INTRODUCING THE STUDY
1.8. Research Methodology and Design
1.8.1. Primary Oral Sources
Primary oral sources in the form of semi-structured or in-depth interviews formed a crucial component of the present study in that they provide essential data in order to answer the research question and fulfil set objectives. An interview has been defined as ―a conversation, usually between two people. But it is a conversation where one person—the interviewer—is seeking responses for a particular purpose from the other person: the interviewee.‖182 In a historical study such as the one carried out by the researcher, interviews ―can allow researcher‘s access to the past,‖183 and thus can be used as oral history research tools. Denis has observed:
Oral history, as we understand it, is the complex interaction between an interviewer and an interviewee about events of the past, which requires questioning, as well as listening, on the part of the interviewer.
This encounter shapes the story.184
Apart from a few interviews carried out by others as acknowledged in the thesis, the researcher personally conducted the rest of the interviews. While the researcher knew some of the interviewees, with others it was a first encounter. The ‗insider‘ and
‗outsider‘ dynamics of research in conducting interviews is critical for the interview process. Norman Blaikie warned of this challenge among social science researchers and advised: ―The choice is between either maintaining a ‗professional‘ distance from the research participants or becoming thoroughly immersed in their social world.‖185 With the researcher being the interviewer, the success of each interview process rested on the researcher‘s ability to control the interview situation in order to elicit
182 B. Gillham, The research interview, (London and New York: Continuum, 2000), 1. See also S.
Dunne, Interviewing techniques for writers and researchers, (London: A and C Black, 1995), 30.
183 D. Scott, ―Qualitative approaches to data collection and analysis: Examinations and schools,‖ in G.
Mckenzie et al., (eds), Understanding social research: Perspectives on methodology and practice, (London: The Falmer Press, 1997), 165.
184 P. Denis, ―Introduction,‖ in P. Denis and R. Ntsimane (eds), Oral history in a wounded country:
Interactive interviewing in South Africa, (Scottsville: UKZN Press, 2008), 3.
185 N. Blaikie, Approaches to social enquiry, 2nd edition, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), 11.
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data. Such crucial data has been used to fill in gaps of information that were not addressed by the written sources.
Data generated from interviews has flaws because perceptions vary with each interviewee‘s memory. It became crucial for the researcher to be aware of the reality that interviewees as ―individuals are also social beings, formed in interaction, reproducing and also altering the societies of which they are members. Literate or illiterate, we are our memories.‖186 As a consequence, the views expressed by interviewees cannot be taken as objective reality but as a narrative of what people chose to speak about including the way they said it. There are dangers in treating interviewees as mere objects without feelings or memory. According to Elizabeth Tonkin, interviewees should be regarded as ―individual tellers, who have to remember, reconstruct, order and direct their own recollection and sometimes do so with better or worse success.‖187 Psychologically, interviewees might be confronted with questions of what information is important for the interviewer and thus selectively divulge what they said. During research interviews, ―people remember what they think is important, not necessarily what the interviewer thinks is most consequential.‖188 The researcher‘s task has been that of probing interviewees to tell their experiences of church responses to the HIV pandemic mainly in local area settings and within the Manicaland province.
The study uses purposive sampling in which ―sampling depends not only on availability and willingness to participate, but that cases that are typical of the population are selected.‖189 Church leaders and their followers, including a few other informants, were selected after the researcher established that they were likely to possess relevant insights on how the churches responded to HIV and AIDS in Manicaland (1985-2007. Kevin Durrheim and Desmond Painter suggest that purposive sampling is a suitable method for use in a qualitative study whereby
186 E. Tonkin, Narrating our past: the social construction of oral history, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 1.
187 Tonkin, Narrating our past, 101.
188 D. A. Ritchie, Doing oral history: A practical guide, 2nd edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 32.
189 K. Durrheim and D. Painter, ―Collecting quantitative data: sampling and measuring,‖ in Blanche, Research in practice, 139. For this see also Durrheim, ―Research design,‖ 50. Though discussed under quantitative sampling techniques, the researcher contends that purposive sampling fits well in the study.
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researchers ―...typically work with—and actually prefer—small non-random samples of information rich cases that they study in depth.‖190 The snowballing method of sampling was then used in conjunction with leads from gatekeepers and other respondents.191 In the second phase, formalities of explaining the purpose of the study and the value of the interview were discussed.192 The researcher had to discuss with each one of the interviewees the use of the following documents: the Interview Themes Guide (see Appendix I), the Interview Guiding Questions or Schedule (see Appendix II), the Consent Form (see Appendix III), and the Interview Release Agreement Form (see Appendix IV). Interview themes and the interview research questions served as guides. Some flexibility was often made in order to deliberately accommodate each of the interviewees‘ experiences.193
Between August 2010 and April 2011, the researcher conducted fifty-six interviews all of them being with adult male and female respondents (see list in the section on Bibliography of this study). There were twenty-seven male and twenty-nine female participants whose age range was between thirty and seventy-eight years. A total of fifteen participants were drawn up from the Roman Catholic Church in Manicaland and has been constituted by a bishop, two priests, and twelve laity. The interviewees were chosen from the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, St. Joseph‘s mission, Sakubva, St. Paul‘s Dangamvura, Triashill mission, Kriste Mambo with St. Thomas Nyahukwe, and St. Simon Stock. Within the list of lay people one was a nurse-in-charge at St.
Joseph‘s mission hospital in Mutare. Two females and one male had been involved in AIDS-related home-based care. Outside Manicaland the researcher also interviewed Ted Rogers, a Jesuit priest, who was one of the pioneers in spearheading church responses to HIV in the Roman Catholic Church in Zimbabwe and southern Africa.
Rogers also led national ecumenical HIV interventions between the late 1980s and mid-1990s.
The highest number of interviewees has been drawn up from the Anglican Diocese of Manicaland. The nineteen participants include a retired bishop and his wife, four
190 Durrheim and Painter, ―Collecting quantitative data,‖ 139.
191 For this see also B. Carton and L. Vis, ―Doing oral history,‖ in Denis and Ntsimane, Oral history in a wounded country, 43, 47. See also Durrheim and Painter, ―Collecting quantitative data,‖ 139.
192 Carton and Vis, ―Doing oral history,‖ 48.
193 For this see Gillham, The research interview, 3-4.
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priest and thirteen laity. Bishop Sebastian and Ruth Bakare were leaders of the Anglican Church in Manicaland between 1999 and 2006 and were therefore critical for the study in appreciating HIV interventions at leadership level. An interview transcript for Ruth Bakare has been included in the appendices (See Appendix V).
The four clergy were all male since the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) of which the Anglican Diocese of Manicaland was part did not ordain females to the priesthood. One of the clergy worked in the church‘s relief and development office since 1985 and thus could have been familiar with how the diocese responded to HIV during the entire period covered by the study. Within the sample, the other participants included eight women and four males. One of the eight women has worked as a senior matron at the church‘s St. David‘s Bonda mission hospital since 1980. Three of the women interviewees were involved in home-based care within the communities where they lived. Interviewees were identified from the following sites: Holy Name Sakubva, St. Matthew‘s Vengere and St. Bartholomew in Rusape, St. Cuthbert‘s Denzva, St. Agnes Chikanga, St. Joseph‘s Samanga, St.
David‘s Bonda mission, and the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. The contingent of interviewees from the Anglican Church was more than the others because of the existence of gaps of information not addressed by data from archival sources.
A total of fourteen interviewees were solicited from the United Methodist Church in Zimbabwe all of them from Manicaland. One ordained senior female pastor represented the church‘s bishop. Two of the interviewees are senior male pastors who were already in the ordained ministry of the church by 1985. Out of the four remaining males, one is a medical doctor serving at Old Mutare mission hospital since the mid-1990s. Two out of the seven laywomen participants had been involved in home-based care and one worked with the church‘s youth, and OVC. All the interviews were conducted at the participants‘ places of either work or residence.
Interviewees were drawn up from the following centres: Hilltop United Methodist centre, Mutare urban, Old Mutare mission, Tsonzo circuit (Mutasa), Rukweza (Makoni), Vengere in Rusape, and Chitombo in Honde Valley (Mutasa).
It was also important for the study to enlist the voice of Dr. Geoff Foster, founder of FACT whose insights from working with churches in Manicaland could enrich the findings. Similarly, an officer from the same FBO but based in Rusape was
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interviewed. An interview was also conducted with Vuyelwa S. Chitimbire the executive director of ZACH. The researcher chose to interview senior medical personnel one each from St. Joseph‘s mission hospital (Roman Catholic in Mutare urban), Old Mutare mission hospital (United Methodist and peri-urban) and St.
David‘s Bonda mission hospital (Anglican and rural) all being affiliates of ZACH.
Three officers from the National AIDS Council (NAC) with one based at the Manicaland provincial office in Mutare and two serving at Mutare urban and Makoni district offices respectively were interviewed for their input (see Appendix X). Finally one medical doctor from Rusape had to be interviewed as a way of eliciting insights on an overview of State and church responses to HIV in Zimbabwe in general and Manicaland in particular. Information that is relevant to the study was also obtained informally through other oral sources and email communication as acknowledged in the thesis.
It has not been intention of the study to intentionally interview HIV positive people as a way of avoiding the probability of causing possible harm. The focus of the present research study is not to seek HIV and AIDS status of participants but to concentrate on the response of Christian communities particularly from the Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Methodist churches. Interviewees were informed of the use of a digital recorder and given the option to have the interview in English or Shona. The researcher is conversant in both English and Shona languages and is familiar with the geography of Manicaland from which he hails. On the day of conducting each of the interviews the researcher had to carefully go through the interviews themes for a second time as well as the consent and interview release agreement forms. Before the commencement of the interview session, interviewees voluntarily signed the consent form as a way of authorising the interview process to ensue. By giving consent the interviewee also authorised the use of the interview by the researcher and as well as others thereafter. At the end of each interview session the interviewee also signed a release agreement form authorising the researcher to use the interview responsibly and deposit it in a safe place where it will be used by other researchers.194
194 P. Denis, ―The ethics of oral history,‖ in Denis and Ntsimane, Oral history in a wounded country, 74.
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The researcher made all the interviewees aware of the regulations and also informed them that based on signing a release agreement form the digitally recorded interviews were to be taken to the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. In oral history if there are no anticipated chances of possible harm, after giving their consent, the participant‘s names may be mentioned and acknowledged in the text unless they have requested that it should be otherwise. Consistent with this practice, Paul Thompson has observed: ―Perhaps more importantly, a licence to quote the informant is implied by the consent to be interviewed.‖195 None of the participants declined to have their names stated in the text and all proudly expressed the opinion that their names be mentioned and openly acknowledged in the present study. It is under these circumstances that names of interviewees have not been hidden in the text of the present work. The digitally recorded interviews have been deposited at the Alan Paton Centre and Struggle Archives that houses the Sinomlando Interview Catalogue at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg campus.