La permanent campaign

Every field situation is different and initial luck in meeting good informants, being in the right place at the right time and striking the right note in building relationships is an important skill. Indeed, many successful episodes in the field do come about through good luck as much as through sophisticated planning, and many unsuccessful episodes are due as much to the bad luck as to bad judgment.

(Sarsby 1984: 96).

I agree with the above assertion, as I experienced a sudden change in my luck after initial struggles and it was like a fairy tale story. I was walking down Plumstead high street like on any other normal day and suddenly I remembered that I needed to buy some Wai Wai (Nepalese noodles). I went to a Nepalese convenience store, picked up some noodles and went to the payment counter; where I was the only customer to be served. As the cashier was from Nepalese ethnic origin, I started the conversation in Nepali language with normal greeting and continued explaining to him about my research, as it was necessary to make an initial connection before other customers arrived. I stood on one side of the counter, which allowed him to serve other customers.

Using Nepali language for conversation was beneficial, as our conversations continued even when he was serving other customers. He showed a positive response -as had many others- and asked me how he could help. I responded quickly and asked him if he could coordinate arranging for me to meet with Nepalese young people in the local area. He suggested me to meet

Shambhu³¹, a Nepalese man working in an office nearby. He asserted that Shambhu had enough contacts with the Nepalese community leaders and young people and he would be the best person to help me. He promised to contact me if any opportunities arose. I did not receive any call from him but met him several times in his store, where he always showed support.

I left the store and walked to Shambhu’s office without any appointment. I reported to the reception where I was asked to wait, as Shambhu was in a meeting. I was in the waiting area when another Nepalese person, Ramesh³², walked in to meet Shambhu. We were quick to recognise our Nepalese connection and started conversation with greetings. After his introduction, I introduced myself as a researcher and started talking about my research. He seemed quite interested and asked for more information. I gave him the advertising materials³³ and explained to him all aspects of my research. After initial conversations, he agreed to help and organise a meeting to introduce me to a group of Nepalese young people in Woolwich. We exchanged our contact details and arranged a date to meet in his office in Woolwich.

Now, it was the time to meet Shambhu as he invited me into his office and asked the reason for my visit. I gave a brief account of my research study and divulged my expectations about arranging a meeting with young people.

Additionally, I handed out my advertising materials and research leaflets and explained the importance of this research for the local Nepalese community.

He showed his concerns about the sensitiveness of the topic ‘sexual health and lifestyles’ and explained that Nepalese people would not feel comfortable relating with such research. Nevertheless, he promised that he would speak to the community leaders and inform me of their response. Sadly, I did not receive any update from him. Although many Nepalese community leaders helped me in distributing information and creating awareness, they were reluctant to discuss the research within the community or pass the information to young people due to the sensitivity of the topic. This negative response

31 Name changed for confidentiality

32 Name changed for confidentiality

33 See appendix 3

from parents and community leaders hampered participant’s recruitment, as Nepalese young people tend to seek permission from parents to participate in any extra activities or any form of research. From the wider experience of the fieldwork, I realised that the parental channel was a strong way of communication within the Nepalese society. Parents quickly shared information about the negative responses and took actions to stop their sons and daughters from participating in the research. The gatekeepers³⁴ in this research shared the opinion that discussions about sex and sexuality within the Nepalese community are still taboo (Adhikari and Tamang, 2009). I saw Shambhu again during my fieldwork, where we discussed the progress of my research. However, he again raised the issues of sensitivity related to the topic of sexual health, lifestyles and relationships.

I met Ramesh in his office on the agreed day; where he introduced me to Krit³⁵, the office manager. The office set up included two desks with a computer and stationery at the opposite end of the room, a bookshelf and drawers placed on one side of the wall and the other wall had windows with a landscape view of the town. The office also included another room which was set up as a classroom with desks, chairs, whiteboards and a computer with audiovisual facilities. This space was used by a group of young people who came every Sunday to learn Nepalese subethnic language and to prepare for a subethnic cultural event that was scheduled to take place in Woolwich later that month. Krit invited me to come and meet a group of Nepalese young people on Sunday. I asked Krit if I could get a time slot to speak to those young people during or after their language class. Krit assured me that he would arrange a time for me to speak to the young people and provide information about my research. As planned, I visited Krit’s office on Sunday and saw the group of young people in their language class. During their break, I was invited to speak and explain my research. I took this opportunity to explain my research and hand round the leaflets to this group of young

34 Gatekeepers in this research are individuals from the social and cultural organisations that have the power and network to link the researcher to the research participants or create an environment where the researcher would get access to the potential research participants.

35 Name changed for confidentiality purpose, he was another middle aged Nepalese person and the office manager

people. They looked impressed and showed interest in participating in the research.

I started visiting this group of young people every Sunday, handed them my research leaflets and information sheet and explained to them my research again and again. I made efforts to build rapport by discussing their lifestyles and relationships through informal conversations but the conversation remained muted in most part; as they looked unwilling to share their personal lifestyle experiences. I was always restricted to limited conversation either because they had to return to their class or they needed to do practice for cultural events. I asked them several times to arrange time for formal interviews and they always showed positive intent but neither agreed nor disagreed about the time. I continued meeting these young people on Sundays and later met some of them during observations at the nightclubs and cultural events. However, I was feeling frustrated as I was struggling to make an impact on this group of young people and convincing them to have in-depth discussions about their sexual lifestyles or to arrange for formal interviews.

As an ethnographer, it could be a normal scenario but it was a frustrating experience for me in the first phase of the fieldwork. Frustrations in recruiting participants while researching sensitive topics are normal. Hammersley and Atkinson (1995) described that much can be learned from the rejection and failed attempts in making contact with people as well as their response towards the researcher. I was trying to motivate myself and learn from these experiences. This was a good example showing me the difficulties in recruiting participants from ‘hard to reach’ and ‘minority ethnic groups’. It also showed how difficult it could be to enter the field as an ‘outsider’. Although I come from Nepal, which makes me an insider to conduct this research, I belong to Madheshi subethnic groups and come from Terai region of Nepal;

whereas most of these young people were from Hill region of Nepal (Fig 1).

This made me an ‘outsider’ for this group of young people. As I was getting immersed in the fieldwork, I realised that the subethnic Nepalese population

were closely knit within their caste groups and were reluctant to allow outsiders.

In continuation with the limited ‘luck’ I had experienced, I met a Nepalese women in Krit’s office who became enthusiastic about my research and gave me the contact details of a young boy. I was quick to call the number and the Nepalese connection worked again. We arranged to meet the boy the same evening in a café in Woolwich and he said that he would come with his friends. I reached the café and waited for them patiently. After 20 minutes, I decided to call the boy and received the response that they would be there soon. A group of young boys arrived into the café after another 20 minutes. I was expecting to meet 2-3 representatives from the group but it turned out to be a large group of about 7-8 young boys and the number kept increasing for the next 20-30 minutes and reached around 20. The café became crowded and so we moved to a Nepalese café nearby in order to fit everyone on the table. Most of these boys looked below the age of 24. I started the conversation asking about them and then describing my research project. I made an attempt to explain to them the need for this research amongst Nepalese young people. These young males looked interested in participating in the research. We started seeing each other regularly on the streets of Plumstead and Woolwich where I made every attempt to speak to them and to develop a good rapport. Later, I came to understand that some of the members of this group were the same young people whom I had met earlier on Sundays. The difference was that the previous group of young people was formed and led by a community leader for the purpose of making them learn subethnic language and perform during subethnic cultural events; whereas, this new group was formed and led by the young boys themselves. The main aim of this group was to work as a group for sports activities and volunteer to help and support the Nepalese community in the local area of Plumstead and Woolwich. Some young people from this group were interviewed and we were together at some nightclubbing events. I also met them at local cultural events, saw them regularly on the streets of Plumstead and Woolwich and had regular informal conversations.

I experienced another instance of ‘luck’ when I met a Nepalese male in his late 30’s sitting in a restaurant where I had gone for my lunch. After greetings and introductions, I started to explain my research. He asked many questions and suggested that I conduct this research in Nepal, as it would be easier to get access to young people. After an hour of long discussions and convincing him about the need and importance of my research for local Nepalese young people in the UK, he looked convinced, gave me some mobile numbers and asked me to contact those Nepalese people. These contacts were beneficial and I got opportunities to meet another group of Nepalese young people who played football together. I arranged to meet this group in the football ground. I spoke to them about my research, distributed leaflets and information sheets and asked them to contact me for further queries. Some of them contacted me and we arranged for formal interviews. I also met some of these young people at the nightclubbing and on the streets of Plumstead and Woolwich during fieldwork.

My regular visits to Plumstead and Woolwich strengthened my contacts with the local Nepalese population and the community leaders, which helped to access the field openly. Putting advertising materials on shop windows and distributing leaflets created awareness about the research, which helped me to access the field positively. At one stage, it looked like most Nepalese people in and around Plumstead and Woolwich were aware of this research.

Many new connections were formed and during initial contact they responded by saying that they already knew about this research from their friends or they had seen the leaflets in one or the other stores. The regular meetings with young people helped me to build rapport and I finally got access to participants for in-depth interviewing and participant observation at the nightclubs, where young people experienced their sexual lifestyles and relationships away from the parental eyes and sociocultural norms.

2.6 Sampling and sample size: recruiting young people and selecting