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The annotated article can be viewed on the publisher's website.

Data Overview

This manuscript employs a mixed methods approach to identifying gendered characteristics related to access, attitudes and agency to explain gendered patterns of participation in conservation at the community level. The data presented in this manuscript was part of a larger study conducted over a nine month period in four small coastal communities on the northeastern coast of Bahia, Brazil.

Data Generation

Household questionnaires and focus groups were the primary methods of data generation for this study. Determining a sampling frame and procedures for the questionnaires involved creating hand drawn maps for each community, physically counting all existing houses, and comparing this information with the number of households registered with the local health clinic. The number of vacation homes in the area complicated initial attempts to randomly sample houses by neighborhood in the larger communities, with the decision being made to approach all homes in the smaller communities. Time and transportation were also a constraint as the roads to some of these communities were not paved and often full of large potholes. No public transportation was available to three of the four communities (the author lived in the largest of the four communities – Sítio do Conde).

Focus groups were conducted only with members of one community, the largest of the four included in this study. The original plan to host 2-3 focus groups in each community did not seem necessary or even feasible after data collection using the questionnaires. The intention of the focus groups was to meet with groups of community members already working together (as part of the church, fishers association, etc.), instead of creating groups of people that may or may not already know each other well or have had a shared experience. Because of the lack of functioning community groups in the other communities (mainly owing to their size and the centralized nature of groups to Sítio do Conde and Conde, the municipal center), it would have been difficult to gather enough people that belonged to the same community organization for a focus group. Due to time and transportation constraints, I began with the community groups in Sítio do Conde and re-evaluated the need for additional focus groups in the other communities later. Also, the sea turtle conservation project is physically located in Sítio do Conde and community members in this area have more direct contact with them. Alternatively, it would have been interesting to conduct focus groups in the other communities for comparison of perceptions and experiences by community as well as gender. Because the household questionnaires were conducted in all four communities I was confident that I had captured some of this already and saw little difference during preliminary data analysis.

The focus groups were also segregated by gender, partially by design and partially as a result of working with existing community groups, which are already fairly segregated. The fishers association was supposed to have two focus groups, one for men and one for women, however both men and women showed up to the first focus group. Only two women attended this focus group among 12 men, and only one of them spoke. I decided to separate out her comments for analysis. Another focus group of just women fishers was not conducted due to lack of support by the fishers association and a concern on my part of over taxing the same women that already attended a focus group and participated in other aspects of the larger study.

Data Analysis

I will focus my discussion on the focus groups here, with only a little treatment of the household questionnaires as more sophisticated statistical analysis was conducted using that data and published in another manuscript. Only descriptive statistics were used in this manuscript to provide a broader overview of the communities highlighting gendered patterns of participation and show the basis for further exploration through the use of focus groups.

The focus group dialogues were digitally recorded with the coding being done to the audio file rather than being transcribed and coding the text. This decision was made primarily because of the time and cost constraints involved in transcribing multiple speakers in Portuguese. Coding the audio file also allowed for segments of the conversation to be coded, capturing more of the exchange between speakers, rather than simply the individual quotes. This coding procedure also highlighted how much time was spent discussing a theme or sub-category within a theme. A number of factors were considered in determining what aspects were most relevant, including the number of times a code appeared in a focus group, overlap of codes between themes, the amount of time or length of comments related to the topic, as well as the number of groups mentioning these issues. However, this was not a purely quantitative assessment of frequency or absence/presence, with greater emphasis on what and how people were discussing an issue in addition. The quantitative aspects of the codes were left out of this manuscript because I feel it detracts from the overall findings, especially with a small sample size for the focus groups. In a small community with participation focused in a small number of groups This was appropriate. Furthermore, the alignment of the focus group findings with the questionnaire reinforce my conclusion that they are representative of the larger community.

Logic of Annotation

I chose to focus my annotations on providing analytic notes and source excerpts to offer additional context and interpretation, while also illustrating links between data, analysis, and conclusions. Because this manuscript was part of a larger project there was data collected previously that informed the instruments used in this study, as well as the conclusions that were made. The intent of the annotations was to make this more transparent and help paint a more complete picture. My decision to link (or not) to original sources was primarily based on ethical constraints related to the protection of human subjects. As a result, I did not link directly to any audio recordings from the focus groups, but did provide extended source excerpts and translations. Furthermore, I only included photographs that I had taken myself, and ones that did not include research participants.

Update Notes for Version 2.0

Version 2.0 is a QDR-administered technical update. Files have been reprocessed to improve digital accessibility; the content of materials remains unaltered.