Analysis and interpretation of findings from Phase 1: Pilot Study

The data analysis procedure used to analyse the collected materials is thematic coding analysis. A detailed account of the process of data analysis and interpretation was examined in detail in Chapter 3, section 3.8. The emerging themes, sub-themes, and related categories were derived, revisited and evaluated by the researcher during the pilot study phase and during the subsequent analysis. In addition, the transcribed interviews were sent by email back to the participant to read and check for inaccuracies and misinterpretations.

Once the informants confirmed the researcher‘s transcription to be truthful, and any misinterpretations corrected, thematic coding was carried out by the researcher using the qualitative data analysis software NVivo 11, as previously stated. As the researcher did the transcribing and translation from Bulgarian to English herself, it was felt necessary for the informants to confirm the Bulgarian transcriptions to minimise the chance of possible misconception and misunderstanding of the written data. The casual conversations and the observations were transcribed mainly from memory and from firework notes written in the

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researcher‘s research diary. The unstructured interviews were recorded with a digital audio-recording device after the interviewee granted explicit permission.

In this section, an example of the thematic analysis and interpretation of findings is included to exemplify the improvements and modifications of the emergent design. Table 7, Table 8 and Table 9 show examples of the themes and categories derived from the analysis of the pilot study data. Segments of text are used to demonstrate each main themes, their related sub-themes and categories. These are quotations shown in single spaced, italicised text, with the anonymised name (in brackets) of the interviewee to whom a particular quote is attributed. The structure of presentation follows the research sub-problems, starting with Table 7 illustrating Sub-problem 1: the interrelationship of work and leisure; then Table 8 showing Sub-problem 2: Gender power relations within Sofian society; and finally, Table 9 shows themes related to Sub-problem 3: Leisure as identity creation and self-express.

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Table 7: Thematic analysis and particular examples related to Sub-problem 1 Main

‗Partying‘ is a central/ core leisure activity

Continuity of leisure habits in the life course

‘I decide for myself what I want to do, or sometimes what I don’t want to do.’ (Silvia)

‘I love going out with my friends and hang out, it doesn’t really matter what we do...I don’t have a hobby or a passion for something….’ (Milena)

‘I’m sick of that, sometimes I just want to do whatever I want, whenever I want, without caring for anyone or anything else.’ (Silvia)

‘I love meeting new people and being surrounded by a lot of friends. Now, that I think about it, I’m an absolute party animal, I love going out and going to parties. I’ve done it all my life…’ (Yana).

‘Well, when I was a teenager I loved listening to old school hip-hop and rap music and going to parties. I still do, of course.’ (Milena)

Work is both an obligation and a necessity

Work is central to women’s lives Conflicting roles of work and leisure

‘I have no choice, I have to work and sometimes I hate it, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, I like my job and I like having financial independence.’ (Yana)

‘Work is very important for me at the moment. I don’t know whether it’s going to stay that way in the future…and I don’t have another major thing that would come first ether so…’ (Silvia)

Women’s interpretation of their financial well-being:

Work as an expression of status and identity

Work as personal power

‘I earn enough money to get by and have a normal life. I remember when I was younger and I had no money and I wanted to do all sorts of things but didn’t have the cash…it sucked.’ (Silvia)

‘I’ve always wanted to work, to earn money. I’m a doer’

(Yana)

‘I’ve learned that earning money is hard but if you really enjoy your work and you aim at building a career that can be very satisfactory and powerful feeling, you know.’

(Milena) Work has a damaging effect on

women’s general well-being:

Unregulated working hours Work overload

Work is physically and mentally exhausting Exploitation

Women are overburden by work tend to disregard their well-being and personal health

’Before I started working for the company I now work in, I used to work other full-time jobs with fixed work hours from 9 am to 5 pm, but now we are so busy that my social life is suffering cause I stay late at the office all the time. Before I used to go out every day, except, say, Thursday and Sunday and now I go out only at the weekends”. (Milena) ‘During the week, after work I usually have dinner and immediately go to bed, I just don’t have strength left for anything else.’ (Yana)

‘During the week, I try to relax after work; mostly at home because I’m just too exhausted to do anything else….still, if I have some physical strength left, I would meet with friends because this is what makes me happy…’(Silvia) ‘They exploit you. They take from you, but do not give back in return.’ (Silvia)

Source: Author‘s work

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Table 8: Thematic analysis and particular examples related to Sub-problem 2

Theme Sub-theme and related

‘When I met my now ex-boyfriend Nasko, my social life ended. My mom used to call him ‘the young grandpa’, because all he wanted to do was stay at home and watch TV. So yeah, when we became a couple I stopped going out and this lasted for 3 years.’ (Yana)

‘We never went out with my girlfriends, or if we did it was for an hour or so, and then he would want to leave. So naturally, when we broke up, everything went back to the way it was before. We split up 5 years ago.’ (Yana)

‘My first year in university I met my ex-husband and I used to spend all my leisure with him.’ (Silvia)

Perceptions about The

‘I believe that you can always combine both (career and leisure). There are a lot of women who do it. My boss for instance has two kids and she is always the first one in the office and the last one to leave. I don’t know how she does it…’(Silvia).

‘Women are expected to cook and clean, but most of all to have children, that is what I think. I wonder, where it’s written that a woman should necessarily have children.

But that’s society for you.’(Milena)

‘To work, to marry and have children and be pretty.’

(Silvia)

‘Sometimes I feel pressure even from my mom, she’s always on the go; always running around taking care of stuff, and she’d blame me for not having done the dishes or cleaned my apartment. I feel judged all the time. It’s like I haven’t done anything right, in her opinion.’ (Yana) Women’s perceptions about

‘I think that nowadays, women can be considered equal with men in professional aspect. I mean, we work and they work too.’ (Milena)

‘This is what I’ve learned so far in terms of work. You can still be successful and grow in a workplace without working yourself to the bone as I’ve done in the past. You must not disregard yourself and your personal needs.

They exploit you here. They just want more and more from you, but don’t give you anything in return”). I’ve left the office physically and mentally exhausted so many times…’

(Silvia)

‘Frankly speaking, I spend most of my salary on leisure. I had a chat with my colleagues at work the other day and we decided that our way of life is a bohemian one: we celebrate life, we cherish it, we go to the clubs, the bars the restaurants.’ (Milena)

‘I work so that I can afford leisure. I mean isn’t that the one of the most important things. I’m so busy these days that all I want to do is to enjoy myself, weather with friends or with my boyfriend.’ (Yana)

‘I still party hard.‘(Silvia)

Source: Author‘s work

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Table 9: Thematic analysis and particular examples related to Sub-problem 3

Theme Category and especially with the girls, I still want to go out and go wild...

I stay at home sometimes, but if I’m not too tired I would definitely go out.’ (Silvia)

‗If being with my friends is a hobby then that’s my hobby because it’s the one thing that makes me feel good. I don’t cook or participate in any sport activity and I don’t do scrapbooking.’ (Milena)

‘During the week I try to stay at home and rest, I’ll get together with friends if I have some strength left, because this is what makes me happy. During the weekend I’d try to have as much fun as possible, go dancing or to a party.

When the weekend comes, it’s like a holiday. That’s so important to me, if I don’t go out, I’ll go crazy.’ (Yana) Leisure activities

‘I mean I used to love playing volleyball, but I haven’t played in years. I don’t have the motivation I guess. After I’ve done all the household chores I just want to lie down and watch TV or just go to bed. Sometimes I wish I could just leave it all, but that’s not how life works. (laughs)’

(Milena)

‘I snowboard. I’m not a pro, but I love it, and that’s the most important thing, isn’t it. I learned a few years ago and now I snowboard every winter as much as I can.’

(Yana)

‘I usually go for drinks after work in the park, or

sometimes on a Friday when I’ve finished all the chores.

It’s what I do when the weather is good. My boyfriend does it all the time as well. He loves just sitting on a bench in the park and drinking beer. It’s nice the first couple of times, but after a while I get bored and want to do something else.’ (Silvia)

‘I used to go to these classes, like yoga or spinning but I stopped. I do not know, I just can’t get myself to start again. Maybe I should, I’ve gained a few kilos lately.’(Silvia)

Source: Author‘s work

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Throughout the pilot study fieldwork, the researcher used the research journal to write down her methodological decisions and reflect upon other related personal and practical dilemmas connected to the research process. The methodological logs centred upon data collection methods and refinement of the sub-problems. Regular entries were made to record casual conversations, dates, times and other occasions that the researcher deemed relevant to the research process. In particular, the researcher focused on self-reflexive accounts of her experience as a researcher and her encounters with the participants (refer to Chapter 5, section 5.2). The methodological entries were usually made after an encounter with the participant or a scheduled interview session. The personal logs were made daily, as the researcher carried out daily observations, had conversations and meetings with some of her friends and other potential participants. Below some of the issues and difficulties encountered arising from the pilot study are discussed. The first person narrative is used to exemplify the reflexive thought of the investigator.

Issues of interviewing friends: The inexperienced researcher

On 21^st March at 7 pm, I visited my friend Milena at her home. Firstly, I thought it would be easy to interview her, because we knew each other from high school and never lost touch.

We have been friends for quite a long time and we have shared experiences, feelings and thoughts. However, I felt a bit nervous and unprepared, as I realised I did not know much about her even though I consider her a good friend. Naturally, I thought it would be easy to ask her all types of questions and our conversation would produce food for thought and the communication would run smoothly. However, I quickly gathered that despite our long-standing friendship I did not feel comfortable asking her personal questions for fear of upsetting her. For example, I knew her father had passed away when she was a teenager but I did not know how long ago or in what circumstances, or if and how it affected her.

Moreover, I thought that it would not be appropriate to ask her such questions now because I did not want to case her emotional pain or make her to feel uncomfortable. Therefore, I

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decided to avoid any questions related to her father‘s passing. Luckily for me, this grim topic has very little to do with the topic of leisure. It came up, when we were sitting comfortably in her bedroom and just talking about the past, before the actual interview took place. I realised after the interview was over that I must be able to ask questions like that and not feel uncomfortable or shy, because in the future it might be necessary. Apart from that, the conversation went smoothly, without tension and we talked in a friendly, honest manner. Her relaxed posture, clear and steady voice and body language indicated she was unsuspicious of me and answered truthfully and clearly.

Linguistic and translation issues

As the data collection is carried out in Bulgarian (source) language and translated into English (target) language, problems of linguistic character occurred. Temple and Young (2004) argue that translation dilemmas occur in qualitative research, which have representative and epistemological implications for the process and trustworthiness of research. In this part of the thesis, these issues are addressed starting with identifying the translation act and acknowledging the fact that the researcher and translator is one and the same person – the researcher herself. Some translation issues are out of the researcher‘s control as conceptual equivalence across languages is an ‗unsolvable problem‘, Phillips (1960:291) argues. He points out that ‗almost any utterance in any language carries with it a set of assumptions, feelings, and values that the speaker may or may not be aware of but that the field worker, as an outsider, usually is not‘ Phillips (1960:291). For instance, in Bulgarian academic literature and language the concept of ‗leisure‘ (spelled in Cyrillic:

‗свободно време‘, abbreviated: СВ) denotes primarily the ‗free-time‘ part of the conceptualisation of the term in English. In fact, in Bulgarian literature, the term ‗бюджет на времето‗(БТ) or ‗time budget‘ (TB) is primarily associated with the term leisure and it is defined by how much time a person or a group of people spend in a day, week, month, or year for a particular activity. The ‗time budget‘ term includes the interconnection and interaction of all human activities that are being done in a period of time. Most scholars

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classify these interactions and social activities in five broad categories: work time; after work time; times spent in work-related activity/interaction; time spent at home or doing housework;

satisfaction of personal and physiological needs. This means that the concept have been perceived mainly from a quantitative perspective, as an amount of time that can be measured and have predominantly positive connotation. Moreover, the gender dimension is also ignored. Therefore, the process of gaining comparability of meanings in this case is greatly facilitated by the researcher (in this case also the translator) having not only ‗a proficient understanding of a language‘ but also, as Frey (1970) puts it, an ‗intimate‘

knowledge of the culture. Only as an insider, can the researcher pick up the full implications that the term leisure carries for the women under investigation and make sure that the cultural connotations of such a word are made explicit to the readers.