Negotiating Organizational Access as a Multifaceted Process: Comparative Research Experiences With Three Advocacy NGOs in Kenya

Research Topic Influencing Access and Dissemination Processes

Our comparative research showed that the nature of the research topic had a direct impact on gaining and maintaining research access with the three NGOs. Researcher 1 took part in a project on civil society engagement with land rights advocacy, while Researchers 2 and 3 took part in a project studying NGOs in the aid chain (see Table 1). Project 1 on land rights advocacy in the context of large-scale corporate land investments was conducted in partnership with an international NGO (INGO) with offices in Kenya and the Netherlands. Projects 2 and 3 were part of a larger study that examined how the institutional design of aid chains influences and shapes the advocacy work of CSOs in the Global South.

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Table 1.

Organizational Details Where the Research Was Conducted in Kenya.

	Researcher	Organizational Focus	Thematic Focus of the Research Project
Organization A	Researcher 1	Civic education and advocacy on land rights’	Civic engagement
Organization B	Researcher 2	Women’s rights advocacy	Aid chain
Organization C	Researcher 3	Rights-based development	Aid chain

Within the broad framework of the aid chain, Project 2 was based in a national-level feminist NGO (Organization B) and focused on improved protection of women and girls against gender-based violence in Kenya. Project 3 focused on CSOs’ participation in improving the labor conditions of workers in the Kenyan cut-flower sector through a collaborative partnership between a Dutch INGO and seven local NGOs in Kenya. Because of the sensitivity associated with the aid chain project (i.e., NGO funding and their relationship with donors), both Researchers 2 and 3 experienced considerable unease among staff members of participating NGOs. They were often perceived as someone doing an evaluation exercise, despite repeated clarifications about the goals and rationale of the research project. The combination of the research topic with researchers’ introduction by representatives of donor agencies (i.e., the Embassy and INGO) resulted in additional barriers to research access. These factors inadvertently positioned both researchers as outsiders despite several measures they took to build rapport and trust. For instance, Researcher 2 frequently joined the NGO staff members during lunch and coffee breaks, and actively participated in the advocacy campaign that was organized by the NGO during her stay in Nairobi. Similarly, Researcher 3 also joined the NGO staff members for lunch and office birthday celebrations, and participated in staff drink ups. In comparison, Researcher 1 had the advantage of working on a topic (land rights) that was not only welcomed by the organization, but also formed a part of their own advocacy agenda. These factors made the participants enthusiastic and keen to engage in discussions, which facilitated access to the organization and ensured that the staff made sufficient time for the researcher.

The research topics also influenced the dissemination process, which was received differently in the three organizations. In contrast to Organization A, the staff members of both Organizations B and C feared backlash in light of the critical findings that emerged from the research. They were worried that any negative findings would have consequences for their future funding opportunities, their image, reputation, and relationship with the donor. Presumably, the focus of the research project on understanding the influence of the institutional design of aid chains on NGOs’ abilities to undertake advocacy framed the research as an evaluation exercise and further contributed to the defensive attitude of the NGO staff about their advocacy work as well as the role played by the funding agencies. Informed by these concerns, Researchers 2 and 3 approached the NGO staff members to actively discuss critical findings that were not received well. These backstage negotiations show the influence of the research topic and the significant role of gatekeepers in the research process which is discussed in depth in the following section.

The Influence of Gatekeepers on Entry to and Exit From Research Sites

Before any field research can take place, connections between the researcher and the organization must be established. This is usually achieved with the assistance of one or more gatekeepers, who may be located either inside or outside the organization. However, such intermediaries should not only be viewed as instrumental in the initial access phase, but are also likely to influence the data collection phase, and even the research outcomes (Siwale, 2015; Stamm, 2019). In all three case studies described in this article, initial access to the organizations was established with the help of intermediaries, all of whom were initially contacted in the Netherlands. Despite this similarity, all three researchers adopted unique strategies for establishing primary access as per their context.

For Organization A, access was established through representatives of one of its donor organizations (i.e., an INGO) with offices both in the Netherlands and in Kenya, and formalized through a written Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The INGO aided in establishing contact with Organization A, after which a starting date for the fieldwork was agreed on. The organization had earlier worked with European volunteers and with a Master’s student from the Netherlands working on land rights, and clearly valued such external involvement. Throughout the fieldwork period, the researcher was able to accompany the representatives of the NGO working on land rights to all community (and other) meetings, and she was told repeatedly that researchers like herself provided an important “mirror” for the organization.

For Organization B, the primary contacts for access were made through the Embassy in Kenya. The agreement was based on emails, Skype and verbal communication with the policy officer at the Embassy as well as the NGO staff, and no MoU was signed between the researcher and the NGO. Being introduced to the NGO through the policy officer aided in establishing primary access. It facilitated easy access to the NGO under study and to consultants as well as CBOs who formed a key part of the project funded by the Embassy in Kenya. In addition, the NGO staff also introduced the researcher to staff members of other local NGOs advocating for women’s rights in Kenya, which helped to gain access in a short period of time.

For Researcher 3, primary access was agreed on through an MoU between the research team and the Dutch INGO. The Dutch INGO staff introduced Researcher 3 to their East Africa Regional Office in Nairobi. The staff in Nairobi served as gatekeepers who in turn introduced the researcher to their seven local NGO partners in Kenya. Within the INGO office in Nairobi, the Manager of the project under study (i.e., labor conditions of workers in the Kenyan cut-flower sector) served as the main gatekeeper, as she had to arrange and consent to all meetings the researcher had with other staff members. Consequently, while the top managers at the headquarters in the Netherlands had granted access, it did not mean that all staff in the Nairobi Office welcomed the researcher into the organization, as he had to negotiate access to sections of the organization with the manager on an individual basis.

In all three cases, as part of the research dissemination, learning events were organized at the end of the fieldwork phase to validate the findings from the three projects. Gatekeepers of the three organizations influenced and reacted differently to the dissemination process. While Organization A proved very open to mild criticism regarding its focus and blind spots, representatives of its “gatekeeper” INGO were a bit more defensive of these practices, which they explained as being in line with the overall advocacy objectives. The researcher attributed this difference in perspective to personal characters, as well as to the INGO’s focus on strategic goals and its staff’s less direct engagement in the field, which might have obscured certain nuances or contradictions. However, at no point did any of the NGO representatives voice serious concerns or objections to the researcher’s analysis, and comments took mostly the form of additions or clarifications. Both the researcher and the NGO representatives considered the research activities successful, and expressed interest in future collaborations.

In contrast to Organization A, the dissemination process was received differently by the gatekeepers in Organizations B and C. Though the staff members of Organization B were critical of the research findings, the Embassy representative viewed the dissemination exercise in a positive light, and treated it as an opportunity for exchange with the implementing partners of the advocacy program. In a similar stance, although the findings from Researcher 3 were discredited by the INGO staff in Nairobi, the same findings were well received by the staff members in The Hague (The Netherlands) for Organization C. The staff in Nairobi were more defensive in their approach because of the need to protect their job compared to those in The Hague who saw it as an opportunity for self-reflection and organizational learning. For instance, a local NGO staff member stated that “I find your findings troubling when you talk about upward accountability in the manner that you did” (Interview with NGO staff, October 29, 2018). On the other hand, a senior staff of the INGO in The Hague had this to say about the same research findings: “As a matter of fact, we want to learn as an organization. The local NGOs must speak out and tell us when they feel that our rules or whatever we’re doing is oppressive to them and we are not giving them a voice. We don’t want to be a defensive organization because the research has been an eye opener” (Interview with INGO staff, June 25, 2019).

The staff in The Hague argued that the findings helped them to reflect on their future engagements with donors and local NGOs. While management at the headquarters of Organization C and the Embassy saw the research findings as an opportunity for organizational learning, INGO staff in Nairobi perceived these negatively because of their potential to affect their job security and organizational survival. We now turn to the influence of the researchers’ own characteristics and behavior in the field on the access obtained to NGOs.

Researcher Positionality and Strategies for Negotiating Access

We identify researcher-related factors affecting access to NGOs as two inter-related components: researcher positionality, and researcher strategies in the field. Positionality includes aspects such as the role one takes on in the field, or what Bell (1999) calls “working roles” (e.g., as observer, participant, or expert), and personal characteristics that may or may not resemble the researched population, such as personality and demographics (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, class). In this case, each of the three researchers came from different countries (i.e., The Netherlands, India and Ghana), and being a European, Asian and African contributed differently to the way they established access. For example, the African identity of Researcher 3 created opportunities for him to establish relationships with NGO staff because they perceived him as one of them, or at least as an insider who understood the African context. However, at the same time, the researcher’s identity as a West African undertaking research in an East African country for the first time made navigating initial access a challenge. While the researcher identified broadly as an “African” (insider), marked differences between Eastern and Western Africans (e.g., language) and his status as a non-Kenyan made him an outsider, which influenced how the NGO staff related to him. As noted in previous research (see for example, Ergun & Erdemir, 2010; Mwangi, 2019; Siwale, 2015), African researchers studying in the West who subsequently return to the African continent can feel like an “insider-outsider,” as their identities partly overlap with their research subjects (e.g., ethnicity and language), and partly with the researchers in their study environment (e.g., education, class and income level). Furthermore, they may conduct research in their home country but outside their home area. In the case of Researcher 3, although he visibly resembled the research subjects, he was in fact from a very different part of the continent.

Similar to the experience of Researcher 3, the Indian identity of Researcher 2 was instrumental in establishing primary access in the initial stages of the research process because of the familiarity with Indian-Kenyans living in the country. Likewise, the gender identity of Researcher 2 served as an advantage in breaking the ice with Organization B during the initial days of fieldwork, as the researcher was able to build a close relationship with several staff members working in the NGO, who were mostly women. In addition, the researcher’s identity as a female put her in immediate solidarity with women’s rights issues. As a result, she could sympathize with structural constraints that the respondents faced by the patriarchal system in which they operated that surfaced often during the interviews. While the Indian identity and gender of Researcher 2 made the initial access possible, being non-Kenyan and working in the capacity of a researcher rather than a staff member positioned her as an outsider in some instances. The NGO staff did not have any experience with a researcher, and her proximity to the donor organization often made them suspicious of her goals. Moreover, affiliation with a European University contributed to the researcher’s position as an outsider in the eyes of the NGO staff. These shifts from the position of insider to suddenly being an outsider, made Researcher 2 realize that she was often treated as “inbetweener” (Grant, 2017; Milligan, 2016) who is neither entirely inside nor completely outside in terms of positionality. In order to build trust with the staff members, Researcher 2 made formal presentations of her research project, discussed issues of confidentiality and anonymity, and organized meetings with the senior project leaders from her university when they visited Nairobi. Additionally, Researcher 2 regularly met staff members for coffee as well as dinner outside the office and traveled with them to the counties where the project was implemented, sharing the same transport and staying in the same hotel. These informal interactions provided important opportunities to build trust relations with the NGO staff. However, these engagements did not guarantee access as Researcher 2 had to continuously negotiate access as she was welcome to participate in most of the activities organized by NGO staff members, but definitely not in all of them.

For Researcher 1, her identity as a white woman was reflective of the perceived unequal relations between researchers in the Global North and their research subjects in the Global South Moreover, her European identity raised immediate associations with Western donor representatives who periodically visited the field. This was especially confusing to the rural communities she visited as part of her research with the NGO, with community members initially resorting to a seemingly rehearsed promotional talk regarding the important work conducted by the NGO in their area. Western researchers are often confronted with “over-researched” populations in Southern countries (Clark, 2008 cited in Siwale, 2015), who fail to see concrete outcomes of completed studies. Wary of this background and potential neo-colonial associations of Western researchers in Africa, Researcher 1 tried to adapt as much as possible to the NGO office atmosphere by learning some of the local language, adopting a local name and participating in office lunches, coffee breaks and other social events, joining office staff to field visits and other meetings, and giving them the lead in the sharing of relevant information for the project (i.e., not insisting on formal interviews early on in the research phase). She was complimented by the NGO staff for visiting local communities extensively, blending in with their daily lives and staying over in local residences, something that most visiting researchers and donor representatives had apparently refused to do. This led various staff members to conclude that she had become “one of them”, despite her evidently different background and appearance.

While for all three researchers in this project their doctoral degree and affiliation with a European university was useful in establishing access to officials in the public and private sector (in some cases being referred to respectfully as “doctora”—i.e., doctoral holder), it also created a certain distance from those with a lower educational status, such as rural community members and manual laborers who showed concern about giving “right” or “useful” answers. When in the field, the researchers also noted that their privileged socio-economic status elicited frequent requests for financial assistance as well as access to relevant donors. For instance, Researcher 3 was asked by flower workers to provide financial assistance for their community football team, and Researcher 1 was repeatedly asked by marginalized community members to contribute to the school fees for their children or provide access to education funds.

Despite similarities in qualitative research methods and tools adopted for data collection, the three researchers employed different strategies for conducting participant observation suited to their unique circumstances. Researcher 2 based in Organization B functioned as “an expert” by closely collaborating with NGO staff members in several day-to-day tasks including working with the communication team, fundraising through proposal writing and participating in advocacy campaigns, staff meetings, project reviews and strategic planning discussions. Researcher 1 in Organization A played the role of “participant” by spending time in the office and observing interactions among staff members and with visitors, conducting informal conversations, and visiting board members in the vicinity, as well as joining staff to community field visits. In contrast to Organizations A and B, Researcher 3 had limited interactions with the staff members of Organization C, and collected data mainly as an “observer” during the fieldwork period. This was largely due to the formalized nature of interactions between the staff of Organization C and Researcher 3. These different roles indicate that organizational characteristics influence and shape how researchers interact with their research participants. This implies that, while researcher positionality plays an important role in access to NGOs, the researchers’ characteristics and behavior in the field are largely qualified by a fourth main factor, namely the characteristics of the organization under study.

Organizational Characteristics and Access

Although all three organizations functioned as advocacy NGOs, they differed in their organizational characteristics in terms of size (i.e., number of staff), scale of operations (i.e., international, national and regional), work environment (formal, semi-formal and informal) and partnerships (see Table 2). These differences in organizational characteristics contributed to variations in how the researchers negotiated access. Establishing and maintaining access in Organization C was the most difficult due to its formalized and professionalized nature compared to Organization B which was semi-formalized, and Organization A which was informal in nature. For example, access to the director in Organization A was simply established by walking into her office whenever Researcher 1 found her car parked outside. Researcher 1 was also invited repeatedly to the homes, churches and dinner parties of various staff members, including the director. Access to all the staff in Organization B, including management staff, was easily established, however, participation in meetings and workshops was discussed in advance through email. For Organization C, Researcher 3 was unable to have any direct discussions or meetings with the director because all appointments had to follow strict chains of command. For this reason, it was not easy getting access to the director.

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Table 2.

Organizational Characteristics of the Three Advocacy NGOs.

	Number of Staff	Scale of Organization’s Work	Development Partner	Work Environment
Organization 1	10	Regional	Community members and CBOs	Informal and movement based
Organization 2	14	National	CBOs	Semi-formal and professional
Organization 3	35	International	NGOs	Formal and professional

Organization A laid strong emphasis on being close to community members in the field and being community-led, in comparison to Organizations B and C that relied mostly on other local organizations for implementing the project activities; for instance, Organization C had seven local NGOs as implementing partners for the project under study. All three organizations facilitated initial access to their local NGO and CBO partners for the researchers. While the introductions by the organizations ensured quick access and goodwill with constituents who might not otherwise be easily accessible, the researchers were inevitably associated with the organizations during field visits, and were often confused with staff, consultants or donor representatives. In some cases, this resulted in slight interference in the type of questions asked and the emphasis on certain answers that were received. For example, while Researcher 1 had intended to start with general questions to see what issues community members would bring up first, whenever an NGO representative was present, (s)he would immediately steer the answer to what was perceived to be the interest of the researcher (i.e., women’s land rights). To counter such biases, all three researchers made attempts to build trust independent of their organizational affiliations. For instance, after first visiting the field with NGO staff members, Researcher 1 was later able to conduct independent discussions to inquire further into the relations between the NGO and community members, which provided additional valuable data. Organization A also facilitated access to some of its donors and to regional politicians, with whom the researcher held separate interviews. Similarly, Organization B introduced Researcher 2 to CBOs that were implementing the project along with other stakeholders including government officials and other NGOs advocating for women's rights issues. Following the initial introductions, Researcher 2 conducted focus group discussions as well as interviews independently without the presence of NGO staff. For Researcher 3, although the INGO staff introduced him to the seven local NGOs, he conducted interviews in the absence of the INGO staff. This provided enough opportunity for the local NGO staff to express their views. However, many of the local NGOs were reluctant to critique the INGO because of its implications for future funding opportunities. This demonstrates how the entanglement of different actors within the aid chain can influence the research findings (cf. Sampson, 2017).

In addition to organizational characteristics, the three NGOs also showed variance in their respective daily work environments. The informal, non-hierarchical and collaborative atmosphere in the office of Organization A created a situation which was relatively easy for Researcher 1 to navigate, as no one ever questioned her intentions or her presence in the office. The fact that all but one staff member were from the same ethnic group and spoke the same language may also have contributed to this cooperative atmosphere, as staff members regularly referred to their ethnic group as “easy going.” The informal and non-hierarchical atmosphere was reflected in the director’s attitude, who served as the first contact person for international donors and other high-profile visitors, but usually included other staff members (and even the researcher) in such meetings. When staff forgot to invite the researcher to meetings or to provide her with relevant documents they were even inclined to apologize, indicating a sense of obligation or, more likely, willingness to accommodate her. During a focus group discussion, the staff members commented that: “research on our strategy will benefit the community…and you can make recommendations…If we look at the research that was done by [a Master student from the same university]…we are basing most of our arguments on that research…When we do fundraising, we can also look at the research and the conclusions on our work, it is already done and it can be seen” (Focus Group Discussion with NGO staff members, August 6, 2018). Organization A, in short, clearly valued the involvement of academic researchers, and staff members did not show concern about their job security as a consequence of this involvement. On the contrary, they viewed the prospective research outcomes as useful for their fundraising efforts.

In contrast to the informal atmosphere of Organization A, Organizations B and C were formal in nature with higher levels of professionalization across the management and project staff. Yet, in terms of level of professionalization and structure of operation, the two organizations differed considerably. For instance, in Organization C, each staff was assigned to specific grants projects and given responsibilities and tasks as stated by one staff: “I am the quality manager and I am responsible for the availability of procedures and instructions, the ISO certification and quality objectives within the organization” (Interview with INGO staff, December 7, 2018). This clear division of labor was evident in the sitting arrangement of staff members that was based on their specific roles under each project in the organization. This formality and hierarchy were not so evident in Organization B, as some staff had a defined role in the form of duties that were project-specific, while others worked thematically on issues of finance, monitoring and evaluation, communication and media, and fundraising across project lines.

The degree of informality in the work environment of the three organizations was closely associated with the extent of access that could be maintained over the research period. Small staff-sized Organization A with a regional focus and an informal work environment echoed ease in maintaining access all through the research process. In mid-size Organization B with a semi-formal atmosphere of management and operation, navigating access was a chequered process, with the researcher having both easy and challenging times. The fact that access needed to be negotiated on a regular basis in Organization C can be partly explained by its scale of operation, staff size and hierarchical work environment. In contrast to both Organizations A and B, which were only indirectly involved in global advocacy campaigns through their foreign donors, Organization C had an international advocacy agenda with a global office in the Netherlands and regional offices across the world, including Kenya. The organizational characteristics of three NGOs directly influenced the nature and degree of access obtained by the researchers.