Polietileno tereftalato en el medioambiente

The study of “a contemporary phenomenon in real-life context” as in the case of this study obliged me to take note of important ethical practices (Yin, 2009:73). In this regard, informed consent, and formal institutional approval were sought from all potential and identified research participants and their respective institutions (Bassey, 1999; Cohen et al., 2000; Yin, 2009). Identified informants or potential sources of information e.g. the individual heritage educators, their heritage institutions, government departments within which the heritage education programmes fell, local people, such as sekuru Jena, at the Great Zimbabwe monument involved in this study were consulted and fully informed of the purpose of this study, the forms of participation in, and the possible benefits of participating in this research (Makore-Rukuni, 2001; Golafshani, 2003). Consent forms and letters seeking access and

permission were developed, copies of which I archived as records or evidence of the ethical processes.

During the contextual profiling phase, I sought permission from the Director of the Great Zimbabwe monument. A record of the emails that I sent and received from him were printed and filed (see Appendix .3). In South Africa I also visited and conducted focus group interviews with members of five Provincial Heritage Resources Authorities (PHRAs). Permission to conduct the interviews was obtained through the Grahamstown SAHRA office. Permission to visit and observe heritage education practices at Supa Ngwao Museum, was initially sought and granted in 2010 but I still had to apply for an official research permit. In 2011 I managed to get the official research permit and so could proceed with the in-depth interviews (see Appendix 4).

During the generative workshops, I also sought permission from the Department of Education, Eastern Cape Province (see Appendix 5) to work with teachers. To ensure that teachers were not going to leave their classes unattended I arranged that the one-day workshops be done during weekends or on late Frione-day afternoons.

During the interviewing stage I also ensured that informed consent was obtained from all of the interviewees (see Appendix 6.). The process of getting informed consent from all of the 12 interviewees entailed that I engage each of them meaningfully, explaining as honestly as possible the aims and objectives of the study (Bassey, 1999). I also needed to be careful about issues of beneficence as some of the potential interviewees needed clarity on what benefits if any would come from their participation in the study (Makore-Rukuni 2001; Golafshani, 2003). I was very careful not to cause any unnecessary expectations and anxiety (Bassey, 1999;

Piquemal, 2005). For instance at Great Zimbabwe both the senior heritage education officer and sekuru Jena were both concerned about how previous researchers had come and gone, leaving nothing, not even copies of the final research reports for use in their work. The same concern was raised by the education officer at Supa Ngwao Museum, hence her insistence that I get an official research permit before she would allow me an official in-depth interview and permission to take photographs in the museum.

As Piquemal (2005), drawing from her experience of researching within Aboriginal communities, argued, issues of beneficence are very elusive and not easy to handle in research, especially where one is working with rural or marginalised communities. An interesting case in this study was my engagement with sekuru Jena, who from the way he agreed to be interviewed thought that he had found a person on whom he could empty all his anger and disapproval of the way NMMZ officials were treating local people, especially the location and role of the Shona cultural village. He was very open about his unhappiness with how the Shona cultural village was relocated to its current position (according to him far from its rightful place, the hill complex) and how he himself is not allowed to interpret Great Zimbabwe monument to visitors; he is only allowed to sell curios and coordinate the traditional dances within the Shona village.

In a similar case, some of the teachers who participated in the generative workshops openly expressed concern about how researchers are merely using them to gain their desired degrees. I was very careful regarding promises for the teachers. To address their concerns of beneficiation, I organised that the teachers got certificates of attendance for their effort and participation in the workshops. I also highlighted that lessons learnt and knowledge gained by participating in the workshops was going to be valuable should some of them consider enrolling for the professional development course that SAHRA and Rhodes University were developing alongside this study.

Ultimately three of the teachers were accepted for the certificate course in question.

Ethical issues, such as getting informed consent, were therefore treated as an ongoing process of building a trusting and empowering relationship with research participants (Bassey, 1999). Piquemal (2005:19) argued that “the process of seeking free and informed consent is not just a contract; it is an ongoing process of renegotiation”.

Having consent forms signed was therefore only a part of the entire process of developing a good rapport and trusting relationship with the heritage practitioners that I worked with. That required me to remain alert to and make ongoing efforts to work with research participants in a democratic, moral, respectful, empowering manner and reconfirm that consent was ongoing. Such recurrent confirmation sought to ensure that participants were at all times at ease with the research processes. Such an

approach to ethics as already pointed out earlier in this chapter was also congruent with the critical social theory underpinning this study (see Section 3.2).

4.7 Trustworthiness

Scholarly debate on how trustworthy or credible research of a qualitative nature is has been going on for some time (Flick, 1992; Golafshani, 2003; Hamersley, 2008).

Shenton (2004) argued that although many critics are reluctant to accept the trustworthiness of qualitative research, frameworks for ensuring rigour in this form of work exists. In view of this I deployed a number of strategies for enhancing the overall trustworthiness and credibility of this study. Patton (2002: 14) argued that while the credibility in quantitative research depends on instrument construction, in qualitative research, “the researcher is the instrument". With this in mind, I realised I needed to think carefully about the tools to generate data, and to deploy several strategies as outlined below.

4.7.1 Provision of sufficient information about the research context

Both Dilley (1999) and Shenton (2004) drew attention to the importance of context, in improving the trustworthiness and credibility of social research. According to Shenton (ibid.), detailed description of the area under study can be an important provision for improving credibility, as it conveys the actual situations that have been studied and the contexts that surround them. In this study, in addition to reading around the area of heritage management and education, I spent close to year developing contextual profiles of the three country specific case studies. Insights gained during the contextual profiling process enabled me to develop detailed (providing sufficient information) case stories against which knowledge claims made within this study can be understood, critiqued or interrogated. Chapters Five, Six and Seven in this thesis are dedicated to presenting sufficient information about heritage policy, management and education practices in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe respectively.

4.7.2 Prolonged engagement with research participants

Prolonged interaction and engagement with research participants happened in different ways in this study. First, as already described, this study was three-phased and each of these phases provided space to continue working with the selected research participants. For example, the contextual profiling process assisted me to

gain familiarity and forge working relationships with institutions and people participating in the study. And throughout the years 2010, 2011 and 2012, I maintained contact and continued to work with most of the research participants. In this way my relationship with participants strengthened and the trust that emerged from this contributed to a deepening of data and insights (Piquemal, 2005; Lupele, 2008).

4.7.3 Peer review and frequent debriefing

Other than prolonged engagement with participants, I also presented and shared my research, in its proposal stage, and as it developed through to its conclusion, with a wide range of critical friends and fellow researchers. Presenting my study within the PhD weeks at Rhodes University, the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa (EEASA) 2011 conference in Lesotho, as well as the writing of ongoing research reports, as required within the SAHRA/Rhodes University research agreement, proved very valuable in helping me to think through and reflect on the entire study. In addition, I also wrote a short paper published in the Southern Africa Journal of Environmental Education (SAJEE), Volume 28 of 2011 (see Appendix 7).

The idea of sharing experiences of how the study was unfolding, is similar to what Shenton (2004: 67) referred to as “frequent debriefing sessions”. These sessions provided me with a sounding board to test my developing ideas and interpretations. It also provided opportunities for scrutiny of the study by fellow peers, academics and heritage practitioners, and their feedback allowed me to rethink the way the study was developing.

4.7.4 Reflexivity

I worked with the idea of reflexivity (reflection) as proposed by Alvesson and Skoldberg (2000 & 2009). Alvesson and Skoldberg (2000: 245) claimed that reflexivity “means thinking about the conditions for what one is doing, investigating the way in which the theoretical, cultural and political context of individual and intellectual involvement affects the interaction with whatever is being researched, often in ways that are difficult to become conscious of”. Working within this framework of reflexivity, throughout the entire research process, I reflected on the relationship between my research focus, the research design, data collection methods, analysis and interpretation. Put simply, I remained alert of and took into consideration

the dialectical linkages that existed amongst the different phases and processes of my study and how the theories that I worked with influenced interpretation of the data.

Reflexivity also meant that I constantly needed to think about my own biases and subjectivity as I interacted with research participants and made sense of the data generated. Self-reflexivity, as discussed here, was an important strategy for enhancing the trustworthiness and credibility of this research project.

4.7.5 Highest ethical standards and procedures

Golafshani (2003) pointed out that respect of ethical matters enhances the overall trustworthiness of a research project. Careful thinking and dealing with ethical issues as already discussed in Section 4.3.4 also contributed to the overall trustworthiness and credibility of this study (Leedy & Ormrod, 2005).

Conclusion

This chapter provided information relating to how I planned to conduct and then did conduct this study. The chapter discussed the research design decisions made, and why these were considered the best available for this particular study. Chapter Four provided detailed information about the hermeneutic methodology, critical realist underlabouring concepts and the case study research design within which the study was conducted. The chapter gives an overview of all the data generation protocols.

These included the three data collection phases, data generation tools deployed, research ethics considerations as well issues of trustworthy and validity. The chapter also discusses how I analysed the data and made use of critical discourses analysis. It also provides examples of analysed data. Drawing on insights emerging from the analysis of data I will, in the next chapters, critically discuss current heritage education practices as observed in the three case study sites covered within this study.

CHAPTER 5