Faculty of Philosophy University of Belgrade

Methodology of qualitative field research Research proposal

Professor: Eirik Saethre Student: Olga Maksimovi

Belgrade, October 2013.

Title: How is identity of Serbian immigrants' in Sweden constructed in their homeland by relatives and friends? In order to gain experience in field work as a part of the course in Qualitative field research and preparation for the final thesis I will be interviewing families and friends of Serbian immigrants in Sweden and the way their identity is constructed in Serbia. My interest for the issue date back to the period of summer visits to Serbian families in Sweden and their way of life in an artificial community marked with Serbian consumer society mentality and trademarks, loaded with strong national feeling and being a foreigner here and there. Some of the questions to be answered during research are what their friends think about their status and grade of adaptation in Swedish society and what immigrants think of themselves. This field research is imagined as a preparatory investigation in order to get insight into the other side of the coin i.e. to approach this problem from another point of view as my final thesis is going to try to answer on similar questions but from immigrants perspective and field work for that purpose will be conducted in Sweden. Collected data is going to be used to form an image and point certain aspects of an individuals` identity in a foreign country and how it transfers and differs from the domestic one. In this research I am mostly going to meet and interview students of Scandinavian languages in Belgrade who have resided in Sweden for a certain period and got to know Serbs there. As all of my informants live in Belgrade and are in some way connected to the Faculty of Philology or work at the company where I am on my internship, Universal Telecom, it is not going to be hard to manage time and meetings with them. My experience with spending time in this community

having connections with Scandinavia is based on personal experience and myself being a part of Department for Scandinavian studies. In order to investigate this problem I will be using interviews, surveys and if my methodological knowledge, time and experience allow focus groups. I find these methods most appropriate as from my point of view they could make enough space for informants to come up to some interesting and valuable personal experience concerning this topic. Moreover all material is planned to be audio taped, though not transcripted, due to a limited time frame to conduct this research. Possible constraints to be encountered could be that informant doesnt want to express some characteristics he/she finds inappropriate to talk about friends or relatives to an outsider. If that be I will try to overcome it by encouraging informant to give an example in order to realize it correctly or by asking the same in another context. Criterion for selecting informants is that they have a friend or relative who immigrated to Sweden and that informant has connection with them. Assumed number of informants is around 10. It is planned that interviews should take place from 2013-11-11 to 2013-12-30. As this is an interesting phenomenon for people studied language and culture I dont find it difficult to find informants to take part in the research. This research is going to be conducted according to anthropologys ethical standards. I will make sure to provide written informant consent from my informants in this research. Consent will describe in detail research subject and goals, methods I will be using, why the informant was chosen, what is going to be asked during an interview and inform that participating is on voluntary basis and anonymously. Informant is also going to be informed that they could give up at any point, also that no remuneration will be provided; they will get a copy of informant consent they signed. Informants will also be informed about possible positive and negative effects of the research and how they could overcome it. I find written informant consent more
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appropriate as it seems to me that it would present my goals, obligations and research in a well structured and organized way, easier for informants to understand. IC is going to be sent to university teachers to be controlled and approved before field work. Informants taking part in the research will be guaranted privacy and anonymity. Informants privacy will be protected by keeping all elicited data in a locked box or under double password protected file in case of digital data. All the data are going to be destroyed after the thesis has been written. Informants will be promised that no one accept me will have access to the data. Informants will be informed that all data are going to be used for the assignment for the course and final thesis and wont be used for any other purposes. Should informants have any additional question they will be answered honestly and in easy understandable way so that no misunderstandings could appear.