Overview description of methods

The field research process was headed by the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation NPC with a team experienced senior researchers, accompanied by researchers (at least three individuals) from the communities of research. Local community member’s roles included guiding, translate and introduce the team to potential participants who may have been curious or concerned of their participation in the research. The team was diverse in culture, linguistic skills, racial profile and gender.
Before the research took place a series of prior awareness raising meetings were held in each community to share the project aims and objectives. These took place in February 2020. The events took 3-4 hours where the aims and objectives of the research were explained, and community members were given the opportunity for preliminary engagement with the research team. From the outset, all households within the research communities were eligible for participation, regardless of their socio-economic status.
Field work took place in a modular fashion over the course of two years commencing April 2020. The researchers received ethical and project clearance from all partner academic institutions and the City of Cape Town Research Office for the research process. A complicating factor for the field work was accommodating various levels of societal lockdowns imposed by national government as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Initial research approaches were thus modified in response to changing pandemic and related legal and public safety dynamics.