute, Afghanistan/Pakhtun-US relations and the so-called 'war on terrorism', all of which undermine Pakistan's national sovereignty. While I was doing my fieldwork in AJK, on January 27, 2011, Raymond Davis, who worked for the US Embassy in Pakistan and was later exposed as a CIA agent, murdered two young men on a motorbike in the streets of Lahore. However, amidst large public protests, Davis was released and returned to the US, thus avoiding prosecution by Pakistan's judiciary. Only a short time thereafter, on May 2, 2011, a special US Navy Seals commando tracked down Osama Bin Laden and killed him and four other people at his hideout in Abbottabad in Pakistan. The multiplicity of security concerns makes it impossible to discern whose safety is being maintained when foreigners like me are monitored: mine, that of the people of AJK or that of Pakistan and/or its military-intelligence regime.

### **Anthropologists, intelligence agents and research ethics**

The uncanny and opaque presence ofintelligence officersinmy fieldwork in AJK sheds a rare, penetrating light not only on my research partners' everyday lives under suspicious eyes, but also on my conflicting and uncertain role as an ethnographer in the context of both territorial conflict with India and the 'war on terrorism' by the Global North. As a security state, Pakistan, throughitsmilitary, dominates AJK, but at the same time itis dominated byUSimperialism and global geopolitics.Therefore, both my presence as an anthropologist and that of agencies (due to my presence) must at times be experienced by interlocutors and other people around me as opaque and potentially threatening. Who is this person? What is she doing? And why?

As anthropologists, we have more in common with intelligence agents than we would like to admit. Martin Sökefeld often hinted at this affinity when he jokingly claimed that anthropologists would also make good intelligence agents. One might counter that the former are bound by research ethics and obliged to be open and honest with their research partners and do them no harm (AAA 2012), yet history shows how colonial and imperial regimes have repeatedly used anthropologists and their knowledge to dominate local communities. It is no coincidence that the debate on research ethics in anthropology took shape in the late 1960s, when it came to public attention that the US military had planned to enlist anthropologists for research supporting counterinsurgency operations in Latin America (Sökefeld 2022; Sökefeld/Strasser 2016). The knowledge created by anthropologists is both potentially valuable and potentially dangerous for a "delusional" (Ali 2019: 6) state with high military spending for its national security, depending on who they work (and spy) for. It is therefore hardly surprising that foreign researchers in Pakistan are monitored by intelligence agencies. For instance, what I uncover in my research could be destabilising for Pakistan's rule in AJK. But my knowledge could also be of value to the ISI and be used to track down and arrest local Kashmiri critics of Pakistan. At the same time, the everyday practices and personal intentions of intelligence agents working on the ground and at the lower levels of bureaucratic hierarchies may influence surveillance in unexpected ways. In other words, as anthropologists, we often do not know how our knowledge is – or will – be used, nor whether our publications are read at all.

From the perspective of research ethics, however,my obligation to be transparent with the people I interact with for my research turned out to be very complicated when I was confronted with intelligence agents who questioned me about my research and interlocutors. I especially recall the visit of two officers who pretended to be journalists and visited me at my home in Muzaffarabad for an interview about my work. At first, I wanted to be as open with them as possible and to share my knowledge with the local Kashmiri community they claimed to represent.Moreover, I did not want to hide anything, so as not to be suspected of being a spy or to reinforce such a suspicion. When the visitors took out their pens and notebooks and started asking questions in English, I soon realised that I was not interacting with journalists. They did not make much effort to hide the fact that they were agents but asked very detailed questions about whom I had visited and when, and what people had said about the earthquake and reconstruction. I explained to the visitors that I could not reveal my sources, which I was sure they as journalists would understand. I then spoke mainly about technical issues of disaster reconstruction, and I avoided mentioning politics and local conflicts over Pakistan's dominant role in reconstructing AJK (Schild 2015; 2019). It was certainly an advantage that I had only recently arrived in Muzaffarabad, and I was able to tell them that I had just started my research and to ask them counter-questions about their experiences of the earthquake and its aftermath.The 'interview' turned out to be very short.What remained with me, though, was the unsettling feeling that I had made myself unavailable – and therefore suspicious – to intelligence agents, because I had chosen not to be transparent with them but to protect the identity of my (other) interlocutors and research partners.

While the debates about ethical standards for anthropological research are important, the standardised procedure for the ethical clearance of research projects increasingly imposed on anthropologists by their universities is often not helpful. My example of interaction with covert intelligence agents underpins Martin Sökefeld's recent call to "Keep research ethics dirty!" (2022). Indeed, we need reflexive research practices that are ethical in a more holistic, relational and politically engaged sense, given the unpredictability of fieldwork encounters and the uncertain and blurred boundaries of ethics and politics in most research contexts.

### **Intimate suspects**

At the beginning of my research, I was visited at my home in Muzaffarabad every two or three weeks by intelligence officers. However, such encounters became less frequent five or so months later. While it might be that I was simply unaware of the surveillance, I believed that the more time I spent at the homes of neighbours and other research partners rather than in public, male-dominated domains, the more the intelligence agencies lost interest in my research. As a woman and an anthropologist working on and with women and their families, my knowledge would perhaps be considered less valuable and, potentially, less threatening, so I was no longer worth being closely monitored. However, it turned out that I was wrong. The agencies did not lose interest in my research at all; rather, my 'private life' as a researcher increasingly presented them with unexpected difficulties and finally compelled them to take a rather drastic step.

Towards the end of my research in Muzaffarabad, my neighbour Ambar told me one day that they would finally be renting out their prefabricated house her husband, Asif, had received as earthquake relief. The building was unoccupied and located on a small plot next to the house where Ambar and Asif and their four children lived. When the new tenants arrived, Ambar invited me, along with their relatives living nearby, to a small inauguration ceremony. I learned that the tenants were a family from the Punjab in Pakistan. The husband was on duty in Muzaffarabad and had brought his wife and children with him. I first met Zahur and her two little daughters, and a few days later I met her husband, who introduced himself as 'Tanvir'. I was shocked when I immediately recognised him as an ISI agent I had previously interacted with several times. 'Tanvir Sahib', as I now called him, was one of the officers responsible for my surveillance and security in AJK.

Tanvir Sahib's moving with his family to Muzaffarabad and into my nearest neighbourhood was certainly not a coincidence but a deliberate move by the ISI to improve their surveillance of me by invading my 'private life' as a researcher. The boundaries between home and the outside, private and public, 'work' and 'free time' research as I had come to experience and draw them, in the way my research partners did, turned upside down.

In retrospect, I believe that ethnographic fieldwork, and with it the blurred lines between 'professional researcher' and 'private person', made me a suspicious figure and presented intelligence agencies with the problem of how to monitor me when I was moving – outside the public domains of society – in and between homes and along the narrow and rather hidden paths and within the intimate networks of women in

the neighbourhood. However, the step taken by the ISI also reveals that I was not the only one for whom the boundaries between professional and personal life were blurred. After Tanvir Sahib and his family had become my neighbours, I frequently interacted with Zahur, whose home I had to pass when I was visiting other neighbours and research partners. Most of the time, we only made small talk, but against the backdrop of her husband being an ISI agent and claiming to be responsible for my safety, her otherwise trivial questions became suspicious to me. How are you? Where are you going? I am not sure if she reported my answers to her husband, but she probably did. Tanvir Sahib and his family became part of 'my' neighbourhood and 'private' research network, which enabled him to track my movements and social relationships outside of public domains. At the same time, he made his presence, as an agent closely monitoring me, *felt* in the domains that I previously had experienced as relatively safe and protected from the male gaze of the public and state surveillance. In other words, with Tanvir Sahib and his family as my next-door neighbours, I was exposed to suspicious eyes that no longer excluded my 'private life'.

In *Discipline and Punish*, Michel Foucault (1977 [1975]) traces the intimate and embodied workings of surveillance in the lives of those being monitored, pointing out that it is the mere knowledge of the possibility of pervasive surveillance that brings people under disciplinary and increasingly self-disciplinary power. Explaining this panoptic experience, Sökefeld and Strasser note:

Surveillance often operates in a way that it makes itself known, at least to some extent. Also, in many cases, secret services are not *that* secretive, and so we often know or at least sense that we are being watched, and this necessarily changes our way of acting in the field and the manner in which we view social relations. (Sökefeld/Strasser 2016: 165)

The knowledge of being watched bymyintelligence agent-turned-neighbour brought new feelings of uncertainty and suspicion into my life as a researcher and related experiences of home, friendship and leisure:

who was a neighbour and friend, who was an informer and agent? But even more so, I worried about the safety of my research partners and was confronted with ethical questions. Had my research partners been threatened and put under pressure by the ISI? Was my presence in their lives dangerous to them? Should I continue to visit and interact with my neighbours and friends?

While suspicion and state surveillance have the power to penetrate the bodies and intimate lives and relationships of those being monitored, intimacy and in-depth knowledge of the 'other' can also produce and reinforce suspicion and mistrust. In "Specters of Treason" (2010), Tobias Kelly and Sharika Thiranagama point out that "forms of surveillance increase not only the sense of what can be known but also the sense of what is not known, amplifying the feeling of suspicion and the impression that betrayal is always possible" (Kelly/Thiranagama 2010: 15). The drastic move by the ISI to send an agent to live with his family in my neighbourhood is perhaps a result of such self-reinforcing tendencies of surveillance and knowledge about those being monitored.

However, I would like to reveal another dimension of intimacy that is linked with surveillance as a social relationship that constitutes new forms of knowing and interacting between those who monitor and those who are monitored (as well as those around them). In anthropology, the concept of 'intimacy' connects 'the personal' and 'the political' and seeks to explore "the uncanny fold in which inner and outer life are disjunctively blended"(Mazzarella 2017: 199); that is, both the "intimately impersonal" and "impersonally intimate" (ibid.). The concept explains kinship, neighbourly relationships, friendship and community beyond the personal/political and public/private divide and refrains from attributing only pleasant emotions and feelings to intimate relationships (Berlant 2008; Sehlikoglu/Zengin 2015). While intimacies create and involve suspicion, enmity and hatred no less than affection, trust and mutual care (Kelly/Thiranagama 2010), I would like to reverse this perspective and claim that surveillance not only penetrates, but also creates intimate relationships.

My surveillance brought with it new intimacies and social relationships for me and 'my' intelligence agent, as well as for his family members andmy research partners, neighbours and friends. Tanvir Sahib and his family became part of 'my' home and *mohallah*, with Zahur participating in everyday relationships and the social exchanges among women neighbours and friends. She visited Ambar and her relatives regularly and asked them for small favours, whilst their children played together every day. In response to my mistrust of Tanvir Sahib, which I obviously could not always hide, Ambar explained that Tanvir *bhai* (brother), as she called him, was only doing his duty (*is ki duty hai*). In an important way, he and his family were just 'normal' neighbours.Therefore, not only does surveillance penetrate intimacy, but intimacy also invades surveillance, thereby making the strange familiar, the distant close and countering suspicion not always with even more (intimate) suspicion but sometimes also with trust, care and friendship.

### **Epilogue**

When I returned to AJK in 2012 on a tourist NOC, much had changed, and I was no longer allowed to stay with a local family but had to stay at a hotel. Tanvir Sahib was still on duty in Muzaffarabad. His family, however, had moved back to the Punjab soon after I had completed my fieldwork and left. He came to meet me at the door of my hotel room almost every evening, asking me about where I had spent the day and at whose house. Since he had gained an in-depth knowledge of my research relationships, I could mention just the names, sometimes even only those of women friends, and he knew where I had stayed and whom I had met. After all, he had closely watched and researchedme duringmy fieldwork.

My accounts of the day, I believe, were then compared and/or supplemented with those of other officers who shadowed me during the day on their motorbikes but sometimes lost track of my friends and me when we were walking along the more informal paths through the hills on the outskirts of the city. On one occasion they called me on the phone, and since I could not tell them where exactly I was, I handed the phone to my friend Shazia. I could hear the officer asking her rather desperately, "*Oh beta, tum kidher ho* (Oh child, where are you)?" Shazia tried to explain our location to him and mentioned the name of her late grandfather whose house we had visited, but the official did not seem to understand. We laughed about the incident many times later on, imagining the agent getting lost in the *mohallah* with its many narrow and hidden footpaths while trying to find us and get his motorbike back to the main road.

> *Image 2: The steep and narrow paths of a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad.*

Photo by Pascale Schild

Perhaps we were naively lucky, but the incident did not have any serious consequences, for me or for my friends. However, after that phone call we had a call from Shazia's mother, whose brother had met several officers looking for me on his way home from work.  My friends were ambivalent about the 'agency *wale*', and most people – including Shazia and her family – did not seem overly scared of intelligence agents.They sometimes called them harsh and unyielding people (*sakht log*), but often they also excused and normalised their intrusive practices by claiming they were only doing their duty (for my safety) and that I should not worry (cf. Grieser 2016).

The intimate and uncertain experiences of state surveillance in AJK are deeply intertwined with local politics and power relations, as well as the region's ambivalent relationship with Pakistan.

One very late evening, Tanvir Sahib visited my hotel room and knocked loudly on the door. I was already asleep and woke up startled; I was the only woman guest and all alone. This night-time intrusion and intimidation by the ISI agent was certainly part of monitoring practices shaping surveillance as a panoptic experience for those who are monitored, namely 'anytime, anywhere'.

One day later, I again became aware that Tanvir Sahib was closely monitoring me when I was stopped on the street in the afternoon by a Special Branch officer from the local AJK police. The officer was about to question me and check my papers when suddenly Tanvir Sahib came out of a small teahouse not far away. He asked me to leave and began to harass the other officer, who eventually left on his motorbike.

While the ISI made its powerful presence felt, the incident also showed that there was rivalry between intelligence agencies over responsibility for my surveillance and safety. Later, I even learned that Pakistan's ISI was certainly not all-powerful but had to confront local resistance and related moves to hold its officers accountable in AJK.

When I met Zahid Amin, a well-known local politician in the city, I somehow ended up telling him about Tanvir Sahib's previous late-night 'visit'. I did not expect Amin to do anything about it, but when Tanvir Sahib visited my hotel later that day, he was deeply offended that I had complained about him. He explained that Zahid Amin was an influential person (*bare admi*) in Muzaffarabad and that I was completely wrong to protest against him, since he was only protecting me. He pointed to the incident with the Special Branch officer, claiming that he had argued (*larai*) with the officer on my behalf and that I should complain about that officer instead. He then insisted that I write down the officer's name. At that very moment, I no longer saw Tanvir Sahib solely as 'my'intelligence agent but as a 'normal'man and a former neighbour who probably feared for his job and who had to provide for a family – one that I knew well! I honestly hoped thatmy(unintended) complaint had no consequences for him personally.

Pakistan's political and military presence in AJK intimately shaped my relationship and interactions with an intelligence agent who was responsible for my surveillance and safety and to whom and to whose wife and children I and the people around me inevitably became close as neighbours. In this way, not only did suspicion come to penetrate my 'private life' and intimate relationships with my research partners, but intimacies were also planted into relationships of suspicion, turning them into familiar and sometimes even comical encounters, albeit not necessarily any less uncertain or less threatening ones. The anthropologist and 'her' intelligence agent became intimate suspects, bound together through political intimacies of everyday life and neighbourly practices, as well as through intimate (post-)colonial politics of mistrust and enmity entrenched in military nationalism and global geopolitical power relations.

### **References**

# **Agencies, Friendships, Nationalism and Anthropology**

Fieldwork Experiences of Collaborative Research in Gilgit-Baltistan

*Azam Chaudhary*

### **Introduction**

This paper is an attempt to put together some of the experiences I had during my research in and around Gilgit-Baltistan, particularly as a research collaborator with German academics, from 1982 to 2020 on the topic of surveillance of anthropologists during fieldwork. The idea to write about surveillance crossed my mind after reading two articles by Martin Sökefeld and Sabine Strasser (2016) and Anna Griesser (2016) in a special issue concentrating on ethnographers' experiences of different forms of state surveillance. I decided to write on this topic because I felt that the 'native perspective' of the surveillance was missing or only partially covered by these authors. Local perspectives included many different elements, such as the views of secret agencies doing surveillance, the views of administrators responsible for issuing NOCs, university administration, faculty, local people and especially my personal experiences of surveillance as a collaborating anthropologist in research projects with Sökefeld.

This article mainly builds on my collaboration with Martin Sökefeld, but it also draws on my work with other German researchers in Gilgit-Baltistan, and it is this second part of the experience that relates this article to the theme of this book, namely the multi-sided ethnographer. From 1982 to 1995, during the *Rock-Carvings and Inscriptions along the Karakorum Highway* project, I took on many roles and duties, such as administrator, negotiator, facilitator, translator, research assistant and researcher. My identity was as a Punjabi, from downstream Pakistan, a Sunni Muslim working, eating and living with Germans (including in Germany) and someone who knew their language. These roles and positions also helped me to examine multiple aspects of suspicion against researchers, including foreigners and Pakistanis.

The broader question for this paper is as follows: why are anthropologists suspected and monitored, what impact does this monitoring have on their research and do anthropologists need to rethink their research methods if they are indeed being monitored? This paper also debates why no objection certificate (NOC) or research permits are issued to anthropologists despite accusations of spying? Another related question is: why do many anthropologists continue their fieldwork despite severe difficulties, and why do they sometimes even secretly continue research without permits regardless of knowing the consequences for their interlocutors, including their research collaborators?

I am of the view that suspicions of spying against anthropologists are neither new nor always baseless, especially when we look at the history of their involvement in spying activities.The nature of suspicion and surveillance of anthropological fieldwork depends upon a number of factors, such as who the anthropologist (foreign, or native, male, or female) is, the location of the research site (border or central area) and the type of population in the locale (multi-ethnic/multi-religious or homogenous). Gilgit-Baltistan as a place of anthropological research provides strong reasons for suspicion, and the insistence of anthropologists wishing to continue their research in difficult circumstances further strengthens these suspicions. Similarly, I believe that denying research permits to researchers is not an individual act, as it affects relations between countries in terms of cooperation. Therefore, it is not easy to do. Moreover, it is similarly not easy for anthropologists to change the location of their research and accept failure. Changing of location would require new research project and funding on the one hand and on the other hand, I think there seems to be a belief among anthropologists that the more

difficult/dangerous, the more distant, the more 'primitive' the field, the better the anthropologist.

In order to provide the reader with a glimpse into my experiences of work, association and research collaborations with Germans, I start this article by providing some background information.Thereafter, I describe my own different roles and positions that have caused suspicion against me in Gilgit.This is followed by some anecdotal first-hand experiences from fieldwork about surveillance and its consequences for my future research, career and life.The attitudes of people other than agencies, in relation to research and associated permits for foreign anthropologists, are then discussed. In order to explain fully why anthropologists are shadowed by agencies generally, and in Gilgit-Baltistan particularly, the special political and historical context of Gilgit-Baltistan, ethnographic methods and the history of anthropologists as spies are discussed.

### **My relevant background**

The aim of this recounting of a number of important collaborations and projects is to provide a brief overview of my experiences with German academics and universities. In all these projects and collaborations, I have been responsible for performing several jobs: translator, interpreter, organiser of different events and activities, securing (in part) NOCs, sometimes even arranging boarding for visiting students and, in some cases, part of the negotiations for collaboration. This gave me the opportunity to meet and understand the points of view of different Pakistani actors about German anthropologists and researchers. The following description is based on my personal experiences of those years of work and collaboration.

In 1982, I became a member of the Pak German Study Group, a multidisciplinary team consisting mainly of Germans, engaged in the socio-cultural exploration of Gilgit-Baltistan, at that time called 'Northern Areas of Pakistan'. In 1989, I moved to Germany for higher studies and remained there until 1995, but in all those years, I also remained an active member of the Pak German Study Group by working part time in its head office in Heidelberg and by participating in annual research expeditions to Gilgit-Baltistan. In 1996, I joined Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad, as a teacher and served the university until 2019, during which time I collaborated with German academics from different universities,including Free University of Berlin,University of Tübingen, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, University of Heidelberg and University of Duisburg-Essen.

The first project in which I also served the longest time (1982–1995) was '*Rock-Carvings and Inscriptions along the Karakorum Highway*', funded initially by the German Research Foundation and later on by Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. The project head was Karl Jettmar, an anthropologist from Heidelberg, and after his retirement Harald Hauptmann, an archaeologist from the same university.Every year,a team ofmainlyGerman – but sometimes also French and British – scholars took part in a research expedition. My key responsibilities included interpreter, administrator, translator, informant and facilitator, and on occasion, I accompanied the team leadership in their negotiations with Pakistani bureaucrats and counterparts in order to secure no-objection certificates (NOCs) for research in Gilgit-Baltistan.The second project I collaborated on, albeit in a piecemeal manner and only in short bursts, was '*Culture Area Karakorum*' (CAK 1989–1995), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and led by Irmtraud Stellrecht from Tübingen University. It was within the framework of this project that I first encountered Martin Sökefeld.

I have had a long academic association with Martin, and our joint ventures included summer schools, joint research projects, workshops, seminars, etc. The first joint activity was the research project *The politics of reconstruction: a study of the social and political consequences of the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir*. This assignment lasted for four years, between 2009 and 2012, and was a multinational (German, Swiss, Pakistan) research endeavour in which one Swiss and one German PhD scholar and four Pakistani MPhil students were engaged. Another project in which both of us collaborated was *Coping with change in Gilgit-Baltistan*, a project funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD 2011–13). Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU), Munich, National Institute of Pakistan Studies (NIPS) QAU, and Karakorum International University (KIU), Gilgit collaborated in this project and arranged research training workshops for students from Germany, NIPS and KIU, both in Islamabad and Gilgit. In addition, we organised a summer school in 2009 at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies (NIPS), Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad, in which about eight German students and an equal number from NIPS participated. This proved to be a very successful pursuit, judging from the fact that most of the German students subsequently did research for their MA thesis in Pakistan; some of them married Pakistanis and have even had children from these marriages (see Grieser et al. in this volume).

Other than that, I also collaborated with University of Tübingen. A group of six students and two professors (Stellrecht and Hardenberg) from Tübingen visited NIPS in 2008 and participated in joint seminars and short research exercises. I also visited Tübingen twice for one semester each as a visiting teacher. Similarly, two groups of students and teachers from Duisburg-Essen (Germany) and Morocco visited NIPS as part of the joint project *Peaceful change and violent conflicts: Middle East and the West-Muslim relations.* This was a three-year multinational project involving universities from Pakistan (NIPS), Germany (Duissburg-Essen), Morocco (Rabat) and Iran (Tehran), funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Several international seminars, workshops and summer schools were organised (two in Germany, two in Morocco, two in Islamabad and one in Tehran) as part of this project. A senior lecturer/researcher (Wolfgang-Peter Zingel) from the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University, Germany, taught at NIPS (fully funded by DAAD) for two semesters (Spring Semester 2011 and Spring Semester 2016). Similarly, two senior German scholars (Andrea Fleschenberg and Sarah Holz) taught at NIPS, both fully funded by DAAD.

### **My multiple sides/roles in Gilgit-Baltistan**

I now wish to describe the different roles I played during my research and collaboration in Gilgit-Baltistan, and through this example, I want to highlight the different meanings and roles of a local/native anthropologist versus people in the field and how it can lead to different kinds of suspicion. I have already written about the different roles and duties I performed in Gilgit-Baltistan, initially as a research assistant for a German team doing socio-cultural research, but mainly documenting rockcarvings and inscriptions. In between, I did three months of fieldwork for my Master's degree research in Chilas. I also worked as a translator (between Germans and local people), and I helped conduct interviews with local elders, administrators, etc. for German researchers. Furthermore, I facilitated negotiations between the local administration and the German team. For the people of Gilgit-Baltistan in general, and of Chilas in particular, I was part of the Germanmission, not only living and eating with them, but also as someone who knew their language and manners, i.e., I was very similar to them.

From another perspective, I was seen as being one of the local people: a Muslim, a Pakistani – a sort of native.This was expressed, for instance, when fixing wages for people who worked for the project or when negotiating the prices of whatever we bought in Chilas. I heard them when our team members from Chilas introduced me to a local person. Additionally, I was also a Punjabi from the lowlands,mostly local people called people like me 'from Pakistan', a negative identity, also for the Pakistani government, including armed forces present there i.e. a non-local exploiting them. This was especially significant when discussing politics, i.e., at election times or when local issues relating to development funds or foreign policy were discussed. Local people like the Chilasi were not all one and the same; naturally, there were differences. The local population was divided into *malik* (original inhabitants) and non-*malik* (migrants), and in this regard I was considered a non-*malik* sympathiser. When we went to Gilgit, or at times of conflict between Chilas (Sunni) and other parts of Gilgit Baltistan, especially Shia, the Chilasi considered me as one of their own. For instance, during an armed conflict between Sunni (mainly Chilas and Kohistan) and Shia in and around Gilgit, they expected us, including German members of the team, to help them with resources and cars.

In Gilgit, the security forces, including security inspectors and some heads of administration, originated from the Pakistani Punjab. Local Gilgitis were also divided, in that some were happy that soldiers and secret agency people were there to prevent armed conflicts between Shias and Sunnis, whilst others thought they were partisans or actually themselves the reason for conflict. Security force personnel themselves expressed disappointment with the locals, because it was a difficult area for them due to not knowing the local language, the food was different and the area was difficult for them to live in.

### **International workshop in Gilgit**

We travelled to Gilgit to participate in the second leg of the researchtraining workshop organised as part of a research collaboration between the National Institute of Pakistan Studies (NIPS), Quaid-I-Azam University Islamabad, the Karakorum International University (KIU) and the Institute of Anthropology, Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich (LMU). I was the collaborating partner from NIPS, Martin Sökefeld represented LMU and Vice Chancellor herself represented KIU. A few days before the workshop, Martin was informed that KIU would not be hosting the workshop, even though it had been agreed a long time previously. The participants were students and faculty from KIU, NIPS and LMU. After the initial training workshop for students in qualitative research at KIU about a month beforehand, participants started to collect data in and around Gilgit on their own topics of interest. The second workshop would take place towards the end of the activity, after about four weeks. All of the students and the KIU faculty simply stopped communication, without giving any reason. Some faculty members who did not want to be identified told us privately that they were afraid of the VC and agencies. There were only rumours, and nobody, except perhaps the vice chancellor of KIU, really knew the true reason.

Martin Sökefeld had already met the top administration in Gilgit before my arrival, and both of us met the police chief in Gilgit, following which, and after clearance from both sides, we decided to hold a workshop at the hotel in which we were staying. Some officers from the intelligence agencies visited us in the hotel to ask questions about who would be participating and what topics the workshop would cover. I explained everything to them in Urdu, and they would leave – only to return again soon thereafter to repeat almost the same questions. On inquiry, they said it was their duty. The city police chief told us shortly before it was due to take place that he could not allow it to go ahead. The same message was relayed to the hotel manager, who was very angry because it meant losing a lot of business.

We met at the breakfast table the next morning and decided to visit German workshop students/participants residing in another hotel later that evening; in fact, they invited us for dinner. We also discussed the possibility of informally holding the meeting in that hotel or even somewhere out in the open. As soon as we reached the hotel that evening, police were already waiting for us at the gate. They stopped us and asked why we had gone there. It was surprising that they knew in minute detail what we had been discussing, and so we tried to guess who could have told them. The Deputy Superintendent of Police personally warned me of dire consequences if we did not stop everything, so we went back to our hotel and left Gilgit the next day.

### **The consequences of collaboration**

Sökefeld and Strasser observed that "while in most cases threat to the researcher will be limited to the danger of being expelled from the field, […], the participant may suffer much more existential consequences that include threats to his or her employment, freedom or even life. Sometimes, the researcher is only indirectly affected by surveillance and threats that directly target her or his partners" (2016:166). I remained under observation for the next few years.

I was a professor at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies and a collaboration partner in a project that included holding a conference. Four students from NIPS were also part of the research and the intended conference. After the first workshop, I travelled back to Islamabad to attend to some urgent university tasks, and I was accompanied by my wife and son on the return journey,in order to participate in the conference. A few days after my return from Gilgit, two officers from the secret agencies visited our Institute, met the director and inquired about me. The NIPS director informed me about this and warned me to be careful. A few days later, they visited again, and this time they interviewed me personally. There were rumours in the Institute that agencies were observing me in connection with alleged involvement in suspicious activities in Gilgit. Some people even warned me that I could lose my job or that I would not be promoted. I did not share any of this with my family, who were already very scared. I stopped almost all contact with Germans for the next several years, and many remain uncontacted to this day. This was the last time I would visit Gilgit for research.

The bits and pieces of information I could gather in the coming months and years included the alleged indecent behaviour of a female German PhD scholar doing fieldwork in Gilgit, which was said to be the catalyst for this fiasco. However, she was not present in Gilgit for the workshop. The KIU administration knew about her case when the workshop was being planned, and they agreed to collaborate.There were also rumours about one speaker invited to the workshop who was not acceptable to the agencies and administration, but nobody told us anything about this. Some of my students from Gilgit told me later that the secret agencies had asked VC KIU to distance herself from the workshop therefore, she has directed the faculty and students to keep away from the workshop. It is also important to mention that, as already alluded to herein, I have worked and collaborated with German researchers for many years, and except for perhaps indirect indications of surveillance, there has never been any direct or indirect threat to me.

### **Secret agencies are not alone in suspecting anthropologists of spying**

Over many years of collaborating with German academics, especially anthropologists, I have learned that it is not only the state and its different 'secret' agencies that suspect anthropologists, but also local university staff, their Pakistani research counterparts and local people. Griesser (2016) observed the following about research in Gilgit: "Correspondingly, though most Gilgitis are fond of contacts with foreigners, many of my interlocutors appreciated the suspicion of intelligence agencies against foreigners" (Griesser 2016: 183).

Many different groups of local people (intelligence agencies, bureaucrats, academics and locals) may have very different reasons, including very personal ones, to suspect or sympathise with anthropologists. Before coming to why all these different people suspect anthropologists of spying, let me share two small experiences that may help us understand this issue. In the first case, DAAD agreed (actually, NIPS agreed) to grant two positions at NIPS. Initially, DAAD wanted to establish a branch in Pakistan and they needed a space that NIPS agreed to on my recommendation. Second, DAAD agreed to a proposal, (actually, an idea given by DAAD), to sanction a long-term professorship at NIPS. The faculty and director of NIPS, in private discussions, had doubts about both of them. NIPS always questioned their whereabouts (questions such as why they go to Peshawar, Lahore, Gilgit, etc.), why they contact certain students (especially why they would invite students from certain areas to their homes) and why certain topics had been chosen by students working under their supervision for their research. Some of these debates were held inmy presence,others not, because I was partly held responsible for their presence.

The second case revolved around a teaching position offered to me by a university. In 1995, after completing my PhD at Heidelberg, I was about to return to Pakistan when a senior German professor contacted me and asked if I would be interested in becoming one of two teachers for the soon to be established Department of Anthropology at a university in Pakistan. Since I was desperately looking for a job, I agreed. Martin Sökefeld was to be the other teacher. I went to that city to meet Amjad<sup>1</sup> , who was a research counterpart of the German professor and was supposed to head the department once established. According to plans, I was to be introduced to the Vice Chancellor of the university by Amjad. I stayed there for a couple of weeks without meeting the Vice Chancellor, but during my stay it transpired that Amjad was not convinced about the establishment of the department.He would often askme questions. Why are Germans interested in establishing this department in Pakistan? Why here and not in Rawalpindi or Islamabad. Why do they want to invest money, even though no request has been made by the university?

### **Sceptical collaborators**

A research project may come into being via many different routes in Pakistan. It may start after a meeting between representatives (minters) of two governments for cooperation, funds are allocated and the universities may be given the task of implementation. Sometimes, it is a result of collaboration between two universities, departments or professors in certain areas. It may sometimes come to fruition after a professor has won a research grant from a funding agency,or it may be an independent researcher intending to do fieldwork in Pakistan. In almost all cases of collaboration, however, funding originates from Western countries and the money goes to professors hailing from those countries.

A foreign anthropologist intending to do research requires an NOC to carry out fieldwork in Gilgit-Baltistan, and generally, the local university initiates/forwards an application in this regard. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) between two universities is helpful for securing a NOC. Individual researchers can also send applications for a research NOC directly to a Pakistan Embassy, for instance in Germany. The relevant Pakistani university, after approval has been issued by authorities,

1 Fictive name.

such as a dean, a vice-chancellor, etc., sends the application to the Ministry of Interior (MOI) for issuance of the NOC. The MOI then sends the application for clearance to different intelligence agencies. After an NOC has been sent out by the MOI, the Pakistan Embassy in Germany can issue a visa. After reaching Gilgit-Baltistan, the researcher has to report to the local administration, who can also demand a local letter of permission for research or may simply verbally instruct the researcher in terms of how they must conduct themselves.

We can divide the different people involved in issuing an NOC and conducting research into three groups:

The first group suspects anthropologists because it is their responsibility to keep an eye on foreigners in Pakistan, especially in a sensitive area like Gilgit-Baltistan. Bureaucrats from the Ministry of Interior are responsible for issuing NOCs after secret agencies and police give clearance to do so. The ethnographic methods of anthropologists make them an object of suspicion. Many people, especially the aforementioned authorities, do not know – or know very little – about anthropology, and so hanging around, interviewing people, making notes, etc., especially in a locale like Gilgit, which is known for communal conflicts, make them wary. University administrations, faculty and students sometimes may be jealous of colleagues involved in research projects, but they may also know the history ofinvolvement of anthropologyin CIA-funded research endeavours, for instance. Local people may be different from locale to locale. In Gilgit city, agencies may consider certain groups as potential accomplices of foreign anthropologists, whilst others may collaborate with agencies against the anthropologists.

A frequently asked question is, why do (German) anthropologists always travel to Gilgit for their research? The other question they raise is, why do they spendmoney on this researchif, ultimately, thereis no direct gain for them? For instance, the people in Chilas, where I worked most of the time, wondered why a German would live in such a miserable place (e.g., spending hour upon hourin the hot field. 'Are they writing a book or trying to understand how people live?' 'Don't they have anything better to do?' 'There must be something they're not telling us'. They never trusted the research team. Even on my last time in Chilas they asked, 'What is all of this about?'

In Gilgit I felt a bit differently, especially when I accompanied my German team in the field and I talked about the local social or political situation. I often had the feeling that they did not like to talk openly and freely in my presence until they had convinced themselves that I was 'absolutely harmless'. I have already written that being a Pakistani from the lowland, a Punjabi, was a negative identity. In other words, the locals seemed to trust Germans more than a person with my identity. But then it also depended upon who the local person was – a Shia, a Sunni, an Ismaili, a Chilasi, etc.

### **Gilgit-Baltistan as a field of research**

There are multiple reasons why anthropologists are shadowed by secret agencies in Gilgit-Baltistan. Before coming to these points, however,it is important to mention that anthropologists are not monitored in Gilgit-Baltistan only, even in Gilgit-Baltistan not all anthropologists are monitored<sup>2</sup> , at least not monitored equally. Furthermore, the policy of monitoring has frequently undergone changes over time, owing to the deviations in political and regional circumstances. For instance, after the Raymon David case 2011 (a CIA agent who killed two men in Lahore, and whom the US government accepted as being a CIA agent working for them) and the Abbottabad incident (a CIA-led mission in which Osama

<sup>2</sup> This was also observed by Griesser in Gilgit: 'One question that obviously, immediately arises from fieldwork and surveillance is why some are "singled out for suspicions" and others not' (Griesser 2016: 182).

Bin Laden was killed), suspicion of foreign or local anthropologists increased dramatically.

Gilgit-Baltistan as a research location is particularly sensitive because, historically, it has been a part of Jammu and Kashmir, a disputed territory between India and Pakistan. At least two wars have been fought between India and Pakistan on the "Kashmir issue," and there is continuous unrest along the line of control, i.e., the temporary border. Besides India, Gilgit-Baltistan shares borders with Afghanistan, ex-Russian states of Central Asia and especially China, with a huge 3,000-km Chinese infrastructure network project (CPEC) for which Gilgit acts as a lifeline. Furthermore, Gilgit is also sensitive because a number of ethnic, religious and political groups reside there and are often at war with each other, especially during Muharram – the month of mourning for Shia Muslims. It is also very important for Pakistan due to its high mountain ranges and glaciers, which are the source of a permanent flow of water into major dams and along rivers. As a result, there is a significant military presence in the area.

### **Ethnographic methods that cause suspicion**

The subject matter found in anthropology, and its research techniques, are another strong reason for suspecting anthropologists. The more popular topics in this regard include marginalised groups such as prostitutes, transgender, beggars, peripatetic, religious or ethnic minorities, political dissent groups, regions with insurgency, conflict, border areas and peripheral zones. Sökefeld and Strasser also shared this observation: 'Anthropology is increasingly interested in all kinds of "security zones" such as border areas, laboratories, hospitals, refugee camps, prisons, and industrial plants' (Sökefeld & Strasser 2016: 160), while Verdery observed that "[…] our methods are indeed in some ways strikingly similar to the practices of spies and agents, "simply hanging out with people" […] are involved in a comprehensive data gathering operation that goes way beyond our formally-stated research questions[…]' (2012: 17). The basic goal instilled in an anthropologist during their training is 'grasping native's point of view, his vision of his life' (Malinowski 1961: 25) by building rapport, gaining trust, being close to the natives and at the same time remaining unobtrusive. All of these factors offer sufficient grounds to arouse suspicion.

### **History of suspecting anthropologists of spying**

According to Nancy Howell, 25 per cent of the social anthropologists included in her sample had to deal, at one time or another, with this suspicion, and in her view, spying is 'a difficult charge to defend against when one is there in search of information' (Howell 1990: 97). During colonial times, local people suspected anthropologists, as they considered them part of the effort to colonise. Evans-Pritchard's research among the Nuer is a good example at hand: 'Nuer are expert in sabotaging[…] [they] defy the most patient ethnologist to make headway against this kind of opposition. One is driven crazy by it' (Evans-Pritchard 1979: 13). After the end of the colonial period, local people suspected anthropologists for various other reasons, including being sent by their own state to monitor them, to impose taxes on them, to suppress uprisings, to pressurise a religious or an ethnic minority and to impose a law, depending on the region, the community and the state. Clifford Geertz's research in Bali (1973: 412–13), Lincoln Keiser's fieldwork in Kohistan (1991: 32) and above all Pnina Werbner's research of Ghamkol Sharif near Kohat Pakistan, where her ethnography was burned (2003: 193), are a few other examples.

On the other hand, the state may suspect anthropologists of being agents of a foreign power who are supporting an ethnic minority group against the state, a separatist political group striving for independence or a religious minority suspected by the state. In places where the state is weak (peripheral and border areas), or it is not liked by the local people, anthropologists may also make use of this to build rapport with their interlocutors.

Another aspect of monitoring not greatly discussed is the observing of the local anthropologist in a collaborative research team as well as local people working for anthropologists. The interlocutors of anthropologists and their local counterparts are found on both sides of the suspicion divide. I know of research collaborators who have spread rumours and stated, 'I do not understand why the government gives them permits to do research'. Going back to the previously discussed Gilgit conference that did not take place, we could not figure out who was spying for the police, but they knew exactly what we had been discussing.Grieser (2016) and Sökefeld and Strasser(2016) have written that theirinterlocutors had been followed and somewhat harassed by security agencies.On the other hand, they also expressed their fears that sometimes their informants were also perhaps agency informers.

### **Anthropologists as the accomplices of intelligence agencies**

'Anthropologists have been active on both sides of the "surveillance divide" […], in many cases anthropologists have been accomplices in intelligence work' (Sökefeld & Strasser 2016: 161). They have spied and done all kinds of clandestine research in service to their nation by cooperating with their governments and agencies up to and including the First World War. In 1919, Boas condemned anthropologists involved in spying by writing that they 'prostituted science by using it as a cover for their activities as spies'.<sup>3</sup> His colleagues actually excoriated him, and the American Anthropological Association (AAA) censured him for pointing this out (Sökefeld & Strasser 2016: 161).

Similarly, during World War II, approximately half of America's anthropologists (including prominent members Ruth Benedict, Gregory Bateson, Clyde Kluckhohn and Margaret Mead) contributed to the war effort by working for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Army and Navy intelligence and the Office of War Information. The AAA also secretly collaborated with the CIA. In the early 1950s, its executive board negotiated a secret agreement with the CIA under which agency

<sup>3</sup> Some information in this portion has been extracted from an article of David Price 'Anthropologists as Spies: Collaboration occurred in the past, and there is no professional bar to it today' published in *The Nation*, November 2, 2000).

personnel and computers were used to produce a cross-listed directory of AAA members, showing their geographical and linguistic areas of expertise along with summaries of research interests (Price 2000).

Due to the unresolved issue of anthropologists spying and after the 'Project Camelot' for which social scientists including anthropologists were recruited by the US military for doing research about counterinsurgency in Latin America, in 1971 the first draft of the Statement of Ethics (no secret research, first responsibility towards the people they study, etc.) for anthropologists was presented and adopted with a majority vote in an AAA meeting. Almost two decades later, during the Gulf War, proposals made by conservatives in the AAA, namely that its members should assist allied efforts against Iraq, provoked only minor opposition (Price 2000). In the words of Fluehr-Lobban, 'Ironically, just when anthropologists thought they had "decolonized" their discipline, anthropology is being called to the aid of an empire in crisis and decline' (2008: 18).

The clear condemnations of clandestine research mentioned in 1971 'the principles of professional responsibility (PPR)', was removed from the AAA's code of ethics in 1999. Nowadays, the stipulation 'no secret research, no secret reports or debriefings of any kind should be agreed to or given' has been replaced by the guideline that anthropologists are 'under no professional obligation to provide reports or debriefing of any kind to government officials or employees, unless they have individually and explicitly agreed to do so in the terms of employment'. After military and political failure in wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, the 'human terrain systems' project came into being, whereby anthropologists were 'embedded in military teams operating in both countries and the collaboration which never actually stopped has been revived on an unprecedented scale' (Sökefeld & Strasser 2016: 162).The AAA's Commission, formed to deliberate on the engagement of anthropologists, neither opposed nor encouraged engagement in its report (Fluehr-Lobban 2008: 18). The net result is that every anthropologist is a possible spy for his/her country or for her/his paymaster, i.e., what Boas predicted in 1919: 'In consequence of their acts, every nation will look with distrust

upon the visiting foreign investigator who wants to do honest work, suspecting sinister designs'.

### **Conclusion**

Writing about the local perspective on the surveillance of fieldwork as a research collaborator with foreign (German) anthropologists, as "a sort of " native/local anthropologist,is like looking from the fence,i.e., a place where I can see, or at least try to see, both sides, if not many different sides. Due to our research collaborations, I experienced German anthropologists being shadowed and personally being observed, including my research career and perhaps even my life being. In this regard (a research partner educated in German universities, who knew German language and was a good friend of at least some of them) I saw it as unfair and that agencies were cruel or at the very least misguided.This surveillance impacted our research, foreigner or not, and we all had to navigate its pitfalls.

On the other side of the fence sat many different types of people, such as secret agents, administrators (of both universities and ministries), faculty members, university students and the people of Gilgit. Based on their particular position, they were divided in their opinions about surveillance. Secret agencies and administrators are responsible for the security of the country, the area and its people. In their view, there are enough reasons for them to suspect anthropologists in an area like Gilgit, which is a major trouble spot with a multitude of religious, ethnic and political issues. Foreigners generally – and anthropologists particularly – are suspected of being involved due to "questionable" behaviour and research methods. I have already said that university administration, faculty and students all had their own different reasons for being suspected, ranging from why a foreign country was spending money on training of our students and sending paid faculty members to Pakistani universities in order to open new departments. Jealousy over colleagues receiving payment, research funds and facilities and for being collaborators with foreigners was other reasons for creating hurdles in the way of NOCs. Similarly, the people of Gilgit-Baltistan not only were sceptical of Punjabis, their own government and Germans, but they also sometimes sided with foreigners against their government and people from lowlands.

The question why NOCs were issued to them in the first place despite the general history of involvement of a significant number of anthropologists in spy activities, the sensitivity of Gilgit-Baltistan as a research area and serious credibility issues with some anthropologists.  In response to my question why an NOC had been issued, they stated that their duty was to keep an eye on the situation and to report anything back to their officers. The issuing or not of an NOC was the responsibility of the government. In response to a similar question put to a senior intelligence officer, I was told that surveillance operations also acted as a deterrent, and NOCs would be stopped only after hard evidence was found.

We further believe that issuing NOCs is part of a complex system of international relations, i.e., a network of economic, political and diplomatic relations – a sort of "postcolonial colonialism." It is not merely a matter of choice for countries like Pakistan,or at leastitis a choice only to a very limited extent. Even when very clear evidence has been presented, no or little action has been taken against citizens of strong countries. For example, US citizen Raymond Davis, a CIA agent, who shot dead two Pakistani men in 2011, was safely deported back to the US. The other strong incident that took place, based on spy activity, was the case of killing of Osama Bin Laden by US Navy SEALs a few months later. There were also discussions that some NGOs or individuals had been found involved in spying but they escaped any punitive action.

I believe that it is good that NOCs are issued to researchers, because not all anthropologists, not even the majority of them, are involved in spy activities. Anthropologists may and often do have different opinions and different points of view compared to local people, governments and agencies. Moreover, they also have these differences in opinion in their own countries and against their own national governments and national agencies. This does not make them spies, it is the genesis of social sciences – and social sciences thrive on these differences. Continuity of anthropological research is not – and should not be – a matter of choice. It must continue, not only because developing countries are dependent on developed countries for resources, including for higher education, but also because most anthropologists bring important, constructive and critical perspectives to the debate on topics such as the marginalised, minorities, the oppressed, political opponents and, above, all the perspectives of local people.

Another often discussed issue with reference to surveillance is related to anthropological research methods. Martin Sökefeld has dealt with this topic quite extensively, and I agree with his and Strasser's view that 'After initial exploration we might come to the conclusion that we have to change our topic and/or site of research, […]. Thus considerable flexibility and readiness to alter timings, sites and questions are significant elements for a methodology under surveillance' (2016: 167). However, I disagree with Sökefeld and Strasser when they say that '[…] research under surveillance will necessarily not be open. […] we have to consider, […] to whom we can disclose what. […]. The use of a voice recorder is probably not advisable' (2016: 168).

I am of the opinion that agencies frequently suspect us because of misunderstandings, but behaving like suspects makes us even more suspect.We need to avoid suspicion by not hiding and instead by explaining our research. Anthropological methods should not be compromised, but if suspicions become serious, we should think carefully about changing the research topic and site. I am further of the opinion that the monitoring of anthropologists should continue, especially because it is a hurdle and a deterrent to spies with a military agenda. Surveillance is almost part and parcel of anthropological research, but it should not turn into harassment.

### **References**

# *Qurb\ani* Nearness and Altruism as an Engaged Ethnographic Practice

*Usman Mahar*

### **Prelude**

The Urdu expression '*kisi tareef ka mohtaj na hona*' is often rhetorically employed to articulate how someone does not need an introduction.What I find interesting is not that introduction often ensues this remark but the use of the word *tareef* (praise)instead of*taruf* (introduction).Thus,introducing someoneis akin to praising someone, and thisis how we often experience and carry out introductions in Pakistan.Often, praise as a practice of introduction is carried out to the point that it might even seem disingenuous to many in Germany. However, such a cynical reading of a Pakistani practice of praise perhaps fails to understand that some of us only introduce certain people and not others for a good reason.

Martin Sökefeld is indeed someone who does not need an introduction (*tareef ke mohtaj nahi*), but some praise is nevertheless in order. In March 2019, Martin welcomed me to the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Munich (LMU). I still remember how he introduced me to my new colleagues and the administrative workings of the institution I would be a part of for the coming years. He did so as the head of the department and, more importantly, as my PhD supervisor, my *Doktorvater* (doctoral father), as this relationship is known in the German-speaking world. In the following weeks and months, he patiently inducted me into my roles as a researcher, public

scholar and engaged anthropologist in my initial field site, the city of Munich. It would not be wrong to say that my subsequent relationship with him is simply captured by the affective split between two terms that signify the same formal role: the English term 'PhD supervisor' and the German equivalent *Doktorvater*. Often delicately but sometimes sharply, he highlighted to me the various aspects and sides of becoming an ethnographer. He nudged me not only to write and present my first conference paper, but also to engage in multiple other activities that were essential to my development as a public anthropologist. For instance, early on, he invited me to join demonstrations advocating for the right to work regardless of people's residence status and to partake in public discussions on so-called 'voluntary returns' organised at Bellevue di Monaco<sup>1</sup> (henceforth Bellevue) – a cultural, political and residential centre in Munich that also serves as an important meeting space for activists. Thus, my initiation into the field of anthropology at the doctoral level was not only about collecting ethnographic data, but also about connecting with my research and field site in varied ways.

Indeed, 'fieldwork' and 'ethnographic' methods are sometimes used to denote the collection of a certain form of qualitative data, particularly by social scientists outside the field of anthropology. Sociopolitical engagement is often discouraged in this form of fieldwork, in order to achieve 'objectivity'in data collection.While there is nothing wrong with this cross-disciplinary methodology and practice, as James MacClancy argues, "it is rather different from (and frequently less than) the anthropological approach of intensive interaction with a particular group of people, including learning their language" (2019: 6). What has come to be known as an *engaged anthropological approach*, however, goes even beyond this and argues for a deeper and multifaceted sociopolitical commitment to one's field and interlocutors (Ortner 2019). Such an approach advocates and practices anthropology that critically and affectively grapples with important issues of our time, often beyond the scope of the re-

<sup>1</sup> Located in the heart of the city, it offers its space (three contiguous buildings) and resources for a range of sociopolitical projects and activist efforts geared towards a diverse and inclusive Munich (for refugees, migrants and citizens).

search. In other words,it is a move away from politically and emotionally detached anthropology towards involvement, activism and feeling in the field. The usual critique of this approach and its cognates is the alleged loss of objectivity – and hence not being 'scientific' enough. Sherry Ortner regards such fears as unfounded when she writes:

To take an engaged stance does not in any way conflict with an adherence to the principles of accuracy, evidentiary support, and truth which are the basis of any kind of scholarly or scientific work. The only difference is that the biases of work that does not define itself as engaged tend to be hidden, while the biases of engaged anthropology are declared upfront. (2019: NP)

Screenshot from the Bellevue di Monaco YouTube channel

At a methodological level, Martin himself once pointed out to me how subjectivityis not the Achilles heel we sometimes portrayit to be –in our reflections on 'shortcomings' in the methods section –but a strength we should unabashedly profess as a productive catalyst for any ethnographic endeavour.

### **Introduction:** *Qurb\ani* **as a kind of engagement and a side of the ethnographer**

While this edited volume highlights many different aspects of being an ethnographer, in this chapter, I discuss the altruistic side of engaged ethnographers. In their 2010 article, Setha Low and Sally Engle Merry take the "Statement to the Profession" that came out of a 1993 AAA panel as a point of departure to discuss 'engagement' in anthropology (cf. Forman 1995). They argue that "anthropologists are engaged in a variety of ways, but, as indicated by the history, they do not necessarily agree about what constitutes engagement much less about the form that it should take" (2010: 207). In their effort to come up with a typology, Low and Merry (2010) first called to attention six different forms of anthropological engagement: sharing and support, teaching and public education, social critique, collaboration, advocacy and activism.They assert that the aim is not to establish "a set of mutually exclusive categories" but "to describe the range" and underscore the diversity and overlapping in engagements (ibid: 204). Keeping this claim in mind, I try to further this diversity of engagement not only conceptually, but also in terms of how I, as a scholar from the so-called 'Global South', practice and affectively experience engagement.

In the remainder of the chapter, I explore and develop a type of anthropological engagement that overlaps and intersects with a few of Low and Merry's categories by building on two personal examples from the field (ibid). I call this fluid type of engagement *qurb\ani* (*qurb* meaning closeness; *qurbani* meaning sacrifice) and do so for a few reasons. Let's start with the most obvious path to understanding a new use of established terms: semantics. In terms of affective terminology, the Urdu word *qurbani* (literally sacrifice; broadly altruistic behaviour informed by locally adapted Muslim practices of charity, but not only) and its cognate *qurb* (meaning nearness; in affective terms, a means of approaching someone) are both important here. Omar Kasmani describes the latter (i.e., *qurb*) as a "feeling of closeness […] always evolving, never stable feeling of being close in terms of time, place, or relation" (2022: 21). He suggests that *qurb*, due to "its visible, interiorized, spatial, and temporal

dimensions" of closeness, also implies being in reach "of understanding and conception" and, in that sense, is fundamentally different from *nazdik* the Urdu word for spatial or physical proximity (ibid).

I conjoin *qurb* and *qurbani* with a reverse slash on purpose, to borrow the simple idea in computer file management systems to indicate the 'path' taken. That is to say, the path to *qurbani* is through *qurb*. Through the concept of *qurb\ani*,a coalescing of *qurb* and *qurbani*in our field/work, I wish to achieve two congruent tasks: namely, dig deeper into specific kinds of affective and altruistic engagement we practice as anthropologists in our nearness to our field and interlocutors whilst simultaneously theorising the broader politics of such engagement. In other words, I wish to advance *qurb\ani* – a mode of affectively engaged altruism – as an ethnographic endeavour (methodology) whilst pitching it as a critical alternative to neoliberal forms of charity, 'sacrificing' one's economic capital or 'doing good' more generally (politics). I see this as a befitting call in an era when (tech) billionaires are fuelling the so-called 'Effective Altruism' movement and other forms of neoliberal fixes to tackle the problems of inequality (Bajekal 2022). Sometimes simply referred to as 'EA', Effective Altruism is a neo-utilitarian social movement that argues for disimpassioned charity. It encourages donating a certain portion of one's income to projects that purportedly make the 'biggest' impact in terms of the value of money, usually in the Global South. In a sense, it is the opposite of *qurb\ani* as I frame it. Quite problematically, EA assumes a data-driven way of 'giving up' a portion of one's income, and 'doing good' can be 'objective' and 'emotionless' when various private interests are involved. My challenge to this assumption rests on the premise that altruism is more than the sacrifice of money for 'benevolence', 'humanitarianism' or 'doing good' and that its often-hidden politics need to be brought to the fore (cf. Fassin 2012). While I throw down the gauntlet below and problematise global 'humanitarian' charities of all kinds trying to be 'effective', in short, my claim is that without *qurb* (nearness), there can be no *qurbani* (altruism; self-sacrifice).This is particularly relevant for movements that claim to have found an 'effective' and 'objective' mode of being altruistic and saving lives (cf. Fassin 2018).

Challenging neoliberal forms of charity that function under the rubric of 'Effective Altruism' is imperative, because not only do such seemingly apolitical approaches to doing good reproduce many of the inequalities they seek to address, but they are also based on a model not very different from the ones racist colonial powers used on their 'civilising' missions. Through their 'effective' approach to the distribution of resources, they justify diverting resources from 'inefficient' local organisations and governments to more 'efficient' international charities that often have their headquarters in the Global North (Acemoglu 2015). In this manner, they slowly chip away not only at a community's capacity and skills to engage with local issues in the Global South, but also the value of public goods more generally. At an abstract political level, the proponents of EA are trying to veil the politics of charity with a facade of objectivism. However, we know that every measurement involves a value judgment, no matter how mathematical the process of measurement may be (ibid). Even an 'objective' number becomes subjective, since the story that we tell about it is just one of many, as a friend working as a biomedical engineer at ETH Zürich pointed out to me recently. As I later thought about this observation about the construction of objectivism, Nikolas Rose's discussion on the notion of "style of thought" (Ludwik 1979) came to mind. Taking the example of biomedicine, Rose points to more fundamental issues of power in truth regimes:

A style of thought is a particular way of thinking, seeing, and practicing. It involves formulating statements that are only possible and intelligible within that way of thinking. Elements––terms, concepts, assertions, references relations––are organized into configurations of a certain form that counts as arguments and explanations. Phenomena are classified and sorted according to criteria of significance. Certain things are designated as evidence and gathered and used in certain ways. Subjects are chosen and recruited. Model systems are imagined and assembled. Machines are invented and later commodified to make measures and inscriptions such as graphs, charts, and tables […] linked up with complex practical arrangements such as experiments and clinical trials. A style of thought also involves […] intimate knowledge of […] relations of power and status. […] [It] is not just about a certain form of explanation, about what *it is* to explain, it is also about what *there is* to explain. (2007: 12)

Such critique seems to miss the wealthy individuals and benevolent 'objective' minds of today who seem to mimic the white civilising mission of their predecessors. Like the previous eras of objectivism since its dark eugenic past, the 'science' of Effective Altruism relies on those with money and power, often rich (white) men in the Global North, to decide what cause is worth fighting for, what is the right mode of addressing the issue and who are the right people to carry out the actions needed (McGoey 2023).

In contrast, I propose a form of altruism steeped heavily in the affective and engaged turns: *qurb\ani*, a sacrifice that intrinsically relies upon nearness. Altruism, I argue (with my reliance on *qurb\ani*), has to be engaged and rely on collaborative forms of giving while tackling the structural causes of inequity, not only its symptoms. As I affectively envision *qurb\ani*, it stands for sacrifices that rely on nearness, which in turn informs our approach to sacrifices. That is to say, altruism should be socially and politically grounded in the contexts in which we seek to do good. Moreover, altruism must be engaged, or it will remain a handmaiden of capitalist extraction or, at best, memetic of mercantile civilisation missions of European colonialists (cf. Dalrymple 2019).

To illustrate my point, I first draw on the example of my participation in The Long Run, a grass-roots initiative that started as a small 'refugee running group' in Munich over a decade ago but has since grown into a community of diverse people who gather around many different activities, from sports to arts and cultural events. Subsequently, I draw on an example of a social entrepreneurship project in Lahore that I support in various ways. Towards the end, I juxtapose the practice and outcome of *qurb\ani* as 'engaged altruism' with 'Effective Altruism'.

My *qurb\ani* model is fundamentally built on practising it. I joined The Long Run soon after beginning my research with irregularised migrants in Munich, with whom I had just started my fieldwork at a return counselling centre and who had an *Ausreisepflicht* (obligation or rather order to leave). A few months prior to my 'following' people who returned to Pakistan through so-called 'voluntary return' programmes, I saw my participation in the group as an opportunity to understand the pre-return lives of irregularised migrants (see Mahar 2020b, 2023). Engaging with the group, I thought, would allow me to meet them outside the return counselling setting (where I was sometimes seen as a part of the state-sanctioned return mechanism).Moreover, I would get to know migrants from different countries for a comparative understanding of irregularisation and (in)voluntary return (Mahar 2020a). Soon, however, I was engaged beyond that strategic aim for my *multi-sited* ethnographic research (Marcus 1995) with irregularised migrants and discovered my *multi-sidedness* as an ethnographer. Similarly, I got involved in a social entrepreneurship project in Pakistan, initially for the strategic aim of a comparative analysis regarding perceptions and aspirations of local (unskilled) youth in terms of migration and return. However, I soon realised my involvement exceeded methodological strategising, and my commitment to the project was social, political and altruistic in its nature. Upon submitting my PhD and receiving a Swiss salary, I also committed to financial support in both engagements (e.g., a friend and I donated €500 to The Long Run for a speaker system that was needed for our workouts, and a couple of hundred euros for training in Pakistan).

In both of these instances, I discovered that I was not solely engaged in 'giving and sharing', 'collaboration' and 'activism', to re-quote a few forms of engagement identified by Low and Merry, but much more – and affectively so (2010: 204). In addition to collaborative practices through which I provided my expertise to these two projects, there were opportunities to offer different forms of capital I had available, indeed even economic capital<sup>2</sup> (Bourdieu 1986). Since this asynchronous or indirect reciprocity is based on personal relationships built during fieldwork, mutual feelings of support, human intuition, collaborations, myriad sacrifices and long-term social and political engagements in the field, I call it *qurb\ani* (one could say *engaged altruism*) and see it as different from Effective Altruism in the same way as ethnographic description and reflex-

<sup>2</sup> Particularly upon the submission of my thesis and having more disposable income.

ive sociological analysis is different from descriptive statistics and objectifying theoretical models (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). However, what does this look like in practice? And,more importantly,in what ways does *qurb\ani* as an ethnographic practice go beyond the usually accepted forms of engaged research? Through my participation in the two aforementioned projects, I discuss *qurb\ani* as an ethnographic exercise more concretely, and I theoretically develop this side aspect of being an engaged ethnographer.

### **Practicing** *qurb\ani* **in Germany**

The Long Run brings together citizens and non-citizens with diverse experiences and backgrounds around various cultural, social and sports activities. Soon after joining, in cooperation with Paul Huf, a founding member, I initiated a 30-minute workout session, which has now become part of the weekly schedule in addition to the jogs that I am responsible for organising, as well as a range of other activities. As such, the Long Run helps foster connections built upon interactions during sporting and cultural activities, thereby giving equal status to non-citizens, unlike more goal-oriented voluntary work that sees Germans and migrants or refugees enter the unequal power relation between the helper and the helped.These occasions provide opportunities whereby non-citizens are not dependent on citizens and engage in new forms of relationalities that can lead to "de-migranticization" (Dahinden 2016) at the affective level – in some cases, even providing non-citizens with the opportunity to help citizens, thereby reversing the usual roles (Safuta et al. 2022).

Ahmed, forinstance,a former competitivemartial artistin theUgandan Tae Kwon Do team, trains those interested in the sport in addition to offering a course for children at Bellevue. This is not to say, however, that practical 'skills' are valued over other forms of participation. Different people find different ways to contribute; for example, Hafez engages the rest of us with poetry and enlightens European citizens about the literature and arts of the Middle East. He bridges affective distances and differences with verses that connect the Syrian experience to that of German participants on some days and to that of Pakistanis like me on others. Through poetic giving, he often saves an evening that would be otherwise spoiled by the actions of a common antagonist, the *Ausländerbehörde*(Foreigners Office), in Munich. He often lightens the mood at the end of a long run when issues with German authorities are discussed. German citizens like Ursula, a scriptwriter, and long-term Munich residents from other parts of Europe, like Jon, a patent judge, have established friendships with non-citizens like Ahmed and Hafez. Thus, when people like Ursula and Jon support their non-European peers with wearisome issues of bureaucracy, language and the modes and codes particular to 'Bavarian' life, it is not with the aim of helping a 'poor migrant' but a friend, a fellow runner or trainer.

While I participate in many of the activities and invest my time in organising some, I also contribute as an anthropologist by helping group members critically reflect on what they do. I see this as *qurb\ani*. Instead of only contributing to public and academic discourse, I find it valuable and important to engage the communities we do research with epistemologically and to share our knowledge with them. In other words, along with the established paths of disseminating knowledge through academic institutions and public discussion, I use my skills to communicate, transmit and circulate knowledge directly in a relevant community through engaged work – sometimes even at the cost of sacrificing academic knowledge generation (see Stephen Lyon in this volume). In that vein, I often discuss certain actions or 'help' offered by our European friends, at times quotidian modes of interaction that may reproduce unequal power relations. Certainly, it is always the case that based just on my physical appearance, I am assumed to be a refugee/asylum seeker by migrants and citizens alike. Often, new German volunteers or members of the journalistic community lose interest when I don't have a harrowing story to tell, which is often expected of non-white members of the group. Similarly, there are subtle problematic notions about 'the Muslim migrant' that effectively circulate. When possible, I gently take such observations to task and discuss them with the others. In doing so, we try to collaboratively identify ways to

strengthen and highlight the everyday and 'mundane' ways in which The Long Run can challenge the reproduction of unequal citizen-migrant relations.

There is no doubt about the fact that unequal power relations exist between citizens and non-citizens and that the nation-state system affords certain privileges to a group of humans considered to be at 'home' within a certain territory through the category of citizenship (Sharma 2020). However, in addition to struggling against such an exclusionary system in the long run, how can non-citizens (migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, etc.) be helped with their immediate needs in the short run? The Long Run, through different activities, tries to help members understand the artificial separation between natives and migrants, citizens and non-citizens at the affective, somatic and political levels while providing non-citizens with immediate and concrete support. Towards both these ends of subjective good, in the short term and the long term, I *spend* the various resources I have at my disposal and sacrifice others. This spending or investment is an important component of my theorisation of *qurb\ani*, as it distinguishes itself from the kind of investment and spending that takes place within EA communities.

### **Practicing** *qurb\ani* **in Pakistan**

In 2019, during my fieldwork in Pakistan, I met Ali<sup>3</sup> , a migrant who had returned from Malaysia. At the time, Ali worked at a café in Lahore. Though not directly related to my research, which focuses on returns from Europe, we talked on several occasions about migration, return and the lack of opportunities for Pakistani youth. His story of migration and returning as a skilled barista were the bases of my interest in his views and opinions. Our love for speciality coffee and my student job as

<sup>3</sup> Pseudonym.

a barista in Heidelberg helped strengthen our friendship further. It was a *sonay pe sohaga*, as the Urdu idiom for 'icing on the cake' goes<sup>4</sup> .

Ali shared how he had overcome the lack of capabilities as an unskilled youth with a rural peasant upbringing and changed the trajectory of his family. However, this was not enough for him, and he was interested in doing something for others.Thus, when he wanted to start a café with an important social dimension that resonated with me, I decided to help in every way possible. I employed all forms of capital at my disposal, by using my networks amongst privileged Pakistanis to not only collect funds, but also build social bridges for him. Due to our reliance on rentseeking investors to finance the project, however, our vision of a cooperative had to be strategically – but only temporarily – shelved. We are still adamant about our vision for a cooperative that will give ownership to its employees and restrict the disparity between the maximum and minimum employee pay to a factor of six.

In 2022, just before leaving at the end of my second fieldwork stint there, I aided Ali in opening one of the first cafés of its kind in Lahore. Due to my support in getting the project off the ground, I am an unofficial 'co-founder'. According to Ali, the project is as much mine as his, and while we do not have any legal agreements, I am proud to be a 'cofounder' in the symbolic sense.This perception was important for Ali for practical purposes, too. He felt that when I reached out to certain stakeholders or potential investors (e.g., my class fellows and friends from Aitchison College, a British-era private school), the response was quite different from what he would get (see Armytage 2020; Mahar 2021).Once I got involved, how he was treated within these circles was also quite different. In a sense, I became his gatekeeper to a rather closed fraternity which usually only conducts business within its network and often exploits people like Ali (see Mahar 2021).

<sup>4</sup> The expression alludes to pouring a chemical on gold which helps dislodge its impurities and hence makes it shine immaculately but can be translated to English as "the cherry/icing on the cake."

*Trainees learning how to taste espresso notes with Ali, Lahore 2022*

Photo by Naheen Mahar

The principle of the café is simple. It serves locally roasted speciality coffee and simultaneously runs a barista traineeship programme for unskilled Pakistani youth. In addition to free barista training, covering training material costs (such as milk and coffee) and paying international certification fees,it pays a liveable monthly salary to trainees from the first day, much like an *Ausbildung* or vocational training programme in Germany (unlike in Germany, however, it is sadly a private and not a public endeavour, like many social projects in Pakistan). As the trainees progress out of training, they quickly find jobs in the hospitality market in Pakistan and various Gulf states with Ali's help, who now has several

of his students working there. The project can currently support six trainees at a time who retain employment until they find a job, following which a new trainee is hired. This rotational principle of the project, designed by Ali and me, does not please some of the investors and those providing the physical space for the café in exchange for profits. The rotation of the baristas and the repeated training of new ones impact the(ir) profitability and, in their opinion, should be discarded in favour of a traditional business model. For us, however, it is not a business but a small experiment, a microcosm that strives to garner a capabilities approach, in line with Amartya Sen (1999) and Mahbub ul Haq, the prominent heretic economist who first argued for the Human Development Index rather than national income (GDP) as a measurement of growth and development that was hitherto entrenched in 'western citadels of learning' such as Cambridge and Harvard (Mahbub ul Haq 1998: NP). Like in Germany, in Pakistan, too, I *spend* the various resources I have at my disposal on this subjective good and theorise this as *qurb\ani*.

### **Practicing** *qurb\ani* **as an anthropological alternative to Effective Altruism**

As alluded to earlier, Effective Altruism (EA) is a philosophical and social movement that sees itself as 'doing good' in what its practitioners and funders consider the most effective and rational manner of spending unequally distributed wealth. The veiled assumption here is that a private model of wealth redistribution is more effective than a public model. According to Peter Singer's (1972) essay on the topic, which is widely considered to be the intellectual seed of the contemporary movement, let us consider the ethical and utilitarian premises of EA. In this seminal work on the ethical dimensions of altruism, he argues his point through an example of a little child drowning in a pond. His starting premise is that it is morally questionable not to help the child, even if that means ruining your clothes. In simple terms, his core thesis is that not sacrificing one's material belonging to save a life is immoral. That is nothing new, but from here, he extends the argument into a more radical one by stating that the metaphorical 'pond with a drowning child' is the situation of many in the Global South, whilst the 'expensive clothes' are our luxuries in the Global North that we could easily sacrifice: not doing that, according to Singer, would be evil.

Let's, for a moment, not engage with the idea that the supposed bystander with the duty to save is not only that, but also often part of the cause of the kind of suffering and inequality being discussed. Let's also denote the paternalism of rendering people in the Global South as 'drowning children' and discuss Singer's call for 'effective' altruism. The paper clearly outlines his ethical argument, but to understand his utilitarian contention, we must resort to one of his more recent examples, popularised through a TED Talk (Singer 2013). Singer poses a rhetorical moral dilemma for his audience: Assume you have 40,000 dollars that you can either donate to providing one guide dog for a blind person in the Global North or to a charity in the Global South that could cure the blindness of between 400 and 2,000 people with trachoma. In the end, Singer (ibid) concludes that the answer in such a scenario is clear regarding "what's the better thing to do". In his opinion, it would be irrational to help one blind person over hundreds, potentially thousands. In line with that thought, he urges his students to strive for lucrative careers in order to allocate a large portion of their income towards 'effective' altruism (of the EA community), in opposition to what I would call affective altruism.

Examples provided and the arguments put forth by other prominent proponents like Singer make three key assumptions about EA: 1) the irrelevance of nationality, ethnicity, distance, etc., 2) the amount of change or 'good' brought about is pertinent to altruism being effective and 3) consequences, not intentions, matter (cf. MacAskill 2016). Philosophically speaking, who could disagree with such a virtuous disposition towards doing good in the world?

Proponents of EA want to make the world "a better place" through "evidence-based practices" (Pincus-Roth 2020), which, they argue, can be done using data to make decisions rather than intuition and empathy, which they consider biased (cf. Bloom 2018; Alter 2023). However, in practice, making altruism more effective by using our *heads*, not our *hearts*, and hence deciding how money can do the 'most good', is more complicated.This begs the question, how is the money being made in the first place, and how are the decisions to do the 'most good' doing good to the do-gooders? Let's take a concrete example. The Effective Altruism community offers platforms such as "Give Well" and "80000 Hours" that help people decide how to donate their money and time in the most effective way (Effective Altruism 2022). Upon a closer look at the charities, one notices that many of them operate out of the Global North. In combination with its often young, white and male donation base, this poses pertinent questions about why the white and wealthy should be the ones deciding where and how money should be spent in a crudely unequal world created through their own practices (Ackermann 2022).

Another big EA blind spot is the lack of attention given to the structural causes of inequality that it wishes to address through 'effective' philanthropy or charity based on 'hard science' and data. In fact, many of the actions of 'benevolent' capitalists help perpetuate inequality by addressing symptoms thereof through private and neoliberal mechanisms– and not by addressing the root causes (Acemoglu 2015). Its supporters, often tech billionaires like the now-disgraced cryptocurrency tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried, profess to help suffering subjects worldwide 'effectively' but without questioning the system that enabled their absurd accumulation of wealth. Questioning structural inequality would perhaps be intrinsically problematic for a cause that solely argues for charity as a way to make the world a better place. Imagining a world that does not require the charity of the benevolent capitalist would lead to the redundancy of the movement. As McGoey (2023) argues, at times, the utilitarianism of some proponents goes well beyond sanity and circularly assumes that a rich person's life is worth more simply because it has the potential to save more poor lives. He goes so far as to call EA one of the most problematic ideas of the century.

However, the conceit of the rich, and philanthropy as a way of deflecting criticisms of amassing unimaginable wealth, is not a new idea. A more recent notion is how such neoliberal approaches are being emulated in contemporary forms of 'humanitarian' government. Didier

Fassin (2012) shows through his critique of humanitarian reason that everything, from unwanted migrants to disaster victims and international conflicts to the misery of the poor, is currently managed through humanitarianism. He calls it a "paradigm of politics of compassion" (ibid: 1) and writes further down the monograph:

The suffering of the unemployed man, the refugee and the disaster victim is not simply the product of misfortune, it is also the manifestation of injustice. Humanitarian reason, by instituting the equivalence of lives and the equivalence of suffering, allows us to continue believing––contrary to the daily evidence of the realities that we encounter––in this concept of humanity which presupposes that all human beings are of equal value because they belong to one moral community. (ibid: 252)

If, as Fassin maintains, through humanitarian reason, injustice is contrived as misfortune at best wilfully ignored and at worst taken advantage of for political purposes, all whilst the benevolent can be relieved of "the burden of this unequal world", then Effective Altruism is its unbridled form (ibid: 252).*Qurb\ani*,instead, relies on a form of giving that involves the recipient as a collaborator – not a recipient object of the benevolent mercy of capitalists (or 'humanitarian' (non)government officials) but an agent in deciding how those helping or giving should do so. Instead of running experiments on people to determine the greatest utility as per the donors, *qurb\ani* values collaboration and small-scale efforts to take immediate ameliorative measures but remain committed to changing the political or social dimensions that lead to the suffering or the issue in the first place. Perhaps in comparison to EA, *qurb\ani* is slow, inefficient, and, as the coffee project with Ali demonstrates, on a small scale. However, as I realised over the course of my engagement with the two projects, what they lack in utilitarian or 'effective' terms, they make up for in affective terms. Furthermore, what such a form of engagement supposedly loses in terms of 'objectivity', one may argue, is epistemologically less valuable compared to the access to complex and affective realities it allows the ethnographer.

On a frosty Thursday evening in January, two Afghan youths joined us on our weekly run, and as can be seen in the photo below, I was clearly happy about them being there. The winter running group shrinks to a fraction of its size in the summer – when the weather is more inviting – so two additional runners joining made me cheery (see photo below). The new runners were also newcomers who had just arrived in Germany about two months previously and were being supported by some of our members with legal and bureaucratic issues and other seemingly mundane but important aspects of adjusting to a new place.

*A weekly jog with some Long Run members, Munich 2023*

Photo by Paul Huf

*Along the River Isar at 3:42 am with The Long Run, Munich 2022*

Photo by Usman Mahar

As we started our jog along the River Isar, I asked them if they liked to run. Their innocent answer made my heart sink as the younger of the two answered, "Yes, yes, run, run, from Afghanistan to Iran to Greekistan [sic]", while the older one continued to regale me with the rest of the route of their 'run' to Germany: "Now here, run, run, run", the younger concluded with a joyous and triumphant laugh that made me smile. I often have such encounters while participating in The Long Run activities, and beyond openings into the stories of people, it is the sharing of somatic and affective situations that makes my experiences valuable and allow me to understand people's everyday lives, which not only helps me

comprehend and write about their issues, but also engage with them as part of a community.

Let me explain through another example. Once a year, The Long Run organises a 32 km night walk called "Walk into the Light" to bring together migrants who need jobs and people who can potentially offer work. However, by partaking in this event as an ethnographer, I was not only walking-with, but also sharing and co-creating my affective, theoretical and practical reflections (see Sabine Strasser in this volume). For instance, how this exercise, amongst other activities of The Long Run, acquaints privileged members of society, European citizens and other advantaged members of society like me with somatic, psychological and affective states, which many of our irregularised non-European peers may have experienced on their long and arduous journeys to Europe. At the same time, for the non-Europeans, it symbolises the grit of European peers who are willing to walk along for as long as it takes.

### **Conclusion**

As anthropologists, we often seek to give our interlocutors a voice through our ethnographies. We count this as an important aspect of reciprocating or 'giving back' for their time, patience and support. Engaged anthropologists go a step further and consider their social, political and activist involvement in the field and with their interlocutors as an ethical necessity (cf. Scheper-Hughes 1995). In that vein, I have discussed and theorised more concretely how we, as ethnographers, are uniquely positioned to turn our nearness into altruism when it comes to the communities with whom we work. I propose that we proudly and openly commit to how the many forms of nearness established in the field can be built upon through altruism as ethnographers. I call this process and its practice *qurb\ani*. In addition to being methodologically productive for our fieldwork and our ties in the field, it offers us insights into how to challenge problematic movements such as Effective Altruism that seek to establish what are 'effective' and 'ethical' ways of 'doing good'. Here, I would like to lean on Martin's recent commentary,

in which he unshrinkingly takes a similar approach to pose a challenge to formalisms around ethical clearances, maintaining that ethics in the field are a complex matter and are always "coupled with our political ideas and goals" (Sökefeld 2022: 523). Moreover, he convincingly argues that real ethical issues mostly arise in the field, and a formal ethical clearance meant to safeguard institutions can sometimes curtail the anthropologist's freedom and flexibility to engage in solidarity with our interlocutors.

### **References**

Dahinden, Janine (2016): "A plea for the 'de-migranticization' of research on migration and integration." In: Ethnic and Racial Studies 39/13, pp. 2207–2225.

Dalrymple, William (2019): The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, London: Bloomsbury.

#### 304 Section Four: More-than Politics

# **Epilogue**

### **From the Field, With Love**

*Anna Grieser, Anna-Maria Walter, Jacqueline Wilk, Sohaib Bodla and Clarissa Leopold*

#### Dear Martin,

As you are well aware, many of your German students fell in love in Pakistan, either during or after fieldwork, got married, had children. What do we make of such long-term entanglements, of blurring boundaries between the private and the professional? For your Festschrift on the multi-sided ethnographer, some of us got together to discuss our German-Pakistani marriages. But what a difficult task, in terms of both finding time in between shuffling kids, careers and married life and moving between two or more countries and then settling on what can and cannot be said! When considering writing about our relationships,<sup>1</sup> everyone's immediate reaction was that this topic would be the obvious choice, albeit it should not include anything private. So, what to discuss, if nothing personal?

Long-lasting relationships with partners from the field seem to have been unthinkable for most of the last century (Dubisch 1995). Plenty has been written on sexual relations in the field since the significant *Taboo* (Kulick & Wilson 1995; see also Goode 1990, Coffey 2018) was broken in the 1990s. The researcher couple is also not a new phenomenon (cf. the Bohannans, the Geertzs, Mead & Bateson, the Rosaldos,Wikan & Barth,

<sup>1</sup> Interestingly, it already poses an epistemological problem to label our marriages as binational, bicultural, inter-, etc. and evokes feelings of uneasiness in doing so.

and others; see Girke 2020), and the research project in which you conducted your own doctoral fieldwork in the 1990s also resulted in longterm relationships and marriages (between German project staff), including your own. And why not? After all, most people undertake their graduation and doctorate at an age at which people typically enter longterm relationships, if not marriage. Nevertheless, while the first debate zooms in on brief, sexual relations between researcher and interlocutor, the second one, on researcher couples, remains remarkably silent on the matter of intercultural relationships and almost exclusively presents the anthropologist as having a partner or a family 'at home', possibly bringing them to the field (see Burger and Burgerin this volume) – a balancing act that certainly also applies to 'native' anthropologists.<sup>2</sup> Another established trope is the researcher's lasting relationships with key informants (see Lyon in this volume), with some even taken in as kin (cf. Häberlein 2020; Haug 2020) – a practice also quite common in Gilgit, where a local man adopted you as an *unilo poch* (milk or foster son) during your doctoral research. While these fictive kinships certainly entail social obligations and demand forms of solidarity, the anthropologist stays somewhat autonomous and moves 'in' and 'out'of the field – as well as between research objectives,interlocutors and research partners – without much concern.

But what happens when an anthropologist falls in love and marries someone from the field? Although we know of quite a few such – admittedly rather traditional, heteronormative – connections, conjugal relations with (former) interlocutors continue to be relatively underrepresented in the academic literature. In *Into the dark heart of ethnography: The lived ethics and inequality of intimate field relationships*, Katherine Irwin (2006) discusses her marital bond with a man who was also her key interlocutor and lays bare the issues attached to their affiliation. As Irwin argues, structural inequalities continue to exist, and while trying to overcome them, she and her husband possibly even reinforced them

<sup>2</sup> Lately, reflections on parental duties during fieldwork have featured more prominently in the anthropological debate (cf. Braukmann et al. 2020; Cornet and Blumenfield 2015).

through their relationship. In her essay*Anthropologythatwarms yourheart: On being a bride in the field* (Cuba), Anna Cristina Pertierra (2007) points to the fact that it remains a constant and intense challenge to disentangle one's private and professional self. Is this blurred boundary the reason why so many of us struggle to admit the obvious absence of objectivity as well as the permanent struggle in carrying out the various expected social roles? Similarly, Michaela Haug (2020) describes how becoming part of an Indonesian kinship system brings shifting positionalities with it, from daughter, to daughter-in-law, to mother and, over time, also to grandmother – a rich entanglement that not only opens up possibilities for insights but also forecloses other contexts. Notably, most who publish works on their relationships are women, and though rich in detail, a broader comparative analysis remains to be done.

In our case, with more than four couples who established lifelong bonds by (getting married and/or) having children together after having met during fieldwork, the question of an emerging pattern arises. Ilva Ariëns and Ruud Strijp, as early as 1989, noted that anthropological fieldwork, like any professional environment, offers possibilities for amorous relationships. Of anthropologist couples asked to share their experiences, however, very few came back with a positive reply, but those who did so worked in the Middle East – the strong social and legal ostracism of intimate relationships in Muslim societies seems to demand scrutiny. So, here we are, after fieldwork in Pakistan. Let's now take the opportunity to take a closer look at our shared experiences.

Although our field trajectories were quite different, the most striking commonality attached to all of our relationships is that they went beyond the innocuous flirt or short-term sexual encounter and had serious, life-changing consequences, such as marriage, migration and children. However, this was often difficult for others, including family and colleagues, to accept, and even you, Martin, initially wrestled with the thought of perhaps having failed as a supervisor. Moreover, some of our families struggled with the geographic and cultural distance and the often seemingly quick decision to get married. When one after the other announced their intention to marry, one of the German fathers, for example, expressed his momentary resentment by suggesting that someone should "hang the *Doktorvater* (PhD supervisor) by the testicles" for having sent his students to Pakistan and not prevented such intimate entanglements.<sup>3</sup> While marriage is the prerequisite for any kind of socially sanctioned romantic and sexual relationship in Pakistan, it is exactly the opposite in Germany, and so the idea of getting married without knowing each other for a couple of years, or having shared a daily routine, sounds somewhat suspect to most people socialised in Europe. Furthermore, in Pakistan, some of the future mothers-in-law had a not insignificant fear of relationship loyalty, be it because a "white girl" (*gori*) would not stay married for long, be it because she would eventually not enter into paradise with the (Muslim) family (even if she did turn out to be faithful to her husband after all).<sup>4</sup>

Why is the idea that ethnographic fieldwork can result in a partnership with someone from the area so difficult to accept – and why do a few anthropologists still deemit a professional failure? In times of 'native'anthropologists and anthropologists working 'at home', why is a relationship between an anthropologist and someone from 'the field' still labelled and sneered at by colleagues as "going native," i.e., a form of abandoning the dubious distinction between Self and Other (Tedlock 1991; Sluka and Robben 2012)? In *The Vulnerable Observer*, Ruth Behar (2022 [1997]) puts her finger on the paradox within participant observation, namely that one is supposed to "get the 'native point of view' [...] without actually 'going native'" (ibid: 5). She grapples with the question that the established manner of scientific objectivity renders us anthropologists vulnerable to criticisms of failing to apply the scientific criteria of verifiability and transparency, since all our ethnographic knowledge is based on highly biographical and subjective fieldwork moments. On the one hand, it is long understood that not only is the place of fieldwork highly situational and contextual, but so is the person of the fieldworker, which is why it is deemed imperative to reflect on one's positionality as well as personal

<sup>3</sup> This is a vivid example of the reactions of German family members, friends or ex-partners, revealing the persistence of patriarchal structures.

<sup>4</sup> The issue of conversion (as well as applicable laws in the case of separation) remains one with which some families continue to struggle.

relations (cf. Carsten 2012; Haraway 1988; Okely 1996). Additionally, reinforced by feminist approaches, methodology syllabi nowadays increasingly promote the patchiness of ethnographic entanglements (see, for example, the website patchworkethnography.com). On the other hand, it still seems to be difficult to admit without reservation that the fieldworker is not only a researcher, but also a human being and that no one is able to simply collect and analyse qualitative data without bias. As this edited volume illustrates, the boundaries between private and professional life tend to be fuzzy and blurred.

Notwithstanding this point, though, why is it that so many of us became entangled in serious relationships? In our discussions for this contribution, we discovered that the beginning of all our interactions involved extensive talking, both online and offline, in Pakistan, Germany and places in between – for hours upon hours. We discussed everything with our partners: politics, social norms,academics, poetry,music, emotions and more. Conducting ethnographic fieldwork in different parts of Pakistan left a serious mark on all of us; however, it was increasingly difficult to speak about and make sense of these experiences with people who had never been to these places or who were perhaps somehow resistant to academic curiosity.

Nevertheless, we continue to wonder to what extent our attraction to and the perception of our partners were affected by different exoticisms,<sup>5</sup> hopes, dreams and interests. Some may have been interested in escaping the confinement of how things are done ordinarily, others drawn to share their privilege and help someone who was struggling. Having someone who could explain the subtleties and ambiguities of the field, or with whom to share the beauty of their cultural heritage, such as reciting Rumi and Bulleh Shah or discussing Marx and Nietzsche, might have been equally attractive. All of us have delighted in the feeling of transcending worlds and the excitement of explaining our backgrounds to each other with an infinite amount of content to explore and discuss. With this in mind, are our marriages purely personal, or were all of us "not only marrying the partner but marrying a culture" (as one of

<sup>5</sup> Possibly, even orientalist biases influenced us to some extent.

us phrased it)? Ultimately, we (like to) think that it was our curiosity, excitement, deep exchange and endless conversation that made us fall in love with each other.<sup>6</sup> The attempt to reconcile cultural differences, and the resulting ambivalences within our relationships, was however both a challenge to becoming a couple as well as a binding force, thereby adding to the already intense emotionality of a burgeoning relationship. Our marriages, then, were perhaps as much a result of the need to legalise them as of the thrill of doing something out-of-the-ordinary, of pushing normative frontiers. Being equipped with anthropological training, we felt able to transcend (perceived) cultural boundaries. 'Us against the rest of the world' feelings can apparently elevate a common infatuation to the sphere of the magical and thereby intensify the attraction. By entering a long-term partnership, we all chose to hold on to the intense experience of immersion in Pakistan – be it caused by adventurous travels, exciting fieldwork, the warm experience of family or the notion of deep, affectionate commitment.

The structural difficulties that mixed couples face dawned on us only after having sealed our commitments, and with time passing. Although we fulfilled legal (Islamic and German bureaucratic) expectations, we have learned that living as binational couples with diverse linguistic, socio-cultural and economic backgrounds can pose serious problems in relation to navigating different worlds, moving between places, juggling expectations and needs, bureaucratic requirements and social pressures. While Irwin (2006) writes that the structural inequalities of mixed couples become more attenuated "when marginalized men attempt to ride into middleclass [sic] worlds on women's coattails" (ibid: 169), we argue that difficulties apply in any case. Borders, discrimination, adverse child custody rules and other factors always hit the one who happens to be the outsider, no matter where and no matter their passport, gender or class. All of us have struggled with the lengthy processes involved in obtaining and maintaining visas, family reunification or official documents for different countries. All of us were

<sup>6</sup> To be fair, the illegitimate sexual encounters experienced by most of us also came with a certain thrill.

exposed to the intrusive scrutiny of our personal lives, compulsory visits from lawyers and security agencies and ongoing surveillance. To have a Pakistani marriage recognised in Germany, some were subjected to the pervasive suspicion of a sham marriage, and even after successfully resolving these issues, unpleasant and often racist encounters at the German *Ausländerbehörde* (Foreigners Office) were – and remain – a regular occurrence. The daily lives of those who have moved to the other country are affected by discrimination and feelings of isolation. For some of us it has taken years, whilst for others it continues to be a struggle to figure out where and how to live, to find a supportive community for our families and to secure employment for both partners.

Our intimate relationships have also forced us to confront our own stereotypes, unconscious biases and colonial baggage. No matter how genuine the intention and emotional involvement, such relationships raise questions about power and privilege, as well as the potential for perpetuating colonial dynamics. Many of us regularly engage in discussions about patriarchy and racism within our relationships. As white Europeans/European anthropologists, are we not automatically continuing a colonial project? As Pakistanis/Pakistani anthropologists, are we perpetuating the old power dynamics by engaging with Westerners? As couples, are we able and willing to fulfil the expectations set by ourselves, our families and societies? How do we navigate child-rearing and all the issues that arise with different pedagogical concepts and beliefs on what is best for our children? Is the pressure to successfully transcend cultural differences even greater in the light of our anthropological training? Or can the relationship between anthropologists and their partners be a way to disrupt and subvert traditional power dynamics and structural inequalities? After all, when anthropologists form relationships with individuals in the field, they establish a connection that extends beyond the immediate research focus.