Note
Chapter 4 Methodology
11.3 Beneficence
to raise issues with the researchers. The interview discussion of sex and sexuality seemed to be valuable to some of the participants. One of the female participants wanted advice about sexual activity after pregnancy. At the end of another interview which I conducted, a young female participant, 19 years of age commented: I like talking about this. I would not talk to my mother. I don’t know how to approach her talking about it. I would be happy if she started (to talk). The older female focus group participants asked me: What are the signs if one has HIV/AIDS? How does the female condom work? Where can we get it?
Although no direct attempt was made to ‘educate’ participants about HIV and AIDS, any misconceptions and myths about HIV and AIDS, for example about transmission of the virus, were addressed by the researchers in the interviews and focus groups. In one of the focus groups conducted by the CADRE researchers (FG 5 10-15 years of age), the young boys said that when one coughs a lot then you know that they have AIDS. The researcher responded:
one can only know that they have AIDS or HIV by doing a blood test .. it is not really possible to be able to say by looking at a person that they have the disease. … This is why people are cautioned to use condoms when sleeping with their partners because one cannot tell by looking at one’s partner whether the person has AIDS or not and it is always safe you know to play it safe by using a condom.
Addressing misconceptions was not always a simple process. In one of the interviews I conducted, a male participant (3m 51) argued that he thought the virus might be something that is made up. Perhaps caused by bewitching or something like that. There could be someone that is cooking it up because there are these people.
Even after I had explained that HIV was a virus which originated with monkeys (primates), the participant continued to state that it came about as an intentional bewitchment of one person by another. He also focussed very literally on the idea that the virus was in monkeys:
M: Was it a monkey that belongs to someone or in the forest?
I: no a wild one M/T: yo
I: but its not in these monkeys [in the Amathole Basin forest]
M/T: it’s a different case when it is a monkey, because even these monkeys, they do bite you.
There is one case of a guy who was bitten by a monkey. So I thought it perhaps would be a person who has got his own monkey, that kept it and perhaps he bewitched the monkey or gives the poison to the monkey and then that poison is spreading through monkeys.
…Where was this person who got bitten?
I: somewhere living in the middle of Africa M: In the bushes?
I: Yes in the bushes
M: was he hunting?
I: I’m not sure.
M: Its hard when it is like that.
A focussed, in-depth study in a particular context also contributes to the principle of justice in research. The principle of ‘justice’ in research is concerned with who carries the burdens of the research and who benefits from the research process. Frequently researchers benefit through obtaining a degree, promotion, publications etc., while the life circumstances of the research participants remain the same. This study has value for society, and the HIV and AIDS field in particular, in that it engages critically with the use of the term ‘context’ and makes a contribution to the study of behaviour and behaviour change. At the end of the thesis I make recommendations for an intervention approach based on the analysis of the data collected in this study.
12 Data analysis
Activity theory does not provide ready-made procedures for conducting research and this includes the process of data analysis. However, as outlined in an earlier section the principles of activity theory provide for specific ways of understanding human behaviour. In section 3.2.1 above, I argued that the significance of activity theory for understanding human behaviour is in its production of context. Activity theory, and activity system analysis as expressed by Engeström in particular, provides a mechanism for contextualisation. In this section I will illustrate how activity system analysis enables the production of context.
It is important to acknowledge that I did not approach the process of data analysis with a clear idea of what would be needed. There was a huge gap between the data corpus in the form of transcripts from the interviews and focus groups, and the notion of the activity system. Many applications of CHAT seemed to focus on the use of the activity system triangle as a heuristic, or ‘toolkit’, for analysis (Akhurst & Evans, 2007; Bødker & Grønbœk, 1991; Gifford &
Enyedy, 1999; Van Vlaenderen, 1998; Virkkunen & Kuutti, 2000). However, these applications do not explain how one arrives at a description of the activity system.
There were several layers to the analytic procedure. These included managing and processing the data corpus in such a way that it could be analysed in terms of activity systems;
constructing the activity system/s; and engaging in an analysis of the activity systems. These layers of the analytic activity are not necessarily sequential, nor are they completely
independent of one another. In the section below, I will describe each of these processes.