68LA PARADOJA DEL ANARQUISMO

3.3.1 Method

Both primary and secondary data were used in this investigation. Primary data collected people’s perceptions, actions taken to avoid LAMP exposure and house characteristics. To collect these data, a list of names of all residents in the area above the age of 21 years was provided by the Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya Malaysia (election commission of Malaysia). The sample was selected randomly and surveyed on a home-to-home basis. The minimum age limit ensured that participants could make an informed judgement, as their perceptions constitute an important variable in the analysis. Interviews were conducted by the researcher and two assistants with the local respondents from the end of February until mid-July 2015. Interviews were based on a structured survey with a total of 524 respondents. Of the residents, 52 declined to participate in the interview representing a nine per cent rejection rate.

The survey was conducted every day, including weekends, from 9am to 6pm to ensure maximum response rates. The data collected depended on the availability and the willingness of the respondents to spend their time answering the questions posed in the schedules. Their participation was voluntary; they could choose not to answer any part of the questionnaire. A large part (95 per cent) of the sample was from people with Malay ethnicity, as compared to the small number of non-Malays. The low response rate (28/524) of residents from the non-Malay community was primarily due to their non- availability in their homes, and also their reluctance to cooperate in the research by not answering the questions. Therefore, to tackle this difficulty, an online survey method was designed. This online survey was selected on the voluntary basis and carried out from the beginning of August to the end of November, resulting in an additional 160 respondents joining the survey. However, of these, only 127 survey schedules could be utilised in the analysis due to the others being incomplete. Eventually, the total number of respondents surveyed reached 651 respondents.

In addition, interviews were also conducted with experts, namely the authorities (the Department of Environment and the Atomic Energy Licencing Board), representatives of the industry whose impacts are under consideration (Lynas) and a third party, who is qualified to give opinion on LAMP’s operation. They were chosen because they are the

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main players with respect to the specific issues thrown up by the operation of LAMP, as well as the perceptions of the affected community. The Department of Environment (DOE) is the organisation authorised to conduct monitoring activities on LAMP’s operation and any issues related to environmental pollution will be reported to them. The Atomic Energy Licencing Board (AELB) is the agency authorised to issue the operating licence to LAMP.

The third party is Gerhard Schmidt, a former researcher from Öko-Institute, a non-profit environmental research and consultancy institute in Germany that provides advice to policymakers, NGOs, institutions and companies, based on their scientific studies. He had conducted a detailed study regarding LAMP and potential risks posed by it to the environment. Some of these experts were interviewed in person (the DOE and the Lynas advisor), whereas some others were contacted via email and responded electronically (the AELB and Schmidt). In addition to the respondents’ and experts’ views, interviews were conducted with the local fishermen, because they might be affected by the change in people’s behaviours due to perceived negative impacts on water quality.

Secondary data were collected from various sources, such as published articles and journals, websites of Lynas Corporation and an anti-Lynas group (Save Malaysia, Stop Lynas), mass media reports, scientific reports on LAMP’s operations prepared by Schmidt and a senior researcher in the National Toxic Network Australia, and printed materials provided by the DOE as well as the opposing groups. Also, data on air and river water quality were sourced from the DOE to support claims made by the local people and the experts. Data to compute ground level concentration were collected from the DOE and Malaysian Meteorological Department (MMD). Information about gender proportion of the population was collected from the Department of Statistics (2015).

Reports on property market from the 1980s were collected from the Valuation and Property Services Department (1980-2015), while data on house sales (2007–2015) and its structural characteristics were provided by the National Property Information Centre (NAPIC) in a notepad form. Google maps, using a direct distance-measuring tool were used to find neighbourhood characteristics. Meanwhile, environmental characteristics were collected from the DOE and the Department of Meteorology. The values of respondents’ houses were estimated by a valuation officer in the Valuation and Property Service Department. Finally, inflation rates were collected from the Malaysia Informative Data Centre. (n.d.).

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3.3.2 Processes and challenges

Two methods of data collection—home-based interviews in person and online surveys— were used. Both posed different challenges. In the first method, a specific group of people was identified, chosen by a random number generator and their addresses, also available in the data collected from the election commission of Malaysia. There were a few cases where the chosen respondents had moved out or relocated themselves to a temporary address in a different location for personal reasons (such as for work or study), passed away, or had rented out the property to a tenant. In these cases, those who were living in that particular property replaced the person in the list provided and became the respondent. In situations where the person who was named in the list was not available at home during the survey, another person, if above 21 years of age, was selected.

In cases where a woman was named as the original respondent, she was replaced by a female (such as her daughter, mother, sister, or aunt) above 21 years of age. However, in the occasional instance when the household head was the original named respondent, and could not be replaced this way by another male, the wife or the daughter was questioned as a replacement and vice-versa. If no one was available in the house, then the house next to his house was selected based on increasing number of the house, to maintain consistency. For example, if the house number of the selected person was 132, house with number 133 or 134 would be chosen, because some residential areas were organised using odd/even numbers, while some followed the right order. If the selected respondents were reluctant to cooperate, a house next to him was chosen.

This method sounds simple and easy; however, in practice that was not the case. When the respondents’ houses were visited, in some cases only the elderly were available in the house. The young and middle age groups were normally away working or shopping or hanging out with friends. At the beginning of the survey, it was not easy to interview male respondents, particularly the middle-aged working group. Moreover, middle-aged males often refused to be interviewed and passed the questions to their wives. The researcher’s gender could have made the men uneasy—it is possible that some people felt uncomfortable being interviewed by a female researcher. These two reasons made the proportion of females higher (two-thirds) than the males, because females tended to be more available at home. The female respondents were also very pleased to be visited, and often wanted to chat extensively about the situation, thereby lengthening the interview.

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They did not appear to have any problem in being interviewed by male researchers when the need arose.

It was more difficult to locate and interview the non-Malay respondents. It was more common for them to be absent from home. Their neighbourhoods were often empty, and even if someone was present at home, they were reluctant to cooperate. Some of the non- Malay respondents justified this behaviour by suggesting that it is better to avoid meeting strangers to avoid thefts. They also confused the researcher with door-to-door salespeople. Some homes were guarded by aggressive dogs and were unsafe for data collection. There also were many street dogs roaming around. Some of the non-Malay neighbourhoods were also comparatively better-off areas, where houses were guarded by security gates and personnel. There were also difficulties in communication as some non- Malays, particularly the senior citizens, were not conversant in either the native language (Bahasa Malaysia) or English. The basic words they knew were not adequate for answering the questionnaire.

To resolve these difficulties, certain concrete steps were taken. For the Malay young and middle-aged groups who spend much of their time outside their homes, the interview time was rescheduled to 9 am, compared to 10-11am. At this hour, they were available at home with time to spare to answer the questions. To interview the middle-age males, two male assistants were hired. Fortunately, when talking to another male, they did not ask their wives to respond. Thus, the problems for the Malay group could be resolved. However, it was difficult to find assistants from the non-Malay cohort to interview this group. A local Chinese man, willing to help in conducting the survey, was found with difficulty but due to his other engagements he was unable to interview a good number of respondents. Assistants and/or representatives of the State Assembly in some areas were also contacted for assistance, and they gave some names and contacts. However, they were not able to offer full commitment to the survey.

It was not desirable to have more than 90 per cent of Malay respondents because besides the obvious bias, there was the important issue of not representing the situation accurately. Most of the protests, complaints and legal cases against Lynas were filed and conducted by the non-Malay cohort of residents. To resolve this, an online survey (using Survey Monkey software) was designed. Such online surveys can be flexible because the respondents can fill in the questionnaire at a time and place convenient to them. This method allows the respondents to access the survey questionnaire a few times to allow for breaks necessitated by other demands on their time by storing the previous information

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put in by the respondents. The respondents can also use their smart phones to answer the questions. However, this method does not allow for switching between a computer and a smart phone to access the information inserted in the survey form. The method requires a strong internet connectivity. Some respondents complained that the lack of reliable internet connection interfered with the smooth insertion of their data.

The questionnaire, originally written in English, was translated into two languages, Mandarin and Bahasa Malaysia, for the online survey. This permitted the respondents to choose their preferred language as three languages were made available in the online system. One of the representatives of State Assembly in the study area advised to translate the questionnaire into Mandarin as some people of Chinese origin may not be proficient enough to respond to the questions in English or Bahasa Malaysia. The online survey can be assessed using Facebook link (https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/L3M8MJL) or web link (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BJTS8LG).42 All assistants and/or representatives of the State Assembly were contacted to distribute the links to get access to the online survey. In addition, the Vice-President of Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, a Member of Parliament of Kuantan and her assistants were also contacted to share the links to a larger group of people. Two locals were hired to share the links in the study areas. In addition, the links were shared on the Facebook pages of Kuantan and respective areas. Phone messages and Whatsapp were also used to distribute the links. 43

3.3.3 Interview process

The semi-structured questionnaire was meant to be filled in by the interviewers during the interview process, unless requested otherwise by the respondents. At the beginning of the interview, a brief explanation of the objective of the dissertation was provided to the interviewees, and opportunity was given to the respondents to inquire in detail about the research project. Generally, the interview was conducted in an informal manner at the respondents’ homes, because the main concern was to elicit people’s perceptions, beliefs and opinions about environmental impacts produced by LAMP. Clearly, there was no right and wrong answer for their justification. Prompts and probes were used to elicit details, if necessary.

42 _{The links were applicable only for a limited time period (July 2015 – July 2016).}

43 _{Data collected using the online survey is not random, but despite its limitation, Chapter 4 proposes a}

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When the respondents found the questions were irrelevant, the justification and rationale for the question was explained. For instance, some people asked about the relationship between LAMP and characteristics of their houses. Some also questioned the relevance of asking about their demographic characteristics. Thus, simple and clear explanations were given so that they could understand the reasons/s behind the formulated questionnaire. The language used was based on the preference of the respondents. Some participants preferred to speak in Bahasa Malaysia, while some others chose to use a mix of languages, Bahasa Malaysia and English. The interviews went on for a duration of about 40 to 50 minutes. At the end of the interview, they were also given the chance to ask any questions or add any points which were not touched upon during the interview session.

For the online survey, all the objectives, instructions and examples to answer the questionnaire were explained clearly in the system. The researcher’s contact details were written on the main page, if a clarification was needed by the respondents. Because in the online survey, the respondents did not interact directly with the researcher, the rejection rate was higher (21 per cent) as compared to a face-to-face interview (9 per cent). However, this method was easy for the respondents as they could fill in the online form at their convenience and it also saved the researcher’s time for data collection. Fricker and Matthias (2002) acknowledged that internet-based surveys can be conducted faster, better, cheaper and/or easier as compared to the conventional survey method.

3.4 STUDY AREA, SELECTION METHOD, ITS CHARACTERISTICS AND