Introduction

The secretary of a small village in Murrupula district in northern Mozambique received my research assistant and I with a concerned expression on his face when we visited the village for a second time. Following our first visit, four people from the area had been arrested and incarcerated for six days. During our first stay, we had conducted extensive interviews with former members of a community-initiated militia, the Naparama, active during the country's civil war (1976–92). We were interested in how the militia had emerged and what role it had played during the war between the party in power, Frelimo, and the rebel group, Renamo (today the main opposition party). The group was disbanded at the end of the war, but since then, some units have tried to lobby for recognition of their war effort to receive demobilisation benefits.

The village secretary linked these imprisonments to our visit since the four residents were arrested while helping with the registration of former Naparama members (and other militia men as well) in the context of their efforts to lobby the government for recognition. The registration had been organised by the Naparama leader of Nampula province from Nampula city, who had introduced us to the Naparama in Murrupula district. After the provincial Naparama leader had collected names and a fee from about 250 militiamen and left, the police charged the local Naparama leadership of the area, who had helped with the registration, with betrayal, and arrested them. According to the police, the collection of money along with the registration process was unlawful. The arrested men were released after paying a high fine to the municipality, paid by the provincial Naparama leader. Afterwards, people came to the local Naparama leaders to ask where their money was.

This story from my fieldwork in rural Mozambique in 2011–12 demonstrates the ways in which fieldwork in the aftermath of war can have unintended consequences and create ethical and methodological dilemmas for the research process. The researcher's activities may provide a backdrop for social mobilisation and opportunities for personal enrichment for interlocutors, who decide to play with people's hopes of future benefits. Nampula's Naparama leader had not visited the local Naparama community in Murrupula since the general elections in 1994.