CHAPTER 5: AN OVERVIEW OF RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SOUTH
6.3. Data collection
Data was generated from secondary and primary sources. Data that are extracted from already existing literature are secondary while primary sources of data are collected directly by the researcher (Kumar 1999: 104). The secondary data was generated to not only provide broad contextual and bibliographic information, but to support the primary sources and thus illuminate the essence of the study.
19 According to Jack et al (2010), social network theory is best used to explore the nature and effects of interactions between various people.
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i. Secondary data
The conceptual frameworks, theoretical approaches and contextual information that are relevant and related to migration, network theories and analysis, and the nature of relations between migrants and host communities were sourced from published books, newspapers, government documents, academic journals and unpublished dissertations.
ii. Primary data
Primary data was collected through qualitative interviews. As opposed to quantitative interviews, qualitative interviews allow for flexibility to capture the respondents’ experiences as much as possible. The interviews were audio or digitally recorded or in some cases manually written, as not all respondents granted consent for the sessions to be recorded. In these instances, notes were taken during the course of the interview. Two different sets of semi-structured interviews were carried out; one with Nigerian immigrants and the other with their most important or closest South African ties or members of their various networks. The study focused on Nigerians for two major reasons. The first reason is based on my personal experience as a Nigerian migrant who has lived (studied, worked, and became a mother) in South for over 10 years and as such has experienced the world of being an African migrant in South Africa. My experience which also includes having three children, who are South African citizens, is unique as I have tasted xenophobic exclusion and also enjoyed acceptance from South Africans. For example, in 2010, in an argument with a South African born colleague at the University of Zululand over parking space, he told me to go back to my country instead of contesting his parking space with him. However, on the other hand, I have made very good South African born friends who have been very good to me in ways that reduced my prejudices, promoted friendship and fostered my integration into South African society. I became motivated to enquire into the lived experiences of other Nigerians who may have had similar experiences and that was how the choice of Nigeria came about. In a nutshell, as a Nigerian, I had intimate knowledge of the subjects and their lived experiences in South Africa which rather than biasing my study, enhanced the effectiveness of the findings even though this was not initially highlighted. My second reason was the general stereotypes South Africans have of Nigerians as criminals and drug pushers. According to Crush et al (2014), Nigerians are one of the most disliked African migrant groups in South Africa. Based on this argument, the study sought to investigate the nature of relationships between Nigerians and South Africans by focusing on their network ties. It also investigated
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the kinds of network ties that evolved as a result of intergroup contact between these groups.
This was done in order to answer the broad question: beyond hostility are there convivial relations that exist between the two groups?
My position as the researcher who is also a Nigerian immigrant poses some ethical questions which required scientific objectivity to mediate. For example, how was I to separate my own experience as an immigrant from the subjectivities of other Nigerian immigrants and from affecting the outcomes of the study? While reflexivity20 could be an advantage in terms of gaining access to other Nigerian immigrants and getting them to trust me sufficiently to be open during interviews, it could also be a source of bias. I migrated to South Africa in 2005 to join my husband, who came to the country to study. We resided in Pietermaritzburg for three years and moved to Empangeni after our postgraduate studies where we both took up appointments as lecturers in the University of Zululand. My husband has been president of the Nigerian associations in Pietermaritzburg (2006 – 2008) and in Umhlathuze (2011 – 2013), and I was Assistant Secretary of ANRU when my husband was president. While this experience as an executive member of the association gave me some advantage in terms of inside knowledge of its members, it also raised questions about following proper research ethics protocols to access the association’s membership database and not abuse it. However, I was able to remove myself as I no longer held the portfolio of an executive of the Association at the time of the study and I hence applied for access formally as any “outsider”
would.
Secondly, in the course of data collection and analysis, as the researcher, I was also involved in the interpretations that took place in trying to integrate the lived experiences of my research subjects into social research. This posed an ethical challenge as, according to Marshall and Rossman (1995: 54), the analysis of data in its interpretivist sense means that the researcher reads the interview for what he/she thinks is meant, and makes inferences from the data “about something outside of the interview interaction itself.” This gives the researcher discretionary powers to shape and reshape, and select and ignore what he/she
20 The underlining assumption of reflexivity is that within the research process our beliefs, backgrounds and feelings are part of the process of knowledge construction. The researcher must be aware of certain aspects of his character and experience that he/she brings to the interview, such as gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, which may influence the research process.
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deems relevant or otherwise to answer the research question he/she set. This put me in a privileged but delicate position that required me to distinguish as clearly as possible between what data was retrieved or rejected and which was analyzed regardless of my position as the researcher and as a Nigerian migrant. Indeed, in the course of this study, my privileged position as the researcher may have influenced the research process and its outcome(s) given my role in formulating the research problem, defining the aims and objectives of the study, and collecting, cleaning and analysing the data. Being aware of this ethical dilemma from the very beginning helped me to deal with it with a clear head and with integrity, and in my opinion, declaring it now serves to boost the quality and validity of this study.
A stratified random sampling technique was employed to select migrants to be interviewed.
This involved dividing the migrant population into various groups or strata in order to ensure that all parts and elements of the population were represented in the sample; in other words, one stratum represents each element of the population (Bless and Higson-Smith 1995: 90).
One of the advantages of stratified random sampling is that it ensures the selection of targets that represent the population being studied. The sample was drawn from the Association of Nigerian Residents in Umhlathuze (ANRU) in Empangeni. The study focused on Empangeni because of its unique character that makes it a destination for migrants. The town is home to both transnational and national migrants who work in the various rural towns that surround it such as Felixton, Kwadlangezwa, Ngwelezane, Esikhawini, Eshowe, and Machane among others. Because it is a central urban town for these rural areas, migrants settle there and travel to and from their various places of work on a daily basis. The port in Richards Bay, the university in Kwadlangezwa, and the hospital in Ngwelezane also make Empangeni an attractive migrant hub. The study addressed African migrants’ experiences in a smaller town rather than large metropolitan areas in South Africa where much of the research in this field has been conducted. These two reasons formed the rationale for sampling Nigerians that were members of ANRU. The ANRU has more than 60 registered members who are Nigerian immigrants residing in the area. They include 25 medical doctors, four nurses, eight university professors/dons, two architects, four clergy, two civil engineers and 16 business people. It is estimated that the membership of the ANRU makes up about 50% of Nigerian immigrants known to be residing in the Umhlathuze area. The main objective of this voluntary association is to support its members through fostering networks among them and providing assistance to those in need. According to its home page, it has been in existence as
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a registered Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) since 2004. Apart from fostering unity amongst Nigerians and catering for their social welfare, it seeks to promote positive relations between Nigerians and South Africans at grassroots level, and between the two countries. To this end, every year since 2010, the association has engaged in community service to give back to its immediate communities that are in need (www.anru.weebly.com Accessed 14/04/13).
Figure 6.1. Street map of Empangeni, Umhlathuze Municipality
Source: Google maps (https://www.google.com/maps/@-
28.7550064,31.8958189,14z?hl=en-US)
Out of ANRU’s membership list, 36 were sampled randomly for the study. The lottery method of sampling was used to select the Nigerian migrants (Rivera and Rivera 2007). Prior to the lottery, all 60 members were categorized into class and gender groups and sub-groups,
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respectively on the strength of the information gleaned from ANRU’s membership database which the researcher was granted access to, having served as the Assistant Secretary (2011 – 2013) of the ANRU. The 60 members were divided into two strata, A and B. Stratum A comprised of middle class members while stratum B included working class members.
Furthermore, stratum A was divided into sub-strata A1, comprised of males and A2, comprised of females. Stratum B was divided in the same way (see Figure 6.1 below). Once this was done, each name from each stratum was written on a piece of paper and put in various bowls and the respondents were randomly selected. Ndletyana’s (2014) class stratification was used to divide the migrants into class groups. The middle class consisted of those migrants with individual earnings of R10, 000 and above, while the working class were those that earned below R10, 000.
Figure 6.2: Stratification of migrants based on class and gender
The interviews were conducted in a fairly structured way in that all respondents were asked the same set of core questions, followed by more discursive questions. The migrants’
interview guide (see appendix 1) was modeled around three broad guidelines: (i) questions on demographic profile, (ii) questions about the formation and nature of relationships in their networks, and (iii) name generator questions used to identify one South African member of
9 female working class migrants
9 female middle class migrants
9 male working class migrants
9 male middle class migrants
36 migrants
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the African migrant’s network. This made it possible to obtain the most important South African dyadic tie identified by the Nigerian migrants.
The guides for the interviews with South Africans (see appendix 2) were translated into isiZulu. A research assistant, who is conversant with the language, conducted a few of these interviews. She also assisted with the translation of these interviews as I am not fluent in isiZulu. The interview questions revolved around the nature of ties and the level of reciprocity that existed within the network ties and South Africans’ general perceptions of migration from elsewhere in Africa to South Africa. Thirty-two instead of 36 South Africans were interviewed because four African migrants did not identify any most important tie with South Africans. This brought the total number of respondents interviewed for the study to 68 instead of the targeted 72.
On average, the interviews lasted approximately an hour. The maximum time taken was two hours 30 minutes, while the minimum was 38 minutes. The interviews with Nigerian migrants were mostly conducted at their place of residence. Only three were conducted at their workplaces. The situation was different with the South Africans. Eleven South Africans insisted that the interviews be conducted telephonically; 14 were interviewed at their place of residence; and seven were interviewed at their workplaces. The interviews were conducted between May and December 2014.