Written interviews

Although the backup plan was to perform the missing face-to-face interviews in a written form, this method has certain shortcomings that are well known. First of all, it is easy for the interviewee not to uphold their promise, intent or obligation to return the interview with their answers and it is difficult for the interviewer to oblige them to do this. This led to the situation resulting that instead of having five interviews with persons with key insights into the gendered situation of the participants in the conflict in Honduras, I only got one response from the five different persons I wanted to interview. This is despite trying to make the interview as interesting as possible for the different persons with slightly different focus in each of the interviews. This being said, the interview that was returned included very valuable observations and anecdotes from a reliable and academic source that proved valuable to this master thesis.

5.4.3 Questionnaire

A questionnaire is a written structured interview with clearly defined answers and questions (Hellevik 2002:147) that gives the respondent time to think about what he or she will answer. It can be done slowly, so as not to rush into anything, or can be done very fast and save money and/or time for the researchers who are seeking the answers (Ringdal 2007:104). Questionnaires can be based on paper as something handed out to the respondent (Ringdal 2007:103) it could be done via the internet or other digital means (Hellevik 2002:144) or it can be answered with the help of an interviewer who asks the questions in the questionnaire and fills in the answers from the respondent either face to face or over the telephone (Hellevik 2002:143; Ringdal 2007:103). Although the questionnaire is a purely

structured way of obtaining information from respondents, it is sometimes done more as a mixed methods design through open-ended questions. (Hellevik 2002:111). This gives the possibility of having statistical data that is easy to compare, as well as some of the flexibility and explorative possibilities of qualitative studies that will provide new or more extensive information than the strictly quantitative questionnaire (Hellevik 2002:146).

I chose to use a quantitative questionnaire with a number of open ended questions for my fieldwork research in Honduras. These questions could be answered more extensively if the respondent wanted to, so that I could draw some of the best from each paradigm the choice of using questionnaires was made because I wanted more information from more sources than what I would be able to obtain by only using interviews over a short time period.

This questionnaire was provided in Spanish to make it more easily accessible and was rather short. It normally took just five minutes to complete the questionnaire, sometimes less.

Using the questionnaire gave me insight into what some of the members of the many different organizations think and feel about an array of topics related to violence and participation in their organization and in the movement as a whole. This is information that can be put together with information obtained through interviews and observations as a way to see if the conclusions reached through each of these methods are similar.

5.5 Observation

To illustrate my fieldwork, my methods, and the situation in Honduras in the aftermath of this coup I will start with a small event that happened to me while in Honduras:

When in Honduras, the most important factor in my choice to follow the demonstrations as a participant observer was the fact that if I chose to keep to the side-lines of the demonstrations, but still be taking photos, notes or talking to people I would possibly have been interpreted to be a government employee tracking and participating in the demonstration. So as a way to not look suspicious I choose to dress in the “demonstration uniform” (see Illustration 7) to fit in better even if that would be difficult as an obvious foreigner.

On the other hand, this choice did produce some other weaknesses than I had expected.

As I did not interact much with the other demonstrators I would not say that my judgment was altered by my subjective participation in the demonstration, but I discovered the day after one of the marches that my photo was in the newspaper, in a news story about destruction of private property during the demonstrations. Although I was just a bystander (taking a picture

while being photographed) and almost impossible to notice or recognize, I felt like I had somehow betrayed my observer status by being pictured in the newspaper in that situation.

I chose start this chapter with this short anecdote as it outlines many of the aspects that I will reflect upon, consider and explain later in this chapter. As this anecdote includes something about choosing what kind of observation one would like to do, how to not awaken the paranoia in people, and how such a situation might be on the ground for the real participants, and other sorts of problems I had during my fieldwork in Honduras in the summer of 2011.

As what people say and what they do tend to differ, (Hellevik 2002:151) I wanted insight in how the situation was in practice for the women participating in the organization. I planned on getting invited into the meeting of the different organizations as well as getting them to fill out my questionnaire. This is because with just observation one isn’t able to necessarily see what is going on and understand what someone’s attitudes really are about a subject. The time given to speakers is dependent on their gender, on who organizes the meetings, who does the chores before and after the meetings and who the formal and social leaders of the group are. These factors come out more easily in the open when one is able to see how the meetings are conducted.

Unfortunately I did not manage to get into the meetings as they were for members only- a security precaution which I will come back to later in this paper. I did get the chance to observe, but that was only in the open and public demonstrations that took place while I was in Honduras. The information achieved in such a situation is limited because not everybody has the opportunity to not be at work during day time. Some are professional demonstrators as they work in organizations that constitute the movement and others were on short strikes so that they could participate in the demonstrations. This inability to participate because of work applies more to men than women, as there is a higher percentage of male work participation in Honduras (Espinosa 2011:37, Ronderos 2011:316). Even if there are limitations, the

Illustration 6: My picture in the newspaper with demonstrators and destruction of private property

possibility to see who shows up, including how many of each gender and their roles in the demonstrations can reveal some information that can be valuable for me in my project.