On walking alone and walking with others: Framing research activities by time and distance in Kafa Zone, Ethiopia

In rural Kafa Zone southwest Ethiopia, walking is the ‘normal’ way to move from one place to another: the ‘walking woman’ links activities between the home, the field, visiting neighbours, going to church and going to the market. As these activities are framed by time and distance, insights gained through walking alone or with others, allowed Jackson to gain an intuitive understanding of her qualitative research about maternal health. Moving back and forth between personal experiences of walking, and critically thinking about women’s experiences of birth at home or in a health facility, walking is also a way to explore ‘the mystery of presence,’ as Frédéric Gros writes, ‘to the world, to others and to yourself.’ By examining women’s participation in social networks, friendship and mobility as empowering factors, Jackson suggests that paying attention to context and the gendered self as researcher can help gain deeper insights into fieldwork experiences.