3.4.1 Positionality
I am a government official currently on study leave, and I have worked with CDC/CRDB for more than six years. I was in charge of regional aid programme coordination, basically focused on regional training courses provided by the Japanese Government under the South-South Cooperation Framework. I was involved with regional training programmes and projects for Cambodia, Laos PDR, Myanmar and Viet Nam. My involvement included the basic design studies, negotiation, participation in a series of meetings with relevant stakeholders, implementation and monitoring and evaluation. I have known and worked with some of the informants and other members of GDCC and TWGs. I also have a good working relationship with them, particularly the government officials and some senior donor management staff. I worked in partnership with UNDP staff and the advisors based in CDC/CRDB under the Multi-Donor Support Programme for Aid Coordination. I used to work part-time as development consultant for one INGO called Khmer Arts Academy. I have a good understanding of different working environments. I understand the concept of aid effectiveness in the local contexts and aid coordination processes. I not only participated, but also contributed to help organising both CDCF and GDCC and other TWG meetings.
This previous work provided me with some research advantages, including easy access to the wide range of information related to my research, and the ability to get interviews with the most relevant people. Firstly, I was able to quickly access information related to aid coordination mechanisms; specifically government documents. As a native speaker of Khmer, I have been able to converse freely with people from whom I need important information. The most relevant informants in my research were selected from the list of members of the TWGs and GDCC participants, provided by my former colleagues, when I was still in Wellington, New Zealand. Secondly, because I already had a good working relationship with some of my informants in Cambodia, I received positive responses and appointments from them at an early stage. For instance, I interviewed 11 senior donor management staff partly because they knew that I was a staff member of the CDC/CRDB. Moreover, they considered my topic relevant to the
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current aid structure in Cambodia. The results of this study might establish substantial information which could improve their operations.
By having the same appearance, speaking the same language, understanding the cultural, political and social contexts, I managed to build a strong partnership with my key interviewees, especially Khmer interviewees. I was comfortable and had good conversations that provided me with information that seemed to come from their heart and soul. I was able to build trust with them. I also developed partnerships with non-Khmer native informants from donor agencies and INGOs. The interviews proved fruitful due to their understanding of the local contexts and their long working experience in Cambodia.
In the field research I considered myself as a researcher from the „inside‟. Before the field research I worked hard to position myself neutrally. I did not align myself with any groups of informants. I discussed with informants the sensitive questions related to political issues between the government and NGOs. However, I could see that the three different types of informants perhaps each saw me differently. The government and donor informants thought I was aligned with the government because they thought I would return to work for the government and because my close working relationship with them would remain steady. However, most of the NGO informants knew only that I used to work for the INGO in Phnom Penh.
3.4.2 Field Research Reflection
To be a good researcher there is a need before the interviews to be well organised in terms of location, time management, dress code, and to have a prepared set of questions.
For example, I often went in advance to see the locations where the interviews would take place. Then, I determined how long it would take me to go from my office, my house, or from one ministry or donor office or NGO office to another. It took a lot of time to travel around. I spent time reviewing the questions and sub-questions as well as studying the organisations that I inquired about. Therefore, during the interviews, I could manage to ask the informants the most useful and relevant questions.
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Not all key informants have the same level of knowledge or personal experience with NGOs, particularly NGO coordination, or the aid coordination processes in Cambodia.
The informants are from different levels of responsibility at work. Some are quite knowledgeable about policy and some only have a working knowledge of the technical aspects of their job. Several informants have both policy and technical knowledge including experience with the aid coordination processes consisting of three main forums and different NGO work. Some can only comment on issues and experiences they have had within their own round of work. Some of the NGO informants understand the complexity of coordination and aid structure; conversely some were not so knowledgeable and not aware of what the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness is. A few did not know NGO coordination efforts made by the NGO community or the aid structure developed in the country. It was a challenge in each interview. Therefore, I asked each different informant a set of questions but I made sure that the questions were relevant to my main research and the objective of the research study.
Sometimes, I felt the informants misunderstood difficult questions that are political in nature, particularly the roles of the NGO representatives in the three different kinds of aid coordination forums. For instance, when interviewing five informants about the roles of NGO representatives as one of the key stakeholders in CDCF, GDCC and TWGs I had to ask them in three different ways to get accurate information. Sometimes, they did not understand the concepts or the terminology. Sometimes, I explained the story first to make sure they could understand my ideas and the questions. Even so, I questioned the government officials, donor management staff and NGO‟s executive directors in a diplomatic and respectful way.
I interviewed seven government officials and eight INGOs‟ and LNGOs‟ executive directors in the Khmer language and the rest I conducted in English. After that I transcribed all the interviews. In audio recordings of the interviews in English it is a great challenge to decipher the meaning of words and phrases delivered in different accents. I carefully checked the transcripts with the interview notes to ensure my interpretation was always correct and coherent. The most difficult was translating Khmer into English as I could not find some words that meant exactly the same in English. Some Cambodian informants quoted Khmer proverbs. These were difficult to transcribe and translate.
50 3.4.3 Field Research (Re)Presentation
Field research reflectivity plays a pivotal role in the writing process. It involves considering the power relationship between researchers and the participants throughout the entire research process (Jasper, 2005). In the (re)presentation and interpretation, Holliday (2007, p.136) stresses that “academic writing is an „arena of struggle‟ in which students and researchers can find it hard to achieve personal power and voice.” The power inequalities remain a burden for researchers to decide what information to include in their research and also to (re)present what is found in the field. Therefore, speaking on behalf of others that, like me, come from the Third World, it is very important to carry inclusive messages of the marginalised.
Concerning the power relationships in the field, I had no intention to influence my research process; but, as a new researcher from „inside‟, I characteristically influenced the research process in a number of ways. For instance, I accessed the field research data and documents, and informants‟ appointment through my previous network and working relationships with them. I did not rely on anyone to determine the number of informants, or different kinds of informants, to make the appointments and interviews, or to translate and I did not ask for any technical assistance. However, during the interviews, I was largely reliant on the information provided by the informants; thus, I still had limited power when undertaking research. When it came to the writing process, I felt that I was empowered to write and present information on behalf of informants and my self-reflectivity and experience. Thus, it helps me to be aware and accountable for the consequences of my engagement. My analysis is based on the original interviews with informants, with no second interviews. This thesis targets academic audiences.
3.5 Conclusion
To sum up, the entire research process employed qualitative methods, including secondary data, a desk review, participant observation and in-depth semi-structured interviews. These methods are often seen in the development field. This chapter highlighted some of the issues and complexities of this research and potential impacts on the research results. Taking into consideration, positionality, reflectivity and (re)presentation is a significant part of the study.
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Although there were some challenges in the field research, I had good interviews with different kinds of informants. The fact that I was a local researcher helped me avoid many problems. However, some challenges remain concerns for both the experienced and new researchers because conducting field research in development studies requires multiple disciplines. The situation in the field varies across regions, sectors, governments, donors, NGOs and individuals. There needs to be flexibility in how one‟s methodology is designed and adopted as researchers face different socio-economic, political, social and cultural contexts.
I have sufficient information from the field provided by my informants from using the methodologies and research techniques that were suitable for the study. As a local researcher, conducting research on my home country problems, the results are directly enhanced by my background and working experience, my understanding of the cultural and local contexts, positionality and field research experience. This study has benefited from the values and knowledge of the course work that I have obtained from undertaking a Masters in Development Studies at Victoria University of Wellington and the perception and guidance from my supervisor during the analysis and thesis writing process. This enhanced the quality of the data analysis.
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