Ethnic Federalism in a Dominant Party State: The Ethiopian Experience 1991-2000 Lovise Aalen r 2002: 2

The use of interpreter
Another factor that makes it more challenging to do research in an unfamiliar
country is the language barrier. Ethiopia is a country with more that eighty
languages, which makes the use of interpreters a necessity. Since I did my
research in two regions in addition to the capital Addis Ababa, I needed
different interpreters who knew the regional languages there. I used one
interpreter for the research in Tigray. In SNNPRS, I had two interpreters,
basically because one of them did not have the time to work with me
throughout the whole stay there. The interviews in Addis Ababa were
conducted without interpretation, because all of the interviewees there spoke
English.
To work with an interpreter makes the information from the interviewees
second-hand, and the interpreter’s own values and judgements might affect the
result of the study. S/he might try to hide facts to support his/her own positions
or because s/he believes they are irrelevant for the study. In the interview
situation, the interpreter will be an important third person, and the way s/he
acts towards the interviewee and how the interviewee looks upon the
interpreter will have impacts on the quality and the quantity of the
information. Choosing the right interpreter is therefore crucial for the outcome
of the research.
When I looked for interpreters, I relied on advice from staff at the DPSIR at
Addis Ababa University and from a Norwegian researcher with substantial
field experience in Tigray. Good knowledge of the relevant regional languages
and English, field experience and no political affiliation were the basic criteria
for making the choice. All the three interpreters I ended up with took no part in
any organised political activities and were not members of any political party.
All had good language skills and varying degrees of field experience. The one
in Tigray was an academic employed at the Mekelle University College. Due to
the tight political control of Tigrayan society by the TPLF, he was careful to
play an unobtrusive and prudent role in the talks with representatives from the
ruling party. As a resident and employee in Mekelle, he had a vested interest to
take care of. In this sense, it might have been preferable to use a Tigrayan
speaking interpreter who was based outside Tigray. But then again, I might not
have been able to benefit from the good knowledge of current affairs and make
use of the updated contact network that the Mekelle-based interpreter had.
The interpreters whom I engaged for the research in SNNPRS were both
based in Addis Ababa, as students at Addis Ababa University. One of them was
also working as a teacher and had previously been engaged in data collection
work for the University. The other did not have other field experience than
from data collection for his own studies in political science. Both of them were

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fluent in Amharic, the language spoken in the regional capital Awassa, and in
two other regional languages (Kambatinya and Sidaminya) spoken in some of
the zones in SNNPRS. The facts that both of them were based outside the
region and that the EPRDF and its affiliates are not the sole political actor in
the region, made the interpreters less afraid of going into controversial and
sensitive issues. Nevertheless, there were situations were the interpreters tried to
avoid difficult situations without my consent. One, rather amusing example is
when I asked one of the higher representatives of the local EPRDF party about
the informal structures of party evaluation, called gimgimma. The party cadre
was apparently surprised to get such a question and burst out in Amharic:
“Oh, she’s a dangerous woman!” The interpreter translated this to me as
“That was a good question!” and continued. He did not tell me the real
meaning until after the interview had ended.
One of the advantages ofthe use of interpretation was that it gave me some
flexibility during the interviews, it gave me time to think and write while the
informant was talking. My interpreters also provided me with research
assistance, giving me contextualised information about the local culture and the
sensitivity of certain topics.
Documents
The documents include statistics, public reports and legal codes. Documentary
sources are, as literature and interviews, products of social and political
settings. They should not be accepted as literal records of happenings that have
taken place or neutral measurements of quantifiable conditions. Yin (1994:81)
suggests that the most important use of documents in case studies is to
corroborate and augment evidence from other sources. If the documentary
sources do not corroborate other sources, the researcher has a specific reason
to inquire further into the case. Documents should therefore not be seen as
findings in themselves, but should be used to find clues for further
investigation. Below, I shall be examining the value of the statistics and public
reports that are used in my study. The legal codes are also examined as sources
of evidence. But they are normative rather than descriptive documents, and are
therefore not subjected to the same kind of scrutiny as the other documents.