CHAPTER 5: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
5.3 Consolidating and analysing the interview results
The responses to these questions provided important insights into the receptiveness of local government institutions to new ideas and transformation, the way in which transformation and transformative adaptation might unfold in such a context and the factors that facilitate or undermine these processes.
At the outset, the questions were tested on the researcher by her supervisor to ensure that the questions were framed in a way that generated the responses that were needed. Ten interviews were then conducted and analysed, again to assess whether appropriate responses were being generated.
Minor modifications to the questionnaires were made at this point to ensure that the questions were clear. These changes were not substantial enough to make the subsequent interviews significantly different from those that had been conducted up to that point.
Focus area of the transformation literature
Transformation theme used in the analysis
Rationale for the transformation theme
Outcomes of transformation and transformative adaptation
The outcomes of change Used to assess whether the outcomes of the changes in the case study are positive or not, in terms of addressing issues of equity, justice and sustainability.
Catalysing and sustaining
transformation and transformative adaptation processes
Catalysts for transformative adaptation
Explores the initial catalysts for transformative adaptation.
Factors that facilitate transformative adaptation
Identifies those factors that have helped to facilitate and sustain transformative adaptation.
The role of knowledge sharing and social learning in facilitating transformative adaptation
Seeks to understand what role knowledge sharing and social learning play in facilitating transformative adaptation.
Barriers to transformative adaptation
Understand barriers that work against the catalysts and facilitating factors to undermine transformative adaptation.
Key actors involved in transformative adaptation
Explores the types of actors involved, where they are located in the system and what role they play in facilitating or undermining transformative adaptation.
Within each theme, storylines and storyline components were developed in an inductive way through the application of only the “storyline component” of Hajer’s “discourse analysis” approach (Hajer, 1995). This was used to identify the dominant discourses in the interview transcripts, in relation to each of the themes. Storylines are short narratives that “help people to fit their bit of knowledge, experience or expertise into the larger jigsaw of a policy debate” (Hajer, 2003 p. 104) and in the context of the current research, they offer perspectives on a particular transformation theme. As an example, under the theme of “catalysts for transformative adaptation”, a strong storyline emerged around the “role of champions” as critical catalysts. In most cases, respondents also expressed a number of different elements relating to a single storyline and therefore these elements were captured as “storyline components”. For example, when respondents spoke about the important role of champions (a storyline) as catalysts for transformative adaptation (transformation theme), they described the role of champions in leading and driving a change agenda (storyline component 1), the characteristics that are common to champions (storyline component 2) and the fact that champions need to build a broader support base around them in order to sustain change (storyline component 3). These storyline components were important in capturing the breadth and depth of the interview responses. The storylines and storyline components were developed in an iterative way based on the content of the interviews and were captured in a reference sheet, an extract of which is shown in Table 5.5 for the theme of “catalysts for transformative adaptation”.
Table 5.5: An extract from the reference sheet that was used to develop the storylines and storyline components for each transformation theme, showing the storylines and storyline components that were developed for the theme “Catalysts for transformative adaptation” in the eThekwini Municipality case study
Theme Storyline Storyline component
Catalysts for transformative adaptation
Individual champions are key in catalysing transformative adaptation
Champions play a key role in leading and driving transformative adaptation
Champions share key characteristics that assist them in playing a leadership role
Individual champions need to build broader support around them in order to ensure that the
transformative adaptation agenda is initiated and sustained
Crises spark a recognition of the need to change
Maximising the value of
“windows of opportunity” can be key to initiating
transformative adaptation
It is important to be able to recognise “windows of opportunity” when they present themselves.
Events such as COP 17 and the Soccer World Cup provided key “windows of opportunity” to advance the climate change adaptation agenda in Durban.
The reference sheet was initially completed for ten of the interviews so that the storyline and storyline components could be checked for accuracy and then consolidated, before the remainder of the interview transcripts were analysed in the same way.
Capturing the qualitative data from the interviews
In addition to the reference sheet, a separate data sheet in Microsoft Excel was developed to capture the detailed qualitative data emerging from each of the interviews (Figure 5.1). In addition to the storylines and storyline components emerging in each of the interviews, this sheet also captured quotes that supported these. The respondent’s name and interview category were recorded to allow for comparison of perspectives across the respondent groups.
Figure 5.1: A screen grab from the data excel sheet, showing the categorisation of responses into storylines and storyline components, with supporting quotes from each interview.
In the figure, the respondent names have been removed for the purposes of anonymity. This data was captured for ten of the interviews first in order to ensure that storylines and storyline components had been consolidated before the remainder of the data from the interview transcripts were captured in the same way.
Analysing the data
The addition of a filter function to each column in the Excel data sheet provided a useful way to sort the data by any theme, storyline, storyline component, respondent, or respondent category. This helped in assessing the cross section of ideas emerging within, and across, each of these data categories. The organisation of the data in this way also facilitated some simple quantitative analysis using pivot tables. The pivot tables allowed an assessment of the number of respondents expressing specific storylines and storyline components in their interviews, thereby providing an indication of which of the storylines and storyline components were most commonly or least commonly expressed across the interviews. It was also possible, using pivot tables, to assess how these perspectives were similar or different across the respondent categories and whether, for example, an individual who had been directly involved in leading the climate adaptation work (respondent category 1) identified the same “catalysts for change” as someone in a city leadership position (respondent category 4). Further notes on the quantitative analysis can be found in Box 1 on page 98.
Once the data had been consolidated and analysed in this way, the results were then used to reflect on the extent to which the eThekwini Municipality case study reflects the transformation and transformative adaptation characteristics outlined in the literature, as presented in the heuristic
framework, and whether these similarities or differences provide new insights into processes of transformation and transformative adaptation in a local government context.
Describing the results
The objective of the current research is to explore the changes that are emerging in the eThekwini Municipality case study with regard to the integration of climate change adaptation into municipal planning and implementation and to understand these in relation to the characteristics of transformation and transformative adaptation that appear in these literatures. The research findings are therefore presented in two chapters. Chapter 6 uses the heuristic framework as a reference point against which to assess whether the climate adaptation work in eThekwini Municipality can be considered to be transformative adaptation. Chapter 7 explores the factors that catalyse, facilitate or act as barriers to transformative adaptation in the case study and compares these with the literature to identify areas of similarity and difference.