Espacios topológicos perfectos

4.6.2.1 INTERVIEWS WITH INDIVIDUAL HOUSEHOLDS

Interviews are recommended as good sources of information in a case study (Patton, 2002). Semi-structured interviews with individual households were carried out in order to gather information about their experiences and opinions with regard to the factors influencing their access to the forests. Bryman (2001) notes that a semi-structured interview is a suitable interview method to address more specific issues and also to provide some structure to ensure cross-case analysis. The purpose of these interviews was to explore the access of the rural poor to forests from the perspective of the interviewees, and to understand how and why the interviewees came to have their particular perspectives.

4.6.2.2 PARTICIPANT SELECTION FOR INTERVIEW

Fifteen members from each CFUG were selected for interview, representing a range of groups (women, poor, elite, and so forth). Participants from each sub-group were selected at random from a list of CFUG members. Altogether 135 participants were recruited and interviewed as shown in Table 4-6.

The expressions and views of the interviewees were recorded as field notes and in their own words. Both the researcher and assistant took field notes and compared them in order to reduce the bias from a single interpretation (O’Leary, 2004). Another strategy used to reduce researcher bias was that the key points were verified with the interviewee at the end of each interview (Patton, 2002).

Table 4-6. Numbers of household interviewees showing men, women and indigenous communities from various CFUGs

Ecological zones High Mountain Mid Hills Terai

Study Districts Dolakha Lalitpur Rupandehi

Name of CF Sitakunda CF Chhayre Chhayre CF Jhereni CF Godawari Kunda CF Saraswoti CF Bandevi CF Janapriya CF Navadurga CF Saina Maina CF Total number of interview 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 Men 10 7 8 10 10 12 7 8 5 Women 5 8 7 5 5 3 8 7 10 Member representing indigenous communities* 2 4 0 4 8 15 5 8 5

4.6.2.3 FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION

Krueger (1988) described a focus group discussion as a powerful means for gaining opinions and beliefs of a particular group of people. Focus group discussions were employed in order to understand whether people of different socioeconomic categories had different access to the forest. Focus groups are suitable to record the experiences of all people, even those who are normally left out in general group discussions in Nepalese society (Waldegrave, 2003). A focus group is defined as a group of people with a similar background on a specific topic (Waldegrave, 2003). A total of 10 focus group discussions were carried out in the

communities (Table 4-7). Separate focus groups were arranged for specific groups of local key informants (e.g. female, low caste members, poor members, ethnic group members.). A key advantage of such focus groups was that people having the same background feel more at ease in interacting with each other (Greenbaum, 1993), and such group interaction generates a variety of views and stimulates the discussion of new perspectives (Morgan, 1997; Gray, 2004).

Table 4 -7. List of focus group discussions carried out in various CFUGs

Categories of Participants

Women users

Janajati users

Mixed group

Low caste users

Local key informants

Number of Focus Groups

2 2 2 2 1 1

The order and the way of asking the questions were adjusted to fit the specific group

situation. This type of semi-structured guideline has advantages in terms of flexibility, which motivates the participants to express their experiences (Finch and Lewis, 2003). A team of two people (the researcher and an assistant) facilitated the focus group discussions. The team exchanged the roles of facilitating and note taking in the series of discussions across focus groups.

Figure 4-7. Photos showing active focus group discussion in Chhyar Chhyare CF in Dolakha District (Photo taken with permission from focus group participants).

4.6.2.4 PARTICIPANT/FIELD OBSERVATIONS

Observation is one of the major means of collecting field data in a qualitative research study. Various scholars claim that observation allows the researcher to understand the behaviour of people and the processes in a context that was more natural than formal interviews (Lindsay, 1997;Schutt, 2006). According to Merriam (1998:111):

Observation offers a first hand account of the situation under study and, when combined with interviewing and document analysis, allows for a holistic interpretation of the phenomenon being investigated.

Participant and field observation usually always takes place in community settings, in locations in and around study site. In this study, field observations supplemented the data collected in household interviews, focus group discussions, and from documents. Observation was also used to triangulate emerging findings from the interviews and document analysis. This observation technique provided the researcher with an opportunity to observe the

participation of people representing different socioeconomic categories, positions and gender in meetings (such as general assembly, executive committee meeting, group meeting, etc.). The researcher attended two general meetings of the executive committee of Sitakunda CFUG and Bandevi CFUG. The researcher observed and recorded data without

predetermined observation schedules or checklists. The researcher took detailed field notes of her observations, and included descriptions, direct quotations, and her own comments in the field notes. Data from the observations contributed to the results. In addition, pictures were taken of community forest operations and associated features. For example, a typical agricultural landscape is shown in Figure 4-8.