Methodology, Objectivity and Cultural Specificity in Multimethod Disaster Studies: Insights from the 2017 Bihar Floods Study
Abstract as pdf
Corresponding Author:
Eila Romo-Murphy
H-C-R Finland
eila@h-c-r.org
Author(s):
Alankrita Anand1
1The University Of York, Anand.Alankrita@Gmail.Com, IND
While cross-cultural research is challenging, disaster-related research is even more challenging. It is difficult to organize not knowing where a disaster will strike and therefore which culture might be affected. In such a scenario, standardised questionnaires can facilitate cross-cultural data collection and analysis. One such questionnaire, developed by Euroqol, focuses on measuring health status. It was utilized in an empirical, multimethod study on the 2017 floods in Bihar, India; additionally, a media questionnaire was administered to affected citizens and face-to-face key interviews were conducted with the relief network.
The multimethod approach was an advantage, because it enabled looking at flood recovery from the perspectives of both citizens and relief network. Both groups appreciated the media’s role in disseminating information; the citizens valued the mediated information on health and sanitation, while the relief network valued the disaster-recovery radio broadcasts as a functional mediator between them and the citizens.
Three interesting methodological issues emerged in the study.
1. An analysis of the self-reported health questionnaire yielded no statistically significant differences between the genders. However, other studies have found that women are more prone to ill health after disaster, and women themselves have evaluated their health lower than men’s. One explanation could be the methodology of self-reported questionnaires - women giving themselves a better rating than their actual feeling could be due to being resilient and needing to do their usual household chores despite sickness or injury. On the other hand, the similarity in ratings could be because mediated health and sanitation information helped women mitigate the adverse effects of the flood.
2. The study included three different groups - interviewers, relief network representatives, and rural citizens with varying levels of education. All these groups had different opinions of whether radio works in disaster mitigation or not, and also different takes on how the government manages public health. All these viewpoints appear valid from the respective perspectives, but the researcher’s task is to formulate the narrative as close to the reality as possible. Therefore, methodology can critically affect the objectivity and reality of the research findings.
3. The interviewers approached villagers with questions that were not giving anything tangible in return; the idea was to gather feedback on radio broadcasts. However, many villagers pictured interviewers as aid providers, based on their previous experiences with humanitarian organizations’ volunteers. This clash in viewpoints may have affected the responses, and consequently the results.
On the Epistemology of Crises and Disasters