Dr. Tony Stebbing, who helped me with very early research, described that “Cornwall is like the bow of a ship. This part of Britain is heading south due to climate change”. He and Sarah Myles of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust both said that this part of Britain was an important area for people to map change. Loe Pool was chosen as the first area for theirwork to map because of its positioning and watery habitat. It lies very close to the most southerly point of Britain. In addition, as William Howarth points out, wetland areas have become important places to examine because they help us to see how place functions, and help us to see new ways in which to think about a place (2001: 65). ‘In their wildness, wetlands dispossess readers of old codes and lead towards a new syntax, where phrase may begin to reassemble’ (ibid).

Here’s a meeting I had with Sarah about some of the GIS data held there

Get Howarth’s brilliant wetland essay if you haven’t read it (2001) ‘Reading the Wetlands’ in Adams, C., Hoelscher, S. and Till, K. (eds) Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, p65.

The brilliant eco-exhibitionist Matt Groshek pointed me towards this book. Later, I will give away more about Matt.

I am further constructing my qualitative research method. A qualitative research mentor has helped expand my reading in this area, and she will now help guide my delivery of this side of the project. New reading is practically complete and so I will start writing up my notes whilst planning the focus session, workshops and interviews. (I will post my booklist for this area in due course.) An important part of this planning is the prior investigation of open source qualitative research software. I am considerating whether to adopt such software in order to aid data gathering and analysis.

Previously, I built this methodology of qualitative research into the project by showing how it was part of a synthesis of work. The following picture visualises this synthesis, and an excerpt of text details part of the methodology.

I will hold individual interviews and group focus sessions. It will be my first time as an ethnographic qualitative researcher so I will undertake further research into ways in which you collect qualitative data, particularly focusing on the work of Rice and Ezzy (1999). Their work focuses on ways in which to collect and analyze qualitative data. What I can be sure of at this stage is that in order not to impose my theoretical or ideological agenda on the community, I will initially ask non-directive open-ended questions. The aim of non-directive (descriptive) questions is not to lead or coerce the subject into given answers that solely support the researchers deductive theories and own agenda. However, deductive theory always orientates questions to some degree, it is more a question of to what degree questions lead.

The qualitative research will be written up and will shape the very core development of theirwork. Importantly, as soon as the collection of the qualitative data starts, analysis of it will begin. Following the recommendations of the qualitative sociologist Ezzy, (2002: 65) I will break the analysis of the data into five areas: checking interpretations with participants, transcribing, reading and coding early data, writing journals and memos and carrying out team meetings and peer debriefings. Within these four areas I will be integrating the collection of data and its analysis at a very early stage. This is very important, as there is a ‘dialectical, or hermeneutic, relationship between theory and data’ (Ezzy 2002: 65). For example, theory forms my reading of data, but data informs my theory.

‘Checking interpretations with participants’ will involve two methods. Firstly, while actually holding interviews and focus sessions I will prepare for a type of closure to the meetings. Towards the end of the time allowed for the meetings, I would look for confirmation from the participants that my interpretations of what they have been saying are correct. Secondly, after the event I will send the participants a written summary (this will include visual information if appropriate) to gain a second endorsement that the interpretation that I have transcribed, is theirs.

‘Transcribing, reading and coding early data’ is a great skill that I will have to develop as the research progresses. It is very important that I transcribe the work as soon as interviews and focus sessions are complete so that I can reflect on the meeting and start making an analysis of it while it is fresh in my mind. This is crucial as Irvine (1999) explains. You need to develop codes, categories and sub-categories from the recordings of meetings. Categories and codes are twofold. Firstly, ethnographers divide the data into conceptual categories that are definable areas of research and secondly, researchers code data according to their own agenda. For example, when the researcher knows they are leading or coercing, lost or needing confirmation. The later category could be described as a hyper-conscious reflection on methodology and data collection. As you get more practiced you can develop codes within these codes and even start integrating them into meetings that follow. There is a second reason for transcribing data early on and it is, as Ezzy importantly notes, to give ‘the observer’, time to ‘self-observe’ them in action, enabling them to analysis how they are leading, participating and integrating with the ‘other’.

‘Writing journals and memos’: as a designer I will also add to this definition, ‘sketchbook’. Writing memos is central to the idea of grounded theory as it forms the idea of the beginning of how you code the work (which includes a systematic filing and theorizing of the work). Once a meeting has been transcribed I will make notes about it and think of suggestions for improving the questions, defining the research, shaping the conceptual categories and of further reading material to help me with the ethnographic approach. I will also visually explore ideas and ways to communicate with participants and so the journal should become a richly written and a visual diary that I use to develop the research.

‘Carrying out team meetings and peer debriefings’ are important to plan, as I am a solo researcher. I will set up a team of mentors outside of my list of participants to enable me to share the data collection and analysis at certain intersections of the study. This is so that peer debriefing enables a ‘process of exposing oneself to a disinterested peer in a manner paralleling to an analytic session and for the purpose for exploring aspects of the inquiry that might otherwise remain only implicit within the inquirer’s mind’ (Lincoln & Guba 1985: 308). Ezzy explains that this offers three benefits. The first is that it makes the observer more aware of their pre-existing theories and values. The second is that it gives the observer the chance to explore early interpretations and theories of the data. Lastly, it gives the observer the chance to explain any problems with the methodology, to the peers.

To remember our reserve of ideas - tagging is in there - but as a way of thinking about them and using them more, Emmet and I discussed if the tags for this blog should be at the top of the page.

I was first properly introduced to tagging by Emmet last July. I was explaining how I was interested in the tagging of ethnographic fieldwork and was investigating software that helped achieve this, and that I had seen Flickr and was wondering how that was working. Emmet explained it in the following way.

Instead of putting something in one compartment and trying to search for it, like trying to find a book in a library, you can stick flags on that book in virtual space or any object in virtual space. On each flag you can write different things. For instance, the tags I have applied to this post/bucket are: ‘tags flickr code’, and so now I can find this post under any of those headings. Before this I would have had to develop a system of categorization so that I could find things, such as anything to do with ‘Tagging’. I would have been forced into deciding where this post should go, or I would have had to duplicate this post so it sat in different places. Now, books/objects/buckets can be easily found in multiple places/searches without duplication. This enables different types of energy to be reserved.

images included