The Micro-Politics of Accessing the Research Participants

Abstract

The paper discusses the politics around accessing the participants in a research project. It is aimed at studying the barriers and the needs of girls to access schooling in the context of post tsunami and the post-war situation in the eastern part of Sri Lanka. The snowballing sampling method was selected for identifying the research participants from two ethnic minorities. Hypothetically, the first round of participants to be identified, were the girls who had not returned to school after the tsunami, and their parents or caretakers. The school records, teachers and principals were recognised as potential sources for identifying and locating these girls. However, in the field, the information on such girls apparently went missing in school records and school stakeholders' evidence. The paper provides various 'cross checking' strategies used to identify and locate the girls and their parents. The access to participants and related information was accomplished through an ethnographic field investigation. It was undertaken through an array of four tasks: i) identifying the names and related information of the girls, ii) locating them and iii) approaching them, as well as iv) engaging them into an interview process. Many issues of micro-politics in the social context of the research site were uncovered and challenged at every step. The micro-politics and discourses (social practices) identified behind this situation were related to reconstruction, conflict and the post disaster environment, socio-cultural beliefs and practices, ethno-political geography and financial manipulations and motivations. Thus, the reasons are one way or the other linked with social, cultural, economic and political power and authority. The paper also discusses how these political realities were handled in this ethnographic and discourse analytic research study.