Researching hard-to-reach populations: lessons learned from dispersed migrant communities
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy
ISSN: 0144-333X
Article publication date: 12 September 2023
Issue publication date: 19 February 2024
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issues in studying hard-to-reach or dispersed populations, with particular focus on methodologies used to collect data and to investigate dispersed migrant entrepreneurs, illustrating shortcomings, pitfalls and potentials of accessing and disseminating research to hard-to-reach populations of migrant entrepreneurs.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed methodology is proposed to access hard-to-reach or dispersed populations, and this paper explores these using a sample of Brazilian migrants settled in different countries of the world.
Findings
This paper explores empirical challenges, illustrating shortcomings, pitfalls and potentials of accessing and disseminating research to hard-to-reach populations of migrant entrepreneurs. It provides insights by reporting research experiences developed over time by this group of researchers, reflecting a “mixing” of methods for accessing respondents, contrasting to a more rigid, a-priori, mixed methods approach.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this paper is to showcase experiences from, and suitability of, remote data collection, especially for projects that cannot accommodate the physical participation of researchers, either because of time or cost constraints. It reports on researching migrant entrepreneurship overseas. Remote digital tools and online data collection are highly relevant due to time- and cost-efficiency, but also represent solutions for researching dispersed populations. These approaches presented allow for overcoming several barriers to data collection and present instrumental characteristics for migrant research.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by CNPq (grant number: 405445/2018-0) and FAPERJ (grant numbers: E-26/211.511/2021 and E26/210.255/2019).
Citation
Falcão, R., Cruz, E., Costa Filho, M. and Elo, M. (2024), "Researching hard-to-reach populations: lessons learned from dispersed migrant communities", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 44 No. 1/2, pp. 76-95. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-06-2023-0134
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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