3. 8.2 Male participants Ali
3.12 Limitations of the study
The language barrier that the study anticipated earlier prior to field work was one of the constraints that the study encountered. Most of the research participants spoke Somali only and therefore, getting an interpreter was a prerequisite to successful communication between me and the research participants, especially those that migrated from Somalia, a country that predominantly speaks Somali and Arabic languages. However, the Somalis from North Eastern Kenya and Eastleigh, Nairobi did not pose any communication challenge to the study, because they were fluent in English and Swahili, languages that I was proficient in. On the other hand, although there was an interpreter, for the non-English/Swahili speakers it was likely that the interpretation distorted some meanings that would have been understood clearly if there was no intermediary person (no interpreter) between the interviewer and the research participant.
Being a Christian researcher who was to interview Somali women was initially daunting because Somalis are predominantly Islamic adherents but later, I was able to access the community thanks to the commonalities that we share such as being East Africans who are profeciant in; language, nationality, and most importantly the research assistant that introduced me to their social-cultural and religious norms. This orientation was inevitable, because Somali community has a closed culture that needs
83
an outsider to be aware of, before interacting with them. For instance, in the first few days at Mayfair, I stretched my arm to shake hands with women, only to be greeted by the word of mouth. Such an experience was embarrassing to me because I never knew that men are not allowed to shake women’s hands unless, she is your spouse, or having some close relation with you i.e. by blood or affinity.
Interviewing Somali women as male was not an easy task due to their cultural and religious backgrounds because it limits their interaction with males, especially the outsiders. The young Somali women would shy away from some questions related to gender and sex politics, albeit their significance to the study. Nevertheless, I solicited the support of a female leader who accompanied me during the interview process, and had an informant that contacted women of whom she knew would give information that the study sought for.
In the initial stages of my field work preparation, many people cautioned me against conducting the study among the Somali community for security reasons. This is because Al-Shabaab militias who had massacred Kenyans for religious, political and economic interest had sympathizers and funders outside Somali borders including South Africa. Such a perception was fear-provoking. As a Kenyan I had watched innocent people massacred at the Nairobi Westgate mall, Garissa University, Mandera quarry, and other repeated attacks on Kenyan soil in the media. This had brought into my memory images of the Al-Shabaab militias, whenever I intermingled with the young people. This fear of Somalis, enhanced by memories of Al-Shabaab attacks, would later end after realizing that Somalis living in Gauteng had fled to South Africa due to political instabilities exacerbated by the Al-Shabaab militias. One of my assistants was a victim of the Al-Shabaab in their cell/prison. He expressed succinctly that if he had gone back to Somalia, they would hunt him down and place an assassination attempt on him (because he would be seen as a traitor).
84
Xenophobia/Afrophobia was a very sensitive topic to Somalis, especially women, who expressed some hesitation to uncover their experiences, because they feared the interpreter who was known to them. On the other hand, fear of victimization by the society or authorities made some Somali women shy away from elucidating on what had transpired within the transnational space, especially gender based violence that was the aftermath of wars and Xenophobia/Afrophobia. Some of the refugees did not have valid papers, after their permits were rejected by Home Affairs. This made the Somalis reluctant to expose some information pertaining to their status which would jeopardize their stay in the country as it could lead to deportation or imprisonment.
Thus, getting information from the Somali women was not an easy task due to the aforementioned aspects. These members of the community would have generated very rich information that could have been of help to this study, if there was no fear of victimization.
At Mayfair, I discovered that the responses that were transpiring from the research participants had little information about the overt xenophobia. Therefore, after some inquiry from the Somali Community Board of South Africa (SACOB) and South African Somali Women (SASOWNET) and a few of the research participants, it was clear to me that most of the Xenophobia/Afrophobia victims (overt xenophobia manifested through violent attacks) were not residing in Mayfair. This was because violent attacks happened in townships. Although there were some narrations from those that were affected directly by the violence, most of them had come to the suburbs seeking refuge, and when the situation was calm, they went back to their businesses in Pretoria and other parts of Johannesburg. Due to this factor, I had to follow the victims of violent Xenophobia/Afrophobia attacks in Pretoria as well as continuing the interviews within Mayfair.
The language barrier was encountered because most Somalis from Somalia could not speak English- Somali and Arabic are the languages spoken in their country of origin.
85
The researcher had anticipated that he would use Swahili for those who could not express themselves in English. To my disappointment, most Somalis that originated from Somalia could neither speak Swahili nor English. Those that spoke Swahili and English came from Kenya (Coast, North Eastern provinces and Nairobi provinces) or were Somalis (from Somalia) that had interacted with Kenyans through trade, relatives and education, in Kakuma and Daadab refugee camps and so forth. Nevertheless, those that could speak Swahili had difficulties in understanding some terminologies that were asked by the researcher in Swahili because it was not easy to reformulate the question in Swahili, due to the fact that English terms have no Swahili equivalent, apparently or if they have, Somalis could not comprehend them. One of the interpreters, Osman, is an official in the Somali Community Board of South Africa (SACOB) office based in Mayfair and the rest of the two, Suleiman and Abdulrahman, were from Pretoria. With regards to their education background, the three of them are graduates from the University of Johannesburg, University of South Africa and Fort Hare, respectively.
Lastly, the study intended to conduct focus groups whereby, twenty research participants were to be interviewed. However this was not possible due to the targeted participant’s nature of work which could not allow their availability. Therefore, the twenty people that were to be interviewed through focus groups were interviewed in- depth.