CAPÍTULO 2. ANÁLISIS DE LA MUESTRA
2.2. Problemas de concordancia nominal: el género y el número
The right to privacy is at the core of access and ethics considerations. Hence, codes of ethics in research outline the rules on informed consent, deception, privacy and confidentiality, and accuracy. Informed consent relates to the right of participants to be informed of the nature of the research. The participants must agree voluntarily to participate in a research; and they must agree on the basis of full and frank disclosure
on the part of the researcher. The rules against deception also demand strict accuracy in the presentation of research findings.92
In practice, real challenges emerge for a researcher and those challenges apply in my case: the dilemmas that emerge from full disclosure (which may result in denial of access); the potential betrayal of the research participants; and the possibility of suppressing important research findings.93 I adopted what I call a principled, pragmatic approach in the conduct of the field research. A principled, pragmatic approach is useful here whereby a code of (access and) ethics must serve as a guideline and not necessarily stifle full participation for the purposes of the research.
I will share my experiences in Malawi: In relation to the community in the Makandi area, the village headpersons were pivotal in mobilizing the participants to the focus group discussions. This raises the question whether strictly speaking the participants gave their full consent to participate in the discussions considering the power dynamics between a village headperson and a member of village which lean heavily in favour of the village headperson.
In terms of access to the ‘field’, I adopted a Kalilombe94 technique; whereby, depending on the setting, I would introduce myself simply as a postgraduate research student from a University in the United Kingdom or indeed I would introduce myself as a senior public officer in Malawi’s public service and currently pursuing doctoral studies in the United Kingdom.95 The setting would determine which mode of introduction will bring me greater access. However, whichever setting I found myself in, I always made it clear prior to any substantive engagement with the participants that our interaction was towards data collection for the doctoral studies I was pursuing; that I did not have all the answers; and that I was meeting the participants to ‘learn’ from them.
92
See generally CG Christians ‘Ethics and Politics in Qualitative Research’ in N Denzin & Y Lincoln,
note 81, 139–164.
93
See S Ali & M Kelly ‘Ethics and Social Research’ in C Seale (ed.) Researching Society and Culture
(London; New Delhi; Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 2004) 116–127.
94Kalilombe is the ChiNyanja name for chameleon. Just as the chameleon changes colour to indicate
its physical and physiological condition, and indeed for communication purposes, the Kalilombe
technique represents a tactical nous for purposes of entry into the ‘field’.
95 I am a public officer in the law reform section of the Malawi Law Commission. In the institution’s
One ethical issue stands out and it relates to the work ethic in sub–Saharan Africa. This concerns to what has been described as the ‘allowance culture’.96 At the end of the focus group discussions with the community in the periphery of Makandi Estate and the resettled community in the Estate, I and the participants would share refreshments which I brought with me. Often the discussions would begin around mid–morning and finish just after lunch (precisely around 12.30 p.m. or 1 p.m.) It is possible to interpret this offer of refreshments as part of the ‘allowance culture’ which permeates the conduct of business in the public service in Africa and has been soundly criticised as ‘unethical’.97 In my case, these were – to use Ngeyi Kanyongolo’s description – ‘gestures of care’ and did not in any way have an ulterior motive of influencing the nature of the discussions. 98 In fact, the participants would not know that we would have refreshments until the discussion was formally closed. IV MAP OF THE THESIS
Besides the Introduction and the Conclusion, the thesis has seven core Chapters. In Chapter 1, I outline the ‘theory’ of the thesis which is based on the ‘idea’ of governmentality and a framework for analysis based on the ‘idea’ of responsibilization. Chapter 2 looks at conception issues; namely, the nature of ‘right’, right to property in land, right to property in land as a social relation, right to property in land as a legal relation, the nature of the ‘customary’ space, and the beneficial interest in land. The main thrust under the Chapter is that clarity in these foundational issues provides a strong platform for understanding the precise nature of the land question in Malawi and in turn leads to informed strategies for its resolution.
In Chapter 3, I discuss the dominance of market–based land reform modelling and its implications for the resolution of the land question in Malawi. Chapter 4 centres on a historicized and contextualized narrative of the land question in Malawi. This is in order to demonstrate that colonial and postcolonial law and policy has consistently led to the responsibilization of the land deprived as a constituency of labour and as small–scale, auxiliary producers that contribute towards national food
96
See for example I Mathauer & I Imhoff ‘Health Worker Motivation in Africa: The Role of Non–
Financial Incentives and Human Resource Management Tools’ (2006) 4 Human Resources for Health
24.
97 See for example REV Gyampo ‘The 2008 Political Parties’ Code of Conduct in Ghana: A Toothless
Bulldog?’ (2008) 2(3) African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 38.
98 For a similar concern: See NR Kanyongolo Social Security and Women in Malawi: A Legal
security but simultaneously remain vulnerable to ‘capture’ by the large estate agriculture sector.
Chapter 5 looks at the responses that have emerged in the country in relation to the resolution of the land question. The focus is on the Land Policy and to processes prior to its adoption by the postcolonial State in 2002; particularly, the work of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on Land Policy Reform, and the three land utilization studies that took place between 1995 and 1998. After the adoption of the Land Policy, I look at the intervention of the Malawi Law Commission. Confusion and disjuncture pervade the various interventions. In the end, the Law Commission’s work shows an automatic transition from policy to law which only entrenches the irresolution of the land question.
Chapter 6 discusses the interplay of the key constituencies in Malawi’s land reform. The argument is that a triangulated examination of the key constituencies reveals a multiverse of parochial interests. These parochial interests have made the resolution of the land question in the country very burdensome. The dominance of the macroeconomic frameworks that are imposed on the country from Bretton Woods Institutions suggests that the Institutions ‘end’ or ‘foreclose’ the negotiation by the other constituencies towards a possible resolution of the land question in the country. This ‘ending’ is more pronounced considering the lack of synergy between the Land Policy and the macroeconomic frameworks in the country.
In Chapter 7, I propose a ‘bottom–up’ approach to the strategies that enhance the resolution of the land question in the country. The approach is based on people– generated responsibilization. The main point here is that people–generated responsibilization must lead to a responsibilized State.
V FINAL WORD
The picture that emerges from this Introduction is that land reform in Malawi – or more precisely the resolution of the land question – is a complex enterprise. As the debate on the land question continues, this work seeks to contribute to the debate through a critique of the on–going land reform in Malawi, particularly the translation from land reform to land law reform. The goal is to move the debate forward through a Foucauldian analysis of the land question in the country.
While I have alluded to the power relations that underlie land reform in the country, there are also power relations in the research ‘field’. George Meszaros
cautions the researcher to the complication of power relations in the research ‘field’. He states:
Power relations, it is argued, pervade the field and thereby define key aspects of the researcher’s relationship to it, and vice versa. Not only may these relations affect the way a project is constituted (for example, sold to prospective funders) or justified to participants themselves; but they will affect the terms of access to so–called gatekeepers; the sorts of questions posed to interviewees; their perceptions of the researcher; the types of answers given; and thereby the conclusions reached. For all these reasons […] power relations (also referred to as the politics of research) are of vital significance to both the development of a project and, potentially, its very sustainability.99
The issues Meszaros highlights also apply to the present work. However, my position is that they have been considerably mitigated by the trajectory of the analysis adopted under this thesis.
99
See G Meszaros ‘Researching the Landless Movement in Brazil’ in Mike McConville and Wing
Hong Chui (eds.) Research Methods for Law (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007) 133–158,