Sampling

I first accessed my rural and semi-rural fieldsites by contacting local officials and then Khmer and Kinh community authorities and elderly people. This enabled me to get an overview of the situation of Khmer-Kinh intermarriages, the marital trends in these areas, and the community’s point of view about interethnic marriages. From these key informants, I was introduced to a few intermarried Khmer-Kinh couples in these local areas and also a number who had migrated to my third field site, the provincial capital city. A snowball sampling technique was used to select participants, according to which I started with the few cases introduced by community leaders and also the cases known by myself and then used referrals from the people I initially contacted to meet other people known to them through their networks. This technique is of value in research with marginalized rural people and ethnic minorities, since social referrals are an important method by which the trustworthiness of outsiders is assessed, making the participants more open to being involved in a research project implemented by a complete outsider (Liamputtong, 2009). Moreover it helped overcome the problem that the subjects of this research had no clearly identifiable geographical or communal focus, representative body, or spokesperson, but were instead found dispersed in households in many different localities. However, not all cases identified through the networks of my interlocutors were chosen for research, since they often were from the same social background while I sought to include a diversity of marital experiences.

Purposive sampling8 _{was combined with snowball sampling to select participants who meet}

the criteria of different geographical and class backgrounds. Qualitative research is

8 _{‘Purposive sampling is a valuable kind of sampling in exploratory research or in field research. It used the}

judgment of an expert in selecting cases or it selects cases with a specific purpose in mind. Purposive sampling is appropriate to select unique cases that are especially informative. Purposive sampling occurs when a researcher wants to identify particular types of cases for in-depth investigation’ (Neuman, 2006, p. 222).

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concerned with in-depth understanding of the issue under examination. It relies heavily on individuals who are able to provide rich accounts of their experiences. Therefore, purposive sampling is very useful to select information-rich cases. Information-rich cases are individuals, events or settings which offer in-depth understanding and insights into the findings instead of empirical generalizations (Liamputtong, 2009, p. 11). ‘The power of purposeful sampling lies in selecting information-rich cases for study in depth, from which the researcher can learn a great deal about issues of central importance to the purpose of the research, thus purposive sampling’ (Patton, 1990, p. 169).

Assuming that location had much influence on marital experience, geography was the first criterion in selecting samples. To constitute my sample, I selected interlocutors from three areas: a Kinh-dominated urban area, a Khmer-dominated rural area, and an ethnically mixed semi-rural area. Gender also was assumed to be an important factor so I tried to balance the gender of participants in three areas. In addition, I hypothesized that socioeconomic status had an impact on the marital life of the couples so I selected couples from various socioeconomic statuses (based either on education, income, or occupation) (see the appendix for detailed demographic characteristics of the interviewed couples). In addition, the participants must have been married for at least five years and have had at least one child because I wanted to learn not only how they had met, and why they had married, but also what the experiences of interethnic marriage had been for them, as well as to see how cultural identity was transmitted to their children. This study is a qualitative study and the sample does not purport to represent all cases of interethnic Kinh-Khmer marriage but it can provide insights into commonalities, diversity and complexities in the marital experiences of spouses from different backgrounds and perspectives.

The divorce number in An Giang province in 2014 is 468 cases so it is reasonable to assume that Khmer-Kinh marriages also may sometimes end in divorce. I also heard from my interlocutors of the divorced Khmer-Kinh couples but I could not find them or contact them. It is hard to identify people with this experience may be because of the shame and stigma attached to divorce so this issue is uncovered. Without exploring the situation of the couples whose marriages ended in divorce, it is hard to know how representative the successful marriages reported in this study are of Khmer-Kinh marriages in general. Those

whose marriages terminated in divorce may conceivably embody significantly different characteristics or come from quite different backgrounds from those researched in this study, thus the failure to include them in the study may limit its descriptive and explanatory scope. The conflicts and tensions in such marriages may have been of a different kind or of higher magnitude than those reported in this study but I lack the ability to specify with issues caused the most conflict or which ones were considered decisive in precipitating the divorce.

Only intact marriages were selected in this study on the purpose to explore the dynamics of marital experience of interethnic marriage. The findings would be rich in portraying the marital picture of successful Khmer-Kinh marriage, but the study may fail to address directly the frequent issues of failed Khmer-Kinh marriages. Nevertheless, by making conflict, tension and the reasoning processes of dissatisfied couples an explicit focus of this study I am able to shed some light on some of the risk factors that under certain conditions may precipitate marital separation.

The number of interviewees of different types is summarized in the below table 1.1:

Table 1.1 The number of interviewees

Interviewee Criteria Number

Intermarried couples Kinh-dominated urban area 7 Ethnically mixed semi-rural area 14

Khmer-dominated rural area 14

Key informants Ta Acha9 2

Judicial official 2

Ethnic affairs official 3

Khmer elderly 3

Kinh elderly 2

Parents of interethnic couples 6

9 _{Khmer custom specialist.}

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