First steps are most often baby steps

The first few days of actual field work are now securely under my belt - and with it a mix of surprised pride which comes with the knowledge that I am now a very different type of researcher to what my undergraduate self (who loved statistics) ever thought I could become. Talking to people, taking them seriously, trying to get inside their head and understand why they say the things they do - these  are not new things to me, but they are new to me to be doing this in an academic setting. And moreover an academic setting in the provinces of a small country in Southeast Asia.

I haven't been viewing my first few interviews as a warm-up or testing the water, but inevitably first steps down new paths are not always going to be the largest strides. The first few interviews have been interesting, certainly, and I have learned a lot about the way Khmer Rouge local society was organised, how arresting worked, but for the most part the killing has remained a black box in the conversations I have had. This was what I was expecting,  but surprisingly people have brought the conversations round to killing much quicker than I ever plan - they raise the topic and want to talk about it. It seems that killing and the fear of death was so saturating in Khmer Rouge society that people keep coming back to it. Or it is a strategy to pre-empt any questions on my part by clearly stating that killings happened but that they were not involved.

While the interviews are going pretty well themselves, I have had to get used to a little more discomfort than I am used to in the ivory tower. My new mode of transport for getting anywhere and everywhere is the moto - and Duong, my translator, assistant, and all round superstar, also doubles as my safe (very important!) and not too speedy driver. No matter how careful he drives I have been over more bumps than I care to remember, my bottom feels like a hamster who has fallen down the stairs in its plastic ball. And my feet have been sunburned terribly. But we get from A to B. And there would be no other way than with a moto for some places. Over the last two weeks we have already been to a few interesting and different places and I will be telling you more about some of them in future posts, but here are two pictures from one of the first days in the field (here quite literally) in the middle of nowhere in Kampong Chhnang province. This is a place only motos, and bicycles can reach.