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62 See Appendix III.
transport or meals, following the conclusion of the interviews, each participant was presented with small items such as toiletries and food of their choice in t h a n k s f o r of their assistance. This gesture was a token of appreciation and did not compromise the research findings at all.
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63 See Appendix III.
(Gill Eagle, Grahame Hayes and Thabani Sibanda 2006:506). As regards the interview as a tool, Reinharz (1992:20) points out that “this method is very useful when conducted by a woman; for a woman to be understood it may be necessary for her to be interviewed by a woman.”
As explained above, narrative methodology is used in this present study for data gathering.
This took the form of personal interviews and observation in order to generate primary data, while secondary data which was employed in analysing this primary data, was sourced through conducting a literature review.
3.4.1. In-depth interviews
The methodology of in-depth interviewing was employed in order to get a detailed description of the experiences of the women. While the research question and sub- questions guided the research as a whole, the primary data focussed on questions about the direct experiences and perceptions of the female prisoners and ex-prisoners.16
Ranjit Kumar (2011:144) confirms that interviews are a common and widely used tool for collecting primary data. Monette et al. (1986:156 quoted in Kumar 2011) define an interview as involving: “an interviewer reading questions to respondents and recording their answers.”
In-depth one-on-one open-ended questions were posed to female ex-prisoners at Prison Fellowship Zimbabwe and ZACRO as well as to soon-to-be-released inmates at Chikurubi Female Prison. Conducting in-depth interviews with female prisoners and ex-prisoners was important in providing a way of producing empirical data about both their social world and their subjective reality, by asking the participants to talk about their experiences and perceptions, and their identities as women in general. The interview method allowed the female prisoners and ex-prisoners to provide the detailed descriptions necessary to fully understand the gendered identity construction of women and its social consequences, especially in their vulnerable situation as convicted women. Two to three times contact was made with the participants who had more to narrate more and with those who needed counselling.
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Interviewing using open-ended questions allows the participants to “tell their stories.”
Phiri (2004:156) notes that “story telling is one of the powerful methodologies that African women have revived.” Since the study is qualitative, the participants’ narrations were employed as a method of data collection. As described by Darling (2000:143), the type of
“interview best suited for engagement with a particular group of people is the in-depth interview. Like observation, in-depth interviewing is a qualitative technique, designed to establish a contextual basis for understanding [the phenomenon under study].” This kind of approach encourages “respondents to discuss their views and concerns” (Darling 2000:143). As added by Phiri (2004:156), such approaches to data collection lead the researcher into a deeper understanding of the situation of the participants, especially by allowing them to tell their stories. This method was best suited for this study because it not only assisted with accessing the views and perceptions of the female ex-prisoners, which were then analysed, but it also enabled the formulation of an appropriate theoretical and practical approach to their rehabilitation.
Knowledge of the perceptions of the female prisoners and ex-prisoners was deepened through intense engagement in conversations with them during the interview period (Swinton and Mowat 2006:63). Benedict Carton and Louise Vis (2008:44) note that the purpose of the interview is not to have a formal question and answer session, but rather a kind of conversation, guided by open-ended questions that allow further probing. Hence, when conducting the in-depth interviews, every question from the interview instrument was followed verbatim and every theme was covered in the conversation with each participant, but through the vehicle of open and free discussion. It is this informal dialogue or interaction between the interviewer and interviewee, as asserted by the feminist researchers that is important for in-depth interviewing in qualitative research, as it is the interaction itself that generates the data (Mason 1996:38).
The duration for each interview was forty-five to sixty minutes, but some lasted up to two hours. Adequate time was thus allowed for meaningful conversations. Each session was recorded using a tape recorder, with the participants’ consent. In order to get the participants to narrate their stories, the significance of the insights they could provide towards a better understanding of the experiences of female prisoner and ex-prisoners was explained. The participants were given the option to use the language in which they were most comfortable. Among the female ex-prisoners, three chose English and the other
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twelve preferred Shona. Twelve of the prisoners conducted their interviews in Shona although at times mixed with English. One Ndebele speaking participant used Ndebele and Shona as her chosen medium of communication. The recorded interviews were subsequently transcribed into English. In this study all direct quotes from the interviews are presented in English. Due to the limited interview time-slots, the researcher had extra time aside for participants who needed longer to narrate their stories or who required additional counselling.
It has been noted above that a central concern of feminists has been the issue of power relations between the interviewer and the interviewee, which affects data production. Joey Sprague and Mary Zimmerman (1993:257-260), critique “positivist” researchers who conduct fieldwork with the assumption that they are the “privileged” and the “knowing”
party. They therefore argue that feminist researchers must emphasise the value of interviewees’ own subjective daily experiences. It is this which constitutes qualitative data.
While conducting interviews with female prisoners and ex-prisoners, the researcher was constantly aware of the power dynamics in play. This was particularly relevant considering her position as a pastor, a former prison chaplain and a PhD candidate.
However, the fact that the researcher was a feminist activist and has worked with some of these participants in the past, and that this project was designed around feminist methods, enabled the establishment of a rapport with the participants in the study.
3.4.2. Participant observation
Uwe Flick (2007:53-54) explains that in a research context, observation is considerably more systematic and formal than observation during everyday life. Research into human situations is aided by regular and repeated observation of people and situations, which may reveal information about the nature of behaviour within a social organisation or setting. A researcher who is also an observer immerses herself more fully into the life of the group under study. Thus, “observation is a purposeful, systematic and selective way of watching and listening to an interaction or phenomenon as it takes place” (Kumar 2011:140). For Derek Layder (1993:40), the method of participant observation allows for a situation in which the “sociologist enters into the everyday world of those being
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studied so that he or she may describe and analyse this world as accurately as possible.”
The observation method used in this study is non-participatory natural observation. This method was suitable because if individuals are aware that they are being observed, they may change their behaviour. Carol Bailey (1996:10) adds that a non-participant observer does not take part in routine activities and events in the setting. Consequently, in the present study, non-participatory observation provided information on the normal way of life of the participants.
Two participants among the female ex-prisoners were observed at the premises of Prison Fellowship Zimbabwe over a period of approximately one month on daily basis. They were observed, for example, to be subjected to various forms of gender discrimination, particularly in the field of employment. Permission to observe female ex-prisoners that were affiliated to this organization was granted as recorded in Appendix V.
A combination of in-depth interviews and observations complement each other to give insight to the understanding, in this case, of the experiences of female prisoners and ex- prisoners. It would seem, as regards the female prisoners and ex-prisoners in the study, that most of their everyday actions have become habits and routines, to a significant degree induced by cultural and religious traditions, and that this is what shapes their identity.
3.4.3. Consultation of literature
The data produced through the research methodology of interviews and observation needed to be compiled into a coherent picture of the phenomena under study. The compilation of the data was undertaken by the application of three feminist theories, namely: feminist theological anthropology; feminist cultural hermeneutics; and feminist pastoral care. These theories contributed to the interpretation of the data so as to generate themes that encapsulated and clarified the phenomena. It was these themes that allowed for a scholarly understanding of the experiences and perceptions of the female prisoners and ex-prisoners, which was a fundamental part of the initial aim of the study as a whole, in order for more appropriate rehabilitative responses to these women to be put forward.
This study thus employed primary sources (i.e., interviews and observation) to generate
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data, and secondary sources (i.e., a literature review) to make this data meaningful.
Distinguishing primary sources from secondary sources, Ruth Finnegan (2006:142) describes the former as those which “form the basic and original material for providing the researcher’s raw evidence.” The latter are those which “copy, interpret or judge material to be found in primary sources.” In this present study, published books, unpublished and published theses and dissertations, journal articles, reports, and reviews on issues relating to the experiences of women in general were used, particularly those in an African setting, and those of female prisoners and ex-prisoners, all of which provided valuable background information. However, for the specific purpose of the analysis of the primary data, the focus of the literature was on the three theories mentioned above. It is this literature and its application to the data that is the subject of this section of the present chapter. The literature was employed to provide a theological framework within which the research participants’ perceptions could be understood in a thematic manner. The literature provided the researcher with the theoretical and theological tools required in the deconstruction of the oppression of the female prisoners and ex-prisoners, as revealed in their perceptions of self, society and God. This formed the essence of the process of the analysis of the data which is discussed in detail in the next section.
Beyond the fieldwork section of this study, the literature survey allowed for three important research outcomes: (i) an examination of the context of women in Zimbabwe generally, as concerns their religio-cultural identity formation and the socio- economic implications thereof; (ii) an examination of the current rehabilitation theories and programmes for female prisoners and ex-prisoners; and (iii), the formulation of a response which could then be applied to the field of female prisoner and ex-prisoner rehabilitation. As previously noted, this falls outside the realm of the (primary) data analysis that constitutes the fieldwork, which is the focus of the present chapter that deals with methodology. However, the analysed primary data (organised in themes) was subsequently applied to the secondary literary sources to contextualise them within this study and this falls within the scope of this chapter.