As one of the Middle East's more open countries, Lebanon is fairly congenial to foreign researchers. Classified as “partly free” by Freedom House, it ranks ahead of all the region's countries, except Israel, Tunisia, and Turkey.Footnote ² However, when it comes to researching Hizbullah, this openness and congeniality subsides. While Hizbullah contains political and social branches, it is first and foremost a military and guerilla organization—the self-proclaimed Islamic Resistance in Lebanon (al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya fi Lubnan). Like any military and guerrilla organization—especially one that is subjected to Western terrorist designations and economic sanctions—Hizbullah is innately and justifiably secretive, vigilant, and suspicious of foreigners and outsiders, including academics, scholars, and researchers. Based on my personal experiences researching Hizbullah in Lebanon, these characteristics have ebbed and flowed with its organizational evolution and situational context. At the international, regional, and local levels, the complexities and dynamics of the politics surrounding Hizbullah have shaped my experiences as a researcher in Lebanon and have demonstrated the importance of being aware of these politics and adapting to them. These convoluted and shifting politics have also revealed the inherent merits and challenges of ethnography—a rigorous, informal, and improvisational endeavor and process that necessitates, above all else, flexibility.Footnote ³

Between 2006 and 2011, international, regional, and local politics rendered accessing and researching Hizbullah in Lebanon relatively and perhaps unprecedentedly feasible. My first encounter with Hizbullah occurred as an MA student in September 2006 shortly after its July War (ḥarb tammūz) against Israel. Without a decisive winner and ended by another United Nations brokered ceasefire agreement, the month-long conflict had left parts of Lebanon's Shiʿi territories of Southern Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and South Lebanon completely decimated. That day, I accompanied a delegation of World Bank officials to witness and assess the destruction in Southern Beirut. For the postwar reconstruction, Hizbullah never intended to accept financial assistance from the US-controlled World Bank. Instead, Hizbullah relied on approximately $400 million of financial assistance. Half of this assistance initially came from Iran and the other half eventually came from American, European, and Arab or Gulf Cooperation Council donations that were channeled through the Lebanese government to Hizbullah.Footnote ⁴ Despite the destruction—not to mention the casualties and refugees—that the conflict had inflicted, Hizbullah declared a divine victory (al-naṣr al-ilahī) and our visit constituted part of that propaganda campaign. Rather than accepting financial assistance from the World Bank, Hizbullah was sought to portray itself as the victim by showing us the alleged cruelties, crimes, and injustices that the Israelis had perpetrated during the conflict.

On the drive to and around Southern Beirut, my companions and I noticed billboards that claimed a divine victory and facetiously indicated the indiscriminate damage and destruction that had been caused by Israeli “smart bombs” (al-qanābil al-dhakiyya). After we had arrived, Hizbullah officials gave us a tour of the bombed-out and dilapidated buildings with personal effects scattered in the rubble, and led us inside a tent that contained an exhibition of drawings that revered Hizbullah and ridiculed Israel, the United States, and other adversaries. Despite the losses that Hizbullah had sustained, its regional popularity among Arab Shiʿa and majority Sunnis alike soared.Footnote ⁵ The so-called Arab street railed against its governments, which had stood idly by, remained noticeably silent, or condemned Hizbullah during the war. To the dismay of these largely Sunni governments—which attempted to make amends for their statements and actions or lack thereof by contributing to Lebanon's postwar reconstruction—their citizens praised Shiʿi Hizbullah, Iran, and Syria as the only actors willing and able to stand up to Israel. During and after the war, these three actors proclaimed themselves the Axis of Resistance (miḥwar al-muqāwama) in response to US President George W. Bush designating them as members or part of the Axis of Evil (miḥwar al-sharr). These favorable regional conditions strengthened Hizbullah's self-confidence and mitigated its threat perception toward outsiders. These conditions, in turn, created a limited and modest opening (infitāḥ) for foreign academics, scholars, and researchers to access and engage Hizbullah.

After 2011, international, regional, and local politics involving Hizbullah swiftly narrowed this opening and severely tested the flexibility and adaptability of academics, scholars, and researchers. In the summer of 2012, I returned to Lebanon as a PhD student to conduct more rigorous and systematic dissertation research on Hizbullah's reconstruction, development, and welfare organizations—a seemingly innocuous and feasible topic. On the surface, it appeared as if the situation for Hizbullah—which had recently announced and celebrated the end of the postwar reconstruction—was relatively stable. And yet, paradoxically, accessing and engaging Hizbullah proved to be considerably more difficult than I had anticipated. Upon arriving in Lebanon, I contacted a Hizbullah official to whom a professor of Middle Eastern studies had referred me. After several telephone conversations, he requested that I report to Hizbullah's offices in Southern Beirut. At these offices, a female official politely and professionally interviewed me about the nature and purpose of my research, and made copies of my French passport and official letters from my department chair at Princeton University and the director of the Beirut-based French Institute of the Near East (Institut français du Proche-Orient) that confirmed my status. The official concluded the meeting by stating that she would notify me in a few days whether it would be possible for me to meet with and interview personnel at Hizbullah's reconstruction, development, and welfare organizations.

After not hearing anything for several days, I followed up with my original contact at Hizbullah who, in turn, repeatedly gave me the run around and kept me in limbo by refusing to offer a definitive answer. When he stopped answering his phone, I decided to take matters into my own hands by riding a shared taxi to Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley. After touring Baalbek's renowned Roman ruins, I visited the Iranian-built mosque, which was located on the outskirts of town and flanked by vendors selling Shiʿi and Hizbullah texts, DVDs, clothing, and other merchandise—some of which I purchased. While I waited inside the mosque to contemplate my next move, a female reporter and a male cameraman from Hizbullah's television station, al-Manar (The Beacon), suddenly entered with a European woman who had converted to Shiʿism. The reporter and cameraman interviewed and filmed the convert as she met with the imam and prayed while I looked on. Hoping to interview and film two European converts in one day, the pair approached me and asked if I was interested in converting to Islam—to which I replied in shāʾ allāh (God willing, or maybe). Informing them of my status and research, I inquired whether they could introduce me to someone able to arrange meetings and interviews. The cameraman responded affirmatively and took my cellphone number.

The next day, the cameraman met me in Baalbek and offered to be my fixer for a daily rate—to which I dedicated a portion of my grant funds. To avoid difficulties with his superiors at al-Manar and Hizbullah, the cameraman called them to request permission to be my fixer. They agreed on the condition that he did not schedule meetings and interviews with personnel at Hizbullah's reconstruction, development, and welfare organizations. During the next several weeks, he scheduled and escorted me to meetings and interviews in Lebanon's Shiʿi territories with these organizations’ beneficiaries and partners, including residents, villagers, farmers, livestock holders, artisans, entrepreneurs, nongovernmental organization workers, municipal officials, and civil servants. While these meetings and interviews did not take place with Hizbullah's personnel, they offered valuable insights into these organizations’ activities, operations, and performance.

To further compensate for my inability to access Hizbullah's organizations and to corroborate the interview responses of their beneficiaries and partners, I accessed online video footage of interviews and statements by senior Hizbullah officials who managed and operated these organizations. I also collected and analyzed primary and secondary sources at the libraries and archives of the French Institute of the Near East, the American University of Beirut, as-Safir (The Ambassador) newspaper, al-Hayat (Life) newspaper, and Hizbullah's Consultative Center for Studies and Documentation (al-Markaz al-Istishari li-l-Dirasat wa-l-Tawthiq), which did not provide me with many documents of quality or value. Overall, while these libraries and archives contained useful sources, they were fairly limited. For example, the as-Safir archives were searchable but not digitized, while the al-Hayat archives were digitized but not searchable.

On the surface, the difficulty of accessing and engaging Hizbullah and its organizations at a time when it had completed the reconstruction and when its 8 March Coalition had secured a cabinet majority in the government was perplexing. Over time, my fieldwork revealed that Hizbullah confronted pressure at the international, regional, and local levels that understandably intensified its threat perception and suspicion of foreigners and outsiders.Footnote ⁶ At the international level and after the 2006 war, the United States and European Union increased terrorist designations and economic sanctions against Hizbullah and its affiliates, even if the European designations and sanctions differentiated between its military wing and welfare organizations.Footnote ⁷

At the regional and local level, Hizbullah was quietly intervening in Syria, causing the organization to sustain casualties that adversely affected the Lebanese Shiʿi community.Footnote ⁸ Alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Asad's unrelenting repression against the Syrian population, these rising casualties initially triggered debate and uncertainty among Lebanese Shiʿa regarding Hizbullah's intervention in Syria and support for al-Asad. These questions eventually subsided as Syrian rebels and Sunni extremists (al-takfīriyyūn) launched bombing, rocket, and artillery attacks inside Lebanon's Shiʿi areas.Footnote ⁹ Nevertheless, Hizbullah's support for al-Asad tarnished its regional image among Sunnis and other Arabs who opposed him. In the wake of the so-called Arab Spring, Arabs perceived Hizbullah's support for a ruthless and repressive dictator as being antithetical to its raison d'être as a popular resistance movement.Footnote ¹⁰ At the same time, the prospect of al-Asad's downfall represented a geostrategic and existential threat to Hizbullah, which risked the loss of a critical ally, further removal from Iranian patronage and supply lines, and increasing vulnerabaility to attacks by the abovementioned rebels and extremists.

At the local level and as an unexpected research finding, Hizbullah and its affiliates confronted popular pressure from Lebanese Shiʿa and other citizens, who were dissatisfied with the results of the postwar reconstruction and with a perceived lack of assistance to alleviate the economic hardship caused by the inability to export crops and other goods into and through Syria. This pressure and discontent defied my initial expectations and erroneous preconceptions concerning the unconditional loyalty and support of Lebanese Shiʿa toward Hizbullah. Like any community, Lebanese Shiʿa possessed a plurality of perspectives on Hizbullah and other issues. Additionally, this pressure and discontent naturally reflected the rising expectations, demands, disappointment, criticism, and complaints directed toward Hizbullah as it played a more direct and prominent role inside and outside the government in the areas of employment, service provision, welfare, governance, and development.

In his qualitative research methods course, Princeton professor Robert Wuthnow emphasized the need to prepare before entering the field by undertaking such tasks as reviewing the secondary literature, drafting interview questionnaires, securing mandatory Institutional Review Board approval, obtaining official letters and visas, and scheduling appointments in advance. At the same time, he insisted that irrespective of the level of advanced preparation, the researcher could not fully know what to expect until entering the field. As such, it was essential for the researcher to continuously respond and adapt to unexpected and changing circumstances by reassessing and modifying the research project, design, methods, and approach. While attempting to maximize data acquisition from individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions, the researcher should be flexible and attuned to their possibilities and constraints. In an exceedingly complex, volatile, and unpredictable country and region such as Lebanon and the Middle East, there exist international, regional, and local conditions at the structural or environmental level that are often beyond the immediate grasp and control of the researcher. These conditions can positively and negatively impact the ability of the researcher to access contacts, interviewees, informants, documents, libraries, archives, institutes, ministries, and other institutions. Despite Lebanon and the Middle East's inherent and intensified challenges as a research environment, the researcher can exhibit and exert agency and flexibility by adapting to unanticipated and dynamic circumstances as well as relying on creative, unconventional, and diverse sources and methods to collect and verify relevant and quality information.Footnote ¹¹