The research design selected for my project aligned with a qualitative methodology. In the section explaining my reasoning for selecting Colombia, I addressed why a paradigmatic, most-similar case study design was selected. I also engaged with an ethnographic design. A case study design and ethnography can be complementary. Ethnography is well suited to study culture when the research subject is restricted to an organization. An organization or groups within an organization become the case study.
An ethnographic design allowed me the flexibility to explore the cultural phenomena of gender relations in relation to sport and the capability to do this through the voices of local community members, especially the young female participants (Liamputtong, 2009). I knew from previous work and from relevant literature that experiencing local social pressures was critical in my attempt to understand the participants' lived experiences (Lee-Treweek and Linkogle, 2000; Liamputtong, 2009). This strategy permitted me to place these individual experiences within the framework of micro-, meso-, and macro-social relations. Table 1, Indicators of Transformation(s), shows the categorization of topics and how they were measured. To strategize for my fieldwork, I created this table drawing from themes found in peer-reviewed literature concerning women and sport and Sport, Gender and Development (SGD).
Table 1: Indicators of Transformation(s) Indicator Anticipated
Measurement
Research Method Detail/Example
Language Anecdotal Interviews,
document analysis
What words were used to describe female athletes in the past versus the present? Body posture
and body position
Anecdotal Interviews,
Observation
From Young (2005) and from Brady’s (2005) research in Kenya Access to Space Anecdotal/ documented Interviews, document analysis, observation
Organizational data and observations revealed the number of girls compared to boys participating, where they played and the gendered nature of space. Social roles of girls/boys and women/men Anecdotal/ documented Interviews, document analysis, observation As determined through
interviews and observations. Access to
social networks
Anecdotal Interviews,
observation
Compared the social networks and opportunities of participants to those who did not participate, and to those who participated (or did not) at the beginning. Female
habitus
Documented Document analysis Little data available on issues concerning gender equity such as pregnancy rates, age of first pregnancy, marriage age, and partner’s age.
Education Documented Document analysis Compared gender ratios in
schools, completion rates, and numbers in daily attendance. Female workforce Anecdotal/ documented Interviews, observation, document analysis
Questioned how gender roles have changed (or not) over time inside and outside of the home.
National law Documented Document analysis Researched government policy
and law regarding gender in the workforce and gender-based violence.
Customary law
Anecdotal Interviews,
observation
Discussed and observed the nature of customary law, and the lack of implementation of national law.
The research methods that aligned with my design included interviews, participant observation and document analysis. These methods provided me with a flexible approach to research and allowed for researcher reflection. Specifically, these methods enabled me to devote detailed attention to “local understandings and knowledge” (Kay 2009, p. 1190) and “voices, experiences and meaning-giving processes of the people being studied” (Spaaij, 2011, p. 7).
Interviews
Interviews are a cornerstone of ethnographic research. When conducting an interview, the researcher can interpret the meaning of words with more information, since expressions, body position and tone of voice can be observed (Madden, 2010). As I set out to understand significant experiences in the participant’s lives, interviews were based on the life-history method with a semi-structured and open-ended format. These were ideal interview approaches because they encourage open dialogue and storytelling (Atkinson, 1998). Semi-structured and open-ended interviews allowed me to subtly guide the interview, while giving the participants autonomy to respond at their discretion (Madden, 2010).
All interviews were conducted in Spanish. The same format was used in each interview, but questions were adjusted depending on the background of the participant. The seven interview topics below provide examples of guiding interview questions.
1. Introduction to participant: How long have you lived in this area? Where did you live before? Please describe your role or daily activities. What is your association to sport (and to football)?
2. Introduction to the game: Please paint me a picture (verbally) of the first time you played sports (e.g., time period, location, who was involved, how did it feel, etc.)? What is your relationship to sports (football) today? Is anything different between the first time you played and today?
3. The program: How were you introduced to the organization? What was your experience with the organization? Do you believe it has influenced the community? How? Has it influenced gender relations in the community (for example, the idea of what a young woman can accomplish, or the relations between men and women)?
4. Participation and gender: Is there such a thing as a girl’s sport or boy’s sport? Why and in which sports? Are female and male participants/athletes (e.g. football players) treated the same by the community/society? How did you feel about female football players (past/present)? Are girls who participate in VIDA different from girls who do not, why/not? Has your view always been the same? Can you give me examples? Do you feel that everyone shares your opinion about girls playing sports? Why/why not? Do boys and girls have different toys? Can boys play with girls’ toys? Can girls play with boys’ toys?
5. Perception: What kinds of comments/labels do you use/hear to address female athletes (football players) past/present? What do these words mean? How do you perceive these words and why? How do you believe the community perceives
girls who play football? Can you give me examples? Do you think there have been any changes/issues in your community because of girls’ playing football? What/how?
6. Gender roles in the community: Are there specific roles/expectations girls/boys and women/men fulfill in the community? Are these interchangeable? Have these roles shifted/changed within your lifetime? Can you give me examples? Why do you think they have/have not shifted? How has this impacted your life?
7. Closing: Do you have more stories you’d like to share? Do you have questions for me? May I contact you if I have further questions?
I began my interviews by talking with the organization’s staff members and youth leaders. In both research locations, the emotional distance between the communities and me changed when introduced by an employee of the organization who was one of my gatekeepers. In the safety of the office, a home or on the field, faces lit up with smiles and stories were openly shared. Positive stories dominated conversation as people addressed their challenges; they always remained hopeful. Yet many participants’ responses and questions were minimal; it was only through examples and negotiation that more details flowed; sometimes this was impossible.
Attempts to branch out beyond this group proved challenging because of the location and my security protocol. My interlocutors outside of the program were people I met during my daily routine: social workers, taxi drivers, parents, and shop owners. Many questioned me and what I was looking for. Locals in Chévere have survived a lot of trauma and many do not have a formal education. From our
conversations, it appeared they are rarely asked for their opinion or story. The falso positivo scandal had occurred in this area and areas like it. It is uncommon for outsiders, like me, to enter unless seeking “something.” Although casual conversation was easy and comfortable, once I pulled out my consent forms, many interview participants not connected to VIDA became cold and/or awkward, and some responded that they no longer wanted to chat.
The challenges were different in Bacano. Having been frustrated with the physical distance between my living and working spaces, I questioned moving into a borderline neighborhood located in a safer section on the outskirts of the research neighborhood. However, this potential move made the VIDA employees nervous and the employees (not participants) strongly recommended against it. I respected their request and shared a room in a home owned by a vibrant single Colombian man in a wealthier section of the city. Although I instinctively felt more comfortable in Bacano, my gatekeepers, who were mostly social workers, plus coaches and leaders, were stricter about my security. They walked me everywhere, always double-checked that I arrived safely, and noted any valuables I may have carried. The staff regarded everyone’s safety as a priority. In addition, the maturity of the leaders and the abundance of student social workers meant I continually had someone within sight, but never had to negotiate this space or wonder if they were influencing the interview. The staff encouraged me to take private motorcycles, but I felt taking the bus was an important part of my routine and physically safer. Taxis were five times the cost and would further separate me from the local population.
Finding interview participants in Bacano was as easy as sticking my head out of VIDA’s front door. Instead of searching for people, I had to limit the number of
interviews I could conduct per day. The laissez-faire Costeño attitude created long waiting periods. I vented this frustration in my notes:
In [Bacano] I have found it easy to arrange interviews but hard to pin them down. For example, yesterday I waited for three hours at the university to speak to an academic and was told to call her and maybe meet her the next day. She said she didn’t remember me. I’d had this planned for three weeks. This was the second time I’d waited for three hours. This time I was bounced between offices. They said they didn’t know her, then she’d be there at 2:30, then no, she had class, then 3, then asked is tomorrow okay? (Field notes, Bacano, September)
Interviews in Bacano often required a significant amount of my time talking and texting with locals to organize. Often, the interview would be cancelled.
Purposive sampling
Since the goal of qualitative research is to determine meaning, it was imperative to have participants who were strategically selected. In purposive sampling, individuals are selected because they fulfill specific criteria relevant to the research (Liamputtong, 2009; Bryman, 2015). In my project, interviewees were selected based on two primary conditions: their involvement (or lack of involvement) with the sports program, and the role they held in the community. In this circumstance, most participants could walk from their home to the field in less than 15 minutes, resulting in regular (a few days per week) interaction with the organization. This research required an interview sample from
numerous social demographics. A generic sample of the 60 (30 per location) people interviewed included, but was not limited to, young adults currently participating in the program and over 18 years of age, previously involved or aged-out participants, current and aged out participants' parents, coaches, social workers, shop keepers, and office directors. Interviews were also conducted with people who lived in the community, but did not interact with the organization. To gain perspective on the SDP movement within Colombia, Colombians involved in sport, but not associated with the organization were also interviewed. These participants included professional athletes, female athletes from wealthier social classes, and people involved with the development of SDP in Colombia.
To conduct an interview, I approached the community member, explained my project and asked if they would be willing to informally talk with me for 30 minutes about their experience in the community. Due to the seriousness of the potential topics covered in interviews such as gender and gender identity, the subjects were of legal adult consenting age (18 years). Before the interview began, I asked for informed consent whereby the participant read (or I read to them) and signed my ethics consent agreement document. Written or verbal consent (in situations where the interviewee was illiterate or blind) was mandatory. Ongoing consent was determined verbally during each interview. Participants were not obligated to answer all questions and could stop their involvement at any time. Once the interview was complete, I asked the participants if they had questions for me and if there were any concerns. I also noted that they could withdraw their interview from the project within one month.
Interviews took place within the organization’s office, on the field, in a café, or in the participant’s home. The location was determined by convenience and security. A few
interviews took place in neighborhoods outside of where the organization operates. Many interviews were impromptu. Due to the history of paramilitary and guerrilla groups within these neighborhoods, all participants’ names and information remained strictly confidential. For this reason, pseudonyms are used and ages omitted. Only in circumstances where the person cannot be traced and age reveals a shift in social relations, is the interlocutor’s approximate age revealed.
I maintained interview charts during my fieldwork, generically labeling interview participants by qualification, followed by the interview date. However, I soon found that many interlocutors belonged to multiple categories and created categories for overlapping qualities. For example, many ‘young female non-players’ also qualified as parents. And many grandparents or community members were aunts and uncles of players. Keeping a chart not only allowed me to track my interview numbers and social representations, but it encouraged me to better understand the familial connections and close linkages within the community.
Participant observation
Ethnography “requires the researcher to be actively involved in the field or with the people under study” (Brewer, 2000, p. 21). My research question required immersion. A more accurate term for this is partial immersion, where the researcher works to be well- versed enough in the research location so it is possible to understand the lives from the participants’ perspectives, but to maintain a distance that enables the researcher to objectively analyze the data (Madden, 2010). Drawing on Bourdieu (1990), Madden (2010) argues that the task of immersion is not simple as it depends on many factors that
make up habitus, including the local context, researcher’s character, and participant buy- in; “habitus is not merely a frame that structures behaviour, it is also generative” (p. 88). Through immersion, I intended to find belonging within the organization and to do this I had to learn and consider “matters of comportment, deportment, physical attitude, stance, physical distance, purity and danger, and gender” (Madden, 2010, p. 83). Belonging allowed me to decipher slang, social code, and social customs in various social classes within Colombian culture, and furthermore, to gain trust and build relationships with community members. But finding my footing in Colombia was more challenging than expected. The class system is strict and I found myself between two distinct social worlds that did not interact: my working world and my home world.
To begin my partial-immersion, I spent my first month living with a Colombian family. The family identified as holding traditional Colombian values: they were Catholic; the mother was responsible for cleaning the home and cooking meals; the father worked outside the home and provided much of their income; their children were expected to live in their home until marriage (the oldest unmarried son was in his mid- 30s). Their self-identified socio-economical status was middle class, or third out of the six-tiered class system created by the Colombian government. To them, this meant they lived a modest and simple lifestyle, which included economic security and a holiday home in the mountains.
I lived in their daughter’s bedroom and in many ways, I became her stand-in. I attended family events, social gatherings, and business meetings. I shopped with the mother and listened to her opinions on my beauty flaws and the Colombian expectations of beautification. I read the newspaper with the father and practiced cultural cues, such as
hand gestures and facial expressions. I shared with them my daily wins and frustrations. By living with a local family, I learned about the class system as they knew it, but I also began to understand how fear is developed and reproduced as social stigma.
The daily interactions I had with my family reinforced the critical element to my research: ethnography. I had little autonomy under their care, mostly because of my gender but also due to Colombia’s political climate and my host family’s life experiences. I never left their home without sharing my destination, with whom I would travel or meet and their details, and my hour of return. Although at times it felt suffocating and unnecessary to share minute details concerning my whereabouts, it was critical in their eyes. I noted my frustration in my journal where I wrote that my host family’s eagerness to protect me translated into total dependence: I could not take a taxi alone, go to an automatic teller machine, and even though I gave them an employee’s name and contact details, the mother accompanied me to my first formal meeting and the father drove us. The mother came inside the office and pretended to sleep in an adjacent chair while I discussed my project. On another occasion, I wrote:
My indoctrination into being a Colombian woman is fun, infuriating, and constantly testing my patience. My looks and clothing are scrutinized (this affects my eating habits and exercise habits; I’m too skinny so salads and running are minimized). Every day I learn more about my physical faults and how to improve them to Colombian standards. Most testing, is my lack of autonomy in decision- making. Every question is a statement, for example:
Sarah: No, but thank you very much for the offer! Host mother: But coffee is delicious!
Sarah: Thank you, but I don't drink much coffee and I'm good, thanks. Host mother: But I made you coffee already and it's in a really cute mug! Sarah: um…
Host mother: So, here's your coffee. Sarah: Thank you!
More pertinent to my gender-based research question, however, was the everyday discussion on beauty, whereby my clothes, shoes, jewelry, hair, and make-up (or lack of) were scrutinized. Firsthand I felt and observed the Colombian ideals and social pressures of beautification. For example, I frequently woke up to the mother smiling and giggling as she handed me a homemade facemask to use before showering. Another example took place during my first week in Colombia. I went to the beauty salon in Bogotá with my host mother. I had a scheduled meeting at five with a male Colombian researcher. It is out