Research Questions and Methodology

Okay, for all you academics who are curious about what it is I'm actually going to be doing in Sierra Leone, this post is for you!

Purpose of Study
The lessons learned from this study offer the potential to reveal what traditional ideologies and practices, such as cultural factors, including leadership and reconciliation, and structural factors, including educational and political institutions and housing and community spaces, may be important for community development after conflict in Sierra Leone, and why.

Research Questions
In an effort to understand the necessary ideologies and practices for community development in postconflict Sierra Leone, the following research questions will help guide this study:

1. How and why do cultural ideologies and practices influence or shape postconflict development?

a. How and why do traditional community collectives or groups influence or shape development after the conflict?

b. How and why does traditional leadership, such as the chieftaincy, influence or shape postconflict development?

c. How and why do traditional ceremonies and rituals, including reconciliation processes, influence or shape postconflict community development?

2. How and why have structural factors (including institutional arrangements) influenced or shaped postconflict community development?

a. How and why has the building of housing shaped postconflict community development?

b. How and why has the building of community spaces shaped postconflict community development?

c. How and why has infrastructure shaped postconflict community development?

d. How and why has the educational system shaped postconflict community development?

e. How and why have the political institutions influenced postconflict development?

3. How and why have non-traditional ideologies and practices influenced or shaped postconflict community development?

a. How and why have NGOs or other international organizations shaped postconflict community development?

b. How and why have other western influences shaped postconflict community development?

Methodology
As there is so little research on postconflict community development in Sierra Leone, applying existing theory to the fieldwork may not allow for a comprehensive analysis of the data. Using the grounded theory method, the fieldwork data can be systematically compared and analyzed so that the story the data tells and the theories that emerge from that story will generate understanding about postconflict community development in Sierra Leone (Patton, 2002). Data collection will occur over an intensive five week visit to Sierra Leone in May and June, 2009. Subjects for this research study will be the members of two different Sierra Leonean communities. I will be conducting one-hour semi-structured qualitative interviews with 12 to15 members of each community.

The research for this study will be analyzed in two ways. First, I will view each community through the lens of a case study. Using the data I have collected about the events and happenings in each community before, during, and especially after the war, and my observations, I will write a case record (Patton, 2002), or a written account of my data, experiences, and impressions of each community separately. Once each case study is written, I will compare the two cases using the technique of inductive analysis to comb each case study for emergent themes (Patton, 2002). As these themes emerge, I will be able to compare and contrast the case studies in order to form a more comprehensive understanding of postconflict development efforts in Sierra Leone and why these ideologies and practices were used.