Background to the Research

• The area of the relationship between paramilitaries who enforce 'law and order' and the communities they 'police' is under-researched. Research in this area presents certain methodological difficulties around the issues of access, how 'bona fide' the researcher is, openness and transparency, and language and personal security.
  

Research Approach

• In this article the author draws on his own research and the work of others in the field of paramilitary 'informal criminal justice' in order to explore the particular difficulties of carrying out research in the contested political arenas of NI.
  

Main Findings

The Research Context

• Despite the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998, paramilitary violence continues in the form of punishment attacks. Up to the end of June 2000, police statistics show that there have been 2,303 shootings (an average of 85 per year) and 1,626 beating (an average of 90 per year) since 1973 and 1982 respectively. These statistics are thought to grossly under-estimate the real extent of the problem as victims are reluctant to report incidences for fear of reprisals.

Accessing Victims

• Community organisations proved a useful starting point for researchers. It became clear that some community organisations had become an avenue through which complaints concerning anti-social and criminal behaviour were referred to paramilitary organisations. Therefore, some victims of punishment attacks were unwilling to co-operate with researchers via community organisations.
• The most successful source of access proved to be via the Probation Board for NI, researchers made contact with local probation officers for referrals. The endorsement of probation officers lent legitimacy to and encouraged trust in the researchers.
• A major ethical concern for researchers in this area was the voluntary consent of participants - they may have felt influenced to take part because of the nature of their relationship with the probation officer. To ensure that the participants were clear about the topics covered in the research and its objectives, these were restated at the beginning of each interview session.
• Ensuring the physical and mental well-being of victims was also important and interviewees were asked not to mention names, locations or incidents during taped interviews, which would connect them to the qualitative data and could result in police action or paramilitary reprisal. However, some participants did mention these factors and special arrangements were made for the storage and access to tapes and transcripts.

Establishing our 'bona fides'

• Researchers needed to establish objectivity in their approach to research in an area experiencing conflict. In the context of the deep hatred between republican and loyalist parmilitaries, researchers have to be aware of not favouring one side over the other.
• There was suspicion about the ulterior motives of research. To address this, it was crucial to obtain 'approval' from key stakeholders. This was secured through contacts with key political representatives in both communities. The securing of interviews or approval from leading figures in the community helped to build relationships with others in the community. The independence of the research was stressed and information on the funders of the research given. The fact that the research was funded by the ESRC and located at a university gave credence to the research.

Openness and Transparency

• A balance needs to be struck between openness and transparency and protecting participants and researchers when dealing with individuals and groups who have been, and continue to be, in conflict with one another. Our own commitment to openness and transparency has been shaped where necessary by discretion and the need to maintain a low profile.
• One approach which aided openness and transparency was the mailing of an information leaflet containing details of the projects aims, objectives and methods, which was sent in advance to participants.
• The results of research were not disseminated through the media in order to avoid a 'particular' conclusion being drawn from the research by potential interviewees.
• Researchers needed to be aware of the dilemma facing them of needing access to interviewees in the NIO and the RUC and their reliance on public bodies for endorsement and/or implementation of the public policy recommendations that emerged from research and the expectation by these parties that the researchers would divulge information on the substance of the research.

Nomenclature

• A key issue in researching paramilitary violence is the political connotations of the language used by researchers. Much of the vocabulary used in the area of the NI conflict is value-laden, politicised, emotive and particular to NI.

Personal Security

• The risks to personal security in this area of research is obviously high, especially when experience shows that those who pass on information or speak out against paramilitaries are shot or assaulted. Suspicion of 'outsiders' in this type of research is acute and the perceived religious affiliation of the researcher is likely to be a major factor in the minds of interviewees.
• The nature of the subject of paramilitary 'policing' requires the researcher to ask questions about motives, methods, support for paramilitaries' actions in their communities, which can be viewed as information gathering.
• Security planning can involve working out entry and exit routes, opting for the safest locations to conduct interviews, taking taxis to venues, doing fieldwork in pairs and keeping colleagues informed of your research schedule.

Conclusions

• Our experience of researching paramilitary violence in NI demonstrates a need for measured sensitivity which requires a knowledge of the dangers and at the same time a willingness to be flexible in the face of problems encountered in the field.
• The priorities of key figures in the communities under research rarely coincide with those of the researcher, this may lead to compromise on research design - a quota sampling framework of interviewees is an unrealistic goal when access is tightly controlled.
• Building trust takes time and researchers must demonstrate their independence in dealing with interviewees who are disclosing sensitive information and where interviewers motives are continually scrutinised.
• To become too closely associated with research in one community may cause alienation in another. The use of ethnography as a methodology may be limited in these circumstances.
• If the work is not to become exclusive to one geographical location or ethnic community, research legitimacy must be established by allaying suspicions about the motive for the work, establishing the 'bona fides' of researchers, being open and transparent about the research process and observing the sensitivities of language.