The initial project and the related objectives have been substantially modified because of the Covid 19 pandemic on the one hand, and a dramatic change in the Russian political context on the other hand. Given the impossibility to travel to Russia and carry out the initially planned fieldwork, the methodology of the project has been redesigned to adapt to the new political and sanitary context.
First, I organised a focus group with members of the Russian diaspora living in France, Belgium and Luxembourg. Second, I externalized the recruitment and the organization of 4 focus groups in Saint-Petersburg by collaborating with Russian researchers. The sampling followed the classic rule of focus groups, mixing social homogeneity and political heterogeneity. We organized 4 discussion groups of 6 people each. Social homogeneity, which aimed at facilitating the expression of all participants, was guaranteed by recruiting, in each group, people of equivalent level of education and age class (-35 and +55), with at least 50% women. Political heterogeneity, which was supposed to stimulate the debate, has been ensured by a recruitment survey relating to media consumption (state television or internet) and by the mixing of the different profiles in each group. The participants were not asked direct political questions, rather they were invited to talk about their fears, the way they imagine their future and the future of Ukraine or were asked to express their ideas in drawing form.
Since the data collection was strongly delayed (the focus groups took place on the 2 and 3 March 2022), the dissemination of the results is still to come. The first results of the research were presented on 28/10/2022 at the 21st annual Aleksanteri Conference, “The New Era of Insecurity”, held in Helsinki (title of the paper: “Russians’ political opinions through a qualitative lens: An analysis of political discussions after 24 February 2022”, panel “7C – Measuring and Interpreting Political Surveys in Russia and Europe”).
