2.4 Questionnaire as Instrument

Research about the Counterculture

Comptche community members in the 1970s, memorialized on a tile at the Comptche Community Hall

Forty questions were on the survey of Comptche residents who lived there during the 1970s. Each question was based on my central inquiry: How did Comptche resolve the conflict of the Seventies? To write the questionnaire I focused on two Quick Ethnography (QE) questions that were just right for the community conflict I wanted to explore:

1. Who agrees with whom about what and to what degree?

2. What precursor life experiences explain who agrees with whom about what and to what degree? 

I like these two paths of inquiry for this study because the community I was looking at was polarized early in the decade. Responses from old timers and newcomers as opposing entities would answer the first QE question with details, anecdotes, and narratives that would explain the conflict. Responses to the second QE question, about preceding life experiences, will explain who is in which group.

In a previous post, I noted my use of the terms Old-timer and Newcomer is to avoid derogatory labels. Old-timer families, many of them with Finish immigrant ancestors, generally had established ranches and worked in the timber industry. Newcomer families were participating in the Counterculture and moving back to the land.

Ubiquitous redwood post fences with gates that fasten with bailing wire. Photo: L.G. Spicer

My questions asked first about life in Comptche during the 1970s, questions that produce what’s considered qualitative data, information about qualities, and quantitative data such as frequency of events or numbers things. The inquiry then moves to more detail asking about what kinds of things: types of exclusive and non-exclusive events, kinds of work, kinds of cars, kinds of conflict, and the differences they saw in “the Other.” 

The first questions were meant to evoke memories of the time period by asking about how they lived and earned a living. Why did newcomers move to Comptche, and how did old-timers feel when newcomers arrived? How did they each group acquire the skills for country living, oftentimes without electricity?

A series of questions about gathering places and events were intended to identify instances of social exclusion in the community.  Next, respondents were asked to identify kinds of differences, conflict, and issues, and then which of these were issues were held in common.

A question about memorable characters in the community produced literal characterizations of the times. For example, Chainsaw Sally was a hippie woman who went most places bare-chested. She’s remembered as justifying her choice by saying, “If men can go without shirts, women can, too!” She taught a few newcomer women how to use a chainsaw.

By arranging questions this way, I was pre-sorting the responses (data) so I could look for patterns. Anthropologists look for patterns. 

Participant responses created a kind of moving picture of life in this small community lived during the 1970s that includes:

• How they derived income

• Nature of their home environment 

• Inclusive and exclusive types of social life

• Values in common and values in conflict

The questionnaire finishes by asking participants if they felt the conflict of the Seventies was ever resolved, and if so, how? All said yes and attributed the transformation to: 

• Passage of time

• Change through the children—who are now adults

• Discovering common ground through “peerness” 

Participants provided insight into the nature and causes of the conflict between old-timers and newcomers. Their assessment defines how the conflict was centered on differences in values. Their thoughts about how the conflict was resolved:

Newcomer: We learned to talk about our differences, rather than fight. We learned to agree to disagree.

Old-timer: It seems like people don’t hold differences against each other anymore.

Newcomer: Potlucks 

Old-timer: Zoning work of the Comptche Advisory Committee (CAC) 

Newcomer: The Comptche Conservation Plan we wrote for Mendocino County

Hiding in plain sight, however, was the unifying answer to my Central Question: How did Comptche resolve the conflict of the Seventies?

The answer has two keys:

The work of the CAC to create the community’s first general plan is one key because the three-year process established both a theoretical common ground and a physical civil commons. 

The other key is hidden in plain sight and seems almost too obvious, “potlucks” is a hint. What community members experienced at recurring events, and continue to experience to this day, is social cohesion. In anthropology we call it communitas.

Next up: Taking Part through Participant Observation

Resources used for this post:

• Handwerker, W. Penn, 2001. Quick Ethnography

• Sheehan, Kim Bartel, 2001. E-mall Survey Response Rates

• Spradley, James P, 1979. The Ethnographic Interview

• Yammarino, Francis J. et al, 1991. Understanding Mail Survey Response Behavior