Qualitative methods and analysis

Qualitative research enables the study of human perspectives, responses, values, discourses, and overall interactions with environmental, social, and economic systems (Hay, 2008; Richards, 2014). While the researcher may bring a range of theoretical and subject matter expertise, participants of the research process provide contextual nuance of how theories are reflected in practice. Transdisciplinary enquiry is one where knowledge beyond academia is used to inform how questions are asked and data is interpreted during the research process (Brown et al., 2010). Part of this transdisciplinary enquiry was my interaction with SEARCA over a 4 year period, where I spent periods of work in their offices either conducting a workshop, participating in project design meetings, or debating food systems research in Southeast Asia.

The semi-structure interview protocol (Appendix 3) focused on themes including socio- economic and demographic profile of farmers, experiences and definitions of food security, the visions of what they perceived as a food secure food system, experiences of environmental change, and interactions with government and training bodies. Food security in the interview guide was framed at the household scale, as smallholders in the Philippines remain largely dependent on subsistence agriculture for their immediate food security. Semi-structured interviews allowed a fluid conversation to be carried out with smallholder farmers in the field. The interview protocol provided

a heuristic device for the researcher to guide conversation along the major themes, with farmers talking openly about their experiences.

I conducted a total of 39 interviews across nine barangays over a three-week period in July 2015 (see Table 3). Interviews lasted between 20-70 minutes, and were often conducted at farmers’ homes or in the barangay hall. I formally carried out courtesy calls and often lunches with barangay captains to inform them of the project and how it linked with Philippines research initiatives in agricultural research, notably through SEARCA’s transdisciplinary research plan. Interviewees were informed of the research project and verbal consent was sought due to cultural appropriateness, and they were offered to withdraw from the process at any point. Interviews were conducted in the local Visayan dialect with the assistance of an interpreter with proficient English, facilitated through the university networks. Interviews were recorded with verbal consent and transcribed on the day immediately after the interviews, and organised along the lines of the interview protocol. These were then discussed with the interpreter to ensure the right interpretation was captured in the transcripts, as much as was possible. Furthermore, a report back visit was conducted in January 2017 to exchange initial findings and progress on food systems projects being undertaken between myself researcher and partner universities in the Philippines. The audience for the report back included farmers from upland villages, extension officers, university researchers, and local government unit members. This study was cleared by the ANU Human Research Ethics Committee, and information and consent sheets were updated as the research project evolved (Appendix 1).

Table 3: Overview of smallholders interviewed Barangay Age range Number of males interviewed Number of females interviewed Farm size range Number of farmers with additional non- farm livelihood

Can-angay 40-61 1 3 1 hectare None

Cabulisan 45-67 2 2 1-8

hectares 1 male driver

Caminto 40-74 3 2 1-5

hectares 1 female care worker

Guinsanga-an 47-65 3 2 0.25-2

hectares

1 female occasional coconut wine maker

Hinabay 49-65 2 2 1 3 farm workers, 1

male owns a shop

Jabulisan 36-62 2 2 0.5-2

hectares 1 male driver, 1 female farm worker

Linao 43-61 1 4 0.3 - 4 1 female on

honorarium from past council work

Macagoco 53-77 0 3 0.5 – 1 None

Marao 36-79 3 2 0.25 - 5 One family member

makes wine

After transcription, data was imported into the analytical software MAXQDA. Thematic coding was conducted using both inductive and deductive techniques (Braun and Clarke, 2008; Ryan and Bernard, 2003; Saldaña, 2015).

The coding structure for this thesis followed a three step process:

1. Deductive codes were informed by specific topics in food systems, food security, and food sovereignty literature. The orienting concepts presented in Chapter 1 (market food security, food sovereignty, food systems), and literature from Chapters 3 and 4, provided a range of initial codes to assign to different quotes. Inductive codes were created to show specific issues that emerged from the interviews. For example, codes relating to agroforestry and intercropping vegetables, originally not part of the literature themes, emerged as core drivers of food security (see this example in Chapter 7).

2. A second round of coding was conducted to amalgamate codes into nodes, which allow for the categorisation of codes into individual food literature variables. This allowed specific codes, such as ‘access to fertilizers’ to form part of higher level codes to provide organisational structure, for example ‘support for agricultural practices’.

3. A third round of coding was conducted following the human ecology framework, where nodes were situated into the four meta variables: state of ecosystems, state of human wellbeing, state of institutions, and state of discourses.

After the coding was completed, a series of code relation tables were produced to show the links between specific codes and nodes. The data relationships were interpreted analytically using the four variables in the human ecology framework (Davila and Dyball, 2018; Dyball and Newell, 2015). Throughout the thesis, the human ecology framework is used analytically to synthesise findings and discuss emergent themes from the interviews. The diagrams provide heuristic devises for understanding how participants conceptualise issues of food and nutrition security. The diagrams are not used to articulate whether participants are ‘right or wrong’; rather they are used to show how issues are conceptualised at one point in time and how they align with broader systems and human ecology analysis developed in this thesis.