Interviews

Interviews can be used for different purposes. In informant interviews, the role of the interviewees is to provide the researcher with information on actual events or other “facts”.

This information is then verified from other, for instance written, sources. In respondent interviews, in contrast, the aim is not to find objective fact or to verify or falsify the views of the interviewee. Rather, the purpose is to understand how what the interviewee is saying makes sense from his/her own perspective. (Kvale 997.) The interviews carried out in this study have fulfilled both purposes. On the one hand, I have used them to help trace the course of events and relevant written material where it is documented. On the other hand, the interviews have been the primary source for the frame analysis, as well as an important source for the institutional analysis, in terms of how the interviewees perceive the case study conflicts and the institutional frameworks the conflicts are embedded in.

The selection of the informants was primarily based on purposive sampling, where informants are chosen based on the relevance of the position they have in the organisation (Bernard 995). In cases where several people carry out similar jobs, I chose the interviewees either based on the extent to which they had been involved in the case study conflicts or in cases where this still left room for choice, based on snowballing, in which informants are asked to propose other informants (Bernard 995). Also the Advisory Group nominated by Metsähallitus for this study (see Chapter 7.5) was given an opportunity to propose people to be interviewed and the proposals proved to be helpful and support the other selection methods. Not all of the selected people were necessarily relevant due to their current position, but selected based on their long and diverse background in Metsähallitus, or because they were known by others to be analytical key informants.

Everyone who was contacted agreed to be interviewed. After the interview one interviewee refused the right to use the interview, so it was excluded from the material.

Excluding the contested interview, 8 people were interviewed, but three of these interviews were later excluded from the analysis when the focus of the study was changed somewhat. of the 5 interviewees work or have worked in Metsähallitus and in the two ministries. 6 of the informants work in Forestry Division of Metsähallitus or in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, in Natural Heritage Services or in the Ministry of the Environment. Four of the interviewees were women, 9 men. A summary of the informants is presented in Table 5. Representatives of the other departments in Metsähallitus (Wild North, Laatumaa, Morenia) were not included in the interviews, because those units do not carry out strategic planning, have not been actively involved in the old-growth forest conflicts, and are not considered as focal as the Forestry and Natural Heritage Services in Metsähallitus.

The interviews were conducted between May 00 and February 00. The informants were approached primarily by email. They did not receive the interview themes or questions beforehand, but they were told what the focus of the research was. The purpose of the research was explained to be () to understand and to analyse the reconciliation of divergent interests related to state forests and the conflicts related to them () to help develop new ways forward in managing the conflicts related to state forestry.

The interview situation took place primarily in the premises of Metsähallitus and the ministries, except for two, of which one took place at the interviewee’s home and the other in a café that the interviewee had proposed. Except for the café, the interviews were carried out in a room where no one could hear the discussion. The typical length of one interview was .5 to hours. All the interviews included in this study were recorded.

Both before and during the interview the informants were told that confidentiality would be secured by not listing the names of the informants in any documents and by carrying out the analysis on such a level that an individual interviewee could not be recognised (e.g. talk about ‘forestry personnel in Kainuu’ or ‘top management’. The list of selected informants was not shown to anyone. In contacting the informants all the emails were sent individually, no group mailings were conducted. However, it became apparent Table 5. Informants categorized by region and by department.

Forestry

Division Natural Heritage

Services Total

Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

Ministry of the Environment

Top management in Metsähallitus (Tikkurila) 5

Kainuu 5 6

Inari 6

Total 5

that the informants themselves had told each other they were being interviewed and often they also introduced me to their colleagues during the visits to the offices.

The interview method used in the study was semi-structured interviews, or more specifically theme interviews. Instead of detailed, pre-determined questions used in structured interviews, the method was based on using more loosely defined themes as the framework of the interview. (Hirsjärvi & Hurme 000, 7–8.) The selected themes were based on the theoretical understanding of conflict management, as well as on existing knowledge on the conflicts and the forest planning by Metsähallitus. The research themes were more detailed than the research questions, yet less fixed than specific interview questions. They acted as a memo for me during the interviews, during which the themes could take the form of different questions. I also formulated some more specific questions around each theme in case the interviewee found it difficult to comment generally on the topic. However, the interviewees were often very conversational and articulate, and few additional questions were required. Not all the themes were relevant for interviewees at all levels of the administration, and the discussions and the way I formulated the questions were adapted according to each interview.

Constructionist epistemology affects the analysis of research material, and this is especially the case with interviews. As Alvesson and Sköldberg (000, 5–68) point out, “data” does not exist without construction and interpretation: interpretation precedes data. Instead of being understood as events for collecting material that is already there, interviews are here understood as a form of interaction in which meaning is constructed.

In theme interviews, the interviewees play a central role in giving meaning and specifying the themes by the way they interpret and emphasise the questions (Hirsjärvi & Hurme 000, 66–67). Mishler (986, 96–05) describes interviews as a form of discourse:

”The interviewer’s presence as a co-participant is an unavoidable and essential component of the discourse, and an interviewer’s mode of questioning influences the story’s production. […] [i]interviewers and interviewees are both aware and responsive to both cultural and research contexts within which a particular interview is located.”

The interviewer interprets what the answers mean, and what further questions are relevant to pursue. The interviewee, in turn, interprets the situation, the behaviour of the researcher, and so forth. All this affects what the interviewee says. Interviewees also often produce their accounts in a politically conscious manner. During the interviews, the informants may observe new meanings or connections between issues, thus developing their descriptions or understanding of events. The researcher, in turn, may propose summaries or interpretations of the informant’s stories, which may then be clarified or denied by the informant. Kvale (997, 89) calls this self-corrective interview. Such a pattern was not uncommon in the interviews carried out for this study. As experts, the informants provided me with their analysis of conflict management in their everyday work, which inspired many lengthy dialogues that contributed to the analysis during the process and affected the following interviews. In-between the interviews I read through the written material and my understanding of the different data evolved as a part of a dialectical process.

From the perspective of the purpose of this study and the analytical methods used (see Chapter 7), it has benefited they study that the interview situations have been interactive. They are examples of argumentative situations where the representatives of the administration choose how to present their organisation’s actions and justify those decisions. In a way, the interview situation is similar to situations the administrators face in conflict management in practice: they cannot be sure of the opinions of their counterpart regarding their organisation or its activities. Indeed, they may suspect some

critical viewpoint (if for other reason but because research tends to be critical) and they need to be politically conscious of what and how they say.

To underline the argumentative nature of the interview situations, the thematic interview strategy was complemented with a “claims approach” (Vesala & Rantanen 999). The interviewees were presented with claims or statements related to the interview themes. The claims were presented in a written form on a piece of paper, in the exactly same form to all the interviewees. The claims did not represent the views of the interviewer, and this was told to the interviewees. Instead, they had been picked from newspaper articles, press releases, research reports or alike related to the topic and touched upon issues that have caused controversy. The interviewees were asked to freely comment on each claim. My role was to ask clarifying questions, but not to engage in the argumentation with the interviewees.

I presented altogether seven claims to the interviewees. The themes, questions and claims that guided the interviews were: