A Methodological Misunderstanding
“The analysis is currently very descriptive and is not sufficiently robust.” I received this disappointing feedback after defending my PhD thesis to a panel of examiners in July 2024.
I had spent the past three and a half years investigating the role of the ornamental sector in plant invasions in Southern Africa. This sector is one of the main pathways through which humans have spread plants across the world, and a common one for introducing and cultivating plants that have become invasive in Southern Africa.[1] My PhD project delved into the perspectives of stakeholders involved in the interplay between the ornamental industry and environmental management across several Southern African countries. For such a complex and exciting endeavour, I used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, drawing from non-positivist philosophies to interpret realities. Positivism values objectivity and empirical data above all, while non-positivist philosophies recognize the diversity of human experiences and subjective interpretations of reality.
My methodology is rare within invasion science, not to say almost absent. Researchers typically explore the human dimensions of biological invasions through quantitative approaches under a positivist paradigm, often in the form of surveys.[2] In fact, during my thesis defence, my examiners wanted to see more graphs and quantitative analysis to make my research “scientific” enough. They repeatedly said that I had not done any data analysis whatsoever.
Non-positivist paradigms and their associated qualitative methods, like interviews or participant observations, are usually regarded as scientifically inadequate when scrutinised from the positivist perspectives that have dominated the ways we think and do science, especially ecology.[3] Critics of non-positivism target the acknowledgment of subjectivity and the existence of a reality beyond the empirical, as well as the use of descriptive and nuanced interpretation to understand phenomena instead of objective measurements and assessments. However, these highly criticised elements gave me a solid ground upon which to develop my research practice in accordance with my objectives. I wanted to understand the complexity and nuances of people’s perceptions, opinions, attitudes, and behaviours around non-native and invasive plants, unraveling the meanings that people give to these plants in Southern Africa. I was also keen on identifying the social, cultural, economic, and ecological contexts in which human-plant interactions take place, exploring how the ornamental sector operates and its links to plant invasions in the region.
Precisely, qualitative and non-positivist approaches to research are useful when exploring “new” phenomena or understanding complex processes.[4] My methodological approach allowed me to acknowledge the interactive and co-constructive nature of research with human participants. I could embrace our humanness (theirs and mine) and account for the interrelation between contexts and our lives, going beyond only facts and supposedly causal correlations.
My Positionality
I started my PhD studentship with a British university at the end of 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. A week after arriving in England, the British government declared a national lockdown. My personal circumstances, principles, and history, the restrictions related to the pandemic, and the focus of my PhD research led me to believe that “everything is patchwork.”[5] Patchwork ethnography considers the researcher’s personal circumstances, accounting for the impacts of neoliberal conditions, environmental concerns, gender and sexuality, and neocolonialism on academic research—especially PhD research funded by globally hegemonic countries and corporations.[6]
Like me, other women researchers applied this framework during the COVID-19 pandemic.[7] Apart from the impossibility of close human contact, the pandemic made the chronicity of inequalities, oppressions, and crises derived from the capitalist global order even more visible.[8] Patchwork ethnography, hence, allowed me to prioritize my life, wellbeing, and dignity as a vulnerable researcher working for the transnational neoliberal corporation that is the British university, as well as to maintain the wellbeing and dignity of the participants in my project. I do not see my approach as a way to “cope with” injustices while getting comfortable in the status quo—instead, I see it as a tool for change from the inside.
I, a Cuban brown woman, conducted my PhD research in Southern Africa, sponsored by a British university. I was foreign to the sub-region subject of study and the country sponsoring it. I put effort into immersing myself in the sub-region even when I was not there physically. I learnt Setswana, a national and hegemonic language in the sub-region. I read about the region’s history and culture. Once I finally made it there, I experienced the daily lives of the majorities as much as I could, even though majorities considered me a member of a privileged minority (i.e., white foreigner or “expat”). In the UK, majorities consider me a member of a discriminated minority—because of the synergy of my nationality, labour and financial status, gender, cultural identity, and skin colour. Researching an underexplored topic in an unknown geographical space with a limited timeframe of less than three years, movement restrictions due to a global pandemic, a passport that cost me 25% of my research budget in migratory permits and visas, and a background in ecology and positivism could have only happened under the atypical philosophical and methodological approach I took.
I was privileged over many Southern Africans because I had a monthly PhD stipend from a British university and a research budget of a few thousand pounds. My monthly stipend, although precarious in England because it is below the take-home salary on a minimum wage, granted me a higher purchasing capacity in Southern Africa. This made me feel like the residents from hegemonic and affluent countries who come to less powerful, less wealthy territories to alleviate their stress and oppression, enjoying the many privileges that a job paid in hard currency and/or a bank account in hard currency provide. In fact, when I contemplated applying to this PhD vacancy, I found myself debating between several ideas.
First, the position was an opportunity to pursue my career development goals towards inter- and transdisciplinary research in invasion biology. It would bring me closer to achieving one of my childhood dreams, going to Africa, as I had seen in the BBC and National Geographic documentaries—which I later realized are rooted in colonial extractive naturalist and adventurous research practices and worldviews. Second, I found it bizarre to apply for a project about a region I was not from, funded by a British institution. As a conservationist in Cuba working for Cuban research institutions, I was exposed to the typical extractive, disrespectful, and passive-aggressive colonial practices from European and North American academics, especially Germany and the United States, when “collaborating” with Cuban fellows. Therefore, I was terrified to reproduce those practices from which my colleagues and I had suffered.
A critical combination of ideas won. I realized that I had an outsider perspective, but familiar at the same time. I come from a Caribbean-Latin country with a dominant (although discriminated) African heritage, historical (and of course, contested) relations with the Anti-Apartheid and anti-colonial movements in Southern Africa, an eroded “socialist” regime, and a “full membership” in the List of Comprehensively Sanctioned Countries from the Office of Asset Control of the US Treasury Department.[9]
Prioritizing Research Participants
As Jasmine K. Gani and Rabea M. Khan reflected, just acknowledging positionality can be a narcissistic act of legitimising privilege and oppression and redeeming guilt from the hegemonic researchers.[10] Therefore, I did everything. I consciously could to not reproduce oppressive and disrespectful patterns arising from my symbolic and practical privileges. I conducted this research with humility, acknowledging that the PhD system I am in is colonial, capitalist, and neoliberal by nature, giving me a very narrow margin for a truly emancipatory and non-extractive research practice. I must finish it in record time and publish it in poorly accessible and financially elitist academic journals from transnational corporations because I need to secure a job.
Nevertheless, in the middle of this chaotic—although normalised and widely accepted system—I am proud of my decision to do more than just the usual extractive PhD research, actively looking to give back to the research participants and society. After submitting my thesis, I acquired funding that supported a re-engagement process with participants interested in collaborating beyond the interview. I went back to Botswana between May and August 2024 and contacted participants to ask them whether they were interested in hearing back from the research and in what ways they wanted to stay involved. I am still working on this process while I pursue publication in academic journals. So far, I have finished and shared policy briefs with relevant members of government institutions and civil society in Botswana and Namibia. I also appeared on Botswana Television’s programme In Context to talk about ornamental invasive plants in the sub-region.[11] Work is still in progress to share the results of my research with nursery and landscaping businesses and the public from Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe through social media.
Currently, I have to focus on the corrections that the thesis examiners left me with to get my PhD qualification. I must abide by their rules to be able to get my certificate and move on. Perhaps this would have been easier if I had followed the path of the typical invasion scientist. But in the interest of equality, wellbeing, resistance and dignity, I will forever be an advocate for my atypical approach to invasion science.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Nina Foster for her marvellous editorial work and the editing team for their support. Thanks to the people involved in this research, and special thanks to the PhD examiners, who gave me the last push to publish my reflections.
[1] Mark Van Kleunen, et. al., “The changing role of ornamental horticulture in alien plant invasions,” Biological Reviews 93, no. 3 (2018), 1421–1437; Katelyn T. Faulkner et. al, “Pathways,” in The status of biological invasions and their management in South Africa in 2022 edited by Tsungai A. Zengeya and John R. Wilson (South African National Biodiversity Institute, Kirstenbosch and DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology, Stellenbosch, 2023), 11–23; Khotso KobisiI, Lerato Seleteng-Kose, and Annah MoteeteeI, “Invasive alien plants occurring in Lesotho: Their ethnobotany, potential risks, distribution and origin,” Bothalia 49, no. 1 (2019); Alfred Maroyi, “Data on introduced plants in Zimbabwe: Floristic changes and patterns of collection based on historical herbarium records,” Data in Brief 15 (2017), 348–369.
[2] I consulted relevant manuscripts from known authors on ResearchGate and LinkedIn and networked in conferences (South African National Symposium on Biological Invasions in July 2021 and July 2022; European Conference of African Studies in May 2023; International conference on Ecology and Management of Alien Plant Invasions in October 2023; British Ecological Society Conference in December 2023; POLLEN Network Conference in June 2024; World Congress of Environmental History in August 2024). I also searched the Scopus and SciELO databases and Google in English, French, and Portuguese, looking for papers related to my objectives in the continental countries belonging to the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). Lastly, I searched on publicly available databases from the different SADC countries, which I accessed through the African Digital Research Repositories hosted by SOAS University of London; Katharina Kapitza, et. al, “Research on the social perception of invasive species: A systematic literature review,” NeoBiota 43 (2019), 47–68; Ross T. Shackleton, et. al., “Stakeholder engagement in the study and management of invasive alien species,” Journal of Environmental Management 229 (2019), 88–101.
[3] Roy Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science (London: Verso, 1975); Monique Hennink, Inge Hutter, and Ajay Bailey, Qualitative Research Methods, (London: SAGE Publications, 2020); Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, “Reporting guidelines for qualitative research: a values-based approach,” Qualitative Research in Psychology (2024), 1-40; Leigh Price, “Key critical realist concepts for environmental educators,” in Critical Realism, Environmental Learning and Social-Ecological Change edited by Leigh Price and Heila Lotz-Sistka (London: Routledge, 2015), 18–39; Leigh Price, “A return to common-sense: why ecology needs transcendental realism,” Journal of Critical Realism 18, no. 1 (2019), 31–44.
[4] Hennink, Qualitative research methods; Cath Sullivan, “Theory and method in qualitative psychology,” in Doing qualitative research in psychology: A practical guide (2nd ed.) edited by Cath Sullivan and Michael Forrester (London: SAGE Publications, 2019), 19–34 .
[5] Gökçe Günel, et. al., “Everything is Patchwork! A Conversation about Methodological Experimentation with Patchwork Ethnography,” Australian Feminist Studies (2023).
[6] Gökçe Günel, Saiba Varma, and Chika Watanabe “A Manifesto for Patchwork Ethnography,” Society for Cultural Anthropology, 9 June 2020; Gökçe Günel and Chika Watanabe, “Patchwork ethnography,” American Ethnologist 51, no. 1 (2024), 131–139.
[7] Maria Paula Meneses, “Doing anthropology in uncertain contexts: patchwork ethnography in Mozambique,” Anthropology Southern Africa 46, no. 2 (2023), 121-135; Emma Burnett, “Essential elements of self-organization illustrated through localized agri-food systems,” Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 47, no. 5 (2023), 745–770; Emma Burnett, “Coopetition outside the market economy: Oxfordshire’s community food initiatives as a case study,” Local Economy 38, no. 1 (2023), 61–79; Giovanna di Matteo and Luca Daminelli, “Migrant support volunteer tourism facing crises: Patchwork autoethnographies on Lesvos (Greece),” Tourist Studies 24, no. 1 (2024), 34–54.
[8] Benjamin Tippet, “Paying for the Pandemic and a Just Transition,” Transnational Institute, November 11, 2020; Rob Wallace, et. al., “A Recipe for Disaster Food systems, inequality and COVID-19,” Transnational Institute, July 29, 2020.
[9] Guilia Bonacci, Adrien Delmas, A.,and Kali Argyriadis, eds., Cuba and Africa, 1959-1994: Writing an alternative Atlantic history (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2020); Alinia Barbara López Hernández, “Estamos ante una crisis definitiva, que debe llevar a un cambio de modelo,” Cuba Próxima, Centro de Estudios sobre el Estado de Derecho, May 2, 2023; U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Sanctions Programs and Country Information.”
[10] Jasmine K. Gani and Rabea M. Khan “Positionality Statements as a Function of Coloniality: Interrogating Reflexive Methodologies,” International Studies Quarterly 68, no. 2 (2024).
[11] BWBotswana Television, “Ornamental Invasive Plants in Botswana and Neighbouring Countries,” Facebook, August 1, 2024.
*Cover Image: Image by a research participant.
[Cover Image description: Author stands in the greenhouse of a plant nursery in Gaborone, Botswana filled with vibrant pink petunias cultivated for the market. Petunias, which are native to South America, are very popular ornamental plants in Southern Africa.
Edited by Nina Foster; reviewed by Katherine Cheung.