The primary role I assumed in this study was participant-observer. Before I became a participant-observer I was a direct participant in the industry as the Field Officer for the NSW Logging Association for three months before I began the research and added an observer role. In this three month period I had the opportunity to gain prior knowledge of the industry and the families that owned logging firms, and became party to the language and vernacular of members of the group. As I was considered a member of the logging industry, or aligned with it, I was able to conduct my research in a more natural setting, as I had already established rapport with my study group. During research, I assumed a participant observer role as a part-time field officer for the NSW Logging Association, an organisation to support and represent owners of logging firms. This role allowed me to participate in the industry I was studying legitimately. I used this role to acquire participant
observation data for a period of two years and nine months, fi-om April, 1991 to December, 1993. During this period of 128 working weeks, 60 per cent of the time, or 77 weeks, was spend in the field. Fieldwork was conducted in one- to nine-week stints interspersed with shorter amounts of time at the University (Appendix A). The timetable was flexible and took advantage of different events occurring in the
industry, such as forest disputes and industry meetings.
As a field officer my duties were to: determine the main problems and issues facing logging contractors, provide information to members as required, represent members, liaise with various groups and recruit new members. I spent most of my
time meeting with logging contractors and their partners to ascertain their main problems and concerns. This corresponded very well with my role as a researcher, and facilitated the collection of information from a large number of respondents over the study period. The types of activities I participated in included: living with and participating in the daily life of logging families, field-trips to the bush, informal interviewing of both partners, group discussions with a number of contractors of similar size in the same area, participating in quarterly district meetings and annual general meetings of the NSW Logging Association, participating in other industry meetings and conferences, and attending local community group meetings and rallies. I also attended wood-chopping competitions, agricultural shows, machinery
expositions, and other social events such as Christmas parties. When not in the field, I maintained regular contact with my study group over the telephone.
My unique position in the industry, as a part-time field officer, was particularly important in gaining access to people who are not easily found without insider information. It was also critical in gaining the trust of the study group which, as a resuh of the forest conflicts, was suspicious and wary of 'green academics'. The depth and nature of the information collected during this research would not have been possible without this legitimate insider role. It provided me with ample
opportunities to talk to individuals in a relaxed setting and presented many occasions to gain an insider's perspective and opinion on certain events or issues. For
example, when I spent a day with a logging contractor in the bush checking on machinery and crews working near the forest blockade in the Chaleundi State Forest, I experienced first hand the fear and uncertainty of having to drive past police check points and protesters who verbally harassed and threw rocks at the vehicle I was in. This experience provided me with a unique opportunity to gain insight into a logging contractor's experience of anti-logging campaigns. On many occasions, I stayed over at logging contractor's homes and accompanied them to work. By
accompanying them to work, I gained a first hand impression of logging and of the forest landscape from their point of view. On other occasions, I would spend the day with women at home assisting them with domestic duties, observing them deal with the constant barrage of phone and radio calls, while cooking dinner and caring for children. These insights, although difficult to record, were critical for
understanding the complexities and contradictions of the logging industry and the lives of logging contractors and their families. This role also allowed me to meet with, and obtain information from staff of the Forestry Commission, sawmill owners, equipment suppliers, industry trainers and other people involved in the industry.
Problems with participating in a group being observed are the effect of bias and the danger of stressing the positive while overlooking the negative (Applebaum
1981). I minimised these by leaving the world of logging regularly to discuss fieldwork research procedures and findings with my supervisors and colleagues. I also gave up my role as a field officer during the final analysis and writing up stage to distance myself fi-om my study group and obtain a more objective perspective, as well as to have time to undertake this process. How my position as a researcher affected the study group and collection of data is discussed in detail in what follows. Position of researcher
The participant observer roles outlined by Gold (1958) do not indicate how the researcher's experience, age, sex, ethnicity and class position will influence the researcher's role, relationships with participants and the research process. Burgess (1984) argues that the range of roles that the researcher takes on, and the field relationships that are developed, are intertwined with personal characteristics of the researcher.
Experience. Dawe (1973) argues that sociologists are participants in their own analyses, and the researcher's own experiences influence the research selection and findings. A classic example of this is found in Becker's (1963), study of musicians. Becker's experience as a jazz musician clearly influenced the selection of the
research project as well as the research findings. Other examples of this include Burgess's (1983) experience as a teacher in his study o f education, and Roth's (1963, 1974) experience as a tuberculosis patient in his study of patients. My experience in the industry, professionally as a forester, and personally as member of a family with a history of involvement in the logging industry in Canada, similarly influenced my selection of the topic, the research role, my relationships with the participants, and the research progress. Without my experience as a forester, I would not have been able to assume my role as a field officer for the Logging
Association, nor would I have obtained the initial three month contract, during which time this project was conceived. My knowledge of the logging industry, combined with a family background in logging were critical factors in developing and
maintaining trust and rapport with individuals in the logging industry. I shared with my study group a similar background and was readily accepted as 'one of them', enabling me to obtain an insider's perspective.
Gender. The gender of the participant observer is considered to be a crucial factor in participant observation research. It influences the questions posed, the role assumed, and the type of data collected in the field (Burgess, 1984; Golde 1970;
Warren and Rasmussen 1977; Roberts 1981). At the onset of this project, I assumed that my being female would make obtaining access to the study group, developing and maintaining relationships, and obtaining information more difficult. This assumption was based on the stereotype that the logging industry was a 'man's industry'. As this study shows, women, although not represented in the official statistics, participate actively in the industry. I found being female to my advantage in developing relationships with women in the industry. I was able to discuss with them issues such as the demands of being involved in a family business. The fact that I was female did not appear to impede my research progress with the men in the industry. I assume this was due in part to the fact, that in many cases, the men were used to discussing business matters with their wives, and thus did not find it strange to discuss such things with me. By being female, I had access to the female domain, and by holding a legitimate role with the Association, I had access to the male domain. I had the unique opportunity to study the whole of the industry - both the male and the female domains - something, to my knowledge, not done before and perhaps more difficult for a male to achieve.
Age. An aspect that is rarely considered in literature on conducting field research is age, but the age of the researcher greatly influences the type of research that is conducted and the relationships developed with participants. For example, in research on street gangs, the high degree of physical activity required of the
participant observer would have been a problem for an elderly researcher (Patrick 1973; Parker 1974).
At twenty-eight years at the onset of this project, I was younger than most of my study group and I felt that this might create difficulties in developing and
maintaining relationships with logging contracting owners. I found that my age did not appear to impede the research process. Once accepted by the study group, my social relationship with logging individuals was defined mainly by age. I was treated like a daughter by a few couples who were close to that of my parent's age.
Contractors my age responded to me as a peer and I was able to participate in many of their social events. My age also benefited me in developing relationships with the older children of logging contractors with whom I had little difficulty in relating. Any difficulty encountered at the onset of this study, as a result of my age, was overcome by doing extensive fieldwork so that increased familiarity and confidence in me made the differences in our ages less relevant.
Ethnicity. Ethnicity and race also influence participant observation research. This is widely documented in studies with different ethnic groups in one's own
culture (Liebow 1967; Horowitz 1983). For me, the problem of ethnicity was not as distinct as Liebow's (1967:248) study of black men in the US, by a white researcher, where he noted; 'when four of us sat around a kitchen table, for example, I saw three Negroes; each of them saw two Negroes and a white man'.
As a white Canadian, I had little difficulty in researching white Australians, but the subtle cultural differences and terminology did create difficulties for me in
recording information, particularly in the beginning. Difficulties in understanding some of the Australian terminology aside, I found that as a new arrival to Australia, individuals in the logging industry treated me with great hospitality, inviting me to stay the night, or to have dinner with them and their families. In fact, being
Canadian facilitated a two-way dialogue and assisted in developing rapport which is critical for this type of research. They would ask me questions about Canada, and the Canadian logging industry, which in turn provided me with an opportunity to query them.
Class. Another important factor, not often referred to in literature on field research, is the class position of the researcher. Cavendish (1982) chose to work in a factory to have day-to-day contact with working-class women. Her class position, as a middle-class intellectual, allowed her to choose to work in a factory and then choose to leave it. She notes that her class distinguished her from the other factory workers because she was able to make choices denied to them. Watson (1986) in his doctoral dissertation also acknowledges that the research and writing of the thesis was set within a class context. He was a middle-class intellectual studying and writing about rural working-class timber workers.
I am definitely not part of a small business class, nor do I consider myself as part of the working-class. I could be considered part of the emerging middle class, a semi-autonomous worker according to Wright's first model (Wright 1979; Baxter et al. 1989), even though I was raised in a working-class family. How the logging contractors saw me in class terms is questionable. However, from their comments, they did not class me as a 'greenie', an 'educated forester', nor as an 'academic', even though I was in the process of obtaining a doctorate. They saw me as an insider, 'a bushie' like themselves, because of my family involvement in the logging industry and my role as a field officer for the NSW Logging Association. Although I was considered an insider by those in the industry, this does not allow me to claim that there were no class differences. Unlike the logging contractors, I was able to walk away from the industry at any time. I had no capital investment in the industry, little commitment to place, and my education and skills allowed me to find
employment elsewhere. It appears that my personal background and my insiders role took precedence over any class distinction that may have impeded research progress. Recording process
Throughout this study I took field notes; noting what people said, what I observed, what I thought and lists of things I had to do for the Association in the same field book. Great care was taken to distinguish between these different types of
information with markings such as quotation marks and brackets. An index of these field notes was compiled for ease of retrieving information. They were
supplemented with official statistics, documented evidence such as newspaper
clippings, minutes of meetings, letters, industry documents and Association material. I also kept a journal of theoretical, methodological and analytical notes throughout the entire research process. As part of the information collected during participant observation, I conducted unstructured interviews with logging contractors and other individuals involved in the timber industry.
Interviewing
Interviewing was used in conjunction with participant observation as another method of gaining access to information held by participants and assessing the reliability of data obtained. Interviews take various forms and serve many functions, but the common elements of interviews are:
a face-to-face verbal interchange in which one person, the interviewer, attempts to elicit information or expressions of opinion or belief from another person or persons (Macoby and Macoby 1954:499; in Denzin
1970:123)
In this study two different types of interviewing were used to elicit information from the study group; unstructured and semi-structured interviewing.
Unstructured interviews
Unstructured interviewing refers to interviews in which neither the questions nor the answers are predetermined. In this process, formal interview schedules or guide lines are dispensed with and ideally it takes on the appearance of normal everyday conversation (Minichiello et al. 1990). This implies an egalitarian concept of roles within the interview, unlike the dominance of the researcher role in survey methods. However, it is a controlled conversation, in that the interviewer has a reason for engaging in this conversation, but the element of control is kept to a minimum (Burgess 1984). This type of interview focuses on the informant's account, rather
than the researcher's perspective of a valid view. Unlike surveys it seeks to
understand the informant's world in her or his own language, not the language of the researcher, and according to the informant's organisation of ideas, rather than a framework imposed by the researcher as is inevitable in surveys. This process
reduces the possibility of distorting the informant's world view by using symbols and words that are not part of her or his everyday life (Minichiello et al. 1990). The advantage of using unstructured interviews is its flexibility, while its disadvantage is that it takes a long time to collect systematic data, and the data that is acquired is difficult to analyse.
As part of the participant observation fieldwork, I conducted unstructured interviews with family members, mostly male and female owners of 187 logging firms, numerous owners and managers of sawmilling firms, foresters, equipment suppliers, and other people involved in the timber industry as such individuals providing vocational training. Most logging firm owners were interviewed at least twice over the study period and some were interviewed over a dozen times. They were widely distributed throughout NSW: 91 in the Northern Forestry Region, 54 in the Central Region; 21 in the Southern Region; 17 in the Softwood Region and 4 in the Western Region (Map 3 .1). They operated in both private and State forests and represented the three different categorisations of logging firms detailed in Chapter 4 (Table 3.2). They represent approximately three-quarters of the total number of firms in the NSW logging industry.
I tried to interview as many logging firm owners as possible from a list of logging firms that I compiled from the NSW Logging Association, the Forestry Commission, sawmill owners and other logging contractors. This method of sampling may be best described as snowball sampling and is reliant upon the
researcher's knowledge of the social situation (Minichiello et al. 1990). Since time did not allow me to contact all persons on the list, particular effort was made to contact owners of firms with differing firm characteristics and structures so that a representative sample of firms was covered. I normally interviewed logging contractors in their homes and other individuals in the timber industry, such as mill managers, at their place of work. Notes were taken during interviews, or shortly thereafter, in field books. These interviews are cited in the text as unstructured interviews with pertinent information such as the type of logging firm, region of operation and date of interview are provided in brackets in the few cases where direct quotations are given.
M a p 3.1: Location of logging firms sampled (solid circles) for unstructured interviews, April 1991 to December 1993 (n=187)
Table 3 .2: Location and firm type of logging firms sampled for unstructured interviews, April 1991 to December 1993 (n=187)
Region Self Employed Small Employer O w n e r M a n a g e r Unknown Total Northern 33 41 12* 5 91 Central 18 25 5* 6 54 Southern I 16 2 2 21 Softwood 1 3 11 1 17 Western 0 2 1* 1 4 Total d4 87 31 15 187
Source: Field notes
Semi-structured interviews
Semi-structured interviews refers to interviews where there are no fixed wordings or ordering of questions, but rather the content of the interview is focussed on issues which are central to the research question. Interview guides are often used for this