Doing the fieldwork: techniques, concepts and processes

An array of qualitative research methods have been employed in data gathering. The methods included biographical interviews, focus group interviews, semi- structured interviews and non participant observations.

It would be worthwhile to begin from pointing to some general aspects related to qualitative research techniques. As it was argued earlier, grounded theory is associated with qualitative methods. Its emphasis on lived experiences and individual subjectivities presupposes a qualitative investigative approach. The main advantages of such an approach are well known: it gives participants opportunity to express themselves and allows researchers to gather rich data (see e.g. Plummer, 2001). However such data cannot be generalised statistically and applied to wider populations. Moreover, certain qualitative research techniques have their own advantages and limitations. For example, while biographical interviews can reveal individual stories, their content can be highly subjective and contain personal bias. Other employed research techniques such as focus group interviews also carry strengths and limitations: participants might be reluctant to reveal closely guarded facts of personal biography in focus group interviews, however they can engage with participants and express opposing or complimentary views (Larsen et al., 2005). Semi-structured interviews may overlook individual nuances, but can assist in identifying specific mechanisms, policies, facts, etc. Finally, ethnographic notes may be too closely associated with personal styles of researchers, however they add insights which participants may not be willing to express. These are known generalities of labour migration research (see for example Boyle et al., 1998). More specific examples have been identified in my own experience of fieldwork.

The largest segment of empirical data has been generated through biographical interviews. The biographical method was particularly useful in reconstructing migrants’ life stories: learning why participants arrived to Northtown, how their experiences in Northtown have changed, etc. During biographical interviews, I

have always tried to encourage participants to speak about migratory living and recollect events and episodes meaningful to their stories of settlement in Northtown. Although the questions were not asked in a strict linear chronological order, i.e. using the departure from home countries as a starting point, their overarching aim was to reconstruct individual biographies paying specific reference to the migration process, arrival to Northtown and socio-economic experiences which followed the settlement in this locality.

In contrast, focus group interviews with other participants could not reveal similarly rich level of biographical information and thick description. However, focus groups interviews were suitable to cover specific issues such as the views of employment relations, the manifestations of racism in Northtown and the access to public services. Furthermore, bringing Northtown’s migrants together and posing them questions, facilitated in stimulating the generation of negotiated and interpersonal data, where participants would agree and disagree, compliment and reject the views of others. Hence while lacking the richness of biographical data, the focus group interviews allowed participants to debate and share their perceptions and experiences, which in turn complimented the data gathered through biographical interviews.

The third key research technique was semi-structured interviews. This technique was particularly useful with the representatives of statutory and voluntary agencies; the main purpose of those interviews was not to reconstruct biographical histories (although it eventually happened in the cases of two migrant representatives), but to learn how their organizations were outreaching and providing support to migrants as well as to get more general information on migrants in Northtown. Notably, some of those interviews have had also an explicit biographical angle: in the case of two support groups I have asked their representatives – a Kosovar Albanian and Georgian men, to talk about their biographical experiences of migration.

The fourth technique was represented by ethnographic observations. The observations were undertaken in various public, private and community sites: the Catholic Church during the Easter mass conducted in Polish language, the meetings

of migrant mothers/children in a local community centre, the visit to a shop stuffed with CEE goods and run by Russian-speaking migrants. Moreover, following the logic of grounded theory and the call of Charmaz (2006) to report and code everything relevant to data gathering, I did not limit myself to recording observations in enclosed community environments. I took notes over the conditions of migrants’ homes, reflected and took notes on public space, etc: for example, paying attention to numerous posters directed against racism, which were displayed in the hallways of a local secondary school.

While the study’s methods and sampling technique evolved, theoretically it maintained the intention to examine how individual migrants and their family members were dealing with the challenges of living and working in a particular locality in the UK. It firmly positioned the study within the various frameworks tackling the relation between agency and structure. In this study, the dimension of agency referred to individual or family based actions, whilst the dimensions of structure covered migration regulatory regimes, the labour market segmentation and the ethnic divisions. The understanding of agency adapted here goes back to the tradition of symbolic interactionism, where actors are seen not as isolated individuals, but conscious agents embedded within social reality surrounding them (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998). This understanding allowed treating individual biographical narratives as storylines which contained elements both associated with individual autonomous choices and structural impositions. Such perspective is in line with the debates on agency and structure: among social theorists of various persuasions there is an explicit recognition that agency and structure are inter- dependent: for instance, in Giddens’ (1984) theory of structuration, agency and structure are mutually constitutive and inseparable, while Archer (1996) argues that the relation between structure and agency should be seen in terms of autonomous interplay. Archer (1996) argues that such understanding gives greater value to both properties, particularly to agency: actors not only form an indispensable unity with structure, but they can change or/and transform structures.

Those considerations in social theory could be linked with the practicalities of the research process. The literature on the relation between research methodology

and migration studies suggests that qualitative techniques, particularly biographical method are the most suitable in understanding the interaction between structure and agency in the migration process (Boyle et al, 1998).

More generally, Plummer (2001, p.40-41) argues against what he calls the amputation of structure and agency in sociology and makes a broader point suggesting that ‘the perspective (or point of view) of life history research, however can be the totality of the biographical experience…It is quite mistaken to see life histories as thoroughly individualistic – lives move persistently through history and structure’. Echoing Plummer (2001), Erel (2009, p.5) suggests that ‘life-stories are important vantage point for exploring the links between subjectivity and social structure’. Various forms of interviewing adapted in this study allowed to see how individuals were engaging and responding to social structures, when it came to ethnic segmentation in the local labour market or historical patterns of migratory regimes privileging ‘White’ European migrants. While authors such as Plummer (2001) and Erel (2009) spoke primarily about biographical method as a way to explore the agency-structure interactions, other techniques also contributed to understanding how individuals act within the structurally conditioned fields. For example, participants of focus group and semi-structured interviews were speaking about biographical experiences – their own or of the people whom they knew. A quick look at the examples (biographical, semi-structured and focus groups interviews, and observations) coming from gathered data provides useful illustrations.

Malgosia’s biographical story has multiple twists illustrating agency and structure’s inter-workings. Malgosia was encouraged to take a degree at a Polish University in English language and literature – not her own preference, but a result of pressure coming from her parents who believed that her ideas of studying arts and drama would be impractical in terms of jobs prospects in post-communist Poland. She was in a long-term relationship with her boyfriend who struggled to find any formal and legal kind employment in Poland and saw the opening of the UK labour market in 2004 as the only way to escape the vicious cycle of informal work, unemployment and underemployment in Poland. Subsequently, he migrated to the UK and settled in Northtown. To preserve this relationship, she made a

decision to exercise EU mobility rights and joined him in England. In Northtown itself, she was not satisfied with her job in the service sector and opted out for setting up an informal English language school for Polish migrants. Moreover, she and her boyfriend managed to secure a student loan (available to them as EU citizens) and enrolled into UG programme run by the University of Huddersfield.

Reading from the perspective of agency and structure, it was possible to identify following several biographical junctures in Malgosia’s story: the exercise of agency vis-à-vis the shortcomings of Poland’s labour market – both in her choice of the type of University degree and her boyfriend’s decision to migrate. The structural change in mobility rights associated with EU enlargement and individual/family migration. Furthermore, the choice of teaching English locally could be explained by structural factors such as the difficulties in accessing statutory English language courses and her personal abilities (good knowledge of English) as well as her preferences (independent home teaching versus unfulfilling work in the call centre). Finally, the enrolment into a higher educational institution was facilitated by the availability of structurally underpinning opportunities represented by EU citizenship rights.

In terms of semi-structured and focus group interviews, the interactions between agency and structure can be deduced not only from linear stories woven into the narrative, but from certain interviews’ fragments. For instance, Gazmend referring to the arrival of his own group - the Albanian migrant group from Kosovo, stressed that at the time of departure from Kosovo, this group faced two choices – either to be subjected to the violence of the Serbian security forces or to accept the support of the British state and be sent to a place chosen by the British authorities. This is an example of where the exercise of agency was severely restricted by dramatic and violent circumstances; however even in such case it would be possible to identify an element of agency (the decision to go to the UK) bounded by a highly restrictive structural configuration (violence of one state versus controlled resettlement policy of the other). On the other hand, focus group interviews were helpful in showing how migrants exercised their agency and positioned it against other migrants deemed to be less assertive or open minded. For example, during one of focus group interviews there was a discussion over the access to social

housing. In contrast to a Polish female participant who argued that it was simply impossible to get social housing in Northtown for childless migrant couples, an Estonian interviewee argued that persistence and continuous reminding of personal requests to local officials could help in securing public housing. The logic of this exchange might be interpreted in this way: individual actions do matter even in the encounters with highly bureaucratic organizations.

On the first glance, it could appear that using the concepts of agency and structure is much more difficult in ethnographic observations. However the experience of fieldwork contradicts such assumptions. When I walked through the halls of the local secondary school, I have noticed numerous posters directed against racism. It revealed how acutely the school’s teaching staff felt the urgency to campaign against any forms of ethnic intolerance. In this case, individual teachers reacted against local manifestations developed within broader structural context of exclusion by displaying anti-racist posters.

On other occasion, while observing a drop in meeting of migrant mothers with pre- school age children in a migrant community centre, I noticed an ‘invisible’ wall separating ‘White’ European migrants from CEE and non EU African migrants. The CEE women were on one side of the meeting room, while the ‘Black’ African women were gathered on the other side of the room. I was not the only observer, who noted it: the centre’s director (a woman from ‘Black’ South African background) pointed to it and told me that ‘White’ European women saw themselves as being different when compared to non European migrants. There is another example of the interaction between human agency (CEE migrant women’s self-imposed distancing) and social structures (EU migration regime and ethnicity). In this case, by distancing themselves from non-White, non EU migrants, CEE migrant women were reinforcing and reproducing the divisions built into EU citizenship and the historically privileged construction of ‘Whiteness’.

It also should be added that my interpretations of the structure and agency interactions (or participants for this matter) could be seen as contentious. However this particular form of subjectivity is epistemologically and ontologically acceptable of the interpretivist philosophy of social science research: I, as a

researcher, would privilege particular interpretive lines – the interpretations which reflected my theoretical interests, disciplinary perspective and personal standpoints.

The subsequent chapters containing data interpretation will develop ideas over the interplay between agency and structure in participants’ narratives at greater length; for now the focus will be on concluding the review of research design. It is going to be done by looking at the issues surrounding the selection of participants.

The issue of sampling in a narrow sense - participants’ recruitment for the study had two overlapping dimensions: a practical one and a theoretical one. Before the start of the fieldwork, I had developed initial sampling strategy: a set of ideas of whom I would have wanted to interview (migrants and the representatives of local statutory and voluntary support groups). However, Charmaz (2006, p.100) stresses that such kind of thinking ‘provides a point of departure, not of theoretical elaboration and refinement’. As it was stressed earlier, theoretical sampling in grounded theory is understood not as a collection of pre-set ideas over the characteristics and the size of respondents’ group, but as a strategy embedded within the analysis of emerging data. As such, it requires from researchers to look for data suitable for saturating analytical categories.

In practice it meant that although my initial intention was to interview only migrants from CEE background (EU citizens), emergent analytical categories (such as those linking manifestations of ethnic intolerance and local social dynamics) led towards the choice to interview migrants who at the point of arrival to Northtown were not EU citizens. There were also practical considerations: in technical terms sampling strategy relied on snowballing. Individuals who were approached in their capacity of being leaders of voluntary community groups were all migrants from non EU member states (some of them came prior to 2004 – the year of EU enlargement). Moreover, some of semi-structured interviews with those participants developed from being focused on fact finding exercise concerned groups’ activities to becoming, at least partially, biographical in their character. Snowballing also meant that interviewees would provide their personal contacts and persuade their acquaintances to take part in the study. For instance,

interviewed ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) teachers would advise their students to get in touch with me or one interviewed Polish and one Polish/Latvian families would give me phone numbers of their friends (securing their permission beforehand). On some occasions, representatives of statutory groups would refer to their relatives from migrant background. This might appear to be chaotic and methodologically inconsistent, at least from the first glance. However it was an internal logic to it: as soon as I decided to move away from looking exclusively at CEE migrants, a strategy of incorporating other migrants (e.g. non EU, dispersed, etc) was a natural and theoretically justifiable choice.

Another potential criticism levelled against the study’s sampling approach might derive from randomness of participants’ national backgrounds (for the detailed breakdown of participants’ profiles see the table below). However such criticism can be rejected by drawing from methodological ideas advanced by social scientists sharing intepretivist philosophy (Silverman, 2013): the sample’s representativeness is conceived not in terms of population distribution, but in terms of its ability to meet researcher’s theoretical assumptions, which in grounded theory’s terms are attached to the interpretation of emergent data. As a researcher, I developed the interest of exploring migratory dynamics of Northtown – the interest broader than the study of experiences of one particular group, e.g. CEE migrants, hence I approached non EU dispersed migrants coming from a number of national backgrounds.

Moreover, a significant proportion of non EU interviewees came from the countries belonging to the geographical area which was part of the Soviet Union (till 1991). This also could be justified methodologically: throughout the study the preference was given to interview migrants in their mother tongues and in the languages which they were felt more comfortable to be interviewed in. Those interviewees, e.g. Azeri and Kyrgyz female participants, asked to be spoken in Russian (though they obviously knew Azeri and Kyrgyz languages, they came from post-imperial urban centres such as Baku and Bishkek where Russian was the lingua franca).

Looking from the perspective of interpretivism (Plummer, 2001), researchers not only have a right but an obligation to study social phenomena which is biographically meaningful to them. I have been born in Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic – a pseudo-autonomous republic which existed within the USSR between 1940-1941 and 1944-1990 after CEE was partitioned by Nazi Germany and Stalinist USSR in 1939. This premise explains the composition of sample: the bigger segment of interviewees came from the countries which were under the Soviet sphere of control. A common denominator of post-Soviet and migrant backgrounds helped to establish a relationship of trust and understanding.

It should be noted that it also allowed some participants to make historically contextualised jokes as the one made by the Ukrainian interviewee Taras. When I talked about my interest in Northtown’s migrants, he jokingly asked me in Russian if I was ‘also going to talk to’ the White’ migrants’. After initial confusion I realised that he was referring to anti-Bolshevik exiles, who left the territories controlled by new Soviet government after the end of civil war in 1921. My initial confusion gave him a visible degree of satisfaction. In this sense the inclusion of such individuals into the sample matched both the study’s own theoretical criteria (looking at migrants from wide range of backgrounds) as well as methodological sensitivity which prioritised the use of language preferable to participants and also taking into the account the researcher’s interests and his/her socio-cultural background.

Finally, the study’s sampling approach, in particular its approach of including