CRITICAL RESEARCH APPRAISAL AND FIELDWORK EXPERIENCES

The approach in this research stresses on households, individual girls and their socio-cultural and parental backgrounds as units of analysis. More importantly, the household often represents “the primary site for the structuring of gender relations and women’s specific experience” (Brydon and Chant 1989:8). But one cannot afford to be rigid in one’s approach, or, to use Guyer’s expression, “to take a stance in which, because one’s only tool is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail”

(1986:99). To adopt a single framework would be unnecessarily restrictive, because it discounts the

various aspects of the subjects under study. Thus, issues surrounding early marriage and its effects on girls’ formal schooling were viewed from various levels of analyses. In other words, the researcher utilized different units of analysis due to the complex nature of the in-depth ethnographic data, which were gathered through various methods over the period of the study. However, employing different units of analysis for a single study could result in confusion and difficulty in understanding the relationships between the different issues addressed. It may also give an image of discontinuity, as the discussion seems to jump from one topic to another. These problems inevitably arise from the nature of issues pertaining to early marriage and its effects on girls’ formal education.

Furthermore, the study represents a combination of several methods because different “lenses”

result from the use of different methods. Relying on a methodological “triangulation,” I was able to gain a more holistic view of early marriage and its effects on girls’ formal education. Even though I used a combination of several methods in order to cross-check and supplement information gathered through various methods, the issue of objectivity still remains problematic. In principle, it is stated that a researcher should avoid any prejudice or bias about the subject of the study. This may be difficult but clearly, there is no alternative. Social research is an interactive process shaped by the researcher’s personal history, biography, gender, social background, and those of the people in the cultural setting.

Thus, there is no value-free social research. There are no objective observations, only observations socially situated in the world of the observer and the observed.

In conducting the ethnographic fieldwork in the rural ethnographic settings, Bachema and Rim Peasant Associations, of Mecha Woreda, I encountered many difficulties. The major ones are:

• The unavailability of most male informants for in-depth personal interviews at their home since they pass the day in their farm areas and return home in the evening. I tried to overcome this problem by arranging my schedule in accordance to my informant’s convenient time, mostly during religious holidays. Among most peasants of Bachema and Rim, religious holidays and festivals, local ceremonies and feasts (such as mahbär, sänbäte and səgge) are the most important occasions to discuss issues related to their locality and social affairs.

• The problem of getting access to observe family relationships, especially those between men and women. Most husbands were unwilling to let their wives give information about their life histories to the researcher and some of them were not transparent themselves. Some husbands wanted to join the interview of their wives and therefore inhibited them. This problem was commonly encountered in both Bachema and Rim peasant communities. Especially in Rim peasant community, a relatively remote community, the husband would naturally have to answer for his wife in such a situation. In order to approach husbands and wives separately and directly, I have gone through key informants. Offering gifts such as coffee beans, salt, sugar, soaps and money for informants were the major strategy to easily approach key informants and focus families. This way of ‘reciprocity’ is a well-established tradition among both Bachema and Rim peasant communities.

Accordingly, I used this approach of field research to work closely with local informants in recording detailed biographies, local ceremonies and celebrations. Through my longer stay in the ethnographic research settings, I developed friendships among the two peasant communities and was invited to attend wedding ceremonies, local religious feasts and holidays, and other public gatherings, which enabled me to record video films and to take photographs. Finally, the majority of the local people came to understand that I was interested in studying and recording their local traditions, particularly, their marriage customs and wedding ceremonies, though most parents, who arranged an early marriage for their very young daughters, were initially suspicious about the purpose of my research.

• The unwillingness of parents (who arranged an early marriage for their daughters) to allow me to record wedding ceremonies. Almost all parents who arranged an early marriage for their daughters (as young as 5 years old and less) were unwilling to allow me to record wedding ceremonies. This unwillingness was because the parents were threatened by the Peasants Association’s (PA) leaders and other government officials who were campaigning against early-arranged marriage. However, when the local PA and other government officials started their campaigns, parents had already made the marriage arrangement procedure, which takes a minimum of six months before the wedding day. They had also started preparing drinks and food items and it was very difficult for parents to terminate the wedding ceremony. As a strategy for stopping early arranged marriage in the locality, the PA and other government officials attempted to determine whether the would-be-bride was 15, the legal minimum age for girls to get married which was endorsed before the revision of the old family law of Ethiopia. According to the current revised family law of Ethiopia (2000), the minimum age for first marriage is 18 years for both girls and boys. However, the local people knew only the previous (old) family law, though they even failed to strictly comply with it.

I closely observed that parents used to add three and more years to the actual age of the would-be-bride in order to keep the age expected by the PA leaders. In fact, the local people are aware of the illegality of arranging marriage for both girls and boys below the age of 15 and 18, respectively.

Nevertheless, they do not comply with the law due to economic, social and cultural reasons, which will be discussed in the subsequent chapters.

• Problems of gaining the confidence of informants. One of the problems was that informants could not understand how and why they came to be selected for the study. I was asked several personal and sensitive questions, such as: Where do you come from, to which religion do you belong, why did you select the respective research sites, and the like. I had to spend a great deal of time explaining how they came to be chosen and giving appropriate responses to all questions addressed by the local people in a very careful manner. Plainly speaking, in both Bachema and Rim rural communities, almost all of my informants were Orthodox Christians and their religion is inherited from their family of procreation. They strictly oppose the “new” (mätte) religion, i.e.

“religion that is not Orthodox Christianity.” Actually, in my first exposure to both Bachema and Rim rural communities, the local people considered me as a “modern” Christian missionary, i.e. a protestant. As a result, their initial question was “what is your religion?” My key informants in the rural villages introduced me as an Orthodox Christian and then, the local people developed trust in me and considered me as a member of their family or village. The other problem is, being the first experience for many informants to be interviewed, they were suspicious thinking that the government wanted to identify them. Most people took me for a government employee trying to investigate the level of their income for taxation. Specifically, informants were reluctant to answer a question on the size of landholding and other properties owned by the family or other sources of family income. Many people also considered me a government spy (sällay) who wanted to know their political opinions. I tried to overcome some of the problems through my key informants in the villages under study. Here it should be noted that, before conducting my extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the rural communities of Mecha Woreda, it was taken for granted that I would have no problems in observation and participation in the study area, provided I was born and brought up in the study area, speaking the local language, Amharic, and knowing the culture, but finally I came to realize that there are many things and problems that I had to learn and adjust through time to the culture of the society.

• The malaria epidemics. In conducting the first and second phases of my ethnographic research (from 29^th April 2003 – 29^th July 2003 and from 13^th September 2003 - 30^th January 2004), there were malaria epidemics. Especially from the end of May 2003 to the end of June 2003 (during the first phase) and from the beginning of October 2003 to the end of November 2003 (during the second phase), the malaria epidemic was severe. During these months, I could not manage to closely visit focus families because most of them were victims of malaria epidemics. I also could not manage to conduct in-depth personal discussions with some of the married female pupils at Bachema and Rim primary schools because most pupils were absent from school for the same reason. However, I managed to do the ethnographic fieldwork through alternative methods. In these times, I tried to focus on recording the oral histories of the woreda’s marriage customs through key informants and the elderly people. I also attended religious and social gatherings (such as sänbäte, mahbär and səgge) around Yidonga Maryam and Kotekotema Michael Orthodox Christian churches in Bachema Peasant Association. This gave me the opportunity to discuss with the local people about the gender socialization process and gender-specific reasons for arranging early marriage. I have also had intensive personal discussions with Bachema and Rim primary schools teachers about gender-specific barriers to formal schooling in their respective locality.

• Last but not least, in conducting my ethnographic fieldwork in the rural settings of Mecha Woreda, I encountered the following difficulties: (1) lack of transport facilities; (2) bad weather conditions (too hot during April and May 2003 and rainy during June and July 2003); (3) bad road (dusty during the dry season and muddy during the rainy season); (4) lack of potable water and electricity; (5) lack of prepared food items; and (5) lack of suitable living and sleeping rooms. In short, the unavailability of social amenities such as transport, electricity, prepared food, and others in my ethnographic research sites made my fieldwork arduous and stressful.

Despite the above mentioned fieldwork personal encounters, I managed to finish the first and second rounds of my ethnographic research. I interrupted the second phase of my fieldwork for fifteen days (4 October 2003 -17 2003) to attend a symposium on “Civil Society in Ethiopia,” in Goettingen, Germany, which also enabled me to organize and conduct a two-day exploratory workshop on “Early Marriage and Girls’ Education in Mecha Woreda, the Study Area” (18^th - 19^th September 2004). The workshop was aimed at discussing the root-causes and harmful consequences of early marriage with the local participants; developing locally appropriate strategies for challenging the harmful consequences of early marriage and then promoting girls’ education in the study area.