April Torkopoulos

GEOLOGY ROCKS BUT GEOGRAPHY IS WHERE IT'S AT

[aggeog2260]

We did it!

We did it! We are at the end of the semester! I’m sure none of us expected our university careers to end up like this, but I’m happy that I had the opportunity to interact with you all virtually. As an International Development Student with an area of emphasis on Environment and Development, I’ve taken my fair share of geography classes. However, these classes do not spend much time truly speaking to the human component of geography. I’ve found it very interesting to learn about the different ways that humans interact with their environment, and the ways in which the environment can impact human cultures, and vice versa. 

These three things I know for certain about human geography research…

1. The importance of ethical research. Throughout the course of this semester, I have gained a better understanding of research ethics. I had no idea the extent to which researchers have to go through in order to ensure their work is ethical. However, I am happy to know that things such as the CORE tutorial exist so that ethical research can take place. Any time that researchers are dealing with human subjects or material, whether in the context of geography or not, it is necessary to make sure that the correct ethical procedures are being taken, in order to reduce and minimize the potential for risk (Hooykas, 2021).

2. The role of subjectivity, intersubjectivity and objectivity. While I have come across the concept of ‘invisible backpacks’ before, I appreciated its presence in the course material of this class. I feel as though it is so essential for researchers to understand and acknowledge their own biases and judgements before going ahead with research (Hooykas, 2021).

3. The importance of valid, peer - reviewed sources. The Internet is so full of information that it can often be difficult and complex to find accurate, peer - reviewed sources. It is so easy to Google search something and find a website that tells you everything you need to know about a topic. However, most of these sites are not peer - reviewed, academic sources, and I’ve come to realize the importance of using research that comes from valid, academically sourced sites.

These three things I am still confused by…

1. Coding: I found this unit quite challenging and would say that I still do not fully understand the concept yet. I think that I personally could have spent more time digging into the subject material and developing my understanding of the concept. I feel as though coding is a very important part of human geography and so I hope to continue to develop my understanding of it to avoid confusion in the future.

2. Interviews: I also feel as though I am still a little confused about the differences between structured, semistructured and unstructured interviews (Hooykas, 2021). However, I think that a lot of clarity could come from this should I actively participate in an interview process. I think that the interview process is something that is always a little bit confusing until you actually participate in it.

3. Triangulation: I found this concept a bit difficult to grasp and I think that I still have a lot to learn about it. Moving ahead with my geographic research, I hope to gain a deeper understanding of what exactly triangulation is and how it is used.

These three things I know for certain about me as a human geographic researcher…

1. I much prefer qualitative research to quantitative. I have known since about Grade 10 that I am not a fan of hard sciences. While I appreciate and acknowledge its merit, I personally do not feel as though I am very good at 1) developing quantitative data or 2) understanding it. I much prefer learning about the qualitative stories of a person or situation, rather than analyzing hard data.

2. I’ve also learned about my own biases. Whether these be from my academic or personal background, throughout the course of this semester, I feel as though I have a better understanding of what might be in my ‘invisible backpack.’ This will help me in the future as I continue with any geographic research, as I will have a better understanding of my biases and how they might affect my studies.

3. I’ve also learned more about myself in the context of how well I work with a group, especially a research driven group. I definitely had difficulties navigating this aspect this semester, given the online formatting. Despite this, I feel as though I have a deeper understanding of how I work within a group, in terms of not only how I contribute, but my downfalls as well.

These three areas I need to spend time developing/ learning in order to feel more confident in my skills…

1. Interviews: In a few of my other classes I have had the opportunity to directly participate in research interviews. Through this process as well as through the information I gained about interview processes through Hays’ readings, I feel as though I have a pretty good theoretical understanding of how to properly conduct an interview. However, I feel as though I could stand to benefit from participating in more interviews first hand. A theoretical understanding of the interview process is important and helps in terms of formatting and structuring a conversation, but I think socially, as a researcher, I could stand to gain from more experience (Hays, 2016).

2. Coding: As mentioned earlier, I still have some confusion when it comes to coding. I feel as though I still have not fully grasped the concept and I think that more experience in the field would help me to develop my skills as a researcher. With something technical like coding, I think that it requires practice rather than simply studying a textbook, so I hope that I have an opportunity in the future to work on my coding abilities.

3. One last thing that I hope to work on more in the future is my ability to find valid sources of information. I think that this is a constant challenge for university students, but with the Internet, valid, peer - reviewed sources are more available and accessible than ever! I think that this course helped me to better understand how to properly search for these articles, and my work on the annotated bibliography for my digital storytelling project helped me gain a better understanding of the field.

While I wish I could have spent this semester in person, I appreciated communicating with you all via the blogs, and wish you all the best in your future projects! 

Thanks!

April

References:

Hay, I. (2016). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography, Toronto. Oxford University Press.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Lecture Notes from GEOG2260 - Applied Human Geography, Weeks 2, 5, 6 8. 

[aatgeog2260]

Hey April! It’s April ;)

Awesome final blog post!

I had not even thought about something I know for certain is the importance of the validity of peer-reviewed sources because as students we are always looking at those, but you make a really good point! I had honestly forgotten that we learned about this, how to critically evaluate a source, and that we learned about the five criteria: purpose, scope, authority, audience, and format (Hooykaas 2021 Week 5). It is definitely a good idea to have these skills so that you can identify invalid information and things such as fake news!

You are correct that once you participate in an interview process things become clear - about what’s right and what’s wrong! My group and I interviewed a professor at the university for our DSP and we went into it thinking it would be relaxed and easy, but when we got there, we didn’t realize how much we would have to work to create that environment! We did a semi-structured interview which is more of a discussion between the researcher and the participant and sort of guiding the conversation. I think a structured interview is more just question and answer repeated, while unstructured would be a conversation directed by the participant so that the researcher has a smaller role and doesn’t interfere as much. 

I am with you about the confusion around the concept of triangulation! It’s unclear to me what exactly it is and how it is used. I also hope to understand it because it seems that it is important to make your research really robust which of course is beneficial. 

I also prefer qualitative research over quantitative! That’s because I prefer working with people and stories rather than numbers. Glad you were able to learn these things about yourself!

Hope the rest of your semester and exams go well!

-April

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 5: Literature Review. 

[ekgeog2260-deactivated20231114]

Looking Back on the Class

Three Things I Know for Certain About Human Geography Research:

The first thing I am certain about in human geography research is that researchers must be careful and put great importance on the power relations between themselves and their participants. Researchers must be aware that power cannot be removed from the research process, be cognizant of whether their research is directly or indirectly powerful and do their best to avoid the negative aspects of potentially exploitative power relations (where the researcher is in a position of greater power than the participants) (Hay, 2016, pp. 35-36).

Secondly, I know that in human geographic research, researchers should ideally be conducting ‘decolonizing research’ whenever doing cross-cultural research and use their research process to break down the asymmetrical power relations, representations, and structures that colonialism and neo-colonialism put in place between different cultures (p. 47). Especially in today’s society, decolonizing research, including inclusionary research, which aims to empower marginalized or oppressed groups/people, is a necessity and the only appropriate form of human geographic cross-cultural research (p.47).

Third, what i know for certain in human geography research is that researchers must be critically reflexive throughout the entire research process. As a researcher, being critically reflexive means constantly and self-consciously scrutinizing yourself and the research process in order to be aware of a multitude of factors that could play a role in the way you report your research (Hooykaas, Week 2, 2021). This process is necessary for proper qualitative research to emerge.

Three Things I am Still Confused By:

To start, I am still very confused about when different research approaches, from lecture two, are more appropriate than others to use and when to use them in the first place. The empirical-analytical, historical-hermeneutic, and critical research approaches still confuse me with what they mean in terms of research, what types of research processes they utilize, and when one is more appropriate than another (Hooykaas, Week 2, 2021).

Next, I am also still confused about the extent of ethical considerations researchers must account for with their proposal and research process. I know that with research ethics, researchers must consider free consent, potential risks of any kind, maximize the benefits gained by the research, and make sure the aspects of ‘justice’ (fairness, equity, power, etc.) are all considered and accounted for (Hooykaas, Week 3, 2021). However, what happens if something happens that wasn’t considered by either the researcher or the research ethics board? Is the any risk that is so minimal that it doesn’t need to be accounted for? At what point do participants hold personal responsibility about being in research with potential risks and the participant doesn’t back out? Is the harm that comes the researcher’s fault if they’ve done everything they can? Those are the types of things I’m confused about with research ethics.

Finally, I am a bit confused about how important coding is. When doing my storytelling project, I ultimately didn’t code any of my research and didn’t seem to have a problem. Is coding necessary in qualitative research? I can see how it could be more helpful with a much larger amount of research results, but how can your research story be consistent if changing your coding often is the norm (Hooykaas, Week 8, 2021)? That is another thing I don’t fully understand in human geography research.

Three Things I Know for Certain About Myself as a Human Geographic Researcher:

First of all, I know for certain that I don’t want to be a human geographic researcher. I’ve mentioned in a previous blog post, but I have zero interest in doing research for any sort of field, as I believe I would just find it frustrating, and I don’t know if I can specialize that much as a career. I would much rather be able to efficiently understand human geographic research and apply it elsewhere and use the skills I learned about research to market myself in the workforce better (Hooykaas, Week 10, 2021).

I also know that as a current undergraduate researcher, I struggle and find it difficult when assignments and/or research is very open-ended (like the digital storytelling project). That may be something I need to work on in order to be more proficient and struggle less in the future, but I know that I do much better with research when I have a clear idea of what I should be researching.

Lastly, I know that when it comes to being a researcher, I find it difficult to motivate myself to do the tedious research unless I am interested in the topic I am researching and/or writing about. This plays into the fact of me not wanting to be a researcher, as at this point in my life, I am not that interested in anything in human geography to be worth researching for myself.

Three Areas I Need to Spend Time Developing/Learning in Order to Feel More Confident in My Skills:

The first area I need to learn more is with coding research. I didn’t get to practice coding very much and I didn’t do coding with my section of the storytelling project, so I definitely need more practice learning how to do it and why it’s important. For example, I don’t fully understand grounded theory, the differences between descriptive and analytical codes, or how to make a codebook (Hay, 2016, pp. 377-381).

The second area I need to work on improving is how to create a compelling story/narrative with research. I think this is very important way to present research findings to wider audiences and allows the importance of the research to shine while also reinforcing its validity, credibility, and trustworthiness (pp. 415, 423). However, presenting research in this way is much easier said than done, and is something I am not used to quite yet.

The final area of improvement for me is developing questions for interviews and questionnaires. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the opportunity to do interviews or create interview questions, however it seems like an important skill even outside of research. Obviously from the textbook, I’ve learned that questions need to use easily understood language, avoid ambiguity, and must be phrased carefully, among other things (p.153). However, since I haven’t formed questions before, my confidence would be very low if I was asked to formulate some.

References:

Hay, I. (Ed.). (2016). Qualitative Research Methods In Qualitative Geography. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press Canada.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 10: How to Market your Skills. Lecture. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/668082/viewContent/2744643/View

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 2: Philosophy, Power, Politics, and Research Design. Lecture. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/668082/viewContent/2673139/View

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 3: Ethics. Lecture. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/668082/viewContent/2682505/View

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 8: Coding. Lecture. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/668082/viewContent/2730478/View

[aatgeog2260]

Hey Eric! 

Great final blog post!

I love how you brought up the importance of decolonizing research because I feel like it was glossed over in this course, most likely because it’s more about the qualitative research methods than issues in research. However, I appreciate you bringing this forward again, as a lot of marginalized and oppressed groups are taken advantage of in research and feel an invasion of privacy. The ethical process is extremely important to avoid these things.

I am also very confused about the empirical-analytical, historical-hermeneutic, and critical research approaches, both what they mean and when/how to use them. When I reviewed my notes throughout this semester I kept seeing the terms listed with no explanations underneath and could not seem to find them in the textbook so I am very curious as to what those mean and when we should use them. 

Regarding the coding, I know that my group for the DSP did a lot of coding and it was extremely helpful to organize our data simply because there was so much information. From there we condensed each category into the main points and supporting examples. However, your question does make me wonder if it’s necessary… I see what you mean, because in previous research projects I did not use this coding concept and things worked out. You also bring up a very fascinating question of how to follow the story if you continue to re-code. I would be interested in finding the answers to those!

I laugh every time you mention how certain you are that you do not want to be a researcher! It is totally valid and very understandable, it is just so ironic that you spent a semester in a research class!

Thanks for your always honest and engaging posts! Hope your exams go well!

-April 

[lcgeog2260]

Final Reflection

Throughout the semester this course has worked to build our skills in conducting qualitative research in human geography. Overall, I have noticed that my research techniques have greatly improved after incorporating what I have learned in this course.

What I Know for Certain about Human Geography

Prior to taking GEOG 2260 I had not taken any human geography courses and did not have a proper understanding of what it means to be a human geographer. Luckily, the first sentences of the textbook answered that question, stating “contemporary human geographer’s study not only tangible people and place [but also] intangible objects such as discourses, identities, and places of inscription” (Hay, 2016, pp. 1). With this understanding of human geography, and from what we have learnt throughout the course I now know for certain that human geography is subjective. Subjectivity refers to being based on or influenced by personal feelings or opinions (Hay, 2016). While subjectivity is generally a negative thing to incorporate into your research, human geography as a discipline is inherently subjective. Since it is based on qualitative data, researchers are seeking to interpret their information, which is not a concrete science and will results in a difference of opinions. Since human geography is subjective, researchers must always consider their invisible backpack to prevent bias. 

Leading to my next area of certainty, human geography requires the researcher to be critically reflective. Critical reflexivity requires the researcher to continuously be self-critical, introspective, and self-conscious of how their personal beliefs have influenced their research (Hay, 2016). This is to prevent any bias that may stem from their invisible backpack.

Lastly, human geography requires more structure within its research. This is because qualitative research methods rely on human participants, and therefore the researcher must account for ethical considerations, and structure the interviews and analysis to prevent biasing the research.

Three things I’m still confused about

First, I need to work on differentiating between the varying approaches to research. In week 2, we learnt about the basic approaches such as Empirical-analytical, Historical-hermeneutic and critical (Hookyaas, 2021). While I understand their basic definitions, I am still confused about when it is best to use each one and why.  

Second, I am still confused about the grounded theory. In lecture 9, it is said that the researcher serves as both a data collection instrument and analysis method, where the research builds theories upwards from the data (Hooykaas, 2021). I am confused about how to apply the theory, and how exactly it would differ from other top-down approaches. I understand that it requires analyzing connections between your hypothesis and the data, but to my understanding top-down approaches do that as well or do something very similar.

Similarly, I am confused about when to use each type of analysis. In week 9, we briefly discussed dialectical analysis, metaphor analysis, and fantasy theme analysis (Hooykaas, 2021). While I understand the basic definition of each of these, I am not too sure the benefits of each, and what type of research would use which analysis type. I understand that the grounded theory is the most common, and possibly the most useful form of analysis, however since we were introduced to other types of data analysis I would like to be able to better understand when each one would be the most useful.

Three things I know for certain about me as a Human Geographer

The first thing I learnt about my self as a human geographer is that I do not want to pursue a career in human geography. I originally took this course because it was required to graduate with a B.A in geography and did not have high hopes that I would be interested in the content. However, after taking the course, I feel as though I gained valuable skills that can be transferred to my other courses. Though it did make me further realize that I do not want to focus on human geography.

I also learnt what exactly my invisible backpack is. This is essentially all of the personal beliefs and opinions one brings into their research (Hookyaas, 2021). My own invisible backpack mainly consists of being a white, middle class, female. Which can either help me to identify with my research subjects, if they are also female, but can also hinder my analyses if I were to be studying a topic that has to do people of color, or anyone from the opposite gender.

Lastly, I learnt that as a human geographer my main area of interest is the connection between human interactions and the environment. In week 10 we discussed what it means to be a geographer. This discussion gave us varying points on what a geographer does, and I realized that all of the topics I was interested in we in relation to human interactions with the environment. Specifically, this includes, identifying societal drivers of environmental change, and evaluating different ways human impacts on the environment are theorized (Hooykaas, 2021).  

Areas I need to spend time developing

I want to spend more time developing my interviewing skills. For the digital storytelling project, my group conducted a short interview with a professor at the University of Guelph. However, I feel as though we did not take into consideration enough about the types of questions asked, and the order of our questions. Overall, I did get some practice with interviewing in this course, but I think I need to practice creating more interview questions.

I also want to spend more time developing a research proposal. I have never written a formal research proposal before, so this course was my first introduction to the concept. Specifically, I struggle with understanding how to create a good research question and deciding which conceptual framework I should use. This is because I often make research questions that are too broad, and have never had to formally consider conceptual frameworks in any of my research.

I need to spend more time on using different types of data analysis. My group and I used memos on the side of our shared document for the digital storytelling project, as well as the coding method described in the lecture. However, I think that I need more practice at coding because I have a very surface level understanding of when to use each coding technique. The textbook notes that there are context analysis, descriptive codes, in vivo codes, and analytic codes (Hay, 2016). However, I have only used the deductive and hierarchical method of coding discussed in the lectures. I think that learning to effectively code my sources will be very useful for my future projects, and I plan to continue this technique.

Works Cited

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 2, University of Guelph

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 9, University of Guelph

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 10, University of Guelph

Hay, I. (2016). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography: Chapter      2 (4th ed.). Oxford Univ Press.

[aatgeog2260]

Hey Laiken!

You have a beautiful final blog post here! Yours stood out to me because of your word cloud as I also created a word cloud in my final blog post!

I like your last point in what you know for certain about human geography - that it needs more structure within its research. I had never thought about this before but I think you make a great point, especially concerning ethical considerations. Exploitative relationships still occur in research from a lack of concern for participants and it really needs to be regulated to protect the more vulnerable. 

I think that I can help clarify the grounded theory. We actually applied this theory in our digital storytelling project together! The top-down approach I think is what we usually do more of as students. You create a theory or a thesis statement and then find data to support that theory. This has the potential to create bias because you may only look for information that supports your argument. The grounded theory is the approach we used in the DSP! We gathered information first, coded and re-coded it, then afterwards we came up with our theory. We had no idea how to answer “What is economic geography?” until the end but that’s exactly what the process is. We found our information first then we came up with our answer at the end!

I like how you mentioned that this course provided us with skills that we can transfer to other courses because I completely agree! We can apply our invisible backpacks to the real world, use the process of coding when researching for other classes, we learned more about video editing and design, how to improve interviewing, and determined how to use and how to give feedback. 

I also said that I need to develop my interview skills - LOL OOPS! We definitely could have done better but at least Dr Roberta Hawkins is a professor and understands that mistakes lead to learning!

Thanks for this awesome post Laiken! Loved working with you on the DSP and hope your exams go well!

-April

[aatgeog2260]

Human Geography Researcher Potential!

It is wild to think that this is the last blog post in this class! When I chose this class for this semester I wasn’t really excited about it - it was just another required course. I’m happy to say that I really appreciated this course and learned so many things as well as met some more people in geography!

These three things I know for certain about human geography research:

1. Human geography research is not just one thing. It is interconnected with so many other types of geography like the ones presented in our last class and more! My favourite part of this course was attending that final class and watching all of the videos about different subtopics under human geography that students in this class created. It helped identify connections and relations as well as how these are relevant in the real world. When combined together, they form this incredible subject of geography. 

2. It is essential! Human geography research provides patterns and connections between people and places which is vital for living today. It helps us understand the world better which can aid the development of moving forward in a positive direction while respecting the past. In the summary of chapter one in the textbook, it states that “human geographers are bringing new and effective approaches to the fundamental questions of societal structures and individual experiences (Hay 2016 p. 26). Human geography will continue to help find answers to these questions about the world we live in.

3. It is a delicate process. All research is a delicate and complex process as there are numerous things to consider and be aware of, but because human geography deals with real people, their lives, culture, religion, families, etc., I know that we need to be so careful to respect and acknowledge others and who they are. Chapter three of the textbook includes a poem by Barabara Nicholson, titled Something There Is… that highlights the necessity of consent and privacy in research. Just because someone is classified as a researcher does not give them the right to invade a person's life (Hay 2016 p. 48). Below is a sketch I did after I read the poem for the first time: (I am not an artist but it was something I did afterwards to reflect upon the reading)

In general, it’s a researcher looking through a magnifying glass at these people who feel exposed from the “research”. 

These three things I am still confused by:

1. Analyzing surveys. This was one of the larger lectures we had live in class and I think I was having a hard time keeping up after we had so many lectures online in which I would pause, rewind and go back. It was my fault that I never went back to the recording to review so I’d still like to clarify this content. I know that if I were to be asked about each data type: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio, I would not be able to explain them all clearly (Hooykaas 2021 Week 5). 

2. The following phrase was used in the week 6 lecture: “Testimony by itself is a relatively weak form of evidence” (Hooykaas 2021 Week 6). I’m unclear with how or why this is. When we watched documentaries in this course I thought this involved testimony and it was used in research. Maybe they are classified more as a case study. So I wonder, what are the differences between a case study and a testimony? Or is a testimony involved within a case study? For example, in week 3 we watched the documentary Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 years produced by VICE. I believe that this was a case study, but within it, Agafia Lykovs shares her story. Is the research incomplete unless you unpack and verify this testimony? 

3. I am a little confused with the concept of triangulation. The week 6 lecture provided this image: 

I am not sure if triangulation means having one of these sections, for example, researchers but having multiple of them, or if it is putting these sections together, for example, both multiple researchers along with multiple theories (Hooykaas 2016 Week 6). I have a feeling it would be the second option, simply because if you have multiple researchers then most likely you would get multiple theories and methods, however, I would like to clarify in order to understand it better.

These three things I know for certain about me as a human geographic researcher:

I created a word-cloud of things I’ve felt I’ve gained from this course and things that I enjoyed to help me come up with this section of the blog:

1. There is potential! I remember writing my first blog post in this class and describing how I used to really dislike geography and didn’t want anything to do with it. After this class, I know that I have the potential to become a researcher and possibly find it enjoyable! I surprised myself when I enjoyed working on the DSP. It was fun coding information with all of the colours and although it was challenging to go through the information, condense, review, condense some more, etc., it felt so rewarding to show that final product to others and to think that other people could learn valuable information useful in the world based on what you provided to them! I think if I ever did become a researcher I would enjoy participatory action research since it allows people in the community to become “co-researchers and decision-makers in their own right” (Hay 2016 p. 350). This is really important to avoid that idea of invasion of privacy.

2. I learned more about my interests. I used to think the biggest goal in geography was being able to sing this song called Nations of the World: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pOFKmk7ytU 

I thought research in geography was only about analyzing piles of data and I didn’t realize you could bring creative outlooks to it. I enjoyed the poem we read in the textbook, the documentaries we watched, the opportunity of interviewing for the DSP, the creativity with the final DSP videos, etc. I am intrigued by those forms of media to learn more about and analyze/reflect on geographical concepts.

3. I have more appreciation for geography and others. The topics of critical reflexivity and ethical considerations apply to research in human geography of course but it also floods into all aspects of life. It helps consider other people’s backgrounds, lives, privileges or no privileges, and just creates better communication and respectful relationships between people (Hooykaas 2021 Week 2). It’s also worth thinking about whether you’re an insider or an outsider before you interact with different groups so that you can build a good rapport with trust (Hay 2016 p. 40). 

These three areas I need to spend time developing/learning in order to feel more confident in my skills:

1. Patience. When working on the DSP, after my group and I had found our resources, I just wanted to dive in and write the script! Then we learned about coding in the week 8 lecture and my group members expressed how they would feel better going through the information quite a few times before writing anything. Of course, this worked extremely well even if it was time-consuming! In the future, I would like to make sure I take the process only one step at a time and make sure I hit every part of the research process in order to create a robust and accurate end result. Once again, this applies not only to human geography research but also the real world. Chapter 18 in the textbooks states that “Being in the world requires us to categorize, sort, prioritize, and interpret social data in all of our interactions”  (Hay 2016 p. 391). There is always room for improvement here so that misinterpretations and miscommunication can be avoided.

2. During the research with the DSP, I had a challenging time determining when my group should move forward and how much research we should gather especially with the course deadlines in mind. I know that you can move forward when you reach a “point of saturation” and concepts begin to be repetitive, however, because I am detail-oriented, I was not great with grouping similar ideas if one tiny thing distinguished them (Hooykaas 2021 Week 9). I would like this to improve so that I have a clearer sense of when enough is enough.

3. I would like to clarify and learn more about the list of three things that still confuse me. It’s good to identify what confuses you and what you are unsure of but it’s even better to then go and clarify those things and understand them so that you develop your understanding and skills even more. I want to fill in those gaps of information so that everything makes a bit more sense.

Final Remark

Overall, I am really glad that I took this class and hope everyone has a great end of the semester! It was nice interacting with everyone through these blogs!

-April 

References

Hay, I. (2016). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 2: Philosophy, Power, Politics and Research Design.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 3: Cross-Cultural Research: Ethics, Methods, and Relationships.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 5: Literature Review.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 6: Data Collection - Interviews, Oral Histories, Focus Groups.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 9: Writing Qualitative Geographies, Constructing Geographical Knowledge Data Analysis, Writing, and Re-Evaluating Research Aims Presenting Findings.

Nicholson, Barbara. (2000). Something There Is....

Vice (April 2013). Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 Years. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68 

[aatgeog2260]

Climate Anxiety and Social Injustice

I came across this article called “Climate Anxiety Is An Overwhelmingly White Phenomenon” posted on March 21 of this year. It is written by Sarah Jaquette Ray, a university professor in the United States who teaches environmental studies, and the author of The Ecological Other: Environmental Exclusion in American Culture and A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety (Ray 2021).

The majority of us seem to understand that climate change is happening right now, but this article presents another layer about the social injustices climate change evokes. I know that, in general, the Global North population benefits from the activities that produce greenhouse gases and that the Global South population suffers most from the consequences. The people suffering the most are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, and people of colour, so I was curious when I saw “an overwhelmingly white phenomenon” in the title. 

Key Message

This article asks many important questions including the following two: “If people of color are more concerned about climate change than white people, why is the interest in climate anxiety so white? Is climate anxiety a form of white fragility or even racial anxiety?” (Ray 2021). The article attempts to answer these questions or at least begin thinking about the answers. 

Overall, the key message is that people with privilege who experience climate anxiety need to channel those feelings into a collective liberation rather than racialized violence (Ray 2021). We all need to acknowledge our connections with other people in this world and use them for social justice and environmental stewardship.

Sources

The end of the article includes the following author’s note:

Author’s Note: I want to thank Jade Sasser, Britt Wray, Janet Fiskio, and Jennifer Atkinson for rich discussions about this topic, which inform this piece.

This is one type of source the author used for this article - rich discussion with other experts on the topic. After doing some research, I found that these women are a mix of professors, authors, researchers, broadcasters, and podcast creators. They are experts and professionals in the field exploring relationships between climate change and activism, social and ethical entanglements with planetary health, environmental and Indigenous studies, and environmental humanities. 

In addition to speaking with these experts, I assume the author has outside sources or background knowledge from previous news events as she mentions the murder of George Floyd, the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and protests. 

Evaluation and Verification

I believe that the sources (the people and their words) were evaluated using a dialectical analysis which is “searching for the most powerful conflicts in the data” (Hooykaas 2021 Week 9). It doesn’t explicitly say anywhere that this analysis was done, but this information goes beyond a summary to explore the ideas being discussed, their significance and their limitations. Therefore I think the purpose of this discussion was meant to go beyond and think about the most challenging ideas.

I think a verification technique that could have been used was to see how experts react to it, whether it makes sense, and if it reflects the world. Most likely, the author would have asked the experts she had already spoken to, especially if she was including ideas they had shared, so it would be best to have them review the information discussed before publishing. This can also be referred to as using “expert consultants” (Hooykaas 2021 Week 9).

Responsibility of the Consumer

The textbook’s reading this week mentions participatory action research (PAR) which seeks to “engage people in a learning process that provides knowledge about the social injustices negatively influencing their life circumstances” (Hay 2016 p. 350). Ultimately, the goal is co-learning and collective action (Hay 2016 p. 352). This is directly related to the consumer’s responsibility. When reading this article, one must ask themselves, “Who am I?” and “How am I connected to all of this?” (Ray 2021). The consumer must acknowledge the social injustice that so many people face every day and honour their resilience. The oppressed and marginalized have gained resilience out of necessity. It is something a lot of us have not had to experience. When these things become more clear, effective action can be taken. 

Another important term is transformative reflexivity, meaning “both the researcher and researched group reflect on their (mis)understandings and negotiate the meanings of information generated together” (Hay 2016 p. 355). This is similar to critical reflexivity - “a process of constant, self-conscious scrutiny of the self as a researcher and of the research process” (Hooykaas 2021 Week 2). The difference is that transformative reflexivity is a collaboration of reflecting in which the meanings of the information can be transformed if needed. This is important to receive clarifications and to avoid inaccurate representations of people and stories. All of this connects to one of the core principles in research: justice. Researchers must always show fairness, equity, inclusion, and a balance of power (Hooykaas 2016 Week 3).

Conclusion 

This is an interesting topic that I hadn’t thought about before. I highly recommend reading this article. I am very privileged and I have climate anxiety - global warming is a stressful world crisis - however, the points brought up in this article suggest it’s a “code for white people wishing to hold onto their way of life”. I think this is so important for all of us to reflect on and ask ourselves:

Are we worried about ourselves and the fact that we can’t live comfortably anymore? 

Are we worried about the rest of the people on this planet?

Are we worried about the planet itself at all? 

References

Hay, I. (2016). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 2: Philosophy, Power, Politics and Research Design.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 3: Cross-Cultural Research: Ethics, Methods, and Relationships.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 9: Writing Qualitative Geographies, Constructing Geographical Knowledge Data Analysis, Writing, and Re-Evaluating Research Aims Presenting Findings.

Ray, S. J. (2021, March 21). Climate Anxiety Is An Overwhelmingly White Phenomenon. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-climate-anxiety/.

[amfgeog2260]

Mapping Racial Injustice

Article in ‘The Conversation’

For this week’s blog post I came across an online article published by ‘The Conversation’ journal on February 23rd, 2021 (link to the article: https://theconversation.com/how-black-cartographers-put-racism-on-the-map-of-america-155081). The article discusses the importance of cartography, which is the use, creation, and analyzation of maps. The article explains how useful cartography has been in the history of racial injustice, as a means by which to “put racism on the map of America” (Alderman and Inwood 2021). I have mentioned this in previous blogs, but I found a similar, more recent article for our digital storytelling project which mapped the global protests in response to the murder of George Floyd. This article caught my attention because it uses physical and social geography in the same way as the more recent article, but addresses and visually shows the impact of race related injustice across the United States. The article and maps also give visual weight to the specific states and regions which perpetuated more racial injustices throughout history, which we can draw similarities to the same states today. 

Key Message

There is a strong and noteworthy message here. Although this is not an easy topic to talk about or write about, this article explains the power of mapping social injustice, especially in the history of the United States. The article explains the ways and uses of mapping and cartography over the course of history in America, to better understand, reflect on, and keep account of nationwide racial injustice. The article provides examples of cartography’s use from the late 1800s to examples like mapping police brutality through cartography more recently in 2014 (Alderman and Inwood 2021). Which outlines very clearly for the reader, that racially motivated injustices and inequities are continually perpetuated even almost a century after they were first mapped out. 

The Articles Sources

Because of the historic value with which this article was written, a lot of their sources would have been primary sources or historical, geography related resources. Specifically, the article used a primary source published in 1919 by the “National Association for the Advancement of Colored People”. The primary resource shows a map of the United States of America, and mapped out is all of the lynchings which occurred in a decade long span from 1909 to 1918 (Alderman and Inwood 2021). The second cartograph from the same primary resource shows a similar map of America but for a thirty-year period between 1889 and 1918 (Alderman and Inwood 2021). The other notable primary source you can see below this paragraph; civil rights activist Bayard Rustin in 1963 using maps to organize a march on Washington. The article explains that this is another way/reason for maps to be used to create politically disruptive movements for social change (Alderman and Inwood 2021). This is another parallel to my more recent example related to maps of global protests for anti-racism movements and solidarity for George Floyd. 

Expectations and Responsibilities of the Consumer

I think one of the most important parts of this article is the impact that it could have, either for awareness, education, and/or the future of social justice policy in the United States. We also have a responsibility as a consumer to take any source or article we see and properly evaluate it and reflect on it. The textbook and this week’s content discusses the importance of conducting participatory action research (PAR) which can create positive results associated with co-learning and collective action (Hay 2016, p. 352). This is the type of resource where we all have a responsibility to acknowledge the social injustices, inequities and structurally systemic issues that still impact an underrepresented minority of people. The text also mentions the important process of transformative reflexivity, in which the researcher and the audience or in the case of the textbook, person being researched to reflect on issues and “negotiate meanings of information generated together” (Hay 2016, p. 355). The text also talks about the technique of mapping to further our research and understanding of a topic. For reasons related to our social geographic topic in our final project, to the racial injustices seen in the United States and Canada over the past year, this seemed to be a prominent and important piece of writing to reflect on, and hopefully discuss further. 

References

Alderman H., D., & Inwood FJ., J. (2021, February 23). How black cartographers put racism on the map of America. Retrieved March 26, 2021, from https://theconversation.com/how-black-cartographers-put-racism-on-the-map-of-america-155081

https://www.loc.gov/static/classroom-materials/naacp-a-century-in-the-fight-for-freedom/documents/lynching.pdf

Hay, I. (2016). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford.

[aatgeog2260]

Hi Aden!

This is a very interesting topic that I don’t think many people have heard about!

I had recently read an article and learned about pinpointing racial and social injustices that are occurring because of COVID-19 and all of the data was shown on maps to portray the area most affected. It was concluded that the most affected area had low-income, low-education, and a population of visible minorities. I didn’t realize mapping injustices was something done in history as well! I think it’s a good way to share information with the public because sometimes the visual can be easier to understand.

You have done a great job at clearly identifying the sources used in this article! It’s obvious you understand the article, its content, and with the way you have described this extremely significant issue, I believe you have taken a look inside your invisible backpack before writing about it. I think you wrote about the topic in a very informative and respectful way!

Participatory action research is very relevant to this topic. Once people take on the responsibility of acknowledging and learning about social injustices, we can all move on to the next and the needed step of “organizing skills necessary to remedy the injustice” (Hay 2016, p. 350). This type of research can be challenging to do because of power relationships, but if done well can lead to positive social change!

I’m curious, will you be using mapping and cartography in your digital storytelling project?

-April

[jmageo2260-deactivated20210621]

COVID 19 and Mental Health

For this blog post I am going to be reviewing an online-news article that I found on cbc.ca/news. The article is called “From depression to self-harm, teens are struggling during COVID-19” and was posted March 15, 2021. It was written by Sandra Abma, a veteran CBC arts journalist. The Covid-19 outbreak has been very stressful and has already had a marked effect on people’s mental health.

The article’s key message is that the pandemic has had negative effects on the mental health of teenagers and the Ontario government is not providing adequate mental health services (Abma, 2021). Sandra talks to many parents who have noticed their children struggle during the pandemic as a result of not being able to socialize with peers and follow the same routines they are so used too.

Some of the research provided comes from a secondary source. Abma cites results found from association of provincial mental health agencies. Other data was collected through interviews. It is not clear whether or not Abma has interviewed them herself.  Abma could have provides more sources to further strengthen her argument, such as peer-reviewed journal article and additional studies.

According to Brown (2006), there are five criteria to take into consideration when evaluating literature. These are purpose, scope, authority, audience and format (Hooykaas, 2021). The author of the article most likely validated and verified the sources by collecting information about the interviewer or observer of the qualitative data and by examining their credentials. How did they collected this data and was the researcher that provided the data objective. Joanne Lowe is the vice-president of mental health and addiction at CHEO and Merissa Taylor Meissner is a counsellor with Family Services Ottawa. They are experts in their field and have experience and observations in the subject matter. The survey results were released by a provincial mental health agency and we can certainly be confident of the credibility, reliability and confirmability of the methodology used to come up with the statistics. Abma provides links from the organizations she collected the data and the people she interviewed.

I cannot speak of the type of interview that was performed, whether it was structured, semi structured or unstructured and what type of question were asked. Regardless, with the delicate nature of the subject matter and the age of subjects, ethical concerns need to be taken into consideration. The author of the article as well as the researchers have to be aware of their invisible backpack when writing the article as they most certainly had unearned advantages in their lives. Additionally, during writing and the interview process, critical reflexivity and objectivity should have been practiced (Hooykas, 2021).

Media plays an important role in keeping the citizens of Canada informed. Media outlets have a responsibility to be ethical and produce factual information. However as a consumer of media we also have a responsibility when reading and especially when sharing a news article or the information therein. It is our responsibility to cut through the noise and find the stories that are well reported, adequately sourced, and verifiable.

From depression to self-harm, teens are struggling during COVID-19 | CBC News. (2021, March 15). Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/mental-health-teenagers-pandemic-1.5945851 <https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/mental-health-teenagers-pandemic-1.594585>

Hay, I., (2016). Qualitative research methods in human geography. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press.

Hooykaas, A. University of Guelph, 2021

[asgeog2260]

Hey Jordan, great post! This topic certainly requires more attention, considering the major lifestyle changes everyone has been forced to make over the past year. I am not surprised that the articles main claim was that the pandemic has had negative effects on the mental health of teenagers in our area. I have personally felt pretty bound to my computer this past semester, not really leaving the house.

Considering this article comes from CBC news, it is certainly more mainstream media. As you described in your post, there could have been more references from the secondary source, making it a bit stronger of an argument. In the case of this article, the message is quite clear, and you can take that information to further research more scholarly sources. A perfect example would be the research you mentioned by the vice president of mental health.  

I couldn’t agree more with the information you provided in this article, as it was clear you were aware of potential bias within the article but still looked for adequate sources. How have you been holding up personally during Covid? What have you been doing as a pastime?

Best, Antonio

[aatgeog2260]

Hey Jordan!

I wanted to read your blog as soon as I read the title because I think this is an extremely important topic right now! I am sure that all age groups are struggling to deal with the impacts of COVID-19 but I can see how there is a concern for mental health in teenagers as we are still “in school” but constantly on our computers in isolation with no social interaction. It is a huge and very difficult change. I know a lot of people including myself who are struggling and hope that you are managing okay!

Considering there were several interviews done, do you think it’s possible the researcher may have used metaphor analysis? I suppose it depends on what type of questions were asked, and the type of interview, but perhaps if there were open-ended questions or a discussion format then the researcher would have to identify metaphors and information among different people. I suppose this also connects to a fantasy theme analysis considering it is looking at the stories people have shared and coming up with some sort of conclusion. 

I think you evaluated and analyzed the article very well and did a good job of determining its credibility. If the results were released by a provincial agency, you’re right that we can be confident that the information is accurate! 

I love your conclusion to your blog post! This is very important as there is a lot of noise in the media and it can be confusing to find the information we really want or need. We should evaluate our information so as not to spread that noise to others, because it can lead to misinformation and misunderstandings.

Thanks for this very informative blog post!

-April

[chgeog2260]

Critical Evaluation of Trawling & Climate Change Article

Link to article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/climate/climate-change-oceans.html

For this week's blog post, I decided to critically evaluate an article written by the New York Times called 'Trawling for fish may unleash as much carbon as air travel, study says. This was written on March 17th, 2021, by Catrin Einhorn, who covers wildlife and extinction for the New York Times. This article caught my eye in particular because, in high school, I was taught about the environmental impacts of the fishing industry, so since then, I have always wanted to learn more about the dark side of the fishing industry and make those around me aware of it too. Overfishing is already a significant issue, so the fact that trawling is releasing carbon and threatening marine life even more, is very alarming.

Sources and Evaluation

The article's key message is that studies have shown that trawling for fish may release as much carbon as the aviation industry, which would inevitably reduce the ocean's capacity to absorb the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (Einhorn, 2021). Catrin uses secondary sources like peer-reviewed journals and quotes from the marine biologists who conducted the study. For example, she discusses findings from a study and hyperlinks the study within the article. When evaluating the sources, Catrin uses scholarly articles directly from those who are conducting the studies. There was no reference to how these articles were evaluated, but Catrin hyperlinked the study she referred to. When deciding how the author analyzed the data, I had a hard time picking one because there was no sign of dialectical or metaphorical analysis. However, I think that there is slight use of fantasy theme analysis in that she looked at the implications for the community and the field (Hooykaas, 2021). In terms of the interview, there was no reference to the type of interview conducted. Catrin only quoted what the interviewees were saying and also didn't refer to her questions. From what I can gather, I think that she used a semi-structured interview. In terms of verification, Catrin refers to a "ground-breaking new study" that is peer-reviewed. I think overall; she validated her sources through the idea that peer-reviewed sources are credible sources.

As a reader of this article, I think the consumer's responsibility should be to check the author's sources. When reading anything, it is always a good idea to review the sources, even if they are peer-reviewed, because it can give them some more insight into the background of where the author got their information. In terms of expectations, I think it is good for the readers to understand what trawling is and how it works. There is some reference to how it works initially, but prior knowledge makes it an easier read.

Let me know what you guys think of the article!

References

Einhorn, C. (2021, March 18). Trawling for Fish May Unleash as Much Carbon as Air Travel, Study Says. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/climate/climate-change-oceans.html

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 9: Writing Qualitative Geographies, Constructing Geographical Knowledge Data Analysis, Writing, and Re-Evaluating Research Aims Presenting Findings.

[aatgeog2260]

Hi Caitlyn!

I found your post interesting because I would have never thought that trawling would be at the top of the list for issues contributing to climate change. From skimming the article you shared and fully reading your blog post, it is clear that it’s creating a major negative impact!

I think it was smart for the author to include their secondary sources however I found that it was more difficult to read the article with the way they were included. You had to click on the separate link to go and read a whole other article then come back to the original article. It would have been nice if there were more simple and condensed background information leading into this article’s topic, rather than going to different links. However, having said this, it is useful for someone who really wants to learn about this issue in great detail.

I agree that it was tough to determine the analysis used, but I think you’re on the right track with fantasy theme analysis since the author looked at many stories among different people and researchers. Perhaps the author used a dialectical analysis (searched for the most powerful conflicts in the data) while reviewing these many sources, but again it is hard to know for sure.

You have great thoughts on the consumer’s responsibility when reading and it applies to reading anything! Yes, checking the author’s sources can give more insight into background information and prior context, but checking the author’s sources can also help determine the credibility and validity of the work. It’s a good idea to double or even triple check the facts in other places to ensure you’re not consuming false information or maybe even information that is biased.

Thanks for a great blog post!

-April

[aatgeog2260]

Coding Qualitative Research: Economic Geography

This week’s lecture about coding was very interesting because it is something I typically already do when reading through, specifically, a peer-reviewed journal article, I just didn’t know this is what it was called. I find it especially helpful when writing annotated bibliographies. They are usually such long articles that I colour code them to keep track of the information and different concepts within that research.

The Purpose of Coding

Our textbook says that there are three main purposes of coding which are “data-reduction, organization and the creation of searching aids, and analysis” (Hay 2016). 

When I first read that we had to do this with our sources I thought it would be impossible because it sounded very time-consuming and tedious. Though it may be a lengthy process, the result is well worth it because a coded document is one that is organized, condensed, and easy to read through when looking back on the information.

Deductive VS Inductive

My digital storytelling group and I chose deductive coding which is where you start with a predefined set of codes, then assign those codes to new qualitative data (Hooykaas 2021). We decided that this would be best because we had each already read through a few of the articles when we were writing our annotated bibliography and had already highlighted some main concepts. Deductive coding is also advantageous to the group project because we all know what codes we were looking out for. If we had chosen inductive coding everyone would have created their own codes for the research they looked at and it would have been a challenge to combine everyone’s ideas into categories.

Hierarchical Framework

For our project, the hierarchical framework worked best because we have different levels of concepts and they needed to be organized based on how they relate to each other and their importance in an organized structure. We started off with the main concept of economic geography and broke that down into categories which further broke down into subcategories. Here is the visual we came up with:

Below are the colours we decided on for the categories and subcategories. Each category has its own colour while the subcategories underneath are a shade of that specific colour. 

The first document I have chosen is a peer-reviewed journal article that describes the important role economic geographers have in protecting the earth from environmental issues in the Anthropocene. Here is a screenshot of some of the coding I have done with this document:

The second document is an article from a literary magazine that discusses the politics of the Anthropocene in the world after neoliberalism. Here is a screenshot of some of the coding I have done with this document:

Application

Both of these articles are ones being used for the digital storytelling project on economic geography. Not only did I code them but I also annotated them and wrote comments on the side about some highlighted parts for better reference, more detail, or any thoughts or questions I had about that section. It will be combined very well with my group’s work because we will be able to combine how each category connects and synthesizes under the umbrella of economic geography. We also made it clear to stick with specific colours in the coding so that it will be very easy to track and organize the information. 

Before coding, my group and I also discussed definitional drift. This is when “the data at the beginning of the data set is coded differently than the material coded later” (Hooykaas 2021). My group and I decided on our codes and discussed the firm definitions and meanings before working on the documents so that we would avoid this. 

Moving forward, our coding documents will make it very easy to choose the relevant information needed to create our script for the project.

References

Gibson-Graham, J. K., Cameron, J., Healy, S., & McNeill, J. (2019). Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography—Economic Geography, Manufacturing, and Ethical Action in the Anthropocene. Economic Geography, 95(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2018.1538697 

Hay, I. (2016). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 8: Coding Qualitative Data.

Kelly, D. (2021, March 10). The politics of the Anthropocene in a world After Neoliberalism. http://bostonreview.net/science-nature/duncan-kelly-politics-anthropocene-world-after-neoliberalism.

[chgeog2260]

Coding Population Geography

This week’s lecture taught us about coding and how useful this is for conducting research and how it can narrow down the process for the researcher and pick out the relevant information needed for their research.

I coded two sources that my group is using in our digital story telling project. My first article is about population geography with heavy focus on the social impacts of migration. My second article is about the projection of mortality attributed to heat and cold. Specifically, the impact of climate change in a dry region of Iran. When coding I always want to have set colour coordination for my codes so that when going back through the articles it is very organized with an easy layout to understand.

My themes:

Mortality – Yellow

Policy – Green

Population and population change – Blue

Migration – Pink

Social impacts – Purple

I tried to focus my codes on ideas that were relevant to the purpose of our digital storytelling project rather than the main points of the article. This is because one of the articles I coded is used as a supplement to highlight how relevant population geography is across all subjects of geography. Overall, with my coding themes I aimed to have topics that reflected what my group is going to point out and explain about population geography.

Article 1: Mortality

Some of my highlights are larger sections but I did this to have a more general idea of what is discussed before I go into more detailed coding once I have a good idea of what I want to get out of the article. This article in particular is useful for our digital storytelling project because it demonstrates the impact of population on major issues like climate change. I used PDF format and highlighted the codes with the colours provided.

Article 2: Population Geography and Migration

Deductive Coding

I used deductive coding when analyzing the articles because my group already established the kind of information we wanted to take from the articles and how they would serve our research. So before coding, I decided what my five codes were, to really get the detail that applied to my project. My biggest challenge with this was not having bias when coding but I tried my best to refrain from letting the bias shine through. I also used a flat coding frame because each code I have has the same level of significance and specificity (Hooykaas, 2021). The only issues with this are that when going back to code for more detail it can make it hard to organize and navigate the concepts because there is no order.

Usefulness in our digital storytelling project

I think this coding will be very beneficial for our digital storytelling project because I used the articles we are using in the project and because it is a great way to get the key information from the articles and find things, I may not have considered being relevant at first glance. I think if all the group members combined code-relevant articles it will be very helpful in the long run. Overall, I think coding these articles has allowed me to gather and organize my thoughts and has helped with finding the main focus and takeaway from each article.

[aatgeog2260]

Hi Caitlyn!

This is a great blog post! I agree with the idea of highlighting bigger sections and themes when coding rather than one word. This way, as you said, you have a general idea of what was discussed in the research - it gives you more context for when you come back to it later to decide which information you would like to use. You also want to try and have a high quality code which means you should be able to cover as many types of data as possible. Personally, just highlighting the word would not be useful to me because it would be alone surrounded by unidentified text.

I also agree that it is difficult not to be biased with deductive coding. It is ironic because with this method, you determine the codes before-hand so you are potentially leaving out some main concepts the research may have, that you don’t find relevant for your own project. Technically that is exactly bias since you are ignoring  or avoiding other options. However, for our purposes and for time management in this project I do think deductive coding is more efficient than inductive. 

Overall I think you are doing an awesome job with the coding in order to find relevant information to your digital storytelling project. Great work! 

-April

[awgeog2260]

Coding Qualitative Research

The Articles I Coded

I decided to code two resources that are related to Rural Geography and include many similar topics, though the sources are quite different. The first piece of data is a peer reviewed journal article published in The Journal of Rural Studies and the second is a discussion paper written for a NGO called Food Secure Canada. The central theme of these two papers include rural land use and projections for the future of food structures, agriculture and rural development in the Global North. 

Deductive Coding and Flat Coding Frames

Since I already had an idea of some common themes in rural research, I chose to use Deductive Coding. I chose to come up with a the set of codes to start with because I had already read through these articles for the project and knew they have some key similarities related to Rural geography, and specifically I knew what themes they discuss. Also, I know what key subject matter I want to retain and include in our project, so using Deductive Coding saves me time and ensures I will get what I need from these sources. I also chose to use a Flat Coding Frame mostly because of the limited number of codes I included. Since I only have 4 codes, and all seem to have similar levels of importance for what I want to know from these sources, I chose not to use a Hierarchical Coding frame.

The Codes I Used

My four codes I used are Agriculture, Development, Community, and Sustainability. As said previously, I chose these codes before starting to actually code the papers because I knew these were common themes in rural research on rural land use and food systems, and my group wants to include these themes in our project. I also chose these codes because I feel they are encompassing of the issues in these 2 papers as well as some of the other papers my group has sed to help us with our Digital Storytelling Project. These are some screen shots of my coding in action:

I used different colour to highlight the codes using the preview app on Mac.

Applying This to the Assignment

Coding this research helped me narrow my focus on key themes that my group is focusing on in our project. It also helped me analyze similarities and differences in each source on these topics in an efficient way. I am aware of my biases that may come from doing the coding in this way, and the possibility of overlooking some themes that I have not coded, but I believe since I have already spent a couple weeks researching the literature on rural geography and these sources specifically, so I could narrow down some codes more easily. Coding helped me organize the data and my own thoughts. I believe this process will make the research process for the Digital Storytelling Project more rigorous. 

Resources

Knickel, K., et al. (2018). Between aspirations and reality: Making farming, food systems and rural areas more resilient, sustainable and equitable. Journal of Rural Studies. 59. 197-210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.04.012

Food Secure Canada. (2011). Discussion Paper 2: Food Sovereignty in Rural and Remote Communities. Human Rights Impact Assessment 

[kmgeog2260]

Hello!

I think the the way you went about your coding techniques (i.e. deductive and flat framing) to be a great way of starting your coding process for this project. I too used deductive coding for this specific assignment because I had previously read the information before and had an idea of what I wanted to take out of it. When applying these codes to your research assignment I think that it is smart to start with the focus in on key themes, that is something that I would also like to apply to my own research. I am currently working on research of Urban Geography so it is interesting to see the parallels between our topics, such as sustainability and development. Considering the increasing focus on environmental conservation and climate change it makes sense that these would have a lot of academic attention in the field of Geography. While coding did you have trouble narrowing down to these four codes? Another question I have for you is while coding thus far are you seeing that there is overlap in your codes or any interesting branches that would lead you to create new ones?

Great post, very informative!

[awgeog2260]

Hi Kaya,

Thanks for the reply! It is interesting seeing the overlap in urban and rural geography. I noticed this overlap in your coding assignment as well, specifically the use of 2 of the same codes, sustainability and development. I feel like we also had some similarities in the interviewing blog. Its cool to see the similarities and also dichotomy in urban and rural geographies.

I did have trouble narrowing down to four codes, since there is a lot of other themes that are discussed in these papers. The reason I decided on these 4 was because they seemed broad enough so that I would actually find enough information while coding, but were specific enough so I would get details I wanted to know.

There definitely are overlapping codes throughout rural geography research. Right now we are focusing on one main topic: land use in rural geography. So that is helping to narrow down what we are coding and what we are using in the final project. When deciding to focus on this topic, some new codes have came up, such as; industrialization, protection, countryside, and food security. Thanks for the questions! I am sure urban geography is as diverse a field as rural geography, I am wondering, did you find it difficult to narrow down to just a few codes for this assignment?

Alanna

[aatgeog2260]

Hi Alanna!

You have a really great start to your coding here! You mentioned in your comment that the codes you used are more broad because there was a lot of information discussed in your research. Due to this, I would suggest that along with highlighting the specific keyword in your research you could also highlight bigger sections and concepts that can go into that code. 

For example, on your first screenshot, the last bullet point in that list could be completely highlighted in blue for the code community because you’re gaining some more detailed information that can go into the broader category. This way you include how “particular ecological settings” are produced differently in different communities and you can think about how and why that may matter. 

I hope that makes sense! Personally, I just found that when I highlighted bigger sections and concepts there was more context to go along with the keyword or the code being used. The context is really helpful when you re-read to find specific information under that one main category.

I would also like to say that you provided really good reasoning for your choice of deductive coding. It is definitely easier to decide on predetermined definitions when you have already read through the sources and found common ideas and themes popping up throughout the research. It may have been harder to come up with your codes if the information was fresh and never seen before.

Thanks for a great post!

-April 

[kgeog2260]

Coding Qualitative Data

Introduction:

        For this week’s discussion I chose to code the peer reviewed journal article that discussed the decision making approach behind the inefficiency of water pumps in water scarcity scenarios in Sub-Saharan Africa, written by Narsimha Rao et al., (2016). I followed this up by also coding a similar article that discusses various policies for controlling water supply in Sub-Saharan Africa, written by Adams et al., (2018). Both these articles shared a similar topic, as well as similar verbiage to discuss the overall concept of water supply/scarcity throughout this region.

Coding Methods:

           I chose to take a deductive approach, in which I started with a predefined set of codes, and then assigned these codes to the new qualitative data (Hooykaas, 2021). I chose this approach for both my articles due to the fact that I had a premeditated idea of what theme I wanted to stick with. I then chose to use a flat-coding scheme that assigns the same level of specificity and importance to each code (Hooykaas, 2021). I understood the importance of the themes I was coding and felt I could keep it organized. The codes I chose to look for throughout both articles were: Sub-Saharan Africa (yellow), Water supply/scarcity (pink), Urban growth/population growth (green) and Water pump/Hand pump (blue).

Research Project:

Although these weren’t articles that my group will directly be using in our discussion of health geography, I thought both of them included interesting information in regard to clean drinking water in Africa. The implementation of water pumps in rural communities is important for supplying clean water to these regions in order to minimize sickness and death caused by contaminated water or no access to water at all. I thought this was an interesting sub-category within the general topic of health geography due to the fact that although these installations are seen as a solution to a health problem, they raise an entirely new problem within the topic of health geography. Although it would be interesting to explore the discussion of performance solutions to health issues within health geography, it doesn’t directly apply to our general discussion. It would however make an interesting research project in the future.

References:

Adams, E.A., Sambu, D., Smiley, S.L. (2018) Urban water supply in Sub-Saharan Africa: historical and emerging policies and institutional arrangements. International Journal of Water Resources Development. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2017.1423282

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 8 Coding. University of Guelph.

Narsimha Rao, R.G., Ahmed, S., Sailaja, R.R.N, Sharma, K.V. (2016). A decision making approach for energy efficiency improvement in municipal water pumps during water scarcity scenario. Energy Efficiency. Doi:

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-015-9354-2

[aatgeog2260]

Hi Karina!

I think the deductive approach and flat framework was the best idea for your purpose here so awesome job! The deductive approach I also find is a good way to “stick with” the main points you’d like to learn more about. Although an inductive approach would be less bias, it would be difficult to have main codes you would want to stick to, since it involves creating the codes while you are going over your sample data. Potentially, you could create an infinite amount of codes this way but it could become too specific. So I think it was wise to have a set of codes already defined for better organization and also time management. I agree flat framework works well here also because the codes seem to have equal importance in the research. 

Something I would suggest in your coding is to code themes, concepts, and sections that are related to the word you have decided on, rather than simply coding  the word. It appears that you have highlighted the exact words that are your codes which is a great start! However, what I retained from this week’s lecture is that you should be going through line by line to code as much as possible. This way, if you are coding phrases and sections there will be better context when you read back over instead of figuring out the purpose of that specific word in that piece of the research. 

For example, under the introduction in the second line you have “water demand and supply” in pink. That is a fantastic start as you have identified that keyword! Now when you go back over it, you could highlight those first two and a half lines altogether in pink for the context and the overall theme of sustainable access to clean water. 

I hope that makes sense! I also wanted to say that I like how you went further in the health geography research to pursue coding on a topic you’re interested in - great work!

-April 

[aatgeog2260]

Something There Is...

“Nothing escapes your keen eyes / and your pen records it” (Nicholson 40-41)

Chapter three of the textbook includes the poem Something There Is… by Barbara Nicholson. I was really interested in this poem when we read chapter three but did not have enough time to further analyze it. I am happy to have the opportunity now to look into it deeper and reflect on it. 

Aunty Barbara Nicholson

Aunty Barbara Nicholson is an Elder of the Wadi Wadi people of the Illawarra region. “She is a poet, activist, recipient of numerous awards in Aboriginal Education, a published academic, university lecturer and has taught course work to inmate students at Goulburn Gaol and Junee Correctional Centre” (Aunty 2020).

Invasion of Space

The following is an important line in her poem regarding conducting research:

“You go to a university / and get a bit of paper / that says you are qualified. / Does it also say that you / have unlimited rights / to invade my space?” (2-7)

As a researcher, you can’t just head into the research process solely thinking about the research when you are dealing with people. It is especially crucial when working with Indigenous Peoples because they have been exploited throughout history and are still treated unfairly today. Building trust would be difficult but very essential. A diploma from a university, of course, does not give anyone the right to invade a person’s space. 

Ethics

This poem illustrates very vividly the subaltern critique (subaltern meaning people or groups who are marginalized, oppressed, exploited, etc) of colonial research and how research is something that can very easily objectify people and violate their privacy (Hay 2016). It solidifies the vitality of the processes of ethics and consent. 

I think something that is overlooked is the result after the research is done. What happens next? We consider the idea of dropping yourself in on someone’s life and home is disruptive, but what happens next can be just as disruptive. Western science has often misrepresented Indigenous peoples and groups (Hay 2016). The participants involved don’t have enough power to change what is published and released into the world.

Expanding on this, researchers sometimes tend to try and fix what they see is wrong. However, it’s typically only wrong from their point of view and they fail to consider the way of life that Indigenous Peoples live and the traditions they follow.

“They will take over your lounge-room / and lay down laws for you to live by / --all for your own good of course; / they will point out to you / the necessity of changing your way of life / the prescriptive patterns of social behaviour” (94-99)

The line “all for your own good of course” is really interesting. Of course, in this context it is sarcastic. It is not for their (the participants) own good, that’s just how the researchers see it and will phrase it to those people. A person should not have to rearrange their way of life because another person states that their way is “correct”. 

Hope for Future Research 

This poem was written in the year 2000 and I am sure in the last twenty years things have improved. Of course, all of this doesn’t mean that people are no longer being exploited. However, courses like this one provide hope that future researchers are learning the importance of ethical considerations, consent, challenges in cross-cultural research, and the trust between the researcher and participant.

References

Aunty Barbara Nicholson. Sydney Writers Festival. (2020). https://www.swf.org.au/writers/aunty-barbara-nicholson/#:~:text=She%20is%20a%20poet%2C%20activist,Doctorate%20of%20Laws%20(UOW).

Hay, I. (2016). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford.

Nicholson, Barbara. (2000). Something There Is....

[kmgeog2260]

Covid-19 in Northwest Toronto & Mixed Methods for Geographical Research

A recent interest of mine in human geography …

Many interesting geographical studies on the impacts of Covid-19 on Toronto in the last few months have brought light to structural inequalities the city faces, specifically in Northwest Toronto. Northwest Toronto in October was accounting for nearly a quarter of the cases in Toronto which can be explain by this section of the cities marginalized, economic, gender and social inequalities. To give a brief synopsis some factors that can explain the viruses spread in Northwest Toronto are the high rates of low-income/ shared housing, high rates of factory jobs (i.e. Amazon) that were considered essential, and crowded transportation. Worst of all Northwest Toronto has lower than average healthcare access, with the lowest number of physicians surrounded by high healthcare needs before the virus even hit the city.

How this relates to the course…

The research done on Northwest Toronto from CTVnews can be an example of both qualitative and quantitative research. The researchers provide numerical data such as number of cases, distribution of cases in respect to their population, and poverty percentages (Hay, 2005). The qualitative side of this research looks at what human behaviours and social aspects have played into why the cases have been so bad in this area of Toronto (Hay, 2005). This research is an example of how Geographers use mixed method approaches to their research by the inclusion of qualitative and quantitative techniques. Mixed method approaches to research is what I find very interesting about geography. I am currently doing minors in both mathematical sciences as well as geography so encountering studies that use mixed methods is something that I can really utilize the skills and knowledge of my areas of interest.

What I would like to know more about…

Something that I would like to learn more about in this course is how and when qualitative and quantitative research comes together and what that looks like in practice. I know that statistically analysis is usually considered quantitative research, but I rarely see research studies that do not include some statistic(s) that form the basis of their topic. This being said it would be interesting to learn how statistical measures and other quantitative data can be utilized in geographical studies and when and why we use them.

Hay, I. (2005). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography(4th ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780199010912/cfi/0!/4/[email protected]:0.242

Freeman, J. (2020, October 28). Data show northwest TORONTO accounts for nearly a quarter of Recent COVID-19 cases. Retrieved March 04, 2021, from https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/data-show-northwest-toronto-accounts-for-nearly-a-quarter-of-recent-covid-19-cases-1.5165060

[aatgeog2260]

Hi Kaya!

Your post is really interesting and informative! I actually learned about this situation last semester in GEOG2230 and it was a big eye-opener to see how some people have to deal with COVID-19 differently than others. At a first glance, I figured that everyone is affected by this virus the same way, but when you take a second to actually think about it, of course there are obvious inequalities between different social, economic, and racial groups. 

It’s truly sad for these people in Northwest Toronto, as well as other marginalized and low-income areas, to go through this as they have to risk a lot when making important decisions. For example, if someone thinks they have COVID-19... will they stay home and quarantine for two weeks or will they go to work and risk spreading something to others because they can’t stay at home for two weeks? Not everyone can afford to take off work for that long. For many people that is extremely important to have that work in order to have food or heat in their homes. 

I like how you’re thinking about qualitative and quantitative research coming together. For some reason, I had always thought of them as very separate, maybe because we are taught to know the difference, but I would also be interested in learning more about what this combination involves when applied to research.

Thank you for your great post!

-April

[angeog2260]

How can the general public benefit from GEOG*2260?

Applied Human Geography was a required course for my major, and I took it having no idea what to expect. I enjoyed the quantitative statistics course I took last semester, and I do notice some similarities between qualitative and quantitative statistics. More so with the research process as a whole and having to consider ethical dilemmas and avoiding biases in research.

I enjoy the flexibility of this class. Most of my other classes are constrained to completing specific projects with strict guidelines and less leniency. Having the different project styles keeps it intriguing in this class, so we are not always doing the same thing every week. I am also enjoying the group project component of this, especially with the underlying circumstances. It is nice to have some kind of social aspect through our time with online learning.

I have always considered conducting research further in a Master’s program, and this class has allowed me to see the entire research process as a whole and understand the factors that have to be considered. I’m not sure if qualitative research is what I can see myself doing in the future, but regardless, I think that this class is beneficial for the general public to know. Understanding that everyone carries an invisible backpack and that each experience that one goes through differs from the next.

I found interest in the week two content when we touched upon critical reflexivity, power, the invisible backpack one can carry, and the paradigms/approaches to take with qualitative research. I liked learning and understanding that everyone carries an invisible backpack and that each experience that one goes through differs from the next. People engage in subjects from different viewpoints and I think that this is something that should be considered on a day-to-day basis. Talking to others and understanding their underlying circumstances and how they differ from your own can allow society to come together as a whole and look to change the issues that occur every day.

Generally speaking, I think that this type of course should be one that everyone takes part in because it has definitely given me a different viewpoint of understanding on topics and issues that occur around the world.

Amy

[aatgeog2260]

Hi Amy!

I really enjoyed reading your post and I agree with a lot of points that you brought up!

The flexibility with content in this class is definitely refreshing! The idea of creating a project that YOU have the chance to design, create, and produce is so much fun and because we only have this one project in the course (besides the blogs of course) it’s not very stressful. Like you said, having people work with you also really helps and decreases the stress because you actually have people to talk to about it! It’s especially comforting as there is not much social time with this pandemic!

I find that even our blog posts are very flexible. This week especially is amazing since we can write about whatever we want! Even when there is a topic to write about though, Dr Hooykaas makes the prompt very open-ended which allows us to respond how we want! It creates a better outcome because reading everyone’s ideas and thoughts on the blog prompts are always very different and it makes the content more interesting as well as helps to see things from a new perspective. 

I hadn’t thought about this before, but you’re right I think something like this course should be one that everyone should be involved in. I would say it would have to be tweaked to remove some content such as the research methods and approaches, however, the points you mentioned such as critical reflexivity and the invisible backpacks are concepts that everyone should be aware of. It could help to build a world that is less ignorant and one that is more focused on equality and justice.

Thanks for your really insightful thoughts!

-April

[ekgeog2260-deactivated20231114]

GEOG*2260 has been a bit of a dichotomy for Me

GEOG*2260 - Applied Human Geography has been an interesting experience for me and it has helped me a number of ways, but it has definitely been a dichotomy between being finding the course content important to learn and not being interested in doing what the course content teaches.

I mentioned in my 4th original blog post (Week 4, Feb 1-7) that I have zero interest in conducting academic research after my university education. For me, this class and the course content has helped me greatly in confirming that research is not the right path for me and my interests. It has been an interest experience for me being in a course that teaches solely about research techniques when I have already established to myself that I don’t want to do research as a career. Reading and learning about interviewing, creating questionnaires, research ethics, and research design has been slightly excruciating due to my lack of interest in applying those skills in a research project setting. However, there have been topics so far that I have found very interesting, both directly and indirectly relating to the specific course content.

Directly relating to the lectures and readings we have had, I have found the second lecture on the philosophy, power, and politics of applied human geographic research, as well as the Week 3 reading on cross-cultural research. I found that learning about critical reflexivity (the process of constant, self-conscious scrutiny of the self as a researcher and of the research process) (Hooykaas, 2021) very important, not only as a researcher, but as a person who thinks and processes information in everyday life. I have found that being aware of applying reflexivity when there is time to do so can have the potential to yield important insights about yourself and the way you interact with other people and the world around you. Learning about what it means to be objective, subjective, or intersubjective as a researcher is also something I have realized can apply to many other aspects of life (Hooykaas, 2021). I think the most important of these three concepts, that might not be realized as much as the others is intersubjectivity; that the researcher (yourself), the participants (the people around you), nor the nature of your interactions will remain unchanged during the research process (your relationships/life) (Hooykaas, 2021). I also enjoyed learning about cross-cultural research, specifically the differences and shifts between colonial, postcolonial, decolonizing, and inclusionary research (Howitt & Stevens, 2016). It’s exciting and heartening to learn about the shift towards inclusionary research, that can help “…empower subordinated, marginalized, and oppressed others…” through research (Howitt & Stevens, 2016).

Indirectly relating to the course content, I believe I am still interested in the concepts and issues that human geography attempts to research, and there are many of these that I see as important to address and as interesting to examine. For example, the predicament of Kiribati from Blog Post 2 is an issue that I think is one of major importance, and that needs to be addressed by the global community immediately. However, these issues are things that I would want to potentially address in a way other than as a researcher.

Thank you for reading my post! I appreciate any responses and I’m excited to hear what you have to say!

References:

Hooykaas, A. (2021, January 19). Week 2: Philosophy, Power, Politics, and Research Design. Lecture. Retrieved March 1, 2021, from https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/668082/viewContent/2673139/View

Howitt, R., & Stevens, S. (2016). Cross-Cultural Research: Ethics, Methods, and Relationships. In 1221261455 908622289 I. Hay (Ed.), Qualitative research methods in human geography (4th ed., pp. 45-75). Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.

[aatgeog2260]

Hey Eric!

I love reading your posts because they are so different from what most of us write since the majority of the students in this class have a big passion for research!

It’s truly ironic that you are in a research class even though you find research “slightly excruciating”, I think it is so funny, but at least you know 100% that you do not want to conduct research as a career! Even though it’s not your favourite class, it’s awesome you found some of the course content interesting, and I admire how you are expanding what we learn here for the purpose of research, to the application of these concepts in the real world.

“I have found that being aware of applying reflexivity when there is time to do so can have the potential to yield important insights about yourself and the way you interact with other people and the world around you.“

This sentence is phrased beautifully! If you are critically reflexive, you can be more aware of the values, opinions, and experiences you are bringing to important conversations with others and overall I think it helps prevent ignorance. It’s like how we must think about our invisible backpacks in life as well. What do I hold in my invisible backpack? Thinking about these things such as privilege and acknowledging them can really change the outcome of a conversation or a situation to be more positive or at least make them more sincere.

I also really liked learning about cross-cultural research and what it means! I was interested in what the geographer Richie Howitt said in chapter three of our textbook, that one of the biggest challenges is the audience that the cross-cultural research is presented to. For example, if it is only for academic research and the purpose is for specific researchers to learn more, then it is very easy to “be cast in a role as an “expert” on another culture” (Hay 67). It would be important to actually share the findings of cross-cultural research in varied and diversified communities.

Awesome thoughts, and I am glad you are interested in learning more about and helping situations such as the issue in Kiribati. If you don’t want to help as a researcher, how would you want to help otherwise?

I also don’t want to become a researcher, so I would also want to find a different way to help! Something like protesting to affluent governments that have the ability to help would be cool... what are your thoughts?

-April 

References

Hay, I. (2016). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford.

[aatgeog2260]

5 Minute Interview!

Who Would I Interview?

If I had five minutes to interview a key thinker in the field of economic geography I would interview Naomi Klein. She is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker who is known for analyzing politics and for her critiques on globalization and capitalism. Naomi Klein has written numerous books but the one that I have read is called This Changes Everything. In this book, she describes how the economic system and the planetary system are at war, and the only way to save ourselves from climate change is to drastically change our world and the way we live. I would be so excited to meet with her and interview her because she offers a fresh and authentic perspective on climate change, related to economics and politics. Rather than beating around the bush or sugar-coating issues, she will tell it as it is which is what the world needs at this point. 

What I truly find fascinating about Naomi Klein, is that she used to not know anything about climate change. She was an ordinary person, not a scientist or environmentalist, and she even denied that climate change existed simply because she was scared of it. It is truly inspiring that one day she just decided to stop thinking it was somebody else’s job to take care of it, and that she needed to get involved.  

Interview Questions

To help find the answer to “What is Economic Geography?” I would ask Naomi Klein the following questions:

1. What made you realize you had to start involving yourself in the issue of climate change?

This is a primary question that is easy to answer, with the purpose of easing the participant into the topic of discussion. I would hope to learn a little bit more about her story as well. 

2. How is the economic system linked to climate change? Have these always been linked? 

The idea of this question is to see if we can make connections across sub-disciplines of geography. The first part will give information on its relation to environmental geography, and the second part will extend into historical geography while keeping a light shined on economic geography.

3. Do you think that certain places are more or less responsible for environmental impacts depending on their economic system? How?

This is more about geography on the map, in order to understand how a place can influence power. This will also allow comparison and contrast on economic systems at play. 

4. Your book This Changes Everything states that “It’s not about carbon: it’s about capitalism”. Seven years later, and we are still entangled in the capitalist system. Do you think we will ever get out? 

This question is meant to touch on the political geography aspect and encourages thoughts about what this topic may have in hold for the future. 

5. Is there anything else that you would like to mention? 

This exit question provides the opportunity for the participant to share anything more they wish to include. It is beneficial to the researcher as a lot of rich information usually comes in this last question.

Overview 

I decided on the first question as an engagement question, something that is not difficult to answer, in order to make the participant comfortable with the discussion. This is important in qualitative research so there is no intimidation or dominance over the participant, but to build a good first impression and positive rapport between the researcher and participant (Hay, 2016). The exploration questions are meant to expand on the topic and get into more details. The ones that I thought of are to specifically include other sub-disciplines in geography that I think are directly related to economic geography, which is environmental, historical, and political. This would provide a deeper understanding of the field of economic geography rather than staying on the surface. I made sure to ask these in a way that Naomi Klein is familiar with, in other words, drawing upon concepts I’ve noticed in her book so that it is not scary or unknown. If a participant feels unworthy or unfit to answer the questions asked, it can greatly influence their answers (Hay, 2016). Finally, the last question is simply if the participant wants to add any information that wasn’t discussed already. This could be anything, but it is important to show that their voice matters and we care about what the participant has to say. 

References

Hay, I. (2016). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 6: Data Collection - Interviews, Oral Histories, Focus Groups.

Klein, N. (2015). This Changes Everything. London: Penguin Books.