Prone Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa

Survey Methodology in Violence- prone Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa Ndodana Nleya and Lisa Thompson Abstract This article discusses the methodological challenges of a service delivery survey in Khayelitsha, a township in Cape Town, South Africa. The survey aimed to gain a better understanding of the relationship between citizen participation and the environmental challenges facing residents in this urban area. Khayelitsha is a township prone to violence. Encountering violence during fieldwork can alter the way researchers execute research, yet this often remains unacknowledged in ‘objective social science’, especially in probability sampling. The article examines the effects of the risk felt by researchers on the research method employed in quantitative surveys. It shows that deliberating on this aspect of the research process is both necessary and useful, especially in terms of recognising the need to factor fear or uncertainty into the ways in which research processes unfold. 1 Introduction This article examines the effects of subjectively This article presents an appraisal of felt risk on the research method employed in methodological challenges of a service delivery quantitative surveys. It shows that deliberating survey study in Khayelitsha, a township in Cape on this aspect of the research process is both Town, South Africa. The central goal of the necessary and useful, especially in terms of survey was to gain a better understanding of the recognising the need to factor fear or uncertainty connections between urban environmental into the ways in which the research process challenges facing residents in the area and unfolds, especially in the contexts of poor and citizen participation methods. Yet in doing so, marginalised communities living in informal both the objective issue of Khayelitsha as a housing and settlements. violence-prone township, and the risk subjectively felt by the researchers involved, had While the survey research discussed here was to be factored into the research process. buttressed by more qualitatively based fieldwork, Encountering violence during fieldwork can this article does not attempt a detailed undeniably alter the manner in which comparison of both the objective and subjective researchers execute research, especially when components of risk perception in relation to each. the researchers perceive themselves to be under Most of the researchers’ perceptions relied on for threat, yet this often remains unacknowledged in reflections about the quantitative process were ‘objective social science’, especially in probability not part of the qualitative process. A more sampling. In a probability sample (as opposed to detailed comparison of the impact of different a judgement sample), ‘arbitrary’ alterations, methodologies on the researchers would even when based on expert opinion, are necessitate a careful analysis of the construction considered undesirable, although pure of each of these processes that falls beyond the probability samples are a rarity (Deming 1950). scope of this article. Suffice it to say that the very The subjective experiences of the researchers nature of the quantitative fieldwork process is to and the ‘researched’ is more often explored in strive for a depersonalisation of the research, relation to qualitative fieldwork. where in most cases qualitative research IDS Bulletin Volume 40 Number 3 May 2009 © 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation © Institute of Development Studies Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA 50 attempts to prioritise the personal, and works on of ‘scientific objectivity’, especially in the premise of high validity of information based quantitative epistemology. Instead, it is to show on processes of building understanding with that these ideas are sometimes predicated on individuals and groups over time (Hawkesworth what we see as an artificial notion of detachment 1989; Mbilinyi 1992). Our survey fieldwork (Lee-Treweek 2000; Hughes 2004; Meyer 2007). experience highlights the problems inherent in While it is clear from the literature on survey the depersonalisation of research, and the research that some researchers feel it is possible attendant latent issues of ‘self’ and ‘other’, as to carry out social science research and analysis well as problems embedded in upholding the with ‘complete detachment’ in the hope of distinction between researcher and the achieving objective social science, our research researched in survey processes. Our research has highlighted the ways in which value process highlights that the very process of judgements are core to the formulation of constructing the specific spatial terrain for survey research objectives and hypotheses (Drakopoulos work – seen as so critical to ensuring the accuracy 1994) and that ongoing value judgements are of ‘the facts’ – reinforced a sense of ‘otherness’ made in relation to the research, particularly in among some of the researchers. In our survey environments which fall far short of the classic terrain – a poor urban area – understandings of Northern survey terrain. risk and potential violence went hand in hand with the sense of ‘being an outsider’. Central to these value judgements is the fact that Khayelitsha is known to be crime ridden, and has Research in other contexts shows that these a poor, and in some instances almost non- constructions of otherness, risk and violence in existent, road infrastructure. Most residents do poor communities do not stem from the not have listed telephone numbers, relying on researchers and the research process only. Many mobile phones if they have a phone at all. Exact poor communities across cultural contexts feel probability sampling is thus quite difficult, even increasingly insecure in material, physical and with GIS mapping, and shacks spring up daily, psychological terms (Narayan et al. 2000), and constantly altering the urban landscape. Phone international development feminist theorists interviews are not possible due to the lack of highlight the gendered and class dimensions of listed numbers, and safety concerns are insecurity (Tickner 1991; Marchand and Parpart paramount in the light of Khayelitsha crime 1995; Meyer and Prugl 1999). Our research statistics (Table 1). Other unexpected issues supports these perceptions of insecurity from changed the scope of the survey. The initial within poor communities themselves. While the approach of using a single researcher to conduct understandings of insecurity may be generated the interviews proved too time-consuming, as the from both the researchers and the researched, interview process turned out to be complicated by shared subjective understandings of threat and safety issues. The researcher became demoralised insecurity are less possible based on a survey and overwhelmed by the conditions he was research instrument. exposed to on a daily basis. Bringing in other interviewers introduced new issues related to Our discussion here also departs from an safety, as all of them were women, and some did objectified discussion of methodology (Lee- not feel safe in certain areas of Khayelitsha. This Treweek 2000; Meyer 2007; Drakopoulos 1994), in turn entailed revisiting our initial sampling typical of academic papers. Instead we try to technique to ensure a balance between safety highlight the evolution of the research as both an concerns and accepted sampling techniques. objective and subjective process, taking into account the objective aims of the research and The discussion proceeds as follows: Section 2 how these were balanced out by the subjectivities provides a brief description of Khayelitsha, the of both the researchers and those interviewed. study site. Section 3 provides some of the salient The notion of scientific objectivity especially as features of research in violent contexts from applied to disjunctures between quantitative and literature as well as the challenges encountered qualitative methodology is often played out as an in the research process. Section 4 considers the epistemological battle. In articulating emotive effects of safety concerns on quantitative issues relating to survey methodology, the research. Some general conclusions are discussed intention is not to undermine established notions in Section 5. IDS Bulletin Volume 40 Number 3 May 2009 51 Table 1 Khayelitsha crime statistics 2006/07 Crime Number of incidents Incidents per 100,000 Murder 430 106 Attempted murder 230 57 Rape 512 126 Drug related crimes 674 166 General theft 2780 684 Source Cape Argus (5 July 2007). 2 Khayelitsha: history and crime overview Khayelitsha is a sprawling township located some by responses to the question: ‘[i]n your opinion, 35 kilometres south-east of Cape Town between what are the three most important problems the northern shoreline of the False Bay and the N2 facing Khayelitsha that the municipality and highway. It consists of informal (shanty town) and government should address?’ Tellingly, 61 per formal brick housing. With its foundations in cent of respondents put crime on a par with apartheid planning, Khayelitsha retains a unemployment, which after housing are seen as marginalised and racial character to this day the most central problems that the area faces (Cook 1986; Van Heerden and Evan 1986; Du Toit (Table 2). Although crime is known to be a and Neves 2007). As an island of surplus labour problem throughout the Cape Peninsula and and poverty, it remains more connected to the particularly

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