Data for this research were gathered during two periods. The first concerns data I collected when I was working with OGB between 2002 and 2004. From this time, I draw on documentation as well as email correspondence concerning two case studies featured in the research: the development of proposals for the CBDM project in
Cambodia and the 2003 updating of OGB’s Gender Policy. Knowing that I was going to focus on OGB in my research, I retained what I thought would be important sources of information after I received permission from OGB to conduct my research on the organisation. These included my emails and other electronic files, including initiatives that I worked on, and copies of OGB’s intranet, as made available to staff and
volunteers, on CD. The latter in particular proved invaluable as an institutional record of the organisation’s policies, communications, studies and reports.
The second period includes data I collected as a PhD student and conducting fieldwork between September 2005 and August 2006. This period can be divided into three phases, described in further detail below:
October to December 2005 in Oxfam House
January to June 2006 in Cambodia, which included fieldwork in the RMC in Bangkok in three visits spread over a four-week period
Subsequent to this, I collected data sporadically up until 2011. This consisted of phone interviews as well as archival research for four days at OGB’s headquarters in March 2009.
I initially chose three of OGB’s different planning processes through which to track understandings of gender mainstreaming: country programme planning and review; programme and project design; and annual impact reporting. This approach quickly became unfeasible, for a number of reasons. First, these processes excluded a focus on the involvement of Oxfam House, except the latter, in which headquarters was involved only marginally. Second, my timing was off. During my fieldwork period, the
Cambodian programme was not involved in country programme planning and review, and any project design would have extended beyond my timeframe, with the result that I would perhaps have missed key moments.
What did emerge, as described below, were key events that I could observe, and these became my focus. Events that occurred during my time as Regional Gender Advisor from 2002 to 2004 also came up as relevant to my research, particularly as the
timeframe for the research, 2001 to 2006, took shape. Soon into my research at Oxfam House, it became clear that the arrival of Barbara Stocking in 2001 was relevant to the pursuit of gender mainstreaming, which helped delimit the period of research. As a result, I augmented data collected during my time at OGB as a Regional Gender Advisor by conducting interviews and collecting additional organisational documents, particularly communications, which I previously did not have access to.
As described below, I used a variety of data collection methods including
In-depth, semi structured interviews with key informants from three key sites of Oxfam House, the RMC and the Cambodia country programme with a focus on the CBDM project including current and previous staff, such as former GADU members
Focus group discussions with participants from the CBDM project
Participants observation in all three sites, as described below
Accumulation of organisational, archival and project documentation including policies, reports, proposals and organisational and personal communications in hard and electronic copy
In total 110 informants, 74 women and 36 men, were involved in my research, all of whom I interviewed, sometimes twice, except in the case of CBDM informants, some of whom participated only as focus group discussion participants (see Figure 1). In all cases, informed consent was sought from informants who were briefed of the purpose of the interview or discussion, were asked if the interview could be recorded (except in the case of CBDM research), were allowed to decline or stop the interview without
prejudice and were ensured of their anonymity and confidentiality. Only once was my request for an interview declined, which was later agreed to after repeated requests.
Figure 1 Research participants
Research Site Female Informants Male Informants Total Informants
Oxfam House 28 2 30 RMC 8 8 16 Cambodia Office 9 3 12 CBDM project participants 29 23 52 Total 74 36 110 Oxfam House
During my time at Oxfam House, OGB was in the process of developing its Strategic Plan (2006-2010). This became a focus for my fieldwork at Oxfam House and allowed me to observe different but related processes, including the finalising of OGB’s Gender Equality Strategic Framework (2006-2010) and the development of other thematic plans that were to contribute to the wider organisational strategy as well as to supporting initiatives, such as an organisation-wide system for monitoring, evaluation and learning. While these processes are not included in my thesis, they provided opportunities to observe the links between activities concerning these processes in Oxfam House and other levels, such as regional discussions supposed to feed into the development of the Oxfam International Strategic Plan, which was to serve as a basis for OGB’s Strategic Plan.
During my research at Oxfam House (October to December, 2005; June to July, 2006), I conducted 14 formal interviews31 and participated in meetings of the Corporate
Management Team, the International Directorate Senior Management Team, the most senior body concerning programming, and the Assembly – a biannual, three-day
gathering of volunteers, staff and Council members. I attended staff meetings, briefings, consultations (for example “Have Your Say”) and trainings, such as in gender
mainstreaming and health and safety. When not participating in meetings, I sat with the Programme Policy Team, with the gender and other advisors, reviewing files and other organisational documentation, conducting further interviews and observing goings-on32. When I had the chance, I would sit with people from other departments and visit the few staff I knew outside the Programme Policy Team in their work area. I wanted to create opportunities for casual encounters and informal discussions.
During my period at Oxfam House, I spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out how the organisation went about developing and deciding on its strategic three-year and annual plans. Part of the challenge was that these processes were complicated and very few people had the whole picture (Hannerz, 2003). Even staff who had worked at OGB for more than 10 years said, “If you find out how decisions are made, let me know” (field notes). Planning also tended to change from cycle to cycle and was processual. A senior policy staff person regularly involved with OGB planning processes described them as “more of an art […] there are no clear guidelines […] They go back and forth and then they become policy” (Interview. Wright, 2008).
When I was not interviewing or observing meetings, fieldwork at Oxfam House was mostly uneventful given the nature of work people do at headquarters, much of which is at individual desks and involved communicating through cyber-space. During these
31 I conducted eight additional interviews between 2007 and 2011 of staff who were working or had
worked at Oxfam House, for a total of 22 interviews. These latter interviews were held mainly with former members of GADU, when I needed to complete information garnered about the unit from publications and archival material.
32 I was fortunate to have been at Oxfam House just as it moved to its current location in Cowley. The
new offices had limited space and staff were required to archive or dispose of any documentation they could not accommodate. I inherited documentation from gender advisors that would otherwise have been thrown away.
times, I would be doing other work33 besides my research, but would keep an ear open for conversations and observe staff interactions.
RMC for East Asia
The main reason for me spending time at the RMC was to attend meetings of regional and country-level staff, including those from Cambodia who feature in my case study, and to observe interactions among differently positioned staff. My second aim was to conduct interviews with regional staff: in total, I interviewed 12 staff. Lastly, I wanted to observe what the managers did. I was familiar with their role when I was working as a regional advisor but had spent very little time in the regional office, and my
interactions had been concerned primarily with gender work. So when the Regional Programme Manager invited me to “shadow” him, I took him up on the opportunity. I sat in his office for two weeks, attending meetings with him as well as other activities, such as interviews. This was not a particularly high-value research activity, given its lack of focus, but it was helpful to get a sense of what the Regional Programme Manager did and allowed for numerous informal discussions.
Cambodia country programme office
My research in the Cambodia country office included participant observation,
documentation review and interviews. I regularly attended Senior Management Team meetings as well as meetings of programme staff. I shadowed the National Gender Advisor in her work and observed staff inductions, meetings of the gender network and meetings with project partners. During this period, I held 10 formal interviews34,
excluding those concerned with the Gender Impact Assessment (GIA), discussed below. When I was not in meetings or shadowing staff, I rotated desks so as to be able to sit with different teams. This afforded me opportunities to socialise and hold informal discussions with staff.
Compared with my time at Oxfam House, the fieldwork in the Cambodia office was busy and engaged. This was primarily because of the GIA, but also because of other events that occurred at the time, concerning not only the Cambodia programme but also a number of regional OGB events taking place in Cambodia as well as regional Oxfam
33 This included paid consultancies, such as editing a PhD student’s thesis.
34 All were with OGB staff; except one, which was with a former OGB Hong Kong staff and key
informant on gender issues within OGB in Cambodia given her long history working in the country and with OGB in particular.
International events such as the consultation on the Strategic Plan, in which I participated.
For the most part, the research was conducted in English. At times, however, translation was required, and this was provided by an OGB staff person with whom I had worked since 2002. This was the case in external meetings with organisations with which OGB worked and, as described below, during data collection for the GIA.
Gender Impact Assessment
The GIA was conducted between February and June 2006 and focused on three projects, one of which was the Community-based Disaster Management (CBDM) project in Takeo province, which became a focus for my research. In November 2005, an OGB programme coordinator with the Cambodian office, contacted me, knowing I was planning to be based in the country office. The idea was that, while Cambodian staff would conduct the GIA, it would also be a learning experience for them and one which I would support and facilitate. I worked with four Cambodian staff: three project officers, each responsible for one of the projects being investigated, and one gender officer.
The aim of the GIA was to “assess the effectiveness of gender mainstreaming as a strategy and approach in our programme to achieve gender equity” (Internal document. Gender Working Group, 2006) and had three main questions:
What input has OGB provided to partners to help them to mainstream gender in their organisation and programme?
What changes have been made in the attitudes and actions of partners to address gender inequity?
What changes can be seen in men’s and women’s lives in terms of gender roles and relations?
The rationale was to see what difference OGB had made with partners and in communities, in order to come up with “concrete examples that [staff] can get their heads around [… to provide examples of] the differences that we want to see” (Interview. Smith, 2006).
GIA of the CBDM project
This section describes the part of the GIA that focused on the CBDM project. In total, three of 13 villages where the CBDM project was being implemented were included in the assessment. These were selected mainly based on the knowledge of the OGB staff member responsible for managing the project, using three variables: vulnerability to flood; remoteness from social services such as education and health; and participation of women in village committees for disaster management (VCDMs), as indicated below.
Village Vulnerability to flood Remoteness Women’s participation
Sang Ke Chaur More vulnerable More remote Less active
Bantey Slek More vulnerable More remote More active
Anchang Less vulnerable Less remote More active
A total of 61 participants were interviewed, which included 11 (9 women) VCDM members of a total of 15, and 48 (28 women) beneficiaries out of approximately 300 in the entire project.
We spent six weeks preparing, planning and practising for the assessment. None of the team members, except myself, had previously undertaken field assessments, and everything, from research questions to design, sampling, questionnaires and
methodology, had to be developed. I led much of the preparation and planning, and we held regular team meetings, usually two or three times a week, to review our work and plan the next steps35. During this period, we
Reviewed project documentation to gather information and evidence from project files on the three main assessment questions;
Undertook a sampling exercise, which lasted two days per project, and included a brainstorming and prioritisation of possible sources of information for each assessment question;
Designed questionnaires and interview and focus group discussion guides, pilot- tested them and revised them accordingly;
Developed coding systems for informants to ensure anonymity;
Practised using the tools as well as interviewing protocols and techniques.
Data collection
Data was collected using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs). Generally, the former was reserved for TD staff, members of the project committees established for the project, commune councillors36 as well as village chiefs. They were held usually at the informant’s residence. Efforts were made to conduct interviews at their respective houses in private which was sometimes difficult to negotiate and not always possible. There was little private space to conduct interviews in this manner and other family members would be curious about the meeting. Project beneficiaries, as direct recipients, and project committee members took part in FGDs. FGDs with the former were conducted as single-sex, usually at the house of the chair of the project committee. FGDs of project committee members were mixed-sex and
followed up with individual interviews with key project committee members such as the chair and vice-chair
Sampling of committee members was relatively straightforward where FGDs included those members who were available with all key project committee members being interviewed. Selection of beneficiaries was somewhat less structured and depended on who was available to meet the team as well as a random sampling. Generally, GIA team members were free to randomly choose among those who were available with little interference from project committee members.
Semi-structured interviews and FGDs were based on guides developed for the GIA (see below) and conducted by a team of three staff from the six-person GIA team37
.
Interviewees were informed that I was a PhD student and would use the interviews for my personal research which was separate to that of the GIA and that they would remain anonymous and their answers confidential, and that they were free not to participate or to stop the interview at any time. They were asked for their verbal consent to participate under these conditions.
36
The Commune Council is the lowest tier of Cambodian government.
37 These were all OGB staff, and included the three Project Officers, the Gender Officer, a translator and
myself. Interviews and FGDs were conducted by a team comprised of the Gender Officer and two Project Officers who were not involved in that particular project. The GIA Team decided during the planning that there would be a conflict of interest if Project Officers conducted field work in project areas for which they were working.
Of the 61participants interviewed, I attended interviews and FGDs for 40 informants participating through simultaneous translation. I was introduced as a team member as well as a student collecting data for my own research. On numerous occasions, although I was not leading interviews or discussions, I would ask questions through translation when responses required further clarification or points I was interested in were
explored. This occurred during the discussions but also after the end of the interview as the GIA facilitator would ask if I had additional questions. Often, this would result in an extended discussion that I would lead through translation.
Data collection took about seven to eight days per project, which allowed for two to three days per village. Data collection for the CBDM project was conducted over a 7- day period. FGDs lasted about three to four hours and interviews were usually one to one and a half hours, although they sometimes extended to two hours, particularly if the discussion was prolonged with my questions. Data collection proved more physically exhausting than was anticipated, particularly as a lot of daily travelling was required, sometimes under arduous conditions, by foot or by ox-cart38. Although shortening the time between field visits would have decreased the overall time needed for the assessment, this would have been physically difficult and would ultimately have affected the quality of the assessment.
Two sets of written interview records were kept, one in Khmer, recorded by team members on an alternating basis, and one in English, by me.
Data analysis and report writing
Transcripts were coded and analysed through a two-stage process. First, questionnaires were reviewed and coded as a team. Second, relevant excerpts were translated into English which were then peer reviewed at least twice, with recoding carried out as required. This was augmented with coded data from interview notes in English, based on simultaneous translation, from myself who had attended about half the interviews overall. When discrepancies arose, two sets of notes were reviewed and reconciled by the team including myself to produce a version that was used for analysis. In these cases, the original Khmer version was used as a reference to verify and revise the
38
This was the first time that some of the GIA team members, including myself, had been exposed to such difficult conditions working in remote, inaccessible areas.
English version and I amended my interview notes accordingly with the corrected Khmer-English translation.
Writing of the report was based on the final revised English datasheets and was conducted by two members of the research team, with the final draft reviewed by all team members. I analysed and wrote the report for the CBDM project in English.
The GIA and my field research
The GIA was important to my research. First, it provided raw data from project
participants of their experience with the CBDM project. I used only interview material collected when I had been present and the contents of which I had the chance to verify with respondents as well as with other GIA team members. This included data from 40 informants: 23 men and 17 women. Transcripts from these interviews were re-analysed