My primary research material thus consists of two types of interview material, which are employed slightly differently. Of these, 38 life story interviews conducted with Tibetan nuns in China and India form the core of the research. Two additional life stories that were not recorded are treated more as field notes. Of the interviews, 33 were conducted in Qinghai province in China and five in Himachal Pradesh in India. Of the 33 interviews conducted in Qinghai, 18 were done in the Kham region of Yushu Prefecture and the rest in five different locations in the Amdo area of Qinghai: in Xining, in Chentsa/Jainca, in Kumbum and in two different sites in Rebgong (see Figure 3). The interviews done in Yushu were mainly conducted at two different nunneries in Gyegu and in Yushu Batang ('ba thang). Of the interviews conducted in Amdo regions, six nuns were interviewed in a nuns’ community, three at a nunnery and the rest in different locations, such as in a teahouse or at a religious site. The interviews in India were done at two different nunneries.
Figure 3: Sites of interviews with nuns.
Most of the interviewees came from rural, fairly isolated areas of traditional Kham and Amdo. The majority, altogether twenty-two nuns, were from Kham, and most of them came from Yushu Prefecture in the southern part of Qinghai. Only two of the Khamba nuns were
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Gyegu Rebgong Dharamsala Xining Batang Jainca Kumbum
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from the Kham region of the TAR. Twelve of the nuns came from Amdo. The majority were from Amdo/Qinghai, while one was from Gansu and two were from Sichuan. Four of the nuns came originally from Central Tibet or Ü-Tsang (TAR). (See Figure 4.)
Figure 4: Nuns’ place of origin.
The nuns studied were between the ages of 20 and 95. The average age of the nuns was 36.7 years (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: Age distribution of the nuns.
When looking at the age distribution in more detail, it can be seen that most of the nuns came from the age group of 31–35 years old, but there are almost as many who came from the age groups of 20–25 and 36–40 years old. There are less nuns between 26–30 years old and over 50 years old. (See Figure 6.)
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Amdo/Gansu Amdo/Qinghai Amdo/Sichuan Kham/Qinghai Kham/TAR Ü-Tsang/TAR
Nuns’ place of origin
1 1 3 2 1 1 1 1 2 4 1 2 1 3 1 1 2 2 4 1 1 1 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 20 21 22 23 25 27 29 30 31 32 33 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 44 53 60 68 95
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Figure 6: Age groups of the nuns.
I give a short biography of each of the nuns interviewed in Appendix 4. The biographies are based on the age, status and situation of the nuns at the time of the interview. The names of the nuns are pseudonyms, such as “Ani Karma.” Here “ani” means “nun.” Usually Tibetan names have two parts and there is no distinction between first names and family names. In fact, only some Tibetans have a family name or use it. The nuns also have two names in addition to “ani,” such as “Ani Karma Rinchen” or “Ani Tenzin Palmo.” It is also very common for at least one of their names to be the same as others who were interviewed. For simplicity, I refer to the nuns by one name only.
The other interview material consists of 49 semi-structured, focused interviews conducted with 21 Tibetan males, 17 Tibetan females, six monks and five nuns (in two of the interviews, two people were interviewed at the same time: a married couple and two male friends). Most of the interviews were tape-recorded, and those that were not recorded were written down immediately after the interview. Of the interviewees, 21 were originally from Kham/Qinghai, four from Kham/Sichuan, 23 from Amdo/Qinghai and three from Amdo/Sichuan (see Figure 7).
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Figure 7: Interviewees’ place of origin.
Of the interviews, 35 were conducted in Xining, 12 in Yushu, one in Kumbum and one in Jainca (see Figure 8).
Figure 8: Sites of the thematic interviews.
In addition to the interviews mentioned above, I did other interviews. For example, I interviewed the head of one of the nunneries about its history and present situation. Furthermore, as mentioned above, I visited an English class of some Tibetan college students and asked them to write about their ideas on monasticism. I received short answers from thirteen students. Information about the interviews and research material can be found in Appendices 3, 4 and 5.
Thematic analysis
In ethnography, analysis of the research material begins already in the field and finishes only when ethnographic writing ends (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007, 158). Thus, fieldwork itself
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Amdo/Qinghai Amdo/Sichuan Kham/Qinghai Kham/Sichuan
Place of origin / other interviewees
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Xining Gyegu Kumbum Jainca
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alternates between collecting and analyzing data. In my research, the research material was collected during four fieldtrips. This made it possible to view and analyze the research material while not in the field and to fill in any gaps during successive fieldtrips. Unlike in statistical sampling, in qualitative interview research it is not possible to know in advance how many people need to be interviewed. Usually when nothing new or significant emerges from the interviews, it is thought that saturation has been reached and the collection of data may be ended. (See Davidsson Bremborg 2011, 313–314; Tuomi & Sarajärvi 2009, 87–90.) It was this notion of the saturation of the interview material that led to my decision to finish interviewing. In other words, I could notice that the interviews were becoming repetitive and nothing significantly new was emerging.
There are many reasons for naming or defining some of the research material as the “object” of a certain kind of analysis and leaving some outside of the analysis. Such selection can be based, for example, on the interviewees (e.g., whose views are emphasized?), methods (e.g., only recorded interviews are analyzed) or content (e.g., only certain themes in the interviews are analyzed). (Rastas 2010, 68.) My analysis has focused mainly on the interviews, whereas the other information – mainly diaries, jottings and other field notes, as well as participant observation – complete the analysis (see Fetterman 1989).
All of the life story interviews and most of the semi-structured, focused interviews were tape-recorded and translated from Tibetan into English. Three of the interviews were conducted in English. Most of the interviews were carried out in one of the Tibetan dialects with the help of a translator. The reason for using translators was that despite my previous studies of (mainly) Central Tibetan dialect, I had not mastered Kham and Amdo dialects, not to mention various other local dialects based on these, spoken by the interviewees.61 Thus,
for example, the interviews done with people speaking Kham dialects were translated by Khamba translators, while the interviews with people speaking Amdo dialects were translated by Amdo-speaking translators.
The use of a translator raises some questions that need to be taken into consideration, such as “Is the translator trustworthy?”, “Is the focus of the analysis the speech of the interviewee or that of the translator?”, “How do the questions and answers change when they are translated by a third person?”, and “How does the interview situation change when there is a third person present?” (See Huttunen 2010, 42.) I do not think it is possible to eliminate the impact of the translator – just as it is not possible to do away with the influence of the researcher – but it is possible to understand how it affects the interview account.
First, in my research I used translators and assistants that I already knew or who were recommended by people I knew, such as other Tibetologists. All of the assistants had previous experience working in that capacity and translating for researchers. Second, before the interview, the translators were told what was expected of them and the research questions were explained and discussed. By going through the interview questions like this, I also wanted to make sure that the questions were intelligible in the cultural context. Third, in the interview situation, the purpose of the study, as well as ethics – including anonymity of the interviewee and professional confidentiality – was explained to the translator and the interviewee. Fourth, in addition to written transliterations done by myself, tape recordings were also transliterated and translated from Tibetan dialects into English by two separate translators. In this way, I could compare different translations and double-check (or triple- check) the consistency of the interviews.
61 There are many dozens of dialects in the Tibetan language and many of them are not mutually comprehensible (see Denwood 1999; Samuels 2014).
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Both types of interviews were analyzed thematically. Thematic analysis involves searching through data in order to identify any recurrent patterns. A theme is a group of linked categories which carry similar meanings. The analysis begins by reading the interview material through several times and looking for any patterns. The next step of the analysis is to identify all data that relate to the already classified patterns. In other words, everything that fits under a specific pattern is identified and placed accordingly. After that, related patterns are combined into sub-themes in order to do a more detailed analysis of the data. After the data is organized by means of categories, it is possible to start analyzing those aspects that seem to be central to one’s study. The process of systematic sifting and comparison leads to seeing the mutual relationship and internal structures of categories. The categories that emerge in the analysis are very often used to simply produce a description and/or explanation of the case or cases investigated. (Braun & Clarke 2006; Aronson 1994; Hammersley & Atkinson 2007, 162–166; see also Tuomi & Sarajärvi 2009.)
Ideally, an inductive approach to thematic analysis allows themes to “emerge” from the data, instead of proceeding from a search for predefined themes. However, I am inclined to agree with Ruusuvuori et al. that nothing actually emerges from the data itself and data does not speak for itself. Instead, research questions and ways of reading the research material, as well as the interpretations and choices of the researcher, guide and structure how data is treated. (Ruusuvuori et al. 2010, 15.) Here the themes were already outlined and they formed the basis of the focused interviews. This also applied to the life story interviews, which contain certain broader themes, such as childhood, adolescence, adulthood and the present day.
In practice, I started the analysis by reading the transliterations and listening several times to the tapes that had been transcribed. After that, by using the comment function of MS Word, I noted key sentences or comments, organizing them under a specific topic or theme. For example, in a life story, when an interviewee told about how she became a nun, various subthemes and phases emerged: how she first came up with the idea of becoming a nun, how her family reacted, how her wish was finally realized, who ordained her, and so forth. The focused interviews were treated similarly. For example, I looked for the ways in which people talked about nuns or what kind of interactions they had had with nuns.
While it is not my purpose to produce quantitative data out of my material, the number of interviews allows for some generalizations. Therefore, certain factors that could be drawn from the interview material were tabulated in MS Excel and figures showing statistical information were created. These figures give information, for example, about correlations between different factors, such as “age of becoming a nun” versus “place of birth.” While it is less common for ethnographic analysis to start with a well-defined theory, the process of analysis always relies on the existing ideas of the ethnographer and those she has acquired from research literature. What is important is that these do not take the form of prejudgments, forcing interpretation of the data into their mold. According to Hammersley and Atkinson, theorizing ought to involve a repetitive process in which ideas are used to make sense of data and data are used to change our ideas. (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007, 158–159.) In my research, intersectionality theory was chosen as a tool for more theoretical analysis only after the thematic analysis.