Investigating the Libyan conflict from Egypt and Tunisia: Feedback from sensitive fieldwork among libyan political elites

Abstract

The objective of this presentation is to put forward an empirical approach based on Egyptian and Tunisian fields to evoke in a very practical way the issues, the adaptations and the tactics a researcher have to face by working on contemporary Libya : How do researchers conduct their investigations on a sensitive subject, in a sensitive context ?

First, the lack of bibliographic sources and scientific works on Libya is flagrant compared to other countries in the region. Muammar Gaddafi’s forty years in power certainly did not help the development of Libyan or foreign research on Libya: censorship, limited access to archives, etc. Some contemporary work was done after the fall of the regime in 2011, but the deterioration of the Libyan security context since 2014 has made the field almost inaccessible. How to reinvent the field? This is part of the adaptation strategies necessary to study contemporary Libya and leads researchers to evolve their approach. We decided to work on the reconfiguration of Libyan political elites since 2011, in a transnational perspective, from Egypt and Tunisia. The aim is to understand how several Libyan political elites are reorganizing themselves from abroad to reinvest the national political sphere.

The second sensitive point is to work in times of conflict, when it’s externalisation is a reality for the transnational communities (Rouland and Jarraya, 2019). Indeed, conducting a survey among Libyans who are exiled, who fear for their lives or who are politically involved in the conflict is extremely delicate. The way to contact them and to conduct interviews are part of the “chemins de traverse” and strategies to which researchers adapt to build their research. Building a relationship of trust with the interlocutors is essential and constitutes a temporal issue in the realization of the research fields. In addition, in this context, researchers can quickly be perceived as a relays through which the respondents would try to make their voices and claims heard. It is essential to enlarge the range of socio-political profiles of the respondents and to resort to triangulation of data (human, scientific and media sources) in order to avoid the risk of becoming the spokesperson for politically involved actors (Olivier de Sardan, 1995).

Also, the complexity of the field is reinforced by the Egyptian security and authoritarian context (Aldrin, Fournier, Geisser and Mirman, 2020). The Libyan conflict represents a domestic and foreign policy issue for the Egyptian state which intervenes directly and indirectly in Libya. In such a context of surveillance where arbitrariness intervenes at all levels, it is necessary to develop strategies to avoid arousing suspicion by trying to depoliticize the object of research as much as possible (Mathaner, 2014).