Doing Social science in regions of conflict: – Snowball sampling in Armenia

This paper is a short introduction to one of the methods, snowballing, which is used by social scientists working in conflict or what is considered ‘hard to reach’ areas. While the method have been used in many other contexts where there is no immediate dangers and uncertainty is low, it has proven useful in mitigating at least the majority of risks that are facing the scientist in these types of environments. The paper takes it outset in the context of Armenia and research into the relationship between mining multinational and local communities. While the example used in this papers does not take its outset from an area in direct conflict e.g. War, it does show how research can be conducted in regions where the threat of conflict is ever present and where sample populations are ‘hard to reach’.