Migration Processes in Central and Eastern Europe - Multiple Choices

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Normative and Methodological Discussion of Migration and Integration
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The methodological account, in a study about the
Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic (Brouček,
2003), is not much more elaborate, despite the fact that it
is by far the longest text (114 pages not including an
attachment which is primarily the texts of two transcribed
interviews). The most information about data collection
methods is to be found in another text about Arabs living in
the Czech Republic (Derianová, 2003). But even here we
do not learn much more than that the data was collected
using participant observation and structured interviews
with non-standardised questions.
It is not only a convention that all field researchbased
texts contain a section on methodology. By explaining
the individual steps in her research, the researcher reveals
what led her to her conclusions. This makes her research
credible and convincing. Many qualitative researchers
(among Czech researchers, cf. Disman, 1993) highlight the
need to explain research methods of qualitative, therefore
ethnographic, research. Next, we shall look at two concrete
examples from the analysed texts where readers are not provided
with a detailed breakdown of the research strategy.
The first example comes from a study concerning
the religious attitudes of Bulgarian immigrants (Otčenášek,
2003b). The relevant chapter is rather brief and includes
only one paragraph and three statistical charts. The author
asserts that Bulgarians officially profess their faith, but are
not active religious practitioners and concludes the chapter
by stating that “religion plays only a marginal role in the life
of Bulgarians without a significant impact on their everyday
life” (ibid: 299). An attentive reader would ask: which of the
respondents' answers serve as the foundation for the
author's interpretation? Did the author ask how often the
respondents attend religious services? Whether or not they
perceive themselves to be believers? How their faith is
manifested in their daily lives? Whether their faith changed
after their arrival in the Czech Republic? It is likely that such
questions were raised during the course of the interviews.
However, the reader knows neither what was asked nor how
it was asked, and she is not given excerpts from interviews
(which are usually provided in qualitative research studies).
The reader is therefore hardly able to assess the reliability
and validity of the author's conclusions. The respondent's
answers never exist by themselves, without a context; on
the contrary, they are partially shaped by the interaction
between the researcher and the respondent.
Another example is from the text about the integration
of Arabs in selected Czech cities (Hošková, 2003).
Among other issues, the author examines mixed Czech-
Muslim marriages, stating that:
For most of them [Arab, Muslim men], marriage
must look trouble-free on the outside. For Czech
women, it is not easy to talk about their dissatisfaction
and disappointment with their Arab husbands whom
they probably married against the will of their own
parents and warnings from their friends, so there is
nothing else to do but continue with their marriage
and try to tolerate their partner. Of course, divorce is
possible, but Arab men hate to give up their children
(ibid: 269, author's translation).
This is yet again a strong, daring conclusion.
However, the reader would understand it better if she knew
more about the manner of conducting the interviews that
were the basis of the author's interpretation. The text only
informs us that the author conducted unstructured interviews
with respondents.
INTERPRETATION AND PRESENTATION
OF FINDINGS
In the previous section, I briefly discussed how
credibility can be fashioned in qualitative research. I argued
that the prerequisite for research findings being persuasive
is to provide a description of and reflection on methodology.
Another way of making research findings appear trustworthy
is connected to the manner in which they are presented in
an article, thesis or a research report. These two strategies
can be employed to convince readers that our conclusions,
interpretations, hypotheses and theories are based on the
collected data, and should not be separated. They are
usually described hand-in-hand in methodology textbooks.
In his textbook, for example, Miroslav Disman (1993) bases
the credibility of qualitative research on an absolute clarity
of the analytical process and gives examples of suitable
ways of presenting conclusions (citations from interviews,
field diary records, descriptions of the examined environment,
etc.). He states that only a “thorough, crystal-clear and
coherent presentation containing not only conclusions, but
also reproducing the individual steps that have led the
researcher to these conclusions, will enhance the credibility
of the research in the reader's eyes” (ibid: 303). It is fairly
simple: qualitative researchers should support their assertions
regarding the examined group with citations from recorded
interviews or excerpts from field diaries in the same way
as quantitative researchers must convince their audience
using statistics presented in well-organised tables or comprehensible,
annotated charts.
There are only a few citations from conducted
interviews in the analysed texts. Some authors (Otčenášek,
2003a, b, c; Uherek, 2003a) do not use citations at all.
The text about Czech-Muslim marriages (Drápalová and
Kolářová, 2003) and the text about Africans and African-
Americans (Jiroušková, 2003) contain only the paraphrased
testimony of respondents, which in the latter chapter
amounts to merely a few lines. In both texts, the speakers'
life stories are nearly always used only to characterise the
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Migration Processes in Central and Eastern Europe: Unpacking the Diversity