5. Collecting and Analyzing Ethnographic Data
En este aposento que soy yo mi realidad (la cotidiana)
… realidad (la cotidiana) es un jadeo apenas
que se extingue.50 Claribel Alegría
Ethnography and the Socially Constructed World
In ethnographic research, researchers constantly compare and analyze what they see and observe with the aim of making the lives, experiences and thoughts of the particular group studied intelligible to the reader. The nature of research also includes comparison in the light of one’s own experiences and ideas (Gay y Blasco and Wardle 2007: 3-5). In this study, I aim to create a dialogue between the social and the subjective. Since ethnography as a method is inductive, holistic and multifactorial, I felt it to be the best method to approach the subject of this research. I also wanted to be able to emphasize the social interactions that occurred within the groups of students and their communities, and ethnographic research provides the tools to do this. As Angrosino (2007: 15) notes:
Ehnography deals with people in the collective sense. It studies the people in organized groups; communities or societies and examines the distinctive way of life of such group,
50 In this room that is me my reality (the quotidian) … reality (the quotidian) is barely a gasp that dies out.
59 its culture, through the examination of shared behaviors, customs and beliefs. Participant observation places the researcher in the midst of the community studied, in direct contact with the people whom participate in the research. The dialogic nature of ethnographic method also places the conclusions and interpretations of the researcher under scrutiny of those studied in the research even as the interpretations and conclusions are only being formed.
Hence, the analysis of the data collected and the process of collecting it are already constructions of the socially constructed world. The results presented in this study have traveled through the lens of the researcher, in this case myself, and are as such a co-construction of my interpretations, the voices of the participants and the social interactions I had with them. During the data gathering in 2012 I spent most of the weekdays at the universities with the students. In some cases, I was allowed to observe classes and lectures, and part of the days I spent time in the cafeterias and public areas of the universities, where I also discussed with several students who did not directly take part in this study. In my previous visits in 2010 and 2011 I also lived in the homes of local students. During the time I spent in the field in Nicaragua I also took part in several leisure time activities. Some of them took place on the campuses, some of them in the family home of the students. I also participated in everyday tasks such as applying for an ID card, going to church, buying groceries, visiting grandparents, nights out with friends, football games, and different types of social gatherings with many of the students who participated in this study. I also took part in cultural events and social gatherings in the local communities. I kept field notes of the discussions that took place and my observations, I collected newspaper articles, and listened to the local radio. Later when I returned to Finland, I followed the local Nicaraguan news, radio and social media groups online on a daily basis.
Some of the activities I participated in turned into surprising situations, such as an invitation to paint graffiti in a deserted lot in Managua, an event interrupted by the local police. As Geertz (1973: 412-437) describes in his classic anthropological essay “Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,” a researcher conducting ethnographic study may end up in unforeseen situations that can sometimes help create confidence between the researcher and the informants. In my case, participating in leisure time activities was crucial in gaining the confidence of the students. Hence, the ethnographic method gave me access to information I most likely would have not been able to gather had I solely conducted interviews. The experiences I describe throughout this study are all based on my field notes.
60 Since ethnographic research requires the researcher to be in somewhat constant interaction with the people studied, considerations of ethics are important. Doucet and Mauthner (2002: 122-129) suggest that one way of building an ethical research relationship with both readers and users of the research, is to be transparent on the epistemological, ontological, theoretical and personal assumptions that inform the research and to pay special emphasis to these in the analysis. In the previous chapters I sought to give a clear view of the background of this study, as well as my aims and my personal value standpoint.
I have also aimed to remain reflexive and transparent during the data analysis process, as well as when presenting my results. When informing the participants of this research I followed the checklist presented by Kuula (2011: 102). All the participants were informed of the objectives of this study and they had a chance to ask questions about my background, my personal interest in the subject studied and the way the material of this study would be used. The material is only used in this study, and the anonymity of the participants is respected. Ethnographic studies often use pseudonyms. Due to the political situation of the country I chose to use numeric codes to eliminate speculations about who has participated. I also chose to use numeric codes to clarify which respondent I am siting.
When discussing my analysis of the ethnographic data it should be kept in mind that there is no single strategy for the analysis (e.g. Gibbs 2007).In ethnographic research, data analysis is not something that only begins once the data collection is complete (Davies 2008: 231). Thus, my analysis was in a way ongoing in the form of field notes along with my previous experiences of Nicaraguan society when I began the steps described here. My first step was to organize the data in categories that could be described, following Davies (2008: 234), as low-level theoretical concepts for classifying the data, drawn from my research questions and observations during my fieldwork. My aim was to maintain a critical reflexive perspective on the theoretical concepts that guided the development of these early concepts. In the case of my study, the early working concepts were generation, gender, youth and generational experiences, but as already mentioned, during my research I moved toward a broader framework.
As Angrosino (2007: 68) points out, researchers conducting ethnographic research in the field should remember that they are not in control of all the elements in the research process. The attempt is to capture life as it is being lived, and hence “we must be aware that things that might appear meaningful to us as outsiders might or might not be equally meaningful to the people who live in the community being studied.” I am sure that if a Nicaraguan university student wrote this study, there would be differences in the interpretations made. The experiences of the people interviewed are always far more
61 complex than can be written here. However, my aim is to discuss the topics that arose from my material as truthfully and as transparently as possible. In the following section I describe the research settings of this study.
62 The Research Setting: Conducting Research among Nicaraguan University Students
Adult youth researchers constantly face a research setting that is something that they themselves used to be, namely young. Thus, when carrying out such research, it is intriguing to reflect on our own memories. In my case, Nicaragua is a familiar country to me since my childhood. This helped me in my research, but it also forced me to constantly reflect on how I interpret my material in order to keep clear what parts of my interpretations might have been affected by my own memories. Having conducted fieldwork in the country for my master’s thesis I was quite familiar with the schedule of the students and the universities. But despite this, conducting interviews and surveys for a doctoral dissertation involved challenges. Most of the universities were not interested in helping me with my project, and it proved to be difficult to even get onto the campuses of some of the private universities, especially Universidad Centro Americana (UCA). Due to security issues, all the universities have armed guards at their entrances. I could come and go without any problems on the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua (UNAN) and Universidad Agraria (UNA) campuses, since some of the deans of the universities had offered me their support. I got onto the UCA campus once, and on other occasions I waited outside the campus entrance to talk to the students. In all the private universities, mainly UCA, Universidad Politécnica de Nicaragua (UPOLI) and Universidad de Ingeniería (UNI), some of the students took an interest in my study, and introduced me to their fellow students, which gave me access to the campuses.
The two focus group discussions at UNAN Managua were organized in very different ways. The first of the group interviews was made during a leisure time activity for medical students that was organized at the university campus. I had been invited by a student who had already participated in an interview with me and wanted me to have a chance to get to know some of her classmates. When I arrived, I was greeted by a student’s representative. I told him I would like to conduct a focus group discussion with some of the students. He promised to assist me with the matter right after he first resolved a more pressing issue: one of the performers at the event had canceled at the last minute, and 200 students were sitting and waiting. I was accompanied by a friend of mine, who mentioned I was a professional dancer.
Before I knew it, I found myself onstage in front of a crowd of students, doing an improvised salsa show. First I felt worried how the students would respond, and was concerned whether my credibility as a researcher would be compromised. Could I conduct the interviews as I had planned and was my conduct even ethical?
63 In fact, it turned out well. Many of the students discussed with me in an easier manner after having seen me dance, and the event created several new contacts, who later invited me to take part in other activities and allowed me to observe their everyday lives. When later thinking about the ethics of the matter, I realized that it was important to keep clear which of the students knew of my profession, since later in the interview process some of the students brought up questions related to musical genres such as reggaeton, one of my main fields as a professional dancer. The students who discussed the theme with me, and are cited in this study, did not know of my profession. Situations such as these were certainly not the first ones that came to my mind when I prepared for fieldwork, yet the events and interactions the researcher faces in the field often come as a surprise and provide valuable information.
As an ethnographer who studies young people it is quite easy to make connections with one’s own experiences of youth. I aimed to avoid this since, as Biklen (2004: 715-730) points out, narrations linked to the researcher’s own youth and memories of it often authenticate the author’s speaking positions and this may lead to ignoring power relations between adults and the young. Since one of my goals is to give voice to the students’ experiences I have aimed to use their own words as often as I can and cite what they told me. The next sections present the population of the study, my research methods and my timetable.
64 6. Fieldwork and Data Collection
El que tiene más galillo siempre traga más pinol.51 Popular Nicaraguan Frase
Population of the Study
This study is based on ethnographic material collected in Nicaragua during several periods of fieldwork from 2008 to 2016. The first interview data was collected in 2009 for my master’s thesis (Pääkkönen 2011a); it is used in this study as secondary material mainly when I refer to the results of the thesis. The interviews analyzed in this study were conducted in 2012. The specific group investigated in this study are Nicaraguan university students born between 1980-1997 who were studying at the time of the data collection.
The intention of this study is not to provide a picture of all Nicaraguan youth, but rather to concentrate specifically on the experiences of university-level students. Interruptions in studies are common due to changes in family situations as well as for economic reasons, and for this reason the age range of the participants is quite broad. The research participants represented all departments of the country, and there were participants from both public and private universities.52 In total I conducted 305 survey interviews, 17 individual in-depth interviews and two focus group discussions, one with five and one with 12 participants. Specific details of the survey participants are presented in Table 1. Details of the in-depth interview and focus group participants are presented in Table 2. Specific information of the province and university of the participants are mentioned in the analysis where relevant for the topic discussed. A table of the interview participants is found in Appendix 2.
51 A Nicaraguan saying that translates as: “The one who has a big uvula always swallows more pinol,” meaning that people who speak most convincingly usually get what they want.
52 UNAN and UNA are public universities, the rest are private with UPOLI, UCA and UNI the biggest in the private sector.
65 The number of survey responses corresponds quite accurately with the population of each province and the size of the universities, with Managua being the most populated province in Nicaragua, and UNAN being the largest university in the country. To create a specific context for the survey interviews it would have been ideal to have had specific data on the number of university-level students in Nicaragua. Unfortunately, since the university network of the country is extremely fragmented, many private universities do not follow any specific requirements, and dropping out and returning to studies is very common, it is impossible to have a completely reliable set of data.The biggest universities in the country belong to the Consejo Nacional de Universidades (CNU), a governing organization of higher education. CNU estimates that the 10 universities that belong to the organization have approximately 114,000 students. How this is estimated or any other information is not available (CNU 2017).
66 Research Methods
My fieldwork methods included a survey questionnaire, in-depth interviews, group discussions, participant observation and field journals. The data are, to date, the most comprehensive material collected on Nicaraguan university-level students. The survey and all the interviews and discussions were conducted in Spanish. Due to my background, I am fluent in Nicaraguan slang and dialect and therefore I had no trouble discussing with the students. As mentioned before, I chose to use several different fieldwork techniques to gain a deeper understanding of the students’ experiences. The methods are not considered in a hierarchical manner, as one supplementing the other; they are instead seen as complementary.
Empirical materials were collected through individual and focus group discussions and a survey interview in Nicaragua’s three leading university cities: Managua, León and Estelí. The autonomous RAAN and RAAS regions have two universities, Universidad de las Regiones Autónomas de la Costa Caribe Nicaragüense (URACCAN) and Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University (BICU). Despite my attempts to contact the universities to gain permission to conduct interviews on their campus, I received no word from them. However, there were 5 participants who were from the RAAN and RAAS area, but had moved to other areas of the country to study. Yet, conducting further research specifically in the Atlantic coast area would have been extremely interesting. The data were collected in Nicaragua from May 2012 to August 2012. During the entire data gathering, I paid attention not only to what was said, but also how the participants said what they said: emotions, expressions, tones of voice and other nonverbal communication were recorded in my field notes. I kept a field journal in which I recorded my observations on every visit I made to Nicaragua from 2008 to 2016. The fieldwork timetable is presented in Table 3
Survey questionnaire
The gathering of the responses for the survey questionnaire was started in May 2012 from Finland. My Nicaraguan friends took the survey forms to UNAN and UCA campuses where they could be returned anonymously to a box. From there I received the sealed interviews or directly from my friends at the campus, who passed on the forms to me when I arrived in June 2012 to continue the survey. I delivered the rest of the surveys myself and they were returned directly to me. At the UNAN, UNI, UPOLI and UCA campuses I had direct contact with the students who participated; at the UNA campus a faculty member assisted me in finding participants. In all cases participation was voluntary. The students
67 studying in other universities were found through students who had already participated. Many participants took an interest in the study and shared the information with their friends or brought their friends to meet me to take part in the survey.
In the survey questionnaire, the respondents were asked questions about Nicaraguan society and politics, the history of the country, their studies, the meaning of concepts such as feminism and gender equality, and situations in which they had encountered discrimination or exclusion, and the reasons they believed were behind this discrimination. The questions were derived from the observations of my previous fieldwork periods in Nicaragua in 2008-2011, the results of existing research, the questions that arose from the results of my master’s thesis, my field notes from my previous visits to the country, and from the comments from online discussions my article about the political situation of Nicaraguan youth published in Confidencial Digital in 2011 provoked (Pääkkönen 2011b). The survey form is found in Appendix 1.
Table 1. Survey Participants: gender, year of birth, university, and province.
Survey: total number of participants 305.
68
Table 2. Individual Discussion and Focus Group Discussion Participants
Individual discussions: total number of participants 17.
Female Male Year of Birth
7 10 1986-1992
Focus group discussions
Group 1. University: UNAN Managua Group 2. University: UNAN Managua
Female Male Year of birth Female Male Year of Birth
2 3 1989-1991 3 9 1986-1992
Table 3. Fieldwork Periods and Visits to Nicaragua 2008-2016 53
2008 May-June Preliminary fieldwork for master’s thesis
2009 June-August Fieldwork for master’s thesis: thematic interviews 2010 June –July Fieldwork during the master’s thesis writing process
2011 June Visit and field work
2011 Dec – 2012 Jan Preliminary fieldwork for dissertation data collection
2012 May-August Dissertation data collection: survey and interviews
May – June 2012 Survey
July- August 2012 Interviews and focus group discussions
2013 July Visit and field work during the dissertation writing process 2014 May Visit and field work during the dissertation writing process 2014 Dec – 2015 Jan Visit and field work during the dissertation writing process 2016 July Visit and field work during the dissertation writing process
The students were given the choice to answer the survey anonymously, but were asked to leave their
The students were given the choice to answer the survey anonymously, but were asked to leave their