Methodological challenges

7.6.1 Observation

Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) argue that it is much more difficult to detect and remove one’s own preconceptions in familiar settings, a situation which means that the researcher needs to be even more aware of the possibility of confirmation bias. As a member of a youth organization actively participating in events and meetings, I also face challenges relating to my organizational affiliation. The challenge is to be able to “… to suspend for analytical purposes precisely those assumptions that must be taken for granted in relations with participants” (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007, p. 82). Reflexive methodology is considered to be a tool which enables this challenging

analytical process.

Furthermore, there are certain challenges when taking on a covert role in research. Bryman (2016) highlights four main disadvantages where one is relevant to this research. That is the ethical

challenges with covert research. If employees of the Ministry of Climate and Environment are talking to a group of people at an event, this ethical challenge is less important. The point of these events is often to invite anyone who is interested in a topic to come and listen. However, it is different when employees of the Ministry invite civil society organizations to a meeting. This situation is a closed setting, not meant to provide the members with public statements, but to invite relevant parties to a dialogue where all parts get a chance to present their opinion. None of the participants at these meetings know that there is someone carefully following the Ministry’s response to the questions and advice presented by civil society. These challenges were possible to overcome by not including any quotes or naming any party unless their specific opinion has also been expressed outside the

room. This did not create any practical challenges, possibly due to the careful attention given to this issue. Before diving into the material in the analysis sections, some ethical considerations and constraining factors should be mentioned.

7.6.2 Ethical evaluation and constraining factors

This research does have important ethical issues to consider. As any other research, informed consent on the behalf of informants is important. It is unlikely that a research topic of this kind will induce harm on individuals or groups of people. Issues of exploitation should not be a problem when collecting written data, since these are made public in order for people to make use of them. It has been a continuous process in which significant consideration has been given to the circumstances. A significant benefit with research like this is that it is easily replicable and could hopefully inspire further research.

It should also be made clear that I am active in a Non-Governmental Organization for youth in Norway called Spire. The organization is based various principles, but it is clearly related to the environmentalism of the poor discourse. This “… involves seeking agency for the world’s poor and marginalized at the expense of the large emitters and global market capitalism” (Dryzek, 2013, p.

215). This is visible through the organizations adopted policies and political demands such as their adopted policy to work towards a fundamentally different and a more redistributive economy and political demands to increase funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. Simultaneously, green consciousness is an important part of many of the activities arranged by local chapters.

Because of this affiliation I had to consider to which degree it was ethically defensible to use this affiliation to get answers to particular questions more relevant to the research than the organization I was representing. This has been an issue which I have struggled with to some degree initially. After talking with members and the leader of the organization regarding my concerns I concluded that as long as I did not say anything which would put the organization in a bad light when gathering data, it was considered a mutually beneficial situation for the organization that I get the information I need for my research. There is an assumption here that what I learn through my research will in the end be beneficial to the organization as well, since much of the organization’s politics are based on social science research.

In addition, the fact that there was a deadline to consider meant that certain interesting routes for further research had to be suspended. There is just so much one researcher can go through when it comes to data material in a limited amount of time. However, whenever I felt that this limited the scope of this research I took note of it and wrote it down as a possible way forward for further

research. The financial capacity was a related issue in cases where I would have liked to join an international conference or meeting which could have highlighted some of the issues I have

considered during the initial stages of the research. Time and money are two central issues as to why fast policy is not a more fundamental part of the theoretical framework because I believe that it would have necessitated access to international arenas to gather data, which would also take time and require funds not available within the given timeframe. Issues regarding the selection bias of documents have been considered above when discussing documents as data sources. Finally, I move on to critically reflect on the text production and language used in this paper.

7.6.3 Contextualizing text and language

The presentation of the findings from the empirical data in the analysis section below tries to contextualize the documents selected in order to place these documents within the wider context within which they were produced. It must be recognized that this contextualization is limited by the fact that some texts are over a decade old, and the fact that I have not had time or saw it as

necessary to interview all the people involved with all the documents. However, the most recent white paper is informed not only by an interview, but also by a recent master thesis mentioned in the literature review, which is concerned with the process of decision making around the change in policy that happened in 2015 (L. Christensen, 2017). The documents themselves most often try to contextualize the situation at the time of production, but it is important to recognize that this

presentation of context is the writer’s interpretation and others might contextualize these texts from other points of view which could give them new meanings. However, since the purpose of this research is to identify values and principles in Norwegian climate policy, this contextualization is a valuable tool to understand the logic behind the choice of policy as they are interpreted by the respective governments. Furthermore, the educational background of this researcher also represents a new approach to contextualization, where the perspective on history comes to a large degree from the field of development studies, often inspired by fields with a critical view towards governments and environmental stewardships through such fields as political ecology.

Another important aspect to consider when reflecting on the production of text and contextualization is sub-interpretation. Sub-interpretation happens on the basis of certain conceptions already formed by interpretation, when one decides between different possible interpretation by using the conceptions formed. There are a few criteria one can use in order to assess the plausibility of interpretations; how narrow the scope of subjects is, how frequent the instances on which the interpretation is based on are, and how many entities one has chosen to focus on (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009). The sub-interpretations are closely related to the general pattern of interpretation, and if one changes then the other changes too. These considerations,

while originally created as intended objective criteria within hermeneutics, have been utilized when considering the plausibility of the interpretations created here, without referring to an ideal of objectivity within the social sciences. This aspect of hermeneutics is what informed the level of interpretation approach advocated by Alvesson and Sköldberg (2009) through their reflexive methodology.

This approach to the empirical data and the analysis has intended to increase the plausibility of the findings. However, some challenges remain regarding the possibility of ambiguous language and alternative interpretations of data in combination with other choices of scientific literature which would highlight different aspects of Norwegian climate policies. This would not invalidate the findings here, and they should be welcomed as contributions to the knowledge base through which we understand Norwegian climate policy. With that, I now turn to my interpretation and analysis of the Norwegian climate discourse.