IGUALDAD FORMAL

The research focus on the enactment of eGov at the street-level informed the choice of empirical sites. These sites had to be distinctly street-level bureaucratic organisations embroiled in eGovernment reforms where I could observe the daily interactions and practices of street-level bureaucrats. One public street-level bureaucracy in addition to nine Tracers offices are the sites of this ethnography. In this section, I will describe these empirical sites, the rationale for choosing them and the access negotiations. All names of cities, districts, people and organisations are anonymised to protect the identities of informants as well as meet conditions of anonymity set by some of these organisations.

3.3.1 The Department of Citizens’ Affairs (DCA)

The Department of Citizens’ Affairs [a pseudonym] is the focal site of this

ethnography; it is a major street-level bureaucratic organisation employing about 10,000 employees spread over a country-wide branch network and a headquarter office in the capital city Riyadh in charge of the overall executive duties of the organisation. The DCA’s public services are offered through 13 district-level branches strategically

located in highly populated metropolitan areas. Each branch functions with a significant level of autonomy and in close partnership with the local government of the district in which it is located.

The specific branch where I conducted the fieldwork is a large branch employing about 400 employees and serving a population of approximately 505,0004. The branch is situated in a spacious three-story building located in D-Central city [pseudonym], the capital of D-central district. There are 14 functional departments such as Communications, Monitoring and Control, Archive, Employee Affairs, Legal Affairs, Public Relations, Operations, and Security. Two of these 14 are front-line departments through which the DCA services are delivered to the public. Each of these departments is headed by a team of two-four supervisors that work in shifts along with a team of deputy supervisors as well. The supervisors report to the office of the director of operations who reports to the head of the branch. Additionally, teams of about ten male front-line employees in each department work in two shifts a day serving citizens. Given the high volume of work, citizens’ cases are only accepted during the formal shift

which coincides with the formal business hours of the service centre from 8:00-14:30.

Each of these two departments has specialised units that are organised around processing specific types of cases. It is typical that during peak times employees from other departments are called in to assume front-line roles processing cases as well. The number of front-line employees thus changes depending on the volume of work. Additionally, a smaller team of front-line workers along with a supervisor are always kept on duty even during holidays to handle urgent requests from citizens and residents. These two departments are each located in two sizable service halls.

Additionally, there are extensions of these two front-line departments that are staffed only by female front-line workers and cater only for female citizens and

residents visiting the DCA. Given the local cultural norms, organisations delivering services to the public such as the DCA typically set up sections of front-line departments staffed only by female workers and dedicated to serving only female clients. Female front-line workers in the female section process the same types of cases that their male counterparts process and report to the same supervisors. Cases that female members of staff cannot process are sent through an employee courier within the DCA to the relevant department. It is typical that workers at the female section communicate regularly with the supervisor of their department as well as other departments in person or through the phone. When female workers need a service from other departments within the DCA such as payroll or employees’ affairs, then they visit those internal

departments personally or communicate with them over the phone.

The female section is hosted within the same building as that of the male; however, a separate entrance is provided for female clients. While the male front-line departments work in two shifts and process a large number of cases, the female section works only during the main formal shift (08:00-14:30) and cases that are left unprocessed at the end of the formal shift are transferred to the main departments staffed by only male workers for processing. Given the local cultural norms, access to the female section was not possible. It is also not possible for a male researcher to interview and observe female workers as this is against the local cultural norms. This issue could have been mitigated by the help of a female co-researcher; however, given the limited feasibility of a PhD project, it was not feasible to use a female co-researcher or a research assistant.

The DCA’s core work activity is to issue different public documents that are

all ages; therefore, all 33,413,660 [Saudi population as of 2018; source: Stats.gov.sa] residents require the DCA’s services on a regular basis either to issue, replace or renew

their documents. These documents are designed for different social groups; for example, citizens receive a different type of document than legal residents, children under the age of 18 also receive different types of documents than adults. Overall, there are seven different types of public documents issued by the DCA and a host of services that revolve around each of these seven types of documents such as issuance, renewal, replacements, and payment of fees. These documents are issued in paper form and are renewed on a regular basis. It is typical that front-line departments become overcrowded at peak times causing delays and leading to complaints by citizens. The DCA, therefore, is seen as one of the busiest government offices despite the routinised document ordering process. The DCA hence became the key target of eGovernment reforms and one of the first organisations to implement eGovernment projects mainly because of the high demand for its services and the relative ease of digitising and streamlining its core document ordering procedures as I will discuss in chapter five.

All these elements made the DCA, which conforms to a classic bureaucratic model, an ideal empirical site for this ethnographic project. The choice of this specific branch of the DCA arose due to the possibilities of gaining access as I will discuss in the section on access negotiations. While there were several other branches of the DCA where this project could have taken place, most branches nonetheless tend to be similar in size, serve similar numbers of citizens, follow an identical organisational structure and formal procedures. Additionally, the fact that this chosen branch is located in a relatively populous metropolitan part of the country meant that greater exposure to the wide range of social relations and cultural norms that are prevalent in the country was possible.

3.3.2 Tracer offices

Tracer offices are, typically, located in marketplaces near branches of the public bureaucracy such as the DCA. In choosing Tracer offices, I focused first on the highly profitable and reputable offices that processed cases from the DCA in D-central city. I assessed these elements qualitatively based on input from interviews with citizens, as well as, assessments of the volume of foot traffic for each office, the number of its staff, its location and the number of services it offered. I resorted to such forms of assessment due to the absence of available quantitative data on these elements.

I identified and approached 15 offices at different times during the fieldwork and access was gained to only nine. These nine offices differed in size, the number of employees and their locations (see table 1). Three of them were located in busy commercial areas and seemed to cater to a wide range of clients including Saudi citizens as well as foreign residents. Another three offices were located in an area densely populated by expatriate workers from countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, as well as Egypt and Sudan; these offices seemed to cater mostly for such populations. The remaining three offices were located in a semi-rural area called D- Rural (pseudonym) 55 miles away from the heavily populated D-central city. Offices in D-rural seemed to be frequented by senior citizens as well as technologically disadvantaged citizens and residents who are less able to read, write or use technology effectively. These offices also offered to process cases from branches of the public bureaucracy located in D-central including the DCA for their clients.

All Tracer offices employed only male workers. All offices catered for both male and female clients. Unlike the DCA’s service centre, Tracer offices did not provide

sections that catered only to female clients; therefore, both male and female clients used the same facilities.

Tracer office name [pseudonyms] Number of staff members Location Q1 office 3 D-central N1 office 7 D-Rural L1 office 4 D-Rural A1 office 2 D-Rural A3 office 4 D-central R3 office 5 D-central

AK3 office 4 D-central

S3 office 3 D-central

Z3 Office 2 D-central

Table 1: Tracer offices that participated in the study.

3.4

Access negotiations and ethical implications: A case of