One of the most significant limitations of the research was its short time frame; this was so because of the limited funds that I have already mentioned above. Also, there was limitation from the data collection aspect by field researchers who were not professional researchers. The ability for them to learn fast and learn diverse methods rapidly and to collect rich and useful information under challenging conditions was very impressive. To reduce such difficulties, it would have been useful to extend the training session held before the research by adding more days and include a greater variety of field activities that are more closely related to the research locations.
However, the team agreed to remove names and other individual identifiers, except in cases such as a discussion with a Chief where it was important to know who the participant was. For the most part, the records included only general identifiers such as adult woman or man and codes such as R1 and R2. If the researchers needed to keep a record of names, for example, in order to keep track of people they had already interviewed or that they hoped to line up for an interview, they kept the names in a separate book that was not publicly available and kept in a safe place.
A number of problems were encountered during the fieldwork for this research. The study approach required the researcher to stay at the research locations longer than we did. This was a problem because the research was not funded. We only managed to get some funds from the University of Makeni and the Justice and Peace and Human Rights Commission of the Catholic Mission who helped with fuel and vehicle support and provided space for training of the field researchers and an office space. There were no provisions for the training session held and also no provision for fieldwork expenses. I, the Lead National researcher had to make personal arrangements to fund the fieldwork from the usual stipend given to me by the Catholic University of Milan. I had to use the three months of my stipend to fund the other aspects of the research.
A big problem was the lack of large-scale maps to show topographic details of the village. The only maps available were small-scale and did not show the location of farms, homesteads or village boundaries even these ones were paid for at the Statistics Sierra Leone Office. In addition, the state of roads and footpaths at the sites were very poor. Long distances had to be travelled on motor bikes (commonly called Okada) to reach the distant communities in the rural areas.
The aspect of language was also an issue in some villages, particularly during the focus group discussions, wherein few of the participants were not able to understand one or two of the questions very well. They instead preferred the facilitators to repeat the questions in their local languages. This happened koinadugu district and in Port Loko district all in the northern region of Sierra Leone. Although it was possible to conduct most interviews and discussions in Krio the national language, we took time to explain why it was necessary to capture the participants exact words and idiomatic expressions and why it is important to avoid rephrasing with our own words. Knowing this will lose the meanings of the participants own words.
However, one must, admit that information from the survey questionnaire though sufficient for the production of a comprehensive description of the study locations, was insufficient for the purpose of explaining the reason for the research. It was not possible in the questionnaire survey to capture people’s perceptions of land rights. Local power plays around land rights and access to natural resources, changing interpretations of custom and tradition on land matters, gender dimensions, and land disputes. These issues are qualitative and are not easily understood using formal and standardised questionnaire based surveys Sayer, (1992). It is with regard to these issues that the role of the interpretative approach in this study became crucial. It has been maintained that to capture land tenure processes one must observe them Berry, (1994). Thus, the third and last stage of fieldwork entailed ethnographic assessment of land tenure and livelihoods using conversations, semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and focus group discussions. The objective of the third phase of fieldwork was to seek causal explanations of the changing socio-economic realities in respect of land rights, women’s empowerment and its impact on food security. Thus, it entailed studying people in their causal context and subsequent analysis of data involved interpretation of the meanings and functions of human actions.
There were numerous ethical issues that arose in the field. Despite the promise of confidentiality to interview and discussion participants, individual participant names sometimes occurred in written records. In addition, the research instructions and training called for careful documentation of the exact verbal interchange wherein the research was framed and informed consent was obtained. However, some transcripts had clearly used a cut and paste method of documenting the important initial interaction and granting of consent and also permission to use the tape recorder. Although these lapses probably reflected the pressures of time and a heavy workload, corrective steps will be taken in the future.
A stronger process would have included additional time and also opportunities for the entire research team, including the field researchers, to review and discuss the data and explore various patterns and interpretations together. But it required more funds and this was not readily available for the research process. Considering the fact that this research was not funded. I used funds meant for my upkeep and meagre contributions from friends to support it. With other logistical support, like the use of computers, and other office supplies for the printing of questionnaires, use of the hall for conducting the three days training, an office space, vehicles
and fuel support to the various locations from the University of Makeni. The costs of such a process, however, exceeded the limited amount that was available.