Trading with the enemy in Mitrovica, Kosovo. - RUhosting

Of the seventeen people interviewed seven were Albanian, six were Serbian and four were international.
Besides the three traders, I interviewed 10 people working at an NGO, of which 8 were locals and 2
internationals. Three people interviewed were working at international organisations, of whom 1 local and 2
internationals. All people from NGO's who I interviewed had experience in dealing with inter-ethnic
relations (many of them organised reconciliation programmes or had done so in the past) or experience
dealing with economic issues. The same is valid for 2 out of 3 interviewees who worked at IGO's.
Furthermore one of my interviewees was active in local politics, one worked for the regional government and
another one was a journalist. Of the interviewed locals, 9 lived their entire life in Mitrovica and two of the
internationals lived there for at least a couple of years.
Regarding the duration of these interviews, almost all interviews took about 1-1,5 hours, with some taking
longer than 2 hours. The only notable exception to this are the interviews with the traders, which only lasted
for about 15-30 minutes. My experience was that the traders were less willing or motivated to talk. Also, the
traders were very reluctant to answer questions regarding their dealings with the other ethnic group. One of
the traders reacted hostile on my question to his relations with the other ethnic group and implicitly told me
not to ask questions in that direction.
During most of these interviews I took notes, as recommended by Francis (2002), which I would use to write
down the entire interview immediately afterwards. Some authors such as Russel (2002) recommend to use an
audio recorder during interviews but this did not seem appropriate in Mitrovica where such high levels of
suspicion reign, especially regarding my research subject. So, although I did have an audio recorder I
decided not to use it based on this and local advice as well as my own knowledge of the sensitivity of the
discussed content during the interviews. Before the interview would start I would ask if I could take notes, in
all but two occasions this was no problem. On one occasion the interviewee reacted slightly hostile to this
and asked me not to take notes, during another the interviewee grew visibly uncomfortable when I raised the
question so I refrained from making notes there as well.
Most interviews were conducted in a social setting, a bar. But some were in closed of spaces such as an
office or in one case the store of a trader. All interviews were semi-structured, although the balance between
structure and openness depended on the situation and research subject. I interviewed some representatives of
the international community and directors of NGO's for example, in these cases I would use a more
structured interview, which fitted the formal situation but also my inquiry into more specific data. When
interviewing locals I tried to explore not only their job and knowledge of inter-ethnic relations in general and
trade, but also their personal experiences and attitudes regarding these subjects. This called for a more open
interview which went wherever the conversation went and whatever the interviewee felt comfortable with to
discuss or thought was relevant. These less structured interviews delivered valuable information not only
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