3.3.1 Enter in contact with potential participants
Data collection for this project began on the 9th of July 2015, as soon as I received the ethical consent from the University. Despite so, I like to imagine that my fieldwork began through a series of lucky coincidences. The next section illustrate how I started building relationship with my potential participants, prior the official stating date.
I like to imagine that my fieldwork began through a series of lucky coincidences, even before the official starting date. On 22nd September 2014, I was on a one-way journey from Rome to Newcastle, the city where I was going to spend at least the next 3 years of my life undertaking a PhD project. I had never previously been in the North East of England. On the flight, I was seated next to a man of around 60 years old, whom I became engaged in a convivial conversation. This man was a second-
generation Italian living in the UK. ‘He speaks a very weird Italian!’ I remember thinking as we started up a conversation. At that point, I had no idea that I was going to conduct ethnographic research with older Italian migrants, as it became clear to me only few months later via guidance and discussion with my doctoral supervisors. However, we exchanged contact details and promised to see each other again in the future.
As soon as I defined the research topic and finalized my research design, this man was the first person I contacted. I sent him some e-mails to explain the research project and he got back to me, exclaiming that he was also very happy to introduce me to his mother, an 84 years old lady. This lady played an important role in my research, because, when a few months later I personally met these people for a Sunday lunch in her home, I learned that she used to regularly attend an Association for Anglo-Italians. A few weeks later, I went with her to meet the members of the association that I illustrate next. This later became the site for my participant observation. In the meantime, before the field-work commenced, I regularly attended the Newcastle Public Library for my context based study, such as exploring historical and geographical archives. One day, I spoke with the librarian about my research project. She was so interested in my research that she offered her help in recruiting participants, since she had an Italian friend in town. She gave me his contact details and I sent him an e-mail to explain details of the research. While writing several e- mails to my first contacts for several months, I built a relationship with them and they maintained a keen interest in the research project16.
Another fortunate event that coincided with the advent of this PhD project: a book was published entitled Out of Italy: The History of Italians in the North East (Shankland, 2014). This book was an important source of information on the historical and social context of the group of people I was going to work with. Moreover, its author, Hugh Shankland, a retired Professor of Italian Study at Durham University, also became a special informant on my project: I contacted him and met him before beginning data collection, asking as much information as possible. The day that we met, he expressed his enthusiasm for the project I was to embark on and, thus, offered his assistance for the initial stage of the research, discussing the
16 Since January 2015 I exchange e-mails with my first contacts, and I explained that I needed to wait to receive ethical approval from the University before properly proceeding with my ethnographic fieldwork. After I received ethical approval on 9th of July 2015, as stated above, I began to meet with my first contacts and proceeded to recruit new participants for my study.
possibility of being in contact with potential participants. Indeed, he had been invited to participate at a summer lunch that was to take place the following week, organized by older Italian migrants. He was about to decline this invitation, as he was no longer able to attend. However, instead, he suggested that I participate on his behalf. These series of chance encounters and pro-active engagements formed the basis of how I began to enter into contact with a community of older Italians in Newcastle.
3.3.2 Negotiate research participation
By this time, the main sampling technique I adopted was ‘snowball’ or ‘chain’ sampling: participants themselves were asked for suggestions on social contacts, as well as places that were significant to the Italian migrant population in Newcastle. Moreover, during the course of the fieldwork, I often happened to meet new participants through my social contacts and everyday life in town, such as: walking in the City Centre, having meals with my friends in Italian restaurants, going to the Italian hairdresser, and so forth. On these occasions, introducing myself and my research interests, even to those who did not apparently have an immediate relation to my research project, was a strategic way to enable people to ask me more questions, or to address my requests to somebody else they knew.
3.3.3 Tool for recruitment
The project was advertised through flyers (see Figure 3).
Figure 3 Flyers for recruitment (designed by the author, January, 2015)
These flyers were produced with the aim of capturing the attention of those interested in participating in a research project about Italians in Newcastle. The flyers indicated the desired nationality (first, second or third generation Italians) and the age range of the ideal participants (over 60 years old), inviting those interested to share their stories with me. The flyers were distributed around various shops in different relevant public places in Newcastle. Shankland (2014) identified the significant social and leisure centers for the Italian community in the city, as well as neighborhoods and commercial activities where the Italian community tended to congregate (including specific Italian cafés, Italian restaurants, and hairdresser salon, ice-cream parlours and so forth). I used to leave some flyers with those who participated in the project, so that they might speak about and promote the project within their social networks, which could lead to others contacting me in the future.
This strategy had minimal success in terms of actual recruitment, in the sense that no one used my contacts details to get in touch. However, the production of the flyer
turned out to be useful in raising my profile and ‘getting me recognized’. What I mean is that the more flyers I circulated amongst my contacts and sites, the more people knew about my research. I learned this, during a later stage of the fieldwork, when I was informed – and also bore witness – to the fact that some of my participants used the flyers for different purposes: to decorate their business, their houses, and their cars, send greetings to their family members or neighborhoods. Therefore, without being used specifically for the research recruitment purposes, the flyers enabled some people (not specifically Italians or ideal participants) to recognize the research project.
On the one hand, without being aware of it, I created a visual identity of the project through the flyers that might have helped in building trust amongst the group I worked with. On the other hand, these flyers introduced some unexpected cons as, to some, I was not identified as a researcher, but as ‘the girl who will give us lovely cards’. Therefore, when I was presented with this misunderstanding, I needed to reaffirm my research interests. Nonetheless, the flyers were a useful tool to initiate conversation with participants during research encounters. This was made possible because I designed a flyer that specifically contained images chosen to evoke feelings of place in Italy (from the North to the South) and that enabled participants to identify with some of the characters (mainly famous actors from the 1950’s.) – yet I assumed that my ideal participants would know them. Some of the images in the flyers were chosen to encourage conversations on experiences of migration and Italian identity, as framed by specific cinematographic narratives17.
3.3.4 Broadening the sample
I primarily recruited participants in a community center for Italian migrants, which I attended weekly for the duration of the fieldwork. While I attended the Association regularly, I considered the possibility of broadening my sample. Hence, by this time, I was concerned not to seek to over represent the role of this particular group. Therefore, I mapped the context, negotiated access and built relationships in different public places. I then began to form relationships with other Italians beyond the
17 I am referring here to the image of Sophia Loren in the popular movie It started in Naples, directed
by Melville Shavelson in 1960. In a scene in the movie, Sophia Loren sung the American version of popular Italian song ‘Tu vuo fa l’Americano!’ (‘Wanna be Americano?’),written by Renato Carosone in collaboration with Nicola ‘Nisa’ Salerno in 1956. The song is addressed to a specific kind of Italian migrant who was attracted by the ‘modern lifestyle’ - and in the context of the US, changed attitudes and behaviours. The message of the song admonishes the immigrant not to forget the Italian roots. I used this picture to question Italian identity in the context of migration.
Association, and/or, belonging to different communities in various neighborhoods near Newcastle. In particular, I became engaged in two more community settings: one community of Italian migrants in Ponteland and one in Jarrow. These are two districts around Newcastle that differ in their socio-cultural and economic characteristics. Consequently, I needed to quickly learn how to get access these groups (code of behavior, dressing code, etc.). In addition, I also built relationships with several other Italians who were not engaged in any community setting.
The varied and creative approaches I employed to enter into contact with potential research participants and negotiate their participation, build some social networks and then recruit participants outside of the initial path of this research, contributed to the richness and the diversity of the data collected.