Hoodia research might still be deemed by institutions to be top secret to avoid others from getting patents or duplicating their work if data is released to the public.
Interviewing participants was problematic as some were either busy or were not available. Interviews also meant that the researcher went out to meet interviewees which implies personal financial costs for travelling and accommodation. Although Skype is a better option to use to conduct unstructured interview, face-to-face interviews offer a feeling of appreciation from participants. This might lead them to open up on some issues which may not happen over Skype. For this reason, one interview was scheduled to be conducted via Skype, and another one face-to-face.
The Skype interview could not take place due to the schedule of the participant.
Access to some organisations involved in the Hoodia biopiracy case in order for the researcher to collect data from individuals and documents was denied, despite ethical approval having been obtained from UCT to conduct the research.
Although Hoodia is an iconic biopiracy case, the results of this study may not be applicable to all cases but could still be used as a stepping stone toward framing an understanding of biopiracy.
3.6. Ethical Considerations
In accordance with the University of Cape Town (UCT) ethics requirements, ethical clearance to conduct interviews was sought from the Ethics Review Committee of the Library and Information Studies Centre (LISC) in the Faculty of Humanities before proceeding with the data collection process. Permission and ethical clearance were also sought from the organisations from which data was supposed to be collected. Interviews involved human subjects, so ethical considerations included
37 seeking consent, maintaining confidentiality and anonymity. All these were considered before proceeding with interviews for data collection.
The information provided by participants could not be anonymised in the reporting of findings as some information regarding the Hoodia case is already publicly accessible. In addition, the anonymity of the participants could not be guaranteed due to the nature of the study. Participation in this study was voluntary. Participants had the right not to participate at all or to withdraw from the study at any time. Two consent forms were given to participants. The first, which outlined the rights of participants, was given before the interview. The second, allowing participants to withdraw statements from the interview, was given after the interviews. One interview was audio-recorded for analysis and transcription. Appendix A, detailing participants’ consent to the study; and Appendix B with interview questions, were attached to the application of ethical clearance together with the summary of the study.
3.7. Summary
This study employed a qualitative methodology with constructivist grounded theory design. The methods were meant to focus on the understanding of the process of curating indigenous knowledge. This Chapter provided methods through which data was to be collected, managed and analysed. The framework through which analysis would follow is provided, but it does not mean that this is the only way to conduct analysis. The main tool for data collection was the unstructured interview but this study also employed reviewing literature and constant analysis of data.
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CHAPTER FOUR FINDINGS: OVERVIEW OF THE
THEORY
4.1. Introduction
This chapter is part one of two parts on the findings of the study, and presents the theory based on the concept of palimpsest. It also presents the main concern of the study, which is curation and biopiracy in the San-Hoodia case. Furthermore, a description of the framework in Chapter Three in the context of knowledge domains is also provided, as well as an explanation of its structure.
A conceptual framework is defined as "a network, or ‘a plane,’ of interlinked concepts that together provide a comprehensive understanding of a phenomenon or phenomena" (Jabareen, 2009: 51). The approach of this study was to respond to the problem statement by using the relationship between concepts to understand and offer interpretations related to the study, as well as developing a theory based on these concepts and themes.
For the purposes of this study, the researcher was to make sense of multiple meanings by applying an interpretivist paradigm, which has two arguments about the nature of research:
[1] Findings or knowledge claims are created as an investigation proceeds. That is, findings emerge through dialogue in which conflicting interpretations are negotiated among members of a community. [2] All interpretations are based in a particular moment. That is, they are located in a particular context or situation and time. They are open to re-interpretation and negotiation through conversation (Cohen & Crabtree, 2006).
Dialogue in this case is not in relation to human subjects but to texts or documents which were investigated or carefully analysed. These texts constitute the community of negotiation described in the definition above. As Jacques Derrida explained, the text is thought of as “the situations and events (in addition to the narratives) that
39 constitute our research sites — that which is communicated” (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012: 19), so this researcher engaged in dialogue with texts and placed them in dialogue with each other in order to discover conflicting as well as similar interpretations that existed. The focus of the interpretive approach is “on harnessing and extending the power of ordinary language and expression to help us understand the social world we live in” (Terre Blanche, Kelly & Durrheim, 2006: 274). Therefore, the aim of this study was to contextualise the interpretations from the collected data and the reviewed literature to understand the case being studied.
It has been mentioned by others that constructivist Grounded Theory is both possible and desirable because “[d]ata do not provide a window on reality. Rather, the
‘discovered’ reality arises from the interactive process and its temporal, cultural, and structural contexts” (Charmaz, 2000: 524). As such, data in this study was derived from the interactive process between the researcher, available literature and the interviewed participants as well as the contexts of culture science and commerce.