Abstract
In the context of marginalized Tamil communities in post-conflict Northern Sri Lanka, reconstruction policies and programmes of the government and international NGOs have emphasized infrastructure re-development. However, local politics interact with social relations to shape poor people’s access to housing schemes and loans. Moreover, unrecognized personal and social trauma and mental ill-being aggravate feelings of insecurity, lack of trust and confidence in future development. Based on an in-depth case study of the Tamil fishing village Navaturai, this paper sheds light on the diversified intra- and inter-household strategies for pursuing wellbeing in this reconstruction process. Where some households seem unable to escape the vicious cycle of increased indebtedness, others manage to invest in entrepreneurial projects or political affiliations as a way out of poverty and dependency. The study illustrates how economic decisions are inter-twined with social-relational and (individual and group) psychological determinants of wellbeing, and why reconstruction should invest in re-building social and political institutions and fostering reconciliation rather sooner than later.
Table of contents
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1
1.1 Academic and Social Relevance 1
CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
3
2.1 Wellbeing dimensions 3
2.2 Wellbeing trade-off patterns and decision-making 8
2.3 Gender and decision-making in a post-conflict small-scale fisheries context 12
2.4 The insecure context and wellbeing 12
2.5 Conclusion 16
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH DESIGN
17
3.1 Research Questions 17
3.2 Unit of analysis 17
3.3 Mixed Methods 18
3.4 Qualitative data collection 19
3.5 Quantitative data collection 21
3.6 Sampling methods 21
3.7 Data analysis 22
3.8 Ethical considerations and research limitations 23
3.9 Conclusion 25
CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH CONTEXT
26
4.1 National context: political, economic and social characteristics of Sri Lanka 26
4.2 Research Location in its Context 29
4.3 Policies for reconstruction 32
4.4 Community and population overview and characteristics 34
4.5 Conclusion 34
CHAPTER 5 MATERIAL WELLBEING
35
5.1 Employment and livelihood activities in Navaturai 35
5.2 Income and expenditure, wealth and assets in Navaturai 39
5.4 Conclusion 45
CHAPTER 6 RELATIONAL WELLBEING
46
6.1 The governance framework of the village 46
6.2 Social security and the communal support system in the village of Navaturai 49 6.3 Social and political support from outside actors for Navaturai: Illegal fishing and international
aid. 51
6.4 Manoeuvring the governance framework: action, inclusion and exclusion 53
6.5 Conclusion 55
CHAPTER 7 SUBJECTIVE WELLBEING
56
7.1 Past, present and future: Loss and Nostalgia over time 56
7.2 Understanding Navaturai: identity, morality and cultural expectations 62
7.3 Conclusion 64
CHAPTER 8 HOUSEHOLD DECISION-MAKING IN THE CURRENT GOVERNANCE SYSTEM
65
8.1 The meaning of living well for Navaturai inhabitants 65
8.2 Heterogeneous wellbeing strategies: active, passive and escape 68 8.3 Agency & structure: possibilities for Navaturai’s inhabitants in their context 76
8.4 Conclusion 81
CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSION
82
9.1 Answering the main research questions 82
9.2 Reflection on theory 83
9.3 Reflection on research methodology 85
9.4 Policy recommendations for household and community wellbeing in Northern Sri Lanka 87
BIBLIOGRAPHY
91
APPENDICES
99
Appendix I. Income and Expenditure Survey 99
Appendix II. A network overview from Atlas.TI with the main code categories. 103 Appendix III. Tamil translation of the Income and Expenditure Survey 104 Appendix IV. Overview list of surveys, interviews and focus groups 109
Overview of figures and tables
Figure 2-1. The conceptual framework ____________________________________________________________________________ 4 Figure 3-1. My research design ___________________________________________________________________________________ 18 Figure 3-2. A focus group with the Fishermen Cooperative Society with help from my interpreter (to the right) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 24 Figure 4-1. A map of Sri Lanka with Navaturai marked in red, DeVotta (2011: 132) _________________________ 29 Figure 4-2. An overview of the governance levels in relation to Navaturai ____________________________________ 29 Figure 4-3. A map of Navaturai and its neighbouring towns and villages _____________________________________ 30 Figure 5-1. Left, traditional fiberglass fishing boats in Navaturai. On the right, the simpler Kattumaran boats in Navaturai. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ 36 Figure 5-2. Dryfishing: the fish is salted and laid out in the sun for drying_____________________________________ 37 Figure 5-3. An elderly widow sells eggs from her chickens: her sole income ___________________________________ 38 Figure 5-4. Income categories in Navaturai. _____________________________________________________________________ 40 Figure 5-5. Education levels for males and females (N=241) ___________________________________________________ 44 Figure 5-6. The daily bus from Jaffna to Aaliyawalai struggles at the Navaturai bus stop due to the heavy rain and bad roads ________________________________________________________________________________________________ 45 Figure 6-1. The daily auction in Navaturai: The FCS secretary writes down the sales. ________________________ 47 Figure 6-2. Distribution of off-season solutions for Navaturai households (N=96) ____________________________ 49 Figure 6-3. A shopkeeper shows his products and the notebook where he keeps his credit accounts _________ 50 Figure 7-1. The tsunami cemetery in Navaturai _________________________________________________________________ 58 Figure 7-2. Parent's wishes for their children's future jobs (N=78) _____________________________________________ 62 Figure 7-3. One temple in Navaturai on the coast _______________________________________________________________ 63 Figure 8-1. Comparison of households indicating themselves as poor or not poor, and those owning transport (left). Comparison of households indicating themselves as poor or not poor, and those having received the aid for a permanent house (right) (N=127) __________________________________________________________________________ 67 Figure 8-2. An elderly woman proudly shows the water pump she uses for agricultural activities ___________ 70 Figure 8-3. Fibers of the palmyrah tree which can be used for the fabrication of rope ________________________ 70 Figure 8-4. The coast of Navaturai, the buffer zone, including the ruins of a house ___________________________ 75 Figure 8-5. An overview of household NGO aid requests in Navaturai in % (N=133) __________________________ 79 Figure 8-6. A woman standing on Navaturai beach between fishing boats, waiting for the catch to come in and help her husband. ____________________________________________________________________________________________ 80
Overview of tables
Table 2-1. Dimensions of wellbeing explained ... 6
Table 4-1. General Details about Navaturai ... 31
Table 4-2. An overview of research participants in and around Navaturai ... 34
Table 5-1 An overview of male and female income activities in Navaturai ... 35
Table 7-1. An overview of a family's displacement in the years of war and disaster in Sri Lanka (I17) ... 56
Table 8-1. An overview of the main characteristics of the three mentioned wellbeing strategies ... 74
Overview of textboxes
Textbox 8-1. A description of Anushani including a picture of her sewing. _____________________________________ 68 Textbox 8-2. The story of Fernando and Santhi’s passive strategy. _____________________________________________ 71 Textbox 8-3. A description of Mahinda and Thulasi livelihood. _________________________________________________ 73
Acronyms and Tamil
Acronyms
BBS = Bodu Bala Sena
CBO = Community Based Organizations EU = European Union
FCS = Fishermen Cooperative Society GN = Grama Niladhari / Village mayor GoSL = Government of Sri Lanka IPKF = Indian Peace Keeping Force
LLRC = Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee LTTE = Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
NGO = Non Governmental Organization
OECD = The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development PARCIC = PARC Interpeople’s Cooperation
RDS = Rural Development Society SAH = Swiss Labour Assistance’ SDC = Swiss Development Cooperation TdH = Terre des Hommes
TID = Terrorist Investigation Department UN = United Nations
UNDP = United Nations Development Programme
WeD = Wellbeing and Development Group (University of Bath) WRDS = Women Rural Development Society
Tamil
Sangam = Fishermen Cooperative Society Samaasam = Fishermen Cooperation
Palmyrah = type of fruit from the palmyrah palm tree Grama Niladhari = version of a village mayor Shrimadan = voluntary village community clean-up Koeli = helper
Saree = Sri Lankan traditional female costume
1 euro = 146.20 LKR (July 2015) 1 Lakh = 1,000,000.00 LKR
“Human development is about fostering an environment where people can realize their potential, have more choices open to them and live long, healthy and productive lives.” (UNDP, 2012).
Chapter 1 Introduction
Traditionally, the quality of life or wellbeing of a country or region has been measured in terms of welfare, namely through income, expenditure and material goods. World Bank and IMF reports focus on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), national poverty lines and similar measurements to define who is poor and rich, and from that they define their policy recommendations. This research aims to move away from such traditional institutional contexts and structures, as these do not pay enough attention to the bigger structures and agencies behind decisions that will eventually influence individual and community wellbeing. This thesis takes a closer look at household decision-making in a post-conflict small-scale fishing village in Sri Lanka to better understand wellbeing processes, outcomes and people’s priorities for change.
Recently, in 2009, Sri Lanka came out of a 25-year long civil war following tensions between the Tamil and Sinhalese ethnic communities, which greatly affected this island nation. This thesis will research household wellbeing in this post-conflict context and use a fishing village in North-Eastern Sri Lanka as a case study, with a specific focus on economic decision-making. The mostly informal economy includes income from fishing activities as well as values that Sri Lankan fishing villagers give to non-material possessions. This consequently creates a situation that is difficult to measure using ‘traditional’ economic measurement tools. Instead, one needs to consider redistribution issues, socio-political factors, environmental factors, and culture into our current economics paradigm to better understand and measure societal progress. Due to political, socio-cultural and economic diversity, individuals react differently to changing structures; hence they make different economic decisions. Therefore, in order to understand and possibly improve the Sri Lankan fishing communities’ situation, one needs a wellbeing approach, a framework that focuses on a multidimensional conceptualization of the on-the-ground economic progress, recognizing factors such as religion, ethnicity, caste, and gender influencing economic decision making. Currently, there is a gap in knowledge on this combination of the post-conflict, post-disaster context and the wellbeing approach. This is what my research will further explore in the hopes of improving the current understanding of development and wellbeing processes in such an insecure context.
1.1 Academic and Social Relevance
By doing this research I am first adding to the academic community’s work in applying certain tools from the wellbeing framework. Approaches towards wellbeing differ from researcher to researcher. I would like to add to this academic debate by researching opportunities and economic decision-making for wellbeing in the post-conflict setting of a North-eastern Sri Lankan fishing village. This shows the
necessity for my research on the country and regional level. Specifically, by combining literature from heterogeneous decision-making strategies (Van Voorst, 2014) with the wellbeing literature (Gough and McGregor, 2007) to examine wellbeing strategies, I hope to expand the scope of the general wellbeing framework. Quak (2014) states that, although this debate started in the 60s, “It has taken a long time to start seriously extending the analytical and empirical framework [of development economics] beyond GDP” (para. 4). By asking local people for their input, rather than following a top-down development approach that merely communicates with distant ‘experts,’ my research approach is holistic, multi-scalar and multidimensional.
Furthermore, my research is socially relevant in the specific case of the post-conflict marginalized Tamil communities in Northern Sri Lanka. Policies in post-conflict Sri Lanka: “Adopting standard, one-size-fits-all development policies is counterproductive in post-conflict contexts” (Junne and Verkoren, 2005: 307). I would like to fill this knowledge gap by understanding economic strategies and aspirations of the local populations that could lead to efficient, context-specific policy recommendations on household, community and national level. Overall, I am curious to know in what ways different governance strategies can contribute to an enhanced wellbeing of the individuals and the community in the rural setting of fishing villages. The recent election in January 2014 emphasizes the population’s desire to change the political framework. This indicates the necessity of effective and relevant wellbeing interventions and policies in a tumultuous time, where current changes are not only for the betterment of all people.
In order to explore these academic and social options, I have the following research question:
How do Northern Sri Lankan fishing households make economic decisions to shape, maintain and/or alter their wellbeing in a post-conflict setting?
In order to answer the main research question I look at households’ daily lives, how they provide for their daily needs, and which actors and institutions play what role in this. I then illuminate agency and structure, gender, environmental sustainability, politics, ethnicity, and religion in household decision-making and strategizing in Navaturai1. My main method is qualitative, because of the people-centric nature of the wellbeing framework. I however also incorporate quantitative data in order to achieve complementarity and validity.
This thesis first explores the theoretical frameworks, namely wellbeing, decision-making strategies and the insecure context, in chapter 2. After an explanation of the data collection and data analysis methods in chapter 3, the context of the study is explained in chapter 4. Furthermore, the findings are divided up into material wellbeing (chapter 5), relational wellbeing (chapter 6), subjective wellbeing (chapter 7), and overall household decision-making (chapter 8). The conclusion in chapter 9 answers the research questions and provides recommendations for future research.
1In order to protect the safety and confidentiality of Navaturai’s inhabitants, I use a pseudonym for the research village.
Chapter 2 Theoretical framework
This chapter first presents the evolution of the conceptualization of wellbeing in section 2.1. Then, it relates the theory on wellbeing to other theories relevant for the study in section 2.2, concerning decision-making strategies and trade-off patterns. Here after the chapter discusses theories on fisheries governance and gender in relation to wellbeing and decision-making. Last, theories on post-conflict and post-disaster settings will be explored in section 2.3, to further illuminate the aspect of wellbeing and economic decision-making in an insecure context.
I will explain existing theories, including their limitations, and illuminate how I combine them into a theoretical framework that is relevant for this research. The conceptual framework in Figure 2-1 (page 5) gives an overview of the main theoretical concepts and their relation to each other in this research.
2.1 Wellbeing dimensions
Over time, international and national organizations have attempted to find ways to properly portray individual and household prosperity in reports to eventually illuminate causes of poverty and deprivation, economic inequalities and areas of need in a society. This traditional economic development paradigm “has often been strictly associated with the concept of economic growth, in turn defined as an increase in the per capita income of the economic system” (FAO, 2011: 3). One example of traditional development is from Solow in 1956 with his “Long Run Growth Model.” He emphasizes, “increasing the capital per unit of labour increases labour productivity and generates growth” (FAO, 2011: 3). Such traditional definitions of development mainly focus on economics as the main indicator of development. The wellbeing approach attempts to challenge this one-dimensional view of development, and brings in different disciplines to understand a person’s social wellbeing, and, to “shift the prime focus of our economic analysis to human wellbeing, rather than welfare” (Pouw and McGregor, 2014: 23). I here explain the process of this paradigm shift to portray the elements that make up the wellbeing framework.
2.1.1 Challenging paradigms over time
Weeratunge et al. (2014) explore the development of the wellbeing framework and start this exploration with Chambers and Conway (1992), who challenged the economic growth paradigm in the early 1990s. Their sustainable livelihoods approach served as an alternative to traditional approaches from international institutions, such as, the Bretton Woods institutions. Chambers and Conway stated that development professionals should “listen to the voices of poor people and to their perceptions and feelings about poverty” (McGregor and Sumner, 2010: 105). In line with this argument, Sen’s (1994) call to focus on people's capabilities rather than merely their income led to the
Figure 2-1. The conceptual framework
Insecure context: post-conflict and post-disaster development
Subjective
Material
Relational
WELLBEING
Time
Past, present,
future
Scale
International,
national, local
Dimensions
Subjective,
material,
relational
ECONOMIC DECISION-MAKING
WELLBEING TRADE OFFS
Human Development Index (HDI), now extensively used by the UN. This statistic includes measurements of life expectancy, education and income, “to serve as a frame of reference for both social and economic development” (UNDP, 2013a). These measurements differentiate themselves from the traditional paradigm by focusing on social infrastructure such as education, health, people and agency. This creates a multi-dimensional view of wellbeing and recognizes context-specificity, thus emphasizing that it is no longer possible to measure wellbeing with one static statistic universally. Other inventive views on development indicators can also be seen in Narayan et al.’s (2000) participatory poverty assessment. This emphasizes the dynamic nature of poverty and argues that understanding poverty from the perspective of the poor reveals crucial aspects to poverty indicators, such as social networks. Furthermore, Alkire and Santos (2013) proposed a composite measurement of poverty and created the multidimensional poverty index (MPI), emphasizing the intensity of the poor’s deprivation. Slowly, the realization came that it is crucial to include a version of the subjective in wellbeing measurements. A critique by White and Ellison (2007) emphasized the importance of time: instead of promoting the idea of “snap-shot poverty measurements,” by “recognizing seasonality changes with the turning year, as well as longer term cycles and shifts” livelihoods frameworks attempt to move away from misrepresenting reality (5). These components lead to the uniqueness of the wellbeing framework: looking at human decision-making in the context of the specific place and time: a holistic view of presenting on-the-ground reality, including different times and different components of life.
2.1.2 Wellbeing revised
White (2008) states what is specific about the wellbeing approach: a holistic and multidimensional framework. First, the wellbeing approach associates the target group, the poor, with positivity rather than “othering” them in policy making (White, 2008: 2). Secondly, she states that rather than promoting categories, wellbeing concentrates on a holistic, actor-oriented approach. This then recognizes the multiplicity and complexity of people’s lives, focusing on their strengths rather than their weaknesses. Thirdly, it does not merely recognize objective measures but includes the individual’s perspective by including measurements of subjective feelings and perceptions of wellbeing. It divides up wellbeing into three dimensions: the material, relational and subjective.
In this thesis, I will refer to wellbeing according to the definition of the University of Bath working group, including the aforementioned authors Gough, McGregor and White. They define wellbeing “as a state of being with others, where human needs are met and where one can act meaningfully to pursue one’s goals, and where one enjoys a satisfactory quality of life” (WeD, 2007a). It is an iterative ‘network’ of the social-relational, cognitive, and material wellbeing both in communities and individuals. Interdependency is key within this framework; the factors and dimensions complement and overlap each other. However, for the sake of overview, Figure 2.1 is
White’s attempt at categorizing the elements of the different dimensions of wellbeing. The next section will give a detailed description of these dimensions, and a reflection of this representation of the wellbeing framework, its limitations and possible uses.
Table 2-1. Dimensions of wellbeing explained
Adapted from White (2008: 7)
2.1.3 Material wellbeing
The material aspect of wellbeing regards the question whether an individual is leading a good life in a relatively objective manner. The practical welfare and standards of living emphasizes the natural, physical and financial assets (Pouw and McGregor, 2014: 19). This dimension of wellbeing indicates “the objectively observable outcomes that people are able to achieve” (McGregor and Sumner, 2010: 105). Its components encompass income and expenditure, the proximity, availability, and affordability of health and education, as well as solid infrastructure including roads, electricity, and water quality. Material wellbeing does not only take into account static measures, but also the processes and diversity of the components.
2.1.4 Relational wellbeing
The social-relational aspect takes the material wellbeing concept further from merely living well to living well together. Specifically, this dimension focuses on an individual’s relations within a community, in addition to existing networks of support, care and affection. This dimension is crucial to investigate, in order to comprehend “the resources that a person is able to command and the extent
Material Practical welfare and
standards of living •Income and expenditure,
wealth and assets
•employment and livelihood activities
•education and skills •physical health and (dis)
ability
•access to services and amenities: infrastructure •environmental
opportunities and limitations
Relational
Personal and social relations •relations of love and care •networks of care and
obligation
•relations with the state: law, politics, welfare
•social, political and cultural identities and inequalities •violence, conflict and
(in)security
•scope for personal and collective action and influence
Subjective Values, perceptions and
experience • understandings of the
sacred and moral order •self-concept and personality •hopes, fears and aspirations •sense of
meaning/meaninglessness •levels of (dis)satisfaction •trust and confidence •sense of freedom
to which they are able to engage with others [in their natural and social environment] in order to achieve their particular needs and goals” (McGregor and Sumner, 2010: 105).
By using this lens, the wellbeing framework can expose or make explicit the implicit assumptions on the existing governing system. Namely, the norms concerning cultural identities in a society, networks of support and obligation in such a community, the absence or presence of conflict, and the injustices that prevail. This consequently influences the scope for personal action, collective action, and hence the wellbeing strategies of an individual, household, or community.
2.1.5 Subjective wellbeing
Subjective wellbeing specifically focuses on people’s life satisfactions. The major question within this subjective aspect of wellbeing and its conceptualizations is: what does it mean to an individual or a household to live well? Also known as cognitive or psychological wellbeing, this subjective wellbeing dimension concentrates on “the meanings that people give to the goals they achieve and the processes in which they engage [with regards to their material and relational wellbeing]” (McGregor, 2010: 105). Specifically, it indicates an individual’s hopes, fears, satisfactions, happiness and spirituality. Diener et al. write that it is a “broad category of phenomena that includes people’s emotional responses … satisfactions, and global judgments of life satisfaction” (1999: 277). The subjective wellbeing dimension focuses on how households and individuals make decisions in their daily life. Section 2.3 will further discuss household decision-making.
From the outside -- for example from a Western perspective -- certain material and relational wellbeing achievements of individuals or communities may seem inadequate or insufficient. Each community and society globally has its own context-specific norms and values. However, it is crucial to identify the subjective assessment of the individuals themselves to understand what, in their culture, in their society, is considered inadequate and adequate when it comes to relational and material factors. Overall, this shows that a person’s development aspirations are dynamic, and depend on what they have and not have, and what they see as their most important priorities and needs.
2.1.6 Wellbeing framework considerations
Specific considerations concerning the wellbeing framework as an analytical framework are first the gender aspect and two, the interplay of the framework across dimensions.
First, the strength of the wellbeing framework is the subjective dimension that focuses on bringing the so-called “voice of the people” to the forefront. The context-specific bottom-up view recognizes both female and male (dis)satisfaction, values, opinions and aspirations. McGregor (2007a) emphasizes the importance of culture and context-specific meanings in the framework: “to study wellbeing requires a framework of analysis that is able to comprehend the cultural construction of meanings in particular contexts” (600). White (see Figure 2-1, page 6) does not explicitly mention the concept of gender in her overview. However, gender and the related power structures are present
throughout the entire wellbeing framework, and I explain below (in Section 2.3) how gender theories apply to this research.
Besides gender, there are several dimensions and indicators of wellbeing that cross the three ‘separate’ domains. One such an example is income stability: namely, the framework recognizes not only income, but also income fluctuations and the stress and insecurity that comes from it. Especially with regards to fishing industries, seasonality causes income insecurity. External factors may affect both the supply and demand of such an industry, causing annual and monthly fluctuations that are difficult to capture in measurements and observations. This income uncertainty overlaps with the components of relational wellbeing. One way to balance out the overall income and create income stability for the household is women and men undertaking complementary and alternative income generating activities during the off-season. Subjectively, stability gives individuals a “peace of mind,” to be more secure of the sustainability and/or improvement of their current quality of life. Relational stability is important since it creates assurance; that due to good relations there are ways to financially cope day-to-day. This again shows the overlap across dimensions and importance of the framework’s flexibility as an iterative process.
In addition to these dimensions and factors, it is also important to understand the complex trade-offs people make when deciding about wellbeing. The following section will further explore this.
2.2 Wellbeing trade-off patterns and decision-making
The theories that have informed the wellbeing approach, such as the sustainable livelihoods framework and the capability approach, focus on the decisions of a community, household or individual in a specific context. First, I take this theory on decision-making and take a closer look at Pouw and McGregor’s (2014) categorization of wellbeing trade-offs according to wellbeing across; 1) time, 2) scale and 3) dimensions. Second, I discuss theories behind decision-making strategies for wellbeing and how structure and agency play a role in this. Last is explored how decision-making takes place across scales by first focusing on fisheries governance, and second on the household level and the role of gender in decision-making processes.
2.2.1 Wellbeing trade-offs
Pouw and McGregor state, “People … engage in economic decision making, ultimately to improve, maintain or protect their wellbeing” (2014: 18). They propose that in order to improve, maintain or protect wellbeing, households make certain trade-offs in decision-making. This section introduces and explores three different trade-offs for wellbeing:
1) Trade-offs between different dimensions of wellbeing, and different aspects of each Section 2.1 explains the wellbeing framework, which is divided up in different dimensions where dimension aspects overlap and there is an iterative process between these dimensions. This is where the first aspect of wellbeing trade-off comes in. For example, sometimes improving material wellbeing can diminish relational wellbeing or subjective wellbeing and vice versa. The decision-making process often results in prioritizing certain dimensions over others, and this can be understood and illuminated with the idea of trade-offs.
2) Trade-offs between the individual and collective (household, community, nation)
Within the households, amongst community members and in relation to national and international actors, there are different priorities. For example, what may serve a community well might not be what is necessarily an asset to a household’s wellbeing. Pouw et al. (unpublished) state “people may be willing to sacrifice for a broader and more diffuse group of people, for example when going to war, and vice versa, and the collective may give back or take from individual wellbeing” (11). Personal feelings according to identity or specific moral values may have to make way for a purpose that is a priority for the collective. This process of trade-offs is an interactive, on-going process that leads to different outcomes to different groups of people, according to their different socializations. For example between women and men, fishers and non-fishers and between different religions, different issues may arise. Section 2.2.3 therefore takes a closer look at the factors involved in decision-making cross-scalar and intra-household by examining fisheries governance and gender relations.
3) Trade-offs between wellbeing over time (past, present and future)
Camfield et al. explain the importance of time in wellbeing trade-offs: “priorities and strategies change over time and people regularly trade-off feeling well in the present with functioning well in the future” (2009: 89). Section 2.3 analyses wellbeing and economic decision-making in an insecure context, and shows how factors of the past, present and future influence strategies for wellbeing.
The way in which people resolve such difficult trade-offs is through the interaction between their agency, social-cultural and political structures, rules and norms. This leads to much heterogeneity in decision-making across households and communities. The following section illuminates the reasons for such disparities and the decision-making process.
2.2.2 Decision-making styles, agency and structure
Wood describes several processes for wellbeing: negotiating institutional landscapes, existing political settlements, and a group’s social action for ensuring security (Wood, 2004). A political agenda setting is highly influenced by someone’s agency: “the capacity to make informed choices about what should be done and how to go about doing it” (Gough, 2004: 17). Gough argues,
“participation in some form of life without serious arbitrary limitations is a fundamental goal of all peoples” (2004, 14). This shows just a small piece of the extensive literature on what people globally find important to strategize for and base their decisions off of. This section explores the heterogeneity in decision-making and how agency and structure play a role in strategies for wellbeing.
This research aims to comprehend wellbeing strategies through investigating how people make decisions in their environment. The decisions that people make depend on their political, cultural and socio-economic background. De Haan and Zoomers use the concept of ‘styles’ to address specific decision making patterns, and state that “these patterns are structured by an internal logic and conditioned by social, economic and personal characteristics of people involved’” (2005: 41). Furthermore, the diversity in decision-making within a society or a community will depend on both the subjective wellbeing of an individual and/or the means available or perceived to be available to this particular person. This will result in a decision that seems fitting to the person in the particular situation. These means available depend on for example access to resources and an individual’s particular socio-economic position in their society.
Within decision-making there are certain considerations, priorities, sacrifices, trade-offs, privileges, limitations, and opportunities to keep in mind. As Sen (1985) states: “What we actually get and what we can sensibly expect to get may frequently involve compromises with a harsh reality.” (21). Van Voorst (2014) takes the concept of ‘styles’ from De Haan and Zoomers (2005) further through her research on heterogeneous risk-handling practices in an Indonesian slum with a high flood-risk. She ends up with four different strategies to the flood, which depend on the person or household. She states for example that previous bad experiences may have an affect on people to focus on short-term issues rather than long-term goals that they believe “probably could never be realized” (Van Voorst, 2014: 6). Van Voorst follows the argument that people make choices that are not perfectly in line with the rational homo economicus2. Bourdieu (2005) explains, that the “set of culturally determined bodily dispositions [to act, think and feel in certain ways]” is often unconscious and unique to each individual (np). These dispositions may influence rationality within the decision-making process and cause heterogeneous reactions within these strategies.
Van Dijk (1997) explores this concept of rationality and rational choice, and states that “rational choice decision-making theory … presume[s] that people are either geared towards profit maximization or towards risk minimization” (108). He then critiques this presumption and emphasizes, “people operate not only in an ecological and economic environment, but also in social and cultural environments” (108). I use this decision-making analysis in my research to examine an individual’s strategies on economic decisions to pursue his/her own wellbeing. As Pouw and Gilmore state, “culture cannot be considered residual to economics; it plays a pivotal role in the motivations, preferences and attitudes people form about their capabilities, livelihoods, and relational
2 Homo Economics is “the person who maximizes his or her own well-being subject to the individual budget constraint” (Nyborg, 2000: 309). This concept is often used to describe the rational characteristics of a human.
satisfaction”(2012: 21). Van Dijk (1997) argues that limiting analysis of risk-coping behaviour to the individual decision-making is incomplete. Rather, it is necessary to focus on “larger dynamics of risk and uncertainty [by developing] … models which include motivational, cultural and institutional factors” (128). This shows the importance of a holistic view towards understanding decision-making behaviour, which should involve exploring social, economic, political and subjective structures. Overall, Van Dijk and Van Voorst emphasize that agency, social structures and political structures interact by setting the scope and opportunities for making decisions about wellbeing.
2.2.3 Trade-offs: Scale
This section explains the cross-scalar difficulties, cooperation and trade-offs. It specifically makes the scale aspect of wellbeing trade-offs visible. The governance of fisheries worldwide is complex, since it is often a combination of formal and informal laws (Bavinck et al., 2013b). Most small-scale fisheries globally are currently dealing with difficulties that their traditional fishing technologies are not able to compete with the high-tech fishing equipment of their competitors. Many researchers, including Ostrom (2010) have debated about the governance structures surrounding such issues. They explore ways to look at the division of these common pool resources and prevent what is known as the tragedy of the commons3: overfishing leading to a depleted ocean.
Jentoft and Chuenpagdee explain worldwide fisheries governance: “[Often], The transboundary nature of fisheries makes its governing, power influences, regulations and predictability complex” (2013: 35). Informal and formal laws interact in an attempt to create a sustainable environment for small-and large-scale fisheries. This often creates a situation of legal pluralism, which “arises when different legal ideas, principles, and systems are applied to the same situation” and is specifically applicable to the context of fisheries: “Fisheries stakeholders are numerous and they have competing and, more often than not, conflicting interests, values and worldviews” (Jentoft et al., 2009: 27; Jentoft and Chuenpagdee, 2013: 35). In this web of legal pluralism on macro and meso-levels, it is crucial to recognize that small-scale fisheries are not independent but a part of a greater network and intertwined with priorities on different scale levels. This dependence increases complexity in governing small-scale fisheries.
3 This idea is originally from Garret Hardin (1968) and believes that the selfishness of people that want to
exploit common, natural resources in an unregulated manner will lead to the depletion or destruction of these resources. The Tragedy of the Commons is often related to the concept of environmental sustainability, for
2.3 Gender and decision-making in a post-conflict small-scale fisheries
context
Traditionally, power structures and roles for females and males are distinct. Such entrenched power structures affect the entire setting of the household and the community, and consequently inter-and intra-household decision-making. This section further explores these task divisions and the effect of gender roles.
When discussing gender, I refer to the “socially defined roles, resources and responsibilities of men and women as they relate to one another … these roles are socially constructed and vary across different times and places according to changing values, practices and technologies” (Pascual-Fernández, Frangoudes and Williams, 2005: 165). In order to comprehend the workings of a household within the context of the community, and thus decision-making, it is crucial to “understand the relationships between males and females, their access to resources, their activities, and the constraints they face relative to each other” (Jeyaruba, De Silva and Dharmasena, 2013: 382).
Many previous studies on small-scale fisheries have shown that the gender dimension is crucial in researching and analysing the economic decisions that are made in the respective communities. Acker argues for a redefinition of work and work relations, in which different types of work, such as household tasks and childcare, would be recognized as equal (1990: 154). Research done by Thorpe et al. (2014) on small-scale fisheries in Sierra Leone emphasizes that women often respond to gender order by diversifying their activities rather than specializing their labour. This shows the importance of gender in thinking about trade-offs for wellbeing and brings us back to the exploration of agency and structure. Thorpe et al. (2014) first emphasize the social structures that effect a woman’s role with regards to increasing welfare and wellbeing: “This [gender] division is rooted in social norms that circumscribe the space in which women may operate in small-scale fisheries” (17). Thorpe et al. also emphasize the current exclusion of women in policies on economic and social support that could lead to gender-effective interventions (2014). This shows how gender roles are influenced both by socio-economic structures, lower and higher scale political structures.
Concluding, the quest for wellbeing is complex both on the household level and between larger actors across scales on the national, international and local level. By using the framework of wellbeing trade-offs, it is possible to examine gender relations and fisheries governance and illuminate the priorities, opportunities and consequently decisions that individuals and households make for wellbeing across scales.
2.4 The insecure context and wellbeing
The previous section showed the importance of the interplay between agency and structure when making decisions for wellbeing and consequently trading off between dimensions of wellbeing, and across scales of wellbeing. Now, the temporal aspect of wellbeing trade-offs is explored further, by
exploring theories on post-conflict and post-disaster contexts. According to Wood, agency can be “impaired” by a set of factors: “severe mental illness, poor cognitive skills, and by blocked opportunities to engage in social participation.” (Wood, 2004:18). One factor that can heavily influence this in a post-conflict setting is trauma from the war and the accompanying insecurity, which correlates with poverty since “the determining condition for poor people is uncertainty” (Wood, 2004: 455). Development theories and practices in a post conflict setting “have to be adjusted in post conflict situations …[and] only if security can be guaranteed to some degree can any kind of development take off” (Junne and Verkoren, 2005: 307). The prospect of an insecure future not only affects present wellbeing, it also colours people’s images and remembrances of wellbeing in the past. This section discusses theories behind post-conflict and post-disaster insecurities. First, it looks at the influence of the past, of the conflict or disaster. Then it examines the present, and specifically the reconstruction of areas in terms of politics, law, infrastructure, health, and education. Finally it explores the future in terms of economics and investments in overall development.
2.4.1 Post-conflict development: the influence of the past
The term post-conflict development mostly focuses on reconstruction focused on education, infrastructure and socio-political aspects. Galtung (1996) developed a theory on two different types of post-conflict reconstruction contexts: 1) negative peace and 2) positive peace. Negative peace is merely the absence of armed conflict, and does not guarantee a constructive area of peace building. Positive peace describes collaboration between the actors that were in conflict before this time of peace. Positive peace indicates that stakeholders deal with the drivers of the conflict, and emphasize the importance of covering the social, political and subjective developments in the process of reconstruction. Galtung argues that it is crucial to get rid of the inequalities that caused the war in the first place and thus argues for positive peace as good practice. This duality is essential in the process of reconstruction: first, the subjective aspect of socio-psychological reconstruction of the inhabitants and second the social-relational setting of the affected people.
First, the subjective and psychological is crucial in times after war as “many have been injured in the war … [and] Many people experiences mental health problems such as traumas,” for example “the destruction of one’s home, the disappearance or death of loved ones … The stressful social and material conditions caused or worsened by armed conflict” (Junne and Verkoren, 2005: 15; Roberts, Damundu, Lomoro and Sondorp, 2009: 7). Not only individual disorders due to these traumas are central to a post-conflict arena, the social fabric is also often destructed “caused by dislocation of families and the consequent loss of a sense of community” (Jeong, 2005: 162). Jeong elucidates the importance of communization in the grieving process. The “healing process entails not only the expression of the feelings of fear, hatred, and mistrust but also grieving over what has been lost” (160). Consequently, the space for such grieving and community construction proves to be key in providing a space of reconstruction for the psychological aspects of a society.
A second aspect in the post-conflict context is the social-relational setting that has been damaged: “One of the most immediate concerns in the aftermath of violence conflicts is rehabilitating the network of social interaction, torn by the deep and widespread effects of violence” (Jeong, 2005: 155). Roberts et al. sum up the diverse war-related experiences, specifically related to communal issues:
“Conditions such as poverty, malnutrition, displacement into overcrowded and impoverished refugee camps, strife and divisions within communities, the destruction of social networks and the resulting loss of social and material support, and the ostracism and struggle for survival of groups such as former child soldiers, widows, sexual assault survivors, orphans, and people with war-related disabilities” (Roberts, Damundu, Lomoro and Sondorp, 2009: 7).
Jeong emphasizes this lack of mental support from the social network of friends and family. And therefore there is a need for communal cohesion, which often is supported by the absent infrastructures such as schools, religious institutions, and medical facilities.
2.4.1.1 Governance and infrastructure in a post-conflict setting: the present
It can be assumed that in a post-conflict setting, there has been a stagnation of development: existing infrastructures, such as train tracks and roads, have been damaged, and educational institutions are lacking or have poor quality. Moreover, “health facilities are often damaged or destroyed, and there is [often] a shortage of health personnel … the health situation is often alarming” (Junne and Verkoren, 2005: 15).
This shows a variety of needs for the households: education, health and transport. After an age of insecure governance structures and power changes, a new “social contract” may need to be constructed: “basic structures of society have to be changed to avoid a repetition of disastrous destruction” (Junne and Verkoren, 2005: 6). One large aspect of this changing governing system is the establishment and enforcement of a legal framework (Holt, 2011). Lack of law enforcement directly fits in to the insecure framework; a changing economic situation, scarceness and excess of natural resources could actually cause more conflict (Junne and Verkoren, 2005). This includes re-establishing the rule of law: ensuring that it is “shaped by the desires and needs of the population” (Junne and Verkoren, 2005: 13).
Overall, this shows the several different factors that are involved in building wellbeing for a nation in a post-conflict setting. In order to achieve proper reconstruction on these levels of law, education, and health, economics is often the main focus in physical reconstruction. The economy is seen as the building block, the backbone that can create a peaceful society. However, as Galtung (1996) indicates with his concept of negative peace: there are other ways of perpetuating a war besides armed conflict. Not only observed, physical violence is an indicator of a non-peaceful society,
but also social, political, and subjective factors contribute to the security of households in the process of reconstruction.
2.4.1.2 The economy in the reconstruction process: the future
Besides the post-conflict governance processes, the post-conflict economy also has its own specificities. Junne, Kamphuis and Verkoren identify several factors that are crucial in the peace building process: reducing aid dependency, employment generation, investing in local economic development, stabilization, education, and attracting investment (2011). They show the importance of rebuilding the economy for a country’s reconstruction, both within the country and on the international level. Kamphuis coins the term ‘conflict economies’ in discussing the economic context of post-conflict areas, emphasizing that conflict distorts the structure of the economy.
Post-conflict developing countries often have a flow of international aid from aid institutions, donor institutions and a population’s diaspora. However, this economic process is interlinked with a political framework for the acceptance and distribution of aid. There are possible negative implications of foreign aid. Namely, actions of donation may be counterproductive to a country’s peace building process both on the level of the government and the international community. The political insecurities of aid appear on several levels. First, it shows on the macro level, and specifically when it concerns the government’s decisions to accept or refuse aid from organizations. Then, government actors will decide which target areas and regions they will direct the aid towards. On the micro level, NGOs and more local government workers distribute aid and select the beneficiaries, based on pre-determined features. Furthermore, international aid creates a context of dependency: “Most postconflict societies are highly dependent on foreign aid. People quickly develop a kind of dependency syndrome, [nailing] recipients down in a dependent role” (Junne and Verkoren, 2005: 312). This dependency syndrome together with political tensions makes the concept of international aid complex in this post-conflict setting.
Another crucial aspect of the international aid economy is the remittance flow. The World Bank discusses whether remittances may help stabilize consumption, “help ease liquidity constraints, improve access to financial services, and smoothen household consumption, especially during periods of financial stress” (World Bank: 2003). This shows that habits from the wartime persist in times of peace. The end of a conflict does not mean an immediate return of the affected refugees. In fact, those who lost the war may choose to leave the region they fought for. Overall, this shows the aspects of internationalization of the economy during and after a conflict. This has created a dependency on foreign aid that is not sustainable for long-term development.
Bringing together post-conflict and post-disaster
Post-conflict development has much in common with post-disaster reconstruction, such as the international connection with regards to aid flow after a major disaster. Furthermore, these contexts often include destroyed infrastructure with regards to roads, housing, health, and educational facilities. However, there are some specific factors to be taken into account when it comes to a setting that is reconstructing after a disaster took place, such as an earthquake, hurricane or tsunami. First, Joakim explains the difficulties of rebuilding, “conflicts experienced during the recovery period as planners and developers establish grandiose rebuilding plans that compete with local citizens‟ ideas for reconstruction – which are usually to see the area rebuilt to predisaster norms” (2011: 5). This emphasizes the complexity of a situation, where people, the government and international community may have different ideas on the reconstruction. Joakim emphasizes:
The hazard is viewed as the triggering event, but the disaster is created when pre-existing vulnerabilities interact with the hazard… In this sense, any recovery and reconstruction efforts that attempt to “build back better” need to focus on long-term, sustainable efforts to reduce pre-existing vulnerabilities and increasing capacities to cope with future hazardous events (2011: 21).
This view is similar to Galtung’s (1996) theory of negative peace, in which drivers of the conflict need to be tackled in order for proper reconciliation and reconstruction to take place. I merge post-conflict and post-disaster theories as an insecure context in line with the following statement: “Without the prospect of security, there is no hope; without hope, there is no commitment to a common future” (Salomons, 2005: 19).
Concluding, these post-conflict and post-disaster considerations show that wellbeing is a process intertwined with issues of temporality: ideas of the future, memories and experiences of the past that affect present processes of wellbeing. Trade-offs related to time, along with scale and dimensions, reveal the complexity of economic decision-making for wellbeing.
2.5 Conclusion
The wellbeing framework aims to explore the structures at play that give opportunities or limit households’ agencies. In merging this decision-making theory with the wellbeing theory it is crucial to keep in mind the heterogeneity in 1) the domains – the material, relational, and subjective dimensions –2) scale – micro, meso, and macro – and 3) time – past, present, and future – of the ever changing process of wellbeing. This interplay is crucial in understanding the iterative wellbeing process as it often leads to heterogeneity in decision-making styles.
Chapter 3 Research design
This chapter illuminates the main research questions and the logic behind the thesis research design. It includes the epistemological and ontological position, the unit of analysis, an explanation of the data collection that uses qualitative and quantitative methods, and the data analysis process – SPSS and Atlas.TI –. Finally, I reflect on the ethical implications of the research with regards to my interpreter, the post-conflict setting, data reliability and data validity.
3.1 Research Questions
How do Northeastern Sri Lankan fishing households make economic decisions to shape, maintain and/or alter their wellbeing in a post-conflict setting?
In order to answer the main research question, the following sub questions will be used:
Sub question 1: What are the main trends, opportunities and limitations in a household providing for its financial needs day to day?
Sub question 2: Who are the main actors that play a role in possible limitations and opportunities for a household’s ability to develop in Navaturai?
Sub question 3: What factors influence heterogeneity in inter-and intra-household decision-making in Navaturai?
Sub question 4: How do socio-political tensions due to gender, environmental sustainability, politics, ethnicity, and religion play a role in household decision-making and strategizing in Navaturai?
3.2 Unit of analysis
In order to understand and examine the household strategies of Navaturai, I focus on the inhabitants of the village as my units of observation. My unit of analysis is: the strategies of the inhabitants of the fishing village to build wellbeing within the setting of household, community and wider structures of opportunity. In considering these strategies, the cultural, socio-economic, political but also gender diversity needs to be taken into account inter- and intra household. To acquire insights into community or individual wellbeing it is crucial to focus on this process to eventually enhance the subjective, relational and material wellbeing in the village. These strategies for development will be based on different scenarios of economic decision-making, and on an individual’s political, socio-cultural and economic experiences.
3.3 Mixed Methods
This section first explains my motivation for choosing mixed methods. Secondly, I will elaborate on the specific methods I chose and how I integrated and adapted these research tools to my circumstances in the field.
My main research question is exploratory. However, in order to gain insight into certain mechanics of the strategies, I use explanatory sub questions. My main research methods are qualitative: specifically interviewing, focus groups and participatory methods. I also believe it necessary to include quantitative data in my research: to illustrate the qualitative findings, but also for triangulation – to possibly contrast or complement findings from the qualitative data and get a valid and transparent research. Quantitative methods may shed light on certain topics or issues that may not arise from qualitative data collection and analysis.
In order to create a holistic research design, each method had its own purpose and timing. In stage 1, I started out with mostly qualitative research and pilot surveys due to the limited knowledge that I had upon arrival at the research site (See Figure 3.1). This first stage included unstructured interviews and participant observation and gave me an overview of the community, a platform to base follow-up research on. In stage 2, I continued with extended semi-structured interviews and focus groups simultaneously with more household surveys in combination with open-ended follow-up questions in order to collect more valid quantitative data.
Although I have portrayed that my research consists of two different stages, the methods I use overlap and influence each other continuously to ensure validity.
3.4 Qualitative data collection
3.4.1 Community Mapping
To get an overview of the community and individuals, their activities, schedules, and involved actors I first created a community profile. As Khan explains, it is important to gain perspective of your research site, focused on “the people, a historical background and key events, material resources, human resources and processes, socio political resources, and cultural resources” (2003: np).
The transect walk, a tour around the village, and community map are useful for consequent sampling, and getting an overview of the households. Navaturai’s streets were not indicated clearly on Google Maps and therefore I depended on my own mapping skills for a village overview. I combined my own representation of the village with information from the village mapping session. This mapping session also illuminated village resources and major community issues.
3.4.2 Participant Observation
By participating in household activities in my host family I was able to understand the daily life of a household in Navaturai. This method consisted of keeping my eyes open and my notebook ready when I participated in activities in the home, during village events, job shadowing on the beach, temple visits, children’s day, teacher’s day at the school, the opening of the new football ground, and informal chats with my interpreter and host family. It illuminated relations between people and this information then served as a platform for further questions in unstructured interviews, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups.
3.4.3 Semi-structured and Unstructured Interviews
Both expert and non-expert interviews with the inhabitants of the village gave me the opportunity to unravel themes that arose from both the community profile and the survey. In the interviews I addressed certain topics in depth across a wider group of participants, specifically with regards to gender, a household’s financial situation and politics. The expert interviews complemented the community profile and were on multiple levels, such as villagers, NGO workers, army commanders and the district secretariat.
3.4.4 Focus Groups
I organized focus groups to discuss issues that came up in the survey and community profile, in order to illuminate development frustrations and opportunities in the village. I had both mixed and gender-stratified focus groups in order to accommodate for possible tensions across gender that can influence participation and honesty in the group discussion. Focus groups add to my method triangulation as it exposed differences of opinion and displayed group hierarchy.
During these focus groups of 4-7 people, my interpreter and I would propose certain discussion topics and let the group discuss amongst themselves. The topics varied and included income activities, where I would ask to organize for us in detail the income activities in the village. This also created an opportunity to further explore the village history from multiple perspectives at once, simultaneously increasing the validity of the data.
3.4.5 Ladder of Life exercises
I used the Ladder of Life method to stimulate conversation on poverty and economic growth in the community. This exercise’s main purpose is to gain insight into specific factors that are crucial for possible wellbeing indicators and policy recommendations.
Pritchett and Kapoor (2009) used this method in Andhra Pradesh to create quality of life categories that range from landless labourers to landlords. The Ladder of Life exercise is preferably conducted with a group of 4-6 people, to get a hierarchical overview of the village and the ‘wellbeing levels’ to get into the inhabitants’ mind: how they see the village and when someone’s living well or not. What do they look at when they decide who has a good life and who does not?
To start off it is important to find out what the group perceives as ‘living well’ and how many levels they think that there are in the village. According to a number of factors, I tried to gain detail about the environment and circumstances of the households on each level. These levels can include several factors, such as: food intake, landholding, housing pattern, occupation of both the male and female in the household, status in the society, income, education, health, age. When it concerned the extreme poor, I asked for details about the reason for their poverty and more specifically what this group lacked.
Follow-up questions provided a better understanding of the participants’ view on their society and what to do to move in or out of poverty. Finally, I asked each of the participants to place themselves in the hierarchy, and consequently give more details about their own livelihood circumstances, which they had just labelled.
3.5 Quantitative data collection
3.5.1 Household Income & Expenditure Survey
I used the household surveys to acquire general information on the household and individual income activities, incomes and expenditures in Navaturai, to have a frame for selecting respondents for interviews and generate additional topics to discuss in in-depth interviews and focus groups4.
Besides the “objectively” measurable questions, the survey was context-specific regarding seasonality in income, and the importance of aid and remittances in this community. I based this survey on existing surveys from the WeD group including the Income and Expenditure Survey.
3.5.2 Financial diaries
I asked five households to keep a financial diary and I made sure my interpreter gave them clear instructions on this. In exchange for a small monetary compensation the respondents kept the monetary journal for three months. The journal keepers wrote down any monetary and non-monetary income and expenditure, with as much details as possible: what, when, and where. If a fisherman kept the diary I asked him to write down the reason for not fishing if he did not go one day. The purpose of this method was to control what the households said in the surveys, and to get a clearer overview of a household’s income and expenditure pattern.
3.6 Sampling methods
My sampling method was mainly non-probability sampling. I used ‘accidental’ or snowball sampling for my participant observation, surveys and unstructured interviews, as I did not have a proper village overview that allowed me to use probability-sampling techniques. My initial attempt was to research different geographical, social, and political individuals and households within the village of Navaturai to make my research as inclusive, valid, and transparent as possible.
I used purposive sampling to include a range of people across social and economic scales, including local leaders and people with a different range of income activities. Stratified sampling was based on gender for my focus groups and semi-structured interviews. Further stratification was with people living in permanent houses, made with cement, and temporary houses, made out of wood and tin plates. After initial research with the administrative head of the village, I found there was a significant amount of Female Headed Households (FHH) in the village and made sure to include a large percentage of FHH in my sample. Lastly, I used expert sampling with shopkeepers, village leaders and NGO and government workers.
4
3.7 Data analysis
Within this concurrent research design, I use side-by-side comparisons for the data analysis: joint display. Quotes support the quantitative analysis, and certain categories from the quantitative data link up with themes that emerge from the qualitative data. This section illuminates how I used the statistical analysis software IBM SPSS Statistics version 22.0.0.0. and the qualitative data analysis & research software Atlas.TI version 1.0.16.
3.7.1 SPSS
In order to draw conclusions for my data I first created an overview of the statistics available from the income and expenditure survey. These descriptive statistics are represented in bar graphs, histograms, and frequency tables incorporating mean, mode, and standard deviation to illuminate the households’ economic situation in Navaturai. In my thesis I edit the SPSS graph output using Microsoft Excel.
After this descriptive overview I analysed possible relationships between the variables (interval/scale, nominal, ordinal) using different statistical tests with a 95% significance level. Cross-tabs were used, and specifically Pearson chi-square tests to illuminate differences concerning gender and age, education level, taking out shop credit, having received a housing scheme, and subjective indications of a household on their financial situation. The independent sample t-test was able to illuminate the relationship between gender and income, and the influence of owning certain materials and political activeness on household income. After checking whether the variables were normally distributed I used Spearman’s Rank Order correlation for not normally distributed variables to find a correlation between the two scale variables household income and household expenditure. Consequently, I used regression analysis to analyse the relationship between household income and household expenditure further.
3.7.2 Atlas.TI
For 61 documents, I collected 1141 quotations, and grouped these into 1050 code groups by using the method of thematic coding (Joffe, 2011). Subsequently these codes were subdivided into code groups. A network of these code groups was created to illuminate the major themes in the qualitative data, and Appendix II shows an overview of the network of code groups.
