Part 3 Summary of Findings, Conclusions and
5.3 Sampling Strategies and Methods of Data Collection
5.3.2 Cross-border Migrants: Sampling and Collecting Life Stories
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relationships and interactions between members of the receiving community, the displaced refugees, and the practitioners of care employed by the church, data collection at the second site continued into 2009. My last record was dated 31 October 2009, even though saturation had not been reached; I simply had to stop at some point (cf. Charmaz 2003). However, from about December 2008, my diary entries increasingly adopted the character of memos, that is, ‘written records … related to the formulation of theory’ (Strauss and Corbin 1990:197).
Memo writing and the use of other adjunctive procedures are discussed in Section 5.4.3:
Adjunctive Procedures and Conceptual Development.
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Initially, I also wanted to include undocumented migrants in the study. Using snowball sampling (Miller 2000; Babbie and Mouton 2001), I made several contacts but did not succeed in winning the trust of any prospective participants from this group and eventually abandoned the idea. Apart from this gap, I felt that I had a sufficiently diverse sample of life stories, collected thirteen months after the first interview. By then, the sample comprised four men and four women aged between 27 and 41 years, including singles, divorced persons, and persons living in steady relationships. Their number of children ranged from none to seven.
Originating from Nigeria, Somalia, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe, they included asylum seekers, certified refugees, temporary work permit holders, and permanent residents. They had come to South Africa on foot, by truck, and by plane, with, without, or with some of their children. They had lived here between one and nine years, and their living circumstances ranged from homelessness; living in shelters; sharing inner city flats;
to occupying their own rented suburban homes. Levels of education ranged from primary school to PhD, while occupations ranged from unemployment; casual and intermittent; to permanent employment; from wageless work and flea market vending to low level labour, and to professional work. Table 5.1 represents the eight participants in relation to these sampling criteria. Points of origin and travel routes to South Africa are illustrated in Figure 5.3.
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Discussed in publication: Dreams Subjectivities of Survival Subjectivities of Survival; Encountering the Other; Reflections on Misframing Subjectivities of Survival Table 5.1: Overview of Participants in Life Story Interviews
Interviews held in: English English English English
Interviews held on: 02.12.08 11.12.08 27.11.08 10.12.08 09.06.09 26.11.08 17.12.08 02.06.09 13.06.09
Relationship with researcher Service users at refugee services organisation Colleague Living at church after xenophobic violence Service users at refugee services organisation
Accommodation prior to May 2008 pogroms Shared inner city flat Suburban house (not shared) Shared inner city flat Homeless
Employment Status and Source of Livelihood Unemployed Temporary, full time employment: Tutor Intermittent / casual employment: Security service; Truck driver Intermittent / casual employment: Industry
Highest Qualification Primary School PhD: Human Science Intermittent / casual employment: Security service; Truck driver Technikon Diploma: Artisan
Residence Status Refugee Workpermit (Interviews 1 and 2); Permanent residence (Interview 3) Refugee Asylum seeker
In South Africa Since: 2004 1999- 2003; 2004 1999 2008
Country of Origin and Mode of Travel Somalia; By truck Nigeria; By plane Burundi; On foot and by truck Zimbabwe; By truck
Family Status Divorced; One child Married with two children Single; living with girlfriend and their child. One other child from previous relationshipSingle; No children
Age 27 41 32 39
Sex F F M M
Code name Aliyah Bola Émile Lance
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Discussed in publication: Subjectivities of Survival; Encountering the Other; Reflections on Misframing Dreams; Encountering the Other; Reflections on Misframing Subjectivities of Survival Not included Table 5.1 cont.: Overview of Participants in Life Story Interviews
Interviews held in: English, French and Swahili, with assistance from Léocadie’s husband François English French, translated by Sébastien’s friend English
Interviews held on: 29.11.08 19.12.08 12.12.08 11.06.09 31.05.08 28.06.08 08.08.09 16.06.08 05.07.08
Relationship with researcher Living at church after xenophobic violence Living at church after xenophobic violence Service provider at shopping centre Colleague
Accommodation prior to May 2008 pogroms Shelter Shared inner city flat Shared inner city flat Suburban flat (not shared)
Employmen t Status and Source of Livelihood Wageless work: Home- based production and flee market vendor Intermittent / Casual employment and wageless work: Flee market vendor Casual employment: Car guard Permanent, full time employment: Senior tutor
Highest Qualification Bachelor Degree: Sociology Secondary School Artisan: Secondary school level Masters: Natural Science
Residence Status Refugee Refugee Refugee Permanent residence
In South Africa Since: 2005 2002 2006 2003
Country of Origin and Mode of Travel DRC (East); By truck DRC (South); On foot and by truck DRC (Kinshasa) By plane and by truck Zimbabwe; By plane
Family Status Married with seven children Three children in the DRC / missing Separated; Three children (one is late) Caring for one of her sister’s children Married with three children Wife and children in the DRC Married; No children
Age 40 35 42 40
Sex F F M M
Code name Léocadie Michelle Sébastien Timon
120 Major residence, stop-over and/or border crossing points
Air travel Road travel
Figure 5.2: Origins and Travel Routes of Participants in Life Story Interviews
Bola
Sébastien
Lance
Aliyah
Léocadie
Michelle Émile
Timon
Kismayo
Bujumbura Uvira
Ibadan
Lubumbashi
Harare Kinshasa
Bukavu
Johannesburg
Mangusi Durban Beitbridge
Bulawayo
Mangusi Gweru
Mutare
Durban
Port Elizabeth Cape Town
Bukavu
Uvira Bujumbura
Lubumbashi Kinshasa
Ibadan
Bulawayo
Harare Mutare Gweru Beitbridge
Johannesburg
Cape Town
Port Elizabeth
Kismayo
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My initial choice of using the method of life story interviews (Miller 2000) with the sample of cross-border migrants was based on the idea that it would have been unsound to pre- determine which aspect of a person’s past and present experiences, perceptions and reflections would or would not be relevant to questions of social justice. Beyond this, Miller (2000) contends that life story research is particularly well suited to exploring the intersection of the personal with broader historical patterns and social structures, thus enabling researchers to appreciate the individual ‘choices, contingencies and options’ (Miller 2000:9) emerging from this interplay. According to Tierney (2003:307), this kind of research is especially valuable for people who find themselves on the margins of the society within which they live and therefore tend to interpret reality in ways that can be ‘in deep and ambiguous conflict with … official interpretive devices’. In view of the large scale redundancy and the various forms of economic, political, and social exclusion experienced (see Chapter 2.3 and 2.4), marginality is a condition that might well describe the lives of many cross-border migrants in South Africa.
In response to the potential marginality of migrants’ perspectives, experiences, discourses and practices, Bishupal Limbu (2009:271) emphasises the need to seek out those ‘stories and histories that have been ignored or that remain unassimilated within the apparent smoothness of the discursive field’. Halleh Ghorashi (2007:118), herself a refugee, narrates that her ‘personal experiences’ gave her ‘a certain loathing of the type of interviews that are too fast, too purposive, or much too short’, and advocates the life story interview as a helpful alternative. She demonstrates the suitability of this method for facilitating prolonged and dialogical engagement between researcher and research participants, for enabling the listener to engage with the contextual dimensions that have shaped the story teller’s life, and for giving ‘room for reflection’ (Ghorashi 2007:120). All of these arguments underscore the suitability of life story interviews for a study that is centrally concerned with structural processes of injustice.
Between 31 May 2008 and 13 June 2009, I conducted life story interviews with the eight members of my sample. In all instances, the first interview was unstructured, allowing my interview partners maximum choice in determining content and emphasis of the conversation (Miller, 2000). I did, however, have a rough list of topics for use in case participants requested some guidance (see Appendix 1.2.1). In all eight cases, the participants and I felt the need to
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explore specific topic areas in more depth and agreed to a follow-up interview. In two cases, a third interview was scheduled. For the follow-up interviews, I used semi-structured guides (Kelly 2006a; see Appendix 1.2.2 for an example). Of the eight participants, two felt uncomfortable being interviewed in English. One, Sébastien, brought a friend who assisted with French/English translation; another, Léocadie, spoke in English but switched to both Swahili and French on topics she found difficult. Her husband assisted with translations and additional explications (see Table 5.1). While I was able to check for accuracy of the French/English translations in both interviews when correcting the transcripts, I could only verify the accuracy of the Swahili/English translations against Léocadie’s non-verbal expressions during the interview. Intermittently, her husband added his own views and experiences to the interview. To acknowledge this role, I retained his voice whenever he did, and indeed, he is quoted in several articles. In total, there were 18 interviews, which ranged from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. All interviews were recorded, transcribed by research assistants, and corrected by me (see Appendix 1.2.3 for excerpts from one of the life story interviews).