The research for this paper started at the end of 1999. First, I examined the secondary sources and conducted a short period of fieldwork in the area in summer 2000. I used qualitative research methods for gathering the data, since the aim is to uncover the motivations of the movement participants and their tactics of organisation. The movement itself and the way the non-locals got engaged are far from being formal arrangements. Following Kriesi (1992:203) who claims that the more informal a movement organisation is the more appropriate it is to use qualitative methods, I conducted in-depth interviews with the movement organisers and the supporters. In order to uncover the motivations and thoughts of the peasants on issues directly and indirectly related to the gold mine, I conducted fieldwork in the villages surrounding the contested gold mine. The interviews with the peasants and the movement organisers were undertaken during August-September 2000. The interviews in Germany were carried out during March 2001. Further phone interviews with non-local supporters were conducted during May 2001. A list of all the interviews is given in the appendix.
This study
required the interviewing of both peasants and the supporters of the movement –
the individuals belonging to the latter group were not always from the local
setting and will be referred to as the Elites. For the Elite interviews, I gathered the
names associated with the movement from secondary sources such as
books or newspaper clippings. Similar to other social movement research, I used snowball sampling[2] and the interviews provided new names to be contacted for further research. The
sampling of the peasants was more challenging. The reason for this was the
suspicion a researcher induces in the locals because of the ongoing struggle.
Accusations of spying are common when conducting research on sensitive topics
(Lee, 1993: Ch. 1). To overcome this I had to go to the villages with someone
the locals knew and trusted. This posed a problem of bias in the sample because
the person who accompanied us was in the anti-mine camp and this prevented us
from talking to people who could have been for the mining. These biases should
be taken into account while reading the paper.
The interviews
were semi-structured or nonschedule-standardised interviews. This type of
interview is also called focused interview and refers to the situation where
the interviewer has a list of questions for each interviewee (Denzin, 1989:105;
Richards, 1996:201). The phrasing and the order of the questions were different
for each respondent. The interviews took place mostly in the offices or homes
of the respondents, and were carried out without a tape recorder. Tape
recording of the interviews was not possible in many cases because it would
have made the respondents less forthcoming in answering the questions – this is
again due to the ongoing conflict. Note-taking during the interviews was
possible with the elite interviews but negatively influenced the process with
the peasants – by either making them reluctant to answer or by making them
emphasise and repeat the topics when notes were taken. Hence, I took detailed
notes during elite interviews and short notes during peasant interviews and
extended them both afterwards.
The gender of
the researcher is usually a very important issue in qualitative studies. If
this research had been carried out in a different part of Turkey, the access
would have been more restricted because of the patriarchal nature of society.
In Bergama it was acceptable for me to sit in the village coffee shops – that
are exclusively male spaces – and to talk to groups of men. It can be argued
that being a ‘woman’ and simultaneously a ‘stranger’ has opened the doors to
both women’s and men’s spaces in my research (Cook and Fenow, 1990).
[2] Snowball sampling refers to the case where the researcher starts
with an initial set of contacts and is then passed on by them to others (Lee,
1993:65).
