Doing fieldwork in Beirut’s nightscape

Assignement and negociation of distance

Abstract

Based on a review of my doctoral research conducted in Beirut (Lebanon), I examine in this article the characteristics and challenges of doing fieldwork during the night, which are related to biases such as gender, race, class, age, nationality. Through the notion of distance, I analyze the simultaneous setting up of methods of observation of the night on the one hand, and of the delimitation of the terrain on the other: these two processes involve dealing with the place that the stakeholders have assigned to us. In this article, distance is first understood as a cursor that is adjusted according to the situations of investigation; these adjustments show a variety of observation mechanisms. It is then an epistemological need – that of distanciation – to determine the biases that the nocturnal context tends to reinforce or mitigate. Finally, distancing is a process, carried out by the stakeholders and shaped by the researcher’s perceptions.