Access raises ethics questions both in terms of ‘procedural ethics’ and ‘ethics in practice’ (Guillemin and Gillam 2004). The first refers to formalities such as consent, anonymity and confidentiality of information, and the second refers to ethical decision-making in sensitive situations. Reflexive research encourages transparency to increase credibility which feeds into both of these ethics types, as I will now explore in turn.
I found that access to pro-mining individuals was difficult. Not only was this a reason for informant bias (in interviews) but it also posed challenges for engaging with these individuals (Ballard and Banks 2003, Kezar 2003, Welker 2015). The project of what Laura Nader has called, ‘studying up’ – doing projects with high status and/or powerful people – forces the researcher to confront issues of reflexivity and positionality. The difficulty of access, the dismissal of academic work and the ever-present possibility of triggering a hostile response meant that I was cautious in interviews (Ortner 2010). As
45
researchers describe similar experiences, there is an illusion that ‘studying up’ is harder than ‘studying down’9. Although issues of access, ethics, attitudes and methodology were present ‘studying up’, it was equally challenging trying to engage with people from the mining belt. These people were ‘hard to reach’ for many local political reasons. In order to get closer to the experiences of those in the mining belt, I met with some activists from these areas to ‘study down’10. The complexity of this was no less difficult to manage. These local leaders of activism were bound up in their own local politics and often controlled the dialogue from the outset. But these challenges helped me to understand the issues between activists within the anti-mining movement. I was probably not seen as ‘neutral’ by pro-mining individuals because of my engagements with activists, and as a result, mining proponents could be defensive. This raises the challenge of ‘studying up’ after ‘studying down’ and therefore, how timing is important to positioning and research findings.
Although I informed all my interviewees that the information they provided was for research purposes, it was unclear how that was interpreted. Moreover, complete anonymity was hard to guarantee given the small size of social networks in Goa,
although some of them said on their own initiative, that they did not mind being referred to by name. For the sake of keeping the interviewees anonymous as far as it is possible, I have anonymised informants and chosen not to make the interview transcripts
available, although this would have contributed to greater transparency in my analysis. I also have kept anonymous the name of the organisation that gave me access to the EIAs. Instead, the appendix includes a table of the EIAs under study.
But maintaining the anonymity of people and the confidentiality of information in the field was harder. When pressed by informants, I found it difficult to protect my other informants and hard not to get caught up in local rumours. This was, in part, a
consequence of speaking to so many activists. Then again, I became more aware over time, not only of the issues with mining, but also of the divisions between activists and their problems as a movement. Still, the inherent ethical tension of doing research was brought to the fore when activists asked me for ‘useful’ research. Qualitative social science research tends not to be aimed at solely benefitting its participants (Guillemin
9 These labels ‘studying up’ and ‘studying down’ are easily challengeable but I use them to say something about challenges in the field.
10 Of course it would have been beneficial to have spoken to the mining affected directly. But given the time constraints, activists were seen as speaking on their behalf.
46
and Gillam 2004, 271) so when I was faced with these requests, I realised that the mantra ‘do no harm’ is hard to fulfill. I made it as clear as possible that my research was unlikely to help or hinder my informants.
Conclusion
In this chapter I have shown how a discursive approach to research is sensitive to the contestable nature of knowledge, how a well-read approach to the field is highly valuable, and how each method employed was chosen with the research question in mind. I have addressed validity issues by working towards transparency and reflexivity and addressed the credibility of this venture by reflecting more broadly. Scholars suggest that methodological challenges are more acute when “the researched are struggling to build a particular discursive and material reality … in the midst of social and political contestation” (Desmond 2004, 268). In the light of this, I have worked to acknowledge subjective meanings and interpretations, and reflected on the absences and fallibilities of research (Rose 1997, 319). With the theoretical perspective explained and the methodological issues explored, this thesis turns to the first analysis chapter where the role of EIAs will be examined.
47
5 The EIA process as a mode of legitimisation
In this chapter I examine how the pro-mining discourse works through the EIA process and reports to legitimise mining in such a way that it silences, completely or partially, the impacts of a project. These silences are discursively constructed through economic and administrative rationales and the use of science. Firstly, I identify these silences in the EIA process and then in the reports themselves. The focus in the reports is on the representation of the mining lease area (MLA), nearby communities and the
construction of impacts and solutions. I argue that these identified silences have the effect of trivialising impacts, rendering them manageable or portraying mining as positive for local lives and livelihoods, thereby producing legitimacy. The final section shows how hard it is to break these silences by examining how activists contest the EIA process and EIA reports, as they articulate the anti-mining discourse. Firstly, I describe how the Indian EIA process works in theory.