Methods: Interviews and observations

3.3.1 Life histories and semi-structured interviews

The life history – a type of in-depth interview method – was the approach selected for data gathering. Life histories encourage and stimulate interviewees to tell stories

103

about significant events in their lives (Bauer, 1996). As Ricoeur (1995) states, ‘in order to make sense of the pastiche of one’s life as a human being, “we need a narrative [story] to live by. Without a story, a person’s life is merely a random sequence of unrelated events’” (p.1 cited in Wong, 2014, p.307). Goodson and Sikes (2001) suggest that life history interviewing offers researchers a number of benefits. This method recognises that people’s lives are not compartmentalised into different areas; rather, they are shaped by shared connections, experiences and meanings. Where migrants are concerned, these points of convergence may include facets of the place of origin and the destination. In addition, the life history research method

enables the relationship between a person’s life and the social and historical context to be examined. For migrant groups, studying life histories can help to show how

migrants negotiate their identities and make sense of the roles and rules that make up the social worlds that they experience and inhabit (Goodson and Sikes, 2001).

I conducted twenty-eight life history interviews in Gebze. The interviews took between two and five hours each. The longer interviews were conducted over more than one day. After the first seven interviews had taken place, I realised that they were taking a long time, and so some of the interview questions were changed or removed (some of the original questions had four or five sub-questions) (see Appendix 4). The interviews took places at private homes, teahouses, cemaats, hometown associations and public parks. Although I planned at first to have eight-to-twelve participants, I increased the number in order to achieve a balance of people representing various groups (Erzurumians and Giresunians, people representing different Islamic traditions, such as Sufi, Salafi and parental Islam; people representing different associations [hometown associations and cemaats];and people of different genders) and to gain a sense of the experiences of various sectors of society regarding

104

migration and religion. The participants in Gebze were selected in accordance with certain predetermined criteria: (1) the participants should identify themselves as migrants or gurbetçi living away from their places of origin, and (2) they should be first-generation migrants so that they could articulate their migration journey and their religious lives before migration.

Initially, I recruited participants through my own personal contacts. I have made several visits to my sister in Gebze since 2006. During my visits, I contacted cemaat

members and representatives, and also participated in sermons and practices

organised by the cemaats. I established good relations with three people: a blue-collar worker, a restaurant owner and a jewellery-store assistant (all male and all members of cemaats). These acquaintances and their experiences of living in Gebze provided an initial springboard, helping me to find further potential participants.

Participants were recruited using the snowball sampling technique, in which one person refers another and that person refers still another, and so on (Marshall and Rossman, 2011, p.112). As the interview questions were sensitive and building an immediate ‘rapport’ with, and gaining trust from, informants was difficult, I chose this recruitment technique.59 I asked my acquaintances to participate in the interviews and, after they agreed and took part, I asked them to suggest other potential

participants (members of the same cemaat as them or a different one).

Initially, I had difficulties with recruiting women because Muslim women do not talk to unrelated males (see Chapter 8). Muslim men and women are discouraged from spending time together in private spaces if they are not related to each other. This problem has been raised repeatedly in previous research (Küçükcan, 1999;

59 _{Building a rapport involves establishing a trusting relationship with participants and the community}

so that they feel secure in sharing sensitive, rich information with the researcher, to the extent that they feel assured that the information gathered and reported will be presented accurately and dependably (Kawulich, 2005).

105

Dessing, 2013). I asked my acquaintances whether it was appropriate to invite women to do interviews in person and they all agreed that women – and particularly those affiliated with cemaats – would not talk to unrelated males. I asked my sister, therefore, if she could suggest potential female participants to me. She contacted six of her friends, who agreed to participate in the presence of my sister. The interviews took place at their homes, sometimes with their husbands and children present. As discussed in existing literature, it must be borne in mind that respondents may provide different answers if others are present than they would if they were alone (Yeo et al.,

2014, p.208). I sought, therefore, to ensure that, as far as possible, the answers given were the opinions of the individuals being interviewed; if a third person attempted to become involved in the conversation, I responded as little as possible to that person’s interjections. However, it must be acknowledged that presence of others still

influences the respondent.

The life histories allowed me to learn how migrants’ lives are shaped by their place of origin (Giresun or Erzurum), their present location (Gebze) and their expectations regarding the future. Furthermore, they enabled me to understand how, where and when religion and migration interact with each other. It became clear that non-religious and religious elements have dialectical relationships. I elaborate further on the contributions that the life history method makes to this study in the final chapter (the conclusion to the thesis).

After conducting the interviews, I asked the male participants if they could help me to meet the vekils [representative]from the cemaats that they belong to and the presidents of their hometown associations that they visit daily. I then conducted semi- structured interviews with the vekils from two cemaats in Gebze (Menzil and

106

semi-structured interview technique allows participants to be more spontaneous and free flowing (Esterberg, 2002). These interviews helped me to understand the motivations behind the construction of spaces for migrant communities and the impact of these communities on migrants. These participants(with the exception of the vekil from the Kadiri cemaat) were willing to take part in semi-structured

interviews. They consisted of one-hour interviews, which were conducted once I felt that they found me to be a person who ‘can be trusted to be discreet in handling information within the setting and who will honor their promises of anonymity in publications’ (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007, p.56).

The semi-structured interviews helped me to comprehend the background information behind the communities, such as their histories, leadership, practices, values, translocal activities and relationships with other institutions, such as the state. I was able to consider how and why vekils and leaders construct homes and ‘sacred homes’, as well as how they engage with migrants in Gebze and people/areas beyond. In this multi-sited research project, I also conducted semi-structured interviews with the migrants’ relatives and friends in the districts of Erzurum and Giresun. I visited the Aziziye, İspir, Çat and Pasinler districts of Erzurum and the Güce, Tirebolu, Espiye and Keşap districts of Giresun. I selected these districts either because my participants had emigrated from there (and therefore their friends and relatives, who they suggested as potential participants, lived there) or because the non-migrants in these districts offered to be interviewed. In total, I conducted twenty-four interviews in these areas: fourteen with non-migrants in Erzurum and ten with non-migrants in Giresun. The interviews in Giresun and Erzurum took place in private homes and teahouses. Among the participants were four return migrants living in Giresun (three male and one female).

107

This part of the study gave me the opportunity to appreciate how migration influences the religious lives of those left behind and how non-migrants perceive migrants’ religious lives. I was also able to gain an insight into returnees’ experiences in Giresun and into how religious lives in rural areas are constructed.

The interview process involved several steps. I began by introducing myself to the participants and informing them about the research. I asked them to read the consent form and the information sheet in Turkish (see Appendix 5). I prepared consent forms for each of the target groups in advance (three in total). I also compiled five different interview questionnaires (for the vekils, presidents, cemaat members, hometown associations members and those who remain behind). Before beginning the interviews, I asked the participants to read the consent and information forms, and asked if they understood them. Most of them asked me to summarise the information given, which I did so, verbally. I then asked them to sign the consent forms. Each participant was given a copy of the consent form to keep. The interviews were conducted in person and were recorded for transcription purposes. They were

conducted in Turkish and transcribed in Turkish. The Turkish interview accounts used in the thesis were then translated into English. For the sake of anonymity, I use

pseudonyms for participants and for the associations. 3.3.2 Participant observations

‘Participant observation’ refers to first-hand involvement in the social world chosen for study. The researcher is both a participant and an observer, to varying degrees. Observers immerse themselves in the setting in order to see, hear and begin to experience reality as the participants do (Marshall and Rossman, 2011, p.140). The literature points out that participant observation is useful for understanding the physical, social and religious contexts in which participants live – that is, the

108

relationships among and between people, the contexts, ideas and events, and people’s behaviours and activities (what they do, how frequently, and with whom – see Mack

et al., 2005, p.1).

During the fieldwork at community centres, such as hometown and cemaats’ associations, I used an overt participant observation technique so that members knew my purpose. I spent time at the associations with the male participants who were interviewed. Here, I adopted the role of ‘participant-as-observer’, which involves observation and participation through the establishment of contacts and relationships with participants (Küçükcan, 1996, p.36). As Knott (2010) articulates, ‘many

religious people have sought to research and write about their own religion asif they were observers, with objectivity and critical distance’ (p.252). The aim of a researcher who writes about his/her own religion is ‘to provide an entrée into [the] religion, its beliefs, and practices for outsiders’ (Knott, 2010, p.252). My reason for taking such an approach was to get close to particular activities, everyday experiences, settings and people. I thus gained an insight into what was meaningful and important to people in these associations (Emerson, 1995, p.1–2 cited in Küçükcan, 1996, p.28). I discuss the insider/outsider debate, along with my positionality in the field, later in this chapter.

In addition to conducting observations, I also carried out unstructured

interviews with the males who had participated in the semi-structured interviews in order to capture their feelings regarding every day and religious experiences, and the practices and objects at cemaat centres and hometown associations. The reasons for selecting males only were as follows: (1) men and women are separated when they attend sermons at cemaat centres and I felt that it was inappropriate to ask for

109

are for male migrants only; I did not see any females in attendance. During the fieldwork (with permission), I took photographs of materials and practices in order to complement the observation and interview data. In addition, all the interviews and sermons that took place at cemaat centres were recorded (again, with permission).

During the observations, I made use of an interview guide, since I was

interviewing various people in different settings and visiting a variety of communities in Gebze. I had a set of questions that was expanded or modified during the course of each interview or conversation (Küçükcan, 1996, p.30). The questions and data were therefore co-constructed with the observations. I asked questions about the objects, clothes and practices that were performed and/or used at the associations.

The combination of interviews and observations (looking, hearing, smelling, touching and/or being involved in activities) is recommended highly in scholarly literature, as the two methods complement each other. Dessing (2013) argues that if researchers gather data through interviews, they can ignore how religion is put to use in settings. Therefore, researchers should be aware of the importance of participant observation for understanding how religion is put to use in settings other than

interviews (p.48). Moreover, scholars of religion warn that researchers can focus too closely on the observation of practices, artefacts and materials, ignoring other important elements, such as experiential and narrative data (Riis and Woodhead, 2010, p.3). As Orsi contends,

A focus on what people do, and the objects with which they interact, to the exclusion of what they say risks losing an important dimension. Thus, topics like prayer and religious experience –though central to religion – are forgotten and God gets no mention – a very common and serious failure in studies of religion (Orsi, 2005 cited in Dessing, 2013, p.48).

In my research, as mentioned above, I gathered data using multiple methods. I focused not only on practices, materials and artefacts but also on the narratives,

110

perspectives and feelings of the research participants regarding religion and migration. In addition, data was collected through conducting observations at religious settings, taking photographs, examining clothes and taking part in face-to- face interactions. The emphasis on practices, objects and interactions did not

constitute an examination of the visual and material aspects of participants’ everyday religious lives and their spaces; rather, the aim was to enrich the data collected via interviews and combine the data gathered by observations and interviews.

The question of how I gained access to cemaat centresand hometown association centres should be addressed. Initially, I asked my contacts who were interviewed to help me to meet the cemaatvekils (‘representatives’) and şeyhs (‘leaders’), and the presidents of the hometown associations. Once I had gained the

vekils’ and presidents’ permission to enter the centres, it was easy to conduct

fieldwork in these places (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007, p.49). This is because the

vekils and presidents of the communities were the ‘gatekeepers’. As Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) state, ‘“gatekeepers”’ have power to open up or block off access, or […] consider themselves and are considered by others to have the authority to grant or refuse access.’ (p.50).

Once I had reached thegatekeepers of the communities, I introduced myself as a researcher and informed them about the reasons for my research. Existing literature suggests that researchers should show gatekeepers all the relevant documentation and explain the research purposes to them (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007, p.53–57). In my experience, however, documents rendered people unwilling to participate in the research. As such, I often offered to summarise the documents (or the people in question asked me to do this). In this way, I minimised the formalities, trying to be informal. I was careful, however, to explain the confidentiality procedures

111

surrounding the research and to show them all the relevant paperwork. I also asked the participants to read and sign the paperwork. I attended and recorded sermons at the cemaat centres and conducted unstructured interviews with former participants about what I saw, heard and felt, with their consent. Where the presidents of the hometown associations were concerned, the process was easier because I selected associations for emigrants from Giresun, where I am also from. They wanted to help with my research due to hemşehri bonds.

During my five months of fieldwork in Gebze, I took field notes, which are defined as the written records for observations, including all the notes, ideas and emotional reflections that are created during the fieldwork process (O’Reilly, 2009). To facilitate the writing of the field notes, I created a checklist to help me remember what I was meant to observe: (1) the space, (2) practices, (3) verbal interactions, (4) appearances, (5) events and (6) the time. In addition, interviews were labelled with the respondents’ information, with the date and the time of the interview being noted, and with related field notes being attached (Davies, 2008, p.233–234).

The observations and unstructured interviews took place in Gebze, Giresun and Erzurum. In Gebze, I attended more than thirty sermons and events at cemaats,and visited the hometown associations frequently. I also spent time with migrants at teahouses and on the street. I walked around Gebze to observe how people perform their regional identities and express their religious identities, and how affiliations shape their backyards. I observed the fruits and vegetables grown in the backyards, and the religious symbols and texts attached to houses and cars.

The participant observations and the unstructured interviews were conducted with the purpose of understanding migrants’ interactions, feelings and experiences in relation to their social and physical environments. They took place at associations and

112

teahouses, and in neighbourhoods. I focused on objects, practices and face-to-face interactions. These methods were useful as they enabled me to appreciate the

motivations and desires behind the making of spaces of belonging and the feeling of belonging, as well as the boundaries that exist between migrant groups.