WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

IS SON PREFERENCE EMERGING AMONG THE NAYARS OF KERALA …?
4. Method
4.1. Research strategy and qualitative method
We examine qualitative data gathered from three generations of
Nayar individuals in 2002-2003, to examine current patterns in kinship
and family organization, current socioeconomic roles of men and
women, and whether preference for sons over daughters now exists. In
order to explore how these features differed in the past, we summarize
historical evidence on kinship organization, socioeconomic roles of
men and women, and son preference among Nayars in Kerala in the
19 th century, and also contrast views across older vs. younger age
groups of participants.
We gathered qualitative data during 2002-2003 in and around
Thrissur, a city of about 2.9 million inhabitants in 2001 (see location
map in Figure 1 in the introduction) and an important commercial and
religious centre of Kerala with significant Nayar representation. We
used ethnographic rapid assessment methods (Scrimshaw and Gleason,
1992), suited for interdisciplinary enquiries involving a combination of
larger-scale health-related information and in-depth understanding of
the cultural meanings ascribed to behaviours, as in the case of our
research topic which addresses the interface of demographic behaviour
and its cultural and socioeconomic underpinnings. This method
enables in-depth interviews of larger numbers of participants as
compared to conventional ethnographic methods.
The rapid assessment method differs from conventional
ethnographic methods as it involves a team of trained investigators
rather than a solo researcher. Our research team comprised two of the
four authors of this chapter (one female and one male), and six
interview staff (three men and three women to facilitate gender
matching of interviewer and participant). The staff and the male
author were natives and/or long-term residents of Kerala, with spoken
and written fluency in Malayalam (the local language) and English.
We first used a structured household survey to ascertain basic
demographic, household, and socioeconomic information from the
participants. The information included the participant’s age, sex,
numbers and sex of children if any, household residents, parents,
children or siblings elsewhere, marital status, education and occupation
of all, household asset ownership (including home or property
ownership and major consumer goods, used to ascertain household
socioeconomic status). Women’s reproductive histories (numbers of
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