Spatial and temporal research issues 60

The research was split into three phases. During phase one (November 2012 to March 2013), I identified suitable rural locations for my field research through expert

interviews and visits to potential sites. Once located, I undertook semi-structured interviews with village cadres to gain an insight into the presence and severity of environmental change and an overview of the socio-economic conditions. Once potential sites were identified and approval to carry out the research granted, I undertook a number of rural appraisal exercises. These appraisal exercises served three main purposes:

• to increase my understanding the context within which I was working • to help build rapport between the community, myself and research team

• to provide confirmation that the sites were suitable for more in-depth research. Additionally, during phase one, I also performed a number of informal semi-structured interviews to try out interview techniques and questions. The information from this phase was used to inform the subsequent research in phase two.

The focus of phase two (April 2013 to July 2013) was on the development and

implementation of the questionnaire survey. Using insights generated from phase one, a questionnaire survey was developed and piloted before being implemented in the two case study sites. Through the rural appraisal activities and the questionnaire survey, contacts were made with household members who had migrated to work in Shanghai. Interviews were carried out with six migrants who originated from Anhui and had been working outside of the villages for between two and 20 years. The final phase of the research was undertaken in February 2014 and was timed to coincide with the Chinese New Year. After a period of analysis, emerging findings and novel lines of enquiry were pursued through a series of follow up interviews with households and returned

migrants. Six interviews were undertaken in each case study site. In total, the data collection were spaced out over the course of a year and a half enabling me to see and experience some of the rhythms and cycles of village life (such as Chinese New Year

extent) an appreciation of what the future may hold (Allison, 1984). Change is a

dynamic process and this needs to be represented in the research design (Kniveton et

al., 2008). Yet many approaches are unable to capture time varying variables as all the

information is collected at the same time (in a questionnaire survey for example). Bryman (2008) asserts that this snapshot approach to data collection creates ambiguity in the direction of the causal influence, as there is no time ordering to the variables.

To obviate the issue of causality in sequencing, migration scholars often use longitudinal data (such as panel or cohort studies) to assess change over time; the advantage being that variables are time ordered so statements about causality are generally more robust (assuming ceteris paribus) as the researcher knows which of the variables occurred first (see, for example, Gray and Mueller, 2012). Longitudinal

approaches are often reliant on large data sets, tend to be expensive and time-

consuming to implement, and were not practicable for this research project. However, other options are available and the research employed three main techniques to generate time varying data. The first technique utilised rural appraisal exercises that were sensitive to dynamic processes (such as community-based trend analysis). The second technique generated time-sensitive data by utilising survey respondents’ ability to recall past migration behaviour within the household. The third technique was embedded in the semi-structured interviews and derived time sensitive information through the recounting of specific periods of interviewees’ lives (see Figure 3-1).

Figure 3-1: Schematic showing three main data collection techniques (excludes biophysical data) through which the dynamic changes are captured within case study sites in relation to the two climatically driven environmental perturbations under study*.

* Please note the schematic is a graphical representation of the methods and should not read as a scaled summary of the importance of specific methods or the x-axis.

Bounding the research and site selection

Conceptualising human environment relations in terms of a system places a great deal of emphasis on the boundaries of the system in question. In resilience research despite the theoretically equal focus on social and ecological properties most of the literature uses ecological characteristics to define the boundaries of the system under

consideration (focusing on a river catchment or lake for example) (Ernstson et al.,

1950 2007 2013 2014

Dongdian

Wanzhuang

Period covered by survey Survey

Drought Flood

Period covered by interview Interview

Change over time Period covered by rural

appraisal activities Rural appraisal activities Legend

self-evidently identifiable, then arbitrarily defining the unit of analysis would still be cause for significant concern (Sayre, 2005). Indeed most analyses that apply resilience theory tend to focus on the system rather than specific units of exposure (Eakin and Wehbe, 2009).

Clearly, the choice of scale, level, extent and resolution16 critically influence the patterns that are observable (Gibson et al., 2000) both for the research and the participants. Such issues are concisely summarised by Leach et al (2003) who

describe the process by which actors frame a system in a particular way depending on their choice of elements and subjective judgements. They define a system as

consisting of, ‘social, institutional, ecological and technological elements interacting in dynamic ways’ (Leach et al., 2010: 43) and argue that a system’s structure and functions can be understood in different ways depending on the specific choice of elements (such as scale, boundaries, relationships and, outputs) and subjective judgements (perspectives, interests and values).

Exploring the role of mobility in contributing to resilience provides some interesting conceptual challenges regarding the system under study; for example identifying the boundaries of the system (Marshall and Marshall, 2007). I have focused the study administratively and utilised the boundaries of the (natural) village in determining its limits. These boundaries are necessarily fuzzy and porous, owing to the central role of mobility within the research. For example, some individuals within the case study sites opt to leave the village, in so doing one sub-system is exchanged for another in terms of locality, lifestyle and livelihood and a large proportion of contacts and networks. However, ties with the sending area / system remain although much weakened. Similarly, for those who remain in the village but opt to stretch their livelihoods to include other locations the conception of the village as a bounded object again proves unhelpful. In light of these two general cases, I have opted to use the space occupied by those individuals and households with the centre of gravity defined by the de facto place of residence as the system of interest.

Despite the issues highlighted above there are a number of advantages in using a clearly defined administrative boundary to identify the focal point of the study. Bilsborrow (2009: 118) defines migration as a process that involves a change of residence across an administrative boundary. Using the natural village as a boundary not only provided a means to limit the spatial extent of the study area but also a

boundary to assist in defining what constitutes migration. In addition, the rural appraisal activities revealed that the residents identified with and felt a sense of belonging to the

natural village. Lastly, there were also a number of institutions (for example production teams) and administrative functions that were directed towards this level of the

administrative hierarchy. In sum, these more practical issues aligned with my desire to generate fine-grained data and analysis make the natural village the most appropriate means of bounding the research in origin areas despite the concerns outlined above. Furthermore, through the village level case study approach I am able to generate detailed, fine-grained information on the research topic concerning strategies and behaviours adopted by individuals and households in response to changing

environmental conditions. As I show through my description of the case study sites (see section 3.3 below) the villages are not unique and represent what Bryman (2008: 70) describes as an ‘exemplifying case’. An exemplifying case is representative of normal and everyday responses to environmental change. The villages were

purposively selected based on their socio-economic characteristics (rural, agricultural, and poor) and the presence of recent climatically driven environmental change. Two rural sites were selected to include an area that has experienced a flood and an area that has experienced a drought. Migration was an existing characteristic of both sites. The rural sites were identified through interviews with experts and an analysis of secondary sources. This twin track approach to identifying rural sites was used to build up a picture of sub-provincial rural Anhui in order to narrow down possible research sites. The research couples sending and receiving locations to add greater depth to the study. Shanghai is selected as the principle receiving location due to the high numbers of migrants it receives originating in Anhui (Poston and Zhang, 2008; Zhang, 2008) (see Figure 3-2 below).

An additional constraint to selecting research locations in China was the means through which approval and access was granted. The personal connections and networks of the Chinese academics supporting the research were vital to get permission to do the research and to enable the data collection to go ahead

(Hvistendahl, 2013). Operating through more formal channels with a partner institution did ensure that, once a suitable site was located, permission to carry out research was almost guaranteed. However there were risks and drawbacks associated with this

was no other feasible way of working and I felt that measures could be put in place to minimise or manage some of the more practical risks associated with conducting research in China under an official banner (see sections 3.2.3 on specific research instruments and 3.4 on research limitations and ethics).

Figure 3-2: Schematic to show case study approach differentiated by climatically driven environmental change and rural – urban location.

Research sampling

The rural sample frame was based on administrative boundaries of case study sites and ascertained through rural appraisal activities (Bilsborrow, 2009; Bilsborrow et al., 1984). The sample is not selected to be representative of a larger population (the province for example) but will be representative of the case study population. In this sense the research can be conceptualised as an embedded case study approach whereby the different climatically driven environmental changes constitute the different cases and the qualitative migrant research represents the remote but embedded aspects (Yin, 2011). Yin (2011) makes the distinction between statistical and analytic

Rural _Urban

Household Individual Drought

Flood _{Micro, meso and} macro levels Shanghai Migration

linkages Legend

generalization. This study draws on this distinction and acknowledges that the ability to generalize will be derived analytically from links to existing theory to establish a logic that might be applicable to other situations. This differs from studies that are able to generalize based on statistically representative samples.

Sampling in rural areas depended on the research instrument employed. For group activities participants were selected on their availability or pre-selected following consultation with community leaders based on the type of exercise and issues to be discussed. Every household within the rural case study sites was included within the household survey (availability permitting). The survey requested the household head or wife / husband of the household head provide responses for the survey where possible. Should the household head or the wife or husband of the household head not be

available another adult household member was asked to complete the survey. Surveys were often carried out in public places or in rooms with multiple members of the

household present, as such some responses were provided by people other than the main respondent. Despite this, the views are considered to be representative of the household but not necessarily frank accounts of the perspectives of individuals within them. Participants for the semi-structured interviews in the rural areas were purposively selected based on criteria of interest that emerged through the initial analysis of the data in phases one and two and their availability. These interviews tended to be

conducted in the participants homes and were often more private although other family members were often present.

The identification or tracing of an appropriate urban sample relied on the contacts made during the research in the rural locations (Bilsborrow et al., 1984). During the rural appraisal activities and questionnaire survey work in the rural case study locations participants were asked to provide contact details for family members who have

migrated to Shanghai during the period of interest (encompasses the environmental event) initially (although this was broadened subsequently to increase the potential sample). Permission was sought to make initial contact with the urban migrants through the family members in the rural location. Once this had been granted, arrangements were made to meet and interview the migrants in Shanghai. From this point, snowball sampling was used to identify other migrants, of which some came from

Figure 3-3: Diagrammatic representation of Initial contact and subsequent snowball sampling of urban migrants.

The unit of analysis depended on the research method employed (see Table 2-1 above and section 3.2.3 below for more information). The individual and the household were considered appropriate as the two main units of interest for this research in addition to the village as a whole. In migration research, the household context is seen as

particularly important as the migration of individuals is often part of broader household processes that seek to manage risk and maximise opportunities in response to shifting systemic conditions17 _{(Bilsborrow, 2009; Liu, 2014; Nguyen and Locke, 2014; Stark and} Lucas, 1988). In rural China, the household is considered the primary decision making body (Murphy, 2002) although this has become more complex as mobility has

increased and the household can stretch to many locations at different points in time. Furthermore, households from the same family lineage often retain close cooperation. Despite these complexities, the household is still considered the most suitable

analytical unit for this piece of research as it is the basic unit of production and

consumption and different households do tend to live in different houses (De Sherbinin

et al., 2008; Murphy, 2002: 35).

Although the household was the primary unit of interest for the household survey, information was collected on each individual household member. Conversely, the individual was the unit of interest in semi-structured interviews in the rural case study sites although much of the information generated related to the household. In Shanghai, the unit of interest was almost exclusively focused at the individual level through

interviews with migrant workers. I considered the responses generated through group

17 _{Regardless of the way in which the household is conceptualised. For example Stark and Lucus (1988)}

conceive of the household as a cooperative contractual model or a where as Liu (2014) conceptualises the household more in line with Sen’s (1990) cooperative conflict model.

Rural

Contacts with urban migrants made through rural case study research

Urban

Legend

Individual

Micro, meso and macro levels Migration linkages Shanghai

activities to be representative of the group as a whole (although I acknowledge that groups are made up of individuals with different perspectives).

3.2.3 Research methods