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Transmission and Political Communication ProjectKnowledge
Transmission and Political Communication Project
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by Oliver Kortendick and Christin Kocher Schmid
The research aims at tracing the links of individuals and rural communities
to each other as well as to the urban elites.
This systematic research will form the core of comparable data produced by the APFT project. Its results will be illustrated and explained in depth by the long-term research conducted by the associated anthropologists. By combining both quantitative and qualitative data, micro- and macro level of research the findings will have both analytical depth (validity) and high reliability. It will form the basis for APFT activities and will fulfil the project's main purpose: to provide a picture of the contemporary situation of the people of the rain forest. It will also provide knowledge transfer to the University of Papua New Guinea.
Research topics:
A snapshot of the contemporary situation. We want to be able to compare the situation in the research area of a couple of years.
Plant cultivars are traded and exchanged throughout New Guinea and new introductions travel thus with considerable speed from one end of the country to the other. This exchange also reflects the communication network linking the rural communities to each other as well as to the urban areas. The phenomenon of plant cultivar exchange has been noted but rarely published or commented by anthropologists in Papua New Guinea.
The vast majority of forest resources in Melanesia are under the effective control of small land owning communities, most of which include a small urban or elite membership as well as a larger rural base. The development of effective strategies for conservation or sustainable development has failed so far, largely because no quantitative and firm data on cultural variability are available.
Instrumental and expressional support, extend and density of personal networks. Relationship between groups and sub-groups.
Four different levels of investigation are included in the research
The characteristics of the research area are:
As a consequence unusual logistic and methodistic problems have to be dealt with. On the one hand data collecting problems arise, on the other hand, it will be necessary to compare the collected data in the analysis with data derived from different cultural contexts. Furthermore, the future planning of the APFT project includes the collection of similar and therefore comparable data from the other project areas as well, as Africa or South America.
However, this situation offers a unique opportunity: anthropologists have rarely had the opportunity to collect large sets of data, because most of their fieldwork is carried out single mostly. Moreover, most of the existing large data sets were collected in modern contexts, and not in premodern ones. It is therefore especially interesting to compare the situation within the research areas with comparable data from industrial countries.
To be able to compare the data to be collected with other research and to put it into a research tradition, some basic problems have to be solved:
1.: Systematic sampling requires some basic knowledge about the sampling unit as a whole, i.e.requires elaborated statistics about Papua New Guinea and its rain forest population. Furthermore it is important to be able to send interviewers to any place required. As both conditions are not fulfilled. a distinct sampling procedure has to be developed, which is especially adopted to the local conditions. The University of Papua New Guinea will play a crucial role in this stage of the project. Students from this institution will be trained as interviewers and send to the designated research area to conduct the interviews.
2.: Only well trained interviewers provide high quality data. They need to understand what the study is about. how to conduct the interviews, what happens with the data, and how to behave in the field if confronted with problems. In addition the interviews have to be controlled. Controlling lO% of the interviewers normally delivers a good basis for the evaluation of the data.
3.: Although there is a good choice of developed and tested questionnaires, scales and tests in empirical social research available, their application is hardly tested in non western societies. Especially if interviewees are illiterate, the research instruments have to be adopted to local conditions.
4.: Collecting large amounts of data requires special knowledge and equipment not only for operationalization but also for analysis. A separate list of required hardware and special purpose software will be prepared.
The analysis of social networks (NA) is the ideal technique to solve successfully the above mentioned research questions:
The special feature of NA is not the description and analysis of the characteristics of discrete units (like individuals), but the description and measurement of the relations between them. NA documents social ties and provides the tools for exact measurement of their features. Moreover, it is possible to analyse both personal and intergroup relations. The emphasis can be laid on different domains, as political, social and economical relationships.
NA also measures the strength and direction of social relations. It is possible to define the centrality and position of actors (units of observation). By these means, the multiplexity of ties between individual actors or groups can be discovered.
Operationalization
The following general steps have to be taken:
ad 1.: The four main areas of research interest are based on a web of more or less complex social relationships. The extent and characteristics of these relationships are described by network analysis and result in so-called social structure. In other words, the result of the analysis will be the isolation of the ordering principle of existing social relations. The project will thus considerably contribute to theory-building. For instance is it really correct to assume that people in premodern contexts mainly maintain social ties, which are based on primordial factors, rather than interest-orientated ties? As we do not have a zero measurement in the industrial countries, the project can deliver important indicators to that question, indicators, that are crucial for the development of social theory.
An example: rain forests are endangered all over the world. We do not know exactly what happens with people who are loosing their natural habitat as a consequence of this development. We do not know exactly, because we do not have systematic data of the situation before and after. Thus, we cannot compare the situations and decide whether there was improvement or loss. Even worse: Even if one knows from personal experience, that there is a decline in life-quality, wealth, health and so forth, one cannot prove this. By describing the social structure now, and if possible repeat this measurement over several years we will have reliable data on the changes that occur.
ad 2.: Typically, network analysis makes use of so-called name generators. A name generator is an instrument which collects the relations of an individual. These generators try to cover both expressional and instrumental aspects of the relations. For example: a possible question is: suppose you need to borrow a large sum of money. Whom would you ask?". For each name a set of basic statistics will be asked as well. Although there is a wide range of existing tools for performing this task, they will be some need to adopt them to the local situation.
ad 3.: The quality-improvements outlined before, namely training of the interviewers, will result in knowledge transfer as a welcome spin-off effect. Three different levels of training are possible: 1. The interviewers will be part of an international research project and conduct interviews in the field, which normally is a good exercise in itself. 2. There will be a seminar or inductory course given on research methods. 3. There will be presentations of the data and the results so that they will be involved in all stages of the research.
ad 4.: The sampling procedure will depend on the numbers and the social origin of the interviewers.
ad 5.. 6. and 7: Questions to be solved by the pretest:
Which instruments are needed for the local situation?
How must these instruments be adopted?
To what extent does the local population cooperate? Do they want to cooperate?
Are the instruments suitable to solve the research questions?
ad 8.: The ideal set for the main study: a minimum of 1000 respondents is required in order to have the basis to apply the whole range of statistics for the analysis. Contacts to the University of Papua New Guinea make it possible to send about 100 students to the field. They will return to their home communities for holidays. Ideally they all originate from separate communities and conduct 20 interviews each. These interviews then will constitute the basis for a powerful database of 2000 respondents.
ad 9.: The whole range of network analysis instruments can be applied to the data set. As only few data sets of this size exists, the study has a good chance to become a classic piece of research.
Research schedule
1. jan.- feb. 96
designing questionnaire and/or tests
2. feb. - april 96
pilot study.
3 . may - oct 96
evaluation of pilot study, adjusting questionnaire/tests
4. oct - dec 96
training of UPNG students in Port Moresby
5. dec 96-feb 97
main study, data collected by UPNG students.
6. march - oct 97
Evaluation and interpretation
These are views of the village, where the pre-test will be carried out in June.
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