Contextualising and theorising economic development, local business and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar

Figures & data

Table

No	Item	Guide questions/description
Domain 1: Research team and reflexivity
Personal Characteristics
(1).	Interviewer/facilitator	Author and two Research Assistants (RAs), accompanied by local guides as facilitators where needed, who provided assistance and access as trusted local members of the communities.
(2).	Credentials	Author: PhD, Development Studies.
(3).	Occupation	Author: Senior Research Fellow
(4).	Gender	Author: Male. RA1: Male. RA2: Male.
(5).	Experience and training	Author has 10 years of extensive field experience in conflict and crisis regions, specifically of qualitative interviews in vulnerable communities. RA1 has 10 years of local expertise with communities affected by conflict in Myanmar and India. RA2 10 years of local expertise with communities affected by conflict in Bangladesh.
Relationship with participants
(6).	Relationship established	No relationship with communities prior to study commencement.
(7).	Participant knowledge of the interviewer	Each interviewee was given a brief introduction of the affiliation of the interviewers, description of the project and its aims, assurances that interview data and responses would be kept anonymous and opportunity to withdraw at any time. Consent was verbal, per a low literacy rate to ensure evenness across respondents.
(8).	Interviewer characteristics	See #7 and ‘alternative explanations’ in Methodology section.
Domain 2: study design
Theoretical framework
(9).	Methodological orientation and Theory	Qualitative methodology was employed, specifically a perspectives method pinned to grounded theory/ethnography and uses content/contextual analysis. See ‘Methodology’ for more.
Participant selection
(10).	Sampling	Rakhine state was selected due to the nature of business and economic development projects and the presence of ethnic conflict. Rohingya refugee communities were selected on the basis of access. Participants were business owners or leaders, selected by snowball technique, facilitated by local guides.
(11).	Method of approach	Sixty-eight Face-to-face interviews, seven phone interviews. Study conforms to the Norwegian National Committees for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and Humanities (NESH) study design, and approval process was conducted accordingly.
(12).	Sample size	Seventy-five participants in four locations over four field visits including pilot.
(13).	Non-participation	Nine refusals due to security reasons or disinterest in discussion.
Setting
(14).	Setting of data collection	Data were collected in several cities and towns of Rakhine state, Myanmar and at two refugee camps: one in Tripura, India and one near Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh. Limited interviews conducted in Yangon. Interviews were in homes/shelters, at businesses, and other places where applicable and available.
(15).	Presence of non-participants	Local guides were occasionally present, and author/RAs often attempted to interview without their presence to encourage candid replies. Findings reflected minimal difference between interviews in which said non-participants were present and those in which they were not present.
(16).	Description of sample	Seventy-five total interviews, including 65 business owners of Rakhine state, 40 of which fled to India or Bangladesh as political refugees. Ten interviews of Yangon business leaders and executives. Sample is 95 per cent male owing to similar gender dynamics of local business ownership in Myanmar. Most respondents were between 35 and 60 years of age.
Data collection
(17).	Interview guide	Questionnaire provided by authors upon request. One pilot study done to refine questions. Otherwise no guides or prompting given, as no definitive answers were needed due to methodology. See Appendix 1 for questionnaires.
(18).	Repeat interviews	No repeat interviews were conducted.
(19).	Audio/visual recording	No A/V recording was done, as is typical for sensitive issues like conflict and violence research of vulnerable communities.
(20).	Field notes	Field notes made during each interview and written up fully at the end of each day.
(21).	Duration	Each interview was typically one hour in length.
(22).	Data saturation	Partial saturation. Many interviews began to overlap in each of the interview sites, but given the personal nature of conflict, saturation points can be difficult to definitively measure.
(23).	Transcripts returned	Transcripts were not returned to participants for correction, due both to time and literacy issues. During interviews, responses of particular import were often asked twice to confirm responses.
Domain 3:analysis and findings
Data analysis
(24).	Number of data coders	Author processed the data.
(25).	Description: coding tree	N/A per method.
(26).	Derivation of themes	Themes were collated in advance from existing business-peace literature, then derived from data for presentation and discussion.
(27).	Software	N/A
(28).	Participant checking	Several Myanmar-based participants gave findings feedback.
Reporting
(29).	Quotations presented	Participant quotes were shown to illustrate themes and findings, and each quotation was presented after being made anonymous.
(30).	Data and findings consistent	There was a strong correlation between the data and findings, and potential alternative explanations for such were studied.
(31).	Clarity of major themes	Major themes developed through interviews, and are discussed more extensively in Sections 4 and 5 of the paper.
(32).	Clarity of minor themes	Minor themes also arose, and are discussed more extensively in Sections 4 and 5 of the paper, but these need more study.