Recruitment of Research Assistants

Because I was unable to find research assistants who were fluent in English, French, and the Akan dialects of both fieldsite regions, it was necessary to use two different sets of research assistants in Ghana versus Côte d'Ivoire. In Ghana, my two research assistants were recruited in Accra and traveled with me to the fieldsite region. In Côte d'Ivoire, my two research assistants were recruited in the regional capital and only traveled out to the villages from there. I found many advantages to the latter recruitment strategy. While the Ivoirian assistants had less prior academic and research experience and required more intensive training and supervision, the job was a greater relative opportunity for them – both in terms of financial remuneration and work experience – so they maintained a high level of enthusiasm throughout the fieldwork. Their morale was further bolstered by the fact that they could easily go home on the weekends to their families. Finally, while the Ivoirian assistants did not originate from the fieldsite villages, their surnames were more familiar and so they were not considered to be as foreign as my Ghanaian assistants.

Sampling Strategy

I limited the sample size to 100 adults in each village for two reasons. First, with n=100 in each village, I was able to use statistical analysis to explore intravillage variation as well as the variation between the two regions in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.