Negotiating with the Gatekeepers

This research study was conducted in two geographical areas with the assistance of three community-based organisations. My relationships with each organisation differed in relation to the roles I fulfilled for them:

 In-depth interior knowledge of the organisation and a prior relationship with the participants at Imani (a teacher working at the centre daily over two months with the participants, as well as over three years of administrative involvement and teaching at other centres).

 Interior Knowledge of the organisation developed during field research visit (administrative work in the office at Usaidizi for six months and limited teaching, which included some of the participants).

 External (Interview only arrangement with Matumaini, with responsibility for reporting).

As well as affecting how I was positioned in relation to both the organisations and the participants, there are other questions that should be considered when participants are accessed through organisations acting as gatekeepers. One of the most obvious areas of consideration is the level of control that the organisations are able to exercise over the nature of the cohorts involved in the research (e.g. Neuman 2014).

I had autonomy over choosing all of the participants within each cohort, except for the primary and secondary students living at home, who were supported by Usaidizi. I am confident that these students were not cherry picked to provide a favourable impression of the organisation, rather they were either the only candidates fitting the criteria and available for interview, or social work visits were scheduled at the time of my research

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and it was advantageous to use this opportunity, as it impacted upon the workload of my interpreters who were social work staff.

A second concern was whether the participants felt impelled or coerced into taking part in the research because my relationship with the organisation supporting them was clearly known. This was more of an issue when I was facilitating research with Usaidizi and Imani, as I also occupied volunteer positions with the organisations. At Matumaini however, I was identified as an external researcher. Therefore, the ethics procedures that I outlined in the previous section were all the more important to ensure that participation was as free a choice as possible. After I explained the research to them, all of the young people invited wished to be involved. The main problems arose when those who did not fit my criteria wanted to participate also.

In general the organisations were happy to allow my study because they were interested in the nature of my research and the possible recommendations arising from it. This was most evident with Matumaini, as they requested that I summarise my initial observations and develop a report that would inform the following year’s social work planning. They also provided me with a research assistant, a social work student on placement at their centre, who assisted me in developing context-specific analyses and delivering the report. With Imani and Usaidizi it is more difficult to make assumptions of exactly why my access was enabled as I set the criteria of the partnership in offering my time as a volunteer. I felt that I should give something to the organisation in exchange for their assistance, but I also wished to develop my understanding of the organisations in general. I exercised freedom over what I wanted to research and how I collected data within all three

organisations, except for the use of photography with cohorts that included members of the Turkana community (see section 3.4.3).

In conducting my research with and through organisations I was able to improve my understanding of the local context and critically discuss my observations with staff to consider local perspectives, and in so doing establish alternative meanings to the data. Such collaboration aimed to ensure that I was able to better address issues of

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(e.g. Finnström 2008). I was therefore able to negotiate different perspectives to avoid my voice overshadowing that of the participants (e.g. Milner 2007).

However, my roles within the organisations also provided access to information about my participants beyond the interview situation. At Imani, I had already met my participants within my role as teacher or sponsorship coordinator and spent a good deal of time interacting with them on a daily basis; while at Usaidizi I was involved in the office-based administration and delivery of their programmes and as such attended meetings with local village chiefs (council officials) and the district children’s office that discussed sensitive details about children’s individual cases, some of whom I interviewed.

Therefore, I walked a fine line between being the researcher and the practitioner. Even though my experiences added greater depth to the stories, such as understanding the background of the participants and how they interact with both the organisation and other children assisted to leave the street, such detail was not part of the consent process. I can therefore not share these observations, but they inevitably affect how I approach the analysis of the data.

Having travelled to Kenya frequently for a number of years to volunteer with street- connected children and youth at Imani, before starting my doctoral research, implies that I have a particular understanding of the context and the relevance of my study, which influenced the focus of the research and the research question I chose to answer. Liaising further with the organisations, beyond issues of access, can increase the depth of this understanding and the applicability of the research to practice at a grassroots level. Such familiarity, with the context and/or the participants, may affect the research in such a way that I had to be aware of the balance between: the practical implications of the research and the application of theoretical frameworks; an ‘ethnographic’14

space and my usefulness to the organisations; and being part of an organisation and maintaining some level of academic detachment. At times negotiating between these was difficult, but I aimed to understand the implications of each in establishing contextual practical relevance, while also constructing a theoretically sound thesis.

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Although I have not considered this to be an ethnographic study, my roles at Imani and Usaidizi loosely resemble the involvement of participant observer (Atkinson et al. 2007).

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