It is therefore crucial to strike a balance between sensitizing the respondents and clarifying the basic elements of the discussions, and at the same time giving them enough space to fill abstract terms like “reconciliation” and “justice” with their own ideas and perceptions. Qualitative consultations can take various forms, including workshops, seminars, community meetings and other forms of organized debate. The main types of qualitative research are: Focus groups: a consultation method which brings together a small group of preselected individuals for one or two hours to discuss a particular topic under the guidance of a professional moderator/facilitator.12 The moderator’s questions are set beforehand, but asked in a loosely structured way so as to encourage a free-flowing exchange of ideas and facilitate an interactive group discussion. As the discussion takes place in an informal setting and participants can speak within their own framework and terminology about the topic, the focus group method allows researchers to gain an understanding of people’s personal views and attitudes. Focus groups should comprise a more or less homogenous selection of people so that the views of a particular interest group are drawn out. A 2007 proposal for the conduct of consultations in Bosnia and Herzegovina identified 13 such interest groups whose views would be elicited (e.g., the legal community, Government, academics, youth, religious communities, victims, women, journalists, veterans, returnees, artists and historians). The individual composition of the focus group is crucial for an open and frank discussion. When selecting participants one needs to be aware of and take into account potential obstacles to effective participation, for instance, the presence of senior and junior members of the community, having men and women or adults and children together, different educational levels of participants, linguistic differences such as regional dialects, and so forth. These considerations are discussed further below. Focus groups have played an important role in some of the best documented transitional justice consultations. The OHCHR qualitative consultation in northern Uganda involved the participation of 1,725 victims of the armed conflict in 69 focus groups.13 The consultations undertaken by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in 2005 involved over 2,000 people in 200 focus groups. A common criticism of the focus group method is that the groups are too large. Meetings of many hundreds of consultees are reported from Colombia and Guatemala. Such large groups should be avoided in future. Social science practice suggests an optimal size for focus groups to be 10 to 12 people. 12 W. Lawrence Neuman, Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 6th ed. (Boston, Pearson, 2006), p. 412. 13 OHCHR, Making Peace Our Own: Victims’ Perceptions of Accountability, Reconciliation and Transitional Justice in Northern Uganda (2007). 9