Sociology research project on the Freeman population

[Hilfskreuzer Möwe]

I’ve spotted an interesting invitation that has been posted on a bunch of Freeman forums and Facebook groups. It appears that researchers in the University of Alberta Sociology department are conducting an investigation of persons who associate with the Freeman/Sovereign/OPCA movement. Here’s the ad posted on the World Freeman Society forums (https://worldfreemansociety.org/forum/4 ... arch-study):

Greetings,

This letter has been prepared by Dr. Stephen Kent and MA Student, Ms. Samara McGrath. Dr. Kent is a professor with the Sociology Department at the University of Alberta. Ms. McGrath is working on completing her Masters at the University of Alberta under Dr. Kent’s supervision.

The goal of this project is to look at the individual experiences of people who have beliefs that may be encompassed by the term Freeman on the Land. We fully recognize that many of you may not refer to yourselves as Freeman on the Land. You may prefer to call yourself human, flesh and blood, sovereign, free, or a variety of other terms. We appreciate these individual beliefs. Our use of the term Freeman on the Land is for simplicity’s sake and because it is such a recognizable term. For the purpose of this study, the term freeman on the land will encompass any belief system that involves individuals seeking to remove themselves from the current form of governance in favor of an alternate system based on common law.

Recruitment of participants for this study will occur online and participants will submit their responses through the mail. This allows for participants to maintain some privacy and for participants to respond to the questions as their schedules allow. It is also hoped that by use of the internet and mail, individuals from a larger geographic area may participate. The questions posed to participants will be open ended and are meant to simply guide participants in the telling of their own individual stories. Questions will explore how you found your beliefs, how your beliefs have evolved over time, how you practice your beliefs, how you feel about the current state of society, and how you feel about the outlook for the future. It is expected the questionnaire may take 1-2 hours to complete.

The study is not sponsored or funded so there will be no financial compensation offered for participation. However, it is hoped that participants will find benefit in telling their own individual stories, which may be in contrast to news media stories and court cases. Society as a whole may benefit from a better understanding of the individuals behind these movements and their unique beliefs.

Participation is completely voluntary. If you are 18 years or older and are interested in participating, please visit the following website to obtain further information (http://www.dropbox.com/s/sen5gxbrualzk9 ... ETTER.docx) and the questionnaire (http://www.dropbox.com/s/39k62l9k8avtks ... naire.docx). Please feel free to share this information with anyone you know who may want to participate.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Ms. Samara McGrath & Dr. Stephen Kent
Researcher Supervisor
snbirch@ualberta.ca steve.kent@ualberta.ca

I’m familiar with Prof. Kent from a number of papers he has published on this general subject:

• Stephen A. Kent & Robin D. Willey, “Sects, Cults and the Attack on Jurisprudence”, (2013) 14 Rutgers Journal of Law & Religion 309 (http://lawandreligion.com/sites/lawandr ... 20Kent.pdf)
  
  Stephen A. Kent, “Freemen, Sovereign Citizens, and the Threat to Public Order in British Heritage Countries” (seminar paper) (http://griess.st1.at/gsk/fecris/copenhagen/Kent_EN.pdf)

Prof. Kent appears to be a recognized and well respected authority in his field. His papers use public documentary resources as their basis, but I think are useful, particularly as an overview of the Freeman-type phenomenon. Both papers have been cited in recent Alberta caselaw: Perreal v Knibb, 2014 ABQB 15; Fearn v Canada Customs, 2014 ABQB 114.

Personally I am very excited by this project. I think it would be extremely useful to have a better understanding of the kinds of persons who become affiliated with these groups, as well as their backgrounds. I have a ‘mental model’ of the typical Freeman, Sovereign, or Detaxer, but I’d be very interested to see some good hard data to check whether or not I am off base.

As this is a sociological research project it is vulnerable to bias from self-reporting factions of an overall population, but still – data of this kind will, I think, be helpful. And a very useful counterbalance to the worthless opinion-based ramblings that we have thus far received from law school commentators who have no first-hand data on these groups, and apparently no interest in acquiring such.

So best of luck to Prof. Kent and Ms. McGrath and I hope their results are published in open and refereed academic sources.

SMS Möwe

[grixit]

A project like this usually has a bunch of other grad students listed for doing the grunt work. I wonder if this might be a case where some of them would prefer to have their names left out.

[LightinDarkness]

I have to applaud any attempt to analyze the sov'run movement in any form, but as a PhD student I have to say this sort of research design is....very problematic. I would almost guarantee that this is a BA/BS honors thesis or something given the design. The major issues I see:

(1) A 10 page open ended survey is going to result in a very low response rate. Survey research shows response rates are proportional with length. If someone really wants to get all these questions in you almost have to do phone or in person surveys, which of course would be dangerous for the survey workers given the population we are trying to reach.

(2) There was no attempt to use scale questions or define the terms in the survey, which means any sort of analysis of these results will be basically someone's opinion. Most of my research is qualitative, and you can't just give people open ended questions and expect to get data that you can reliably analyze. What you will end up with is the researcher trying to find themes from disparate responses, themes which may not be accurate because none of the key terms are defined to the respondents to begin with. The results will not stand up to peer review, at best this could be a conference paper but in political science it would not even be accepted at a major conference.

(3) The decision to use a mail paper survey is strange given most universities buy bulk subscriptions to online survey design tools these days. Mail surveys have the lowest response rate and are generally only used when the respondent population for whatever reasonscan't/won't use the internet. That of course is not the case here. All evidence suggests sov'run ideas have become popular in part due to the internet and the fact that most sov'runs are internet capable.

(4) The self-selection bias is going to be huge here. You are only going to get sov'runs who are both active enough to read sov'run message boards to find the advertisement and have enough time to take a 1-2 hour (! again, this is insanely long for a survey, and goes against all the research) survey and then mail it in.

Its easy to be a critic. I know, in academia all anyone does is tear apart other peoples research. But the methods decisions here are very strange. Even simple things like creating some scale questions, making it shorter, and making it a online survey would enable it to pass peer review muster...

[Hilfskreuzer Möwe]

A project like this usually has a bunch of other grad students listed for doing the grunt work. I wonder if this might be a case where some of them would prefer to have their names left out.

I don't think so... In my experience with Canadian academia, much research funding is directed via government or institutional research grants for a single student. Professors often have their own funding from government, university, or business sources, but one rarely encounters a prof who has so much cash that he or she will be able to directly fund a large coordinated group of students to work together on a project.

Instead, the more typical pattern is that a graduate student and professor identify a thesis topic, apply for funding with internal or external sources, and if the funding comes through then the student's project proceeds.

I should warn my experience is not in the social sciences, but if anything that speciality is even less likely to have highly funded professors who can direct entire groups. That category is more typical of physical sciences, medicine, and technical disciplines where a 'hot shot' academic may command unusual resources. This is the new academia in Canada - economic results are expected from research.

But nevertheless, call this an educated guess.

SMS Möwe

[webhick]

but as a PhD student

As a student of the finer arts of dismemberment, I have two issues with this statement:

1. If you need a school to teach you how to become a post hole digger, then this country is spiraling fantastically down the drain. Which is fantastic. Totally fantastic.
2. I don't see what being a student of post hole digging has to do with the sovereign citizen movement. Unless the holes are wide enough to fit a man and deep enough to bury one it in standing up and still have that six feet of clearance so the neighborhood dogs don't dig him up. Oh god, that's a fantastic way to dispose of bodies! So neat, so space-saving and way less suspicious to the prying eyes of the nearest neighbors.

I need to get a post hole digger. And he better look like a male model or I'm returning him for defects.

[Famspear]

.....I need to get a post hole digger. And he better look like a male model or I'm returning him for defects.

I'm not sure what that means.

And I'm not gonna ask......

[Lambkin]

.....I need to get a post hole digger. And he better look like a male model or I'm returning him for defects.

I'm not sure what that means.

And I'm not gonna ask......

I'll spell it out for you.

[webhick]

I'd return that one.

[rumpelstilzchen]

I'd return that one.

Not man enough for you?

[webhick]

I'd return that one.

Not man enough for you?

Nope.