3.2 Sequential Mixed Methods
3.2.4 Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) 2015
For 2015, I wanted to collect community-level qualitative data on a selection of the 23 MAR sites. It was important for this phase of the research that the MAR be constructed and already in use (pumping water into the underground aquifer). In 2014, the MAR construction had not been finished and lack of completion was often offered as justification for lack of
transparency toward the community. I did not want the data to be affected in the same way in 2015. Dr. Matin reported in a tracking spreadsheet that he shared with our research team that five of the 23 sites had not started construction as of September 2014. These unfinished sites were eliminated from the 2015 fieldwork sample.
Of the six remaining NGO partners, I chose two sites for each NGO to provide variability on the NGO partner because I had hypothesized that I would observe variation across NGOs, while leaving open the possibility that NGOs might manage the MAR very differently in two different sites due to different preexisting socio-political conditions or challenges. The chosen sites included the following, in the table below.
32 Ultimately this was not borne out in the data, but AOSED and JJS did make attempts at elements of an RBA.
AOSED started the only “water rights committee” in the sample and JJS targeted marginalized Hindu community members for the MAR. I will discuss these findings more in the next two chapters.
Table 4: Twelve sample sites by NGO partners
NGO Site Community Name
LOCOS Site 2 Bhagabatipur-Raipur, Botiaghata, Khulna Site 11 Tildanga Kacharibar Dacope Khulna Mukti Foundation Site 20 Narayanpur, Bagali, Koyra, Khulna
Site 25 Bainbari, Goraykhali, Paikgacha, Khulna AOSED Site 27 North and South Chandpai, Chandpai, Mongla,
Bagerhat
Site 75 Golbuniya, Sundarban, Mongla, Bagerhat Shushilan
Site 34 Toardanga, Khajra, Ashashuni, Satkhira Site 35 Cheutiya, Khajra, Ashashuni, Satkhira Site 39 Thekra, Kusaliya, Kaliganj, Satkhira
JJS Site 56 Sonatola Adarsha Gram, Sauthkhali, Sharankhola, Bagerhat
Site 58 Uttar Sutalori, Baraikhali, Morelganj, Bagerhat Gano Milon Foundation Site 63 Gajalia, Gajalia, Kochua, Bagerhat
The variability of the NGOs was important because I considered that the different NGOs might use elements of a rights-based approach to varying degrees. Eliminating one or two NGOs would have severely restricted my sample. Accordingly, the goal was to choose at least one site from each of the six NGO partners. Of the 75 sites, Shushilan had 26 total sites, Gano Milon had four, AOSED had nine, JJS had ten, LOCOS had seventeen and Mukti Foundation had nine. Since Shushilan has the most sites and Gano Milon has the fewest, Shushilan is oversampled with three sites and Gano Milon is under sampled with only one site. For the rest of the NGOs, I selected two sites.
Given the large number of sites, and time constraints due to weather-related and MAR construction-related windows of opportunity, I knew I could not complete full ethnographies in each site. Instead, I chose qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) as my method for my sample (N=12) that included a case study of each site. I collaborated with a Bangladeshi ethnographer, Dr. Mujibul Anam, then a graduate student at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia (now a Ph.D. and professor in the Department of Anthropology at Jahangirnagar
University), who had worked on other parts of the project. Dr. Anam then trained two field staff in rapid ethnographic and qualitative methods. The two-field staff conducted the field work under Dr. Anam’s supervision. They spent multiple days in each site and conducted targeted interviews with key informants.
I chose to work with a Bangladeshi researcher instead of going to the field myself for a number of reasons. First, I had not been rigorously trained in ethnographic data collection and research. My training at VU was largely quantitative, following the trends of the discipline of political science more generally. Dr. Anam at the time was an anthropology graduate student with extensive training and experience in this coastal area of Bangladesh. Indeed, he had already done ethnographic work for other members of VU’s Integrated Social, Environmental, and Engineering (ISEE) team. Second, it would have taken more time for me to establish trust with members of the communities given my more visible outsider status (I am a blue-eyed white woman) and language barrier (I do not speak Bangla), and would have needed more time in the field, to gather the same data that Dr. Anam was able to gather in only a few weeks’ time. Time was a constraint for this project because the funding from ONR was set to expire in 2017, and following the field work we were anticipating months of translation and proofing of the field documents, which needed to be translated from Bangla into English. And, given that we had promised timely findings to Dr. Matin to assist him in improving the project for later
implantation phases, we could not spend a year or more in the field doing full ethnographies. I also think my presence would have been disruptive; people would assume that I have a role in influencing whether projects come to these communities, and would be less likely to speak freely with me. I might arouse unnecessary concern, poking around and asking pointed questions, so I thought it better to let a Bangladeshi lead the fieldwork. I was not present in Bangladesh at all for
the 2015 fieldwork. This method of collaborating with community-based representatives is common for research, particularly in public health, where the researcher does not have cultural competency in the community where the research is conducted (Pérez and Martinez 2008).