Discussing Human Geography

My name is Abigail Tetlow and this is a blog dedicated to a university human geography class GEOG*2260 

[ahgeog2260-deactivated20211210]

A Course to Remember...

I won’t lie. If given the choice of which geography course to take, this would not have been the first pick for me. I tend to steer clear of the more technical fields of geography and only take an interest in those concerning the environment, but I can honestly say that I enjoyed this course more than I anticipated. The content and the way it was delivered were engaging and thought-provoking. As I take a look back at the semester, this will be a course I recommend in the future.

What I Learned About Human Geographic Research

I learned a lot from this course but there are a few topics that are engraved in my mind. The first is known as critical reflexivity, a process of self-evaluation and criticism as the researcher and on the research process (Hay, 2016). There are three types to choose from, objectivity, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity (Hay, 2016). Critical reflexivity is a large part of being a researcher that comes with difficulties, for example, power (Hooykaas, 2021). This was a confusing concept for me in the beginning, but as we dove deeper into the course material and I reviewed my notes it became more clear.

The second topic is known as research ethics. All research is held to a high standard and must follow certain guidelines (Hooykaas, 2021). I learned this is necessary to keep participants safe and allow for the researcher to reap benefits such as funding and being published (Hooykaas, 2021). I was unaware of how much preparation and consideration went into conducting research and the parties involved.

The third topic is known as coding. Coding is used when researching to categorize and analyze data (Hooykaas, 2021). There are two primary types of coding, deductive and inductive, as well as two types of coding frames, flat and hierarchical (Hooykaas, 2021). Coding can also be based on different aspects depending on the topic of your research, for example, you can choose to code by use of themes, ideas, terms, or keywords (Hooykaas, 2021).

What Confuses Me

The delivery of course content allowed for an adequate understanding of most course materials. The most confusing unit was that on analyzing surveys. I have a slight understanding of the different types of data but they have always provided me with struggles. I was not aware that surveys are much more complex than asking questions and receiving answers.

A second confusing concept arose in unit nine, critical analysis. We were required to write a blog post critically analyzing an article. This was an intimidating experience as I had not yet inquired an in-depth understanding of the material. I was able to review the content and develop a small understanding, but I am no expert in the subject.

A concept that I have long struggled to understand is that of qualitative and quantitative research, data, and everything else relating to those two concepts. These two concepts have been used since elementary school days and I still am unable to grasp their meanings and how to apply them.

What I Know for Certain About Myself as a Human Geographic Researcher

One of the main things that I know for certain is that I will often unconsciously apply certain concepts to daily life as my human geographer instincts kick in. For example, research ethics will force me to be considerate of the way I converse with others on a day-to-day basis, while using critical reflexivity to evaluate the process to ensure I am being respectful.

A second thing that I know for certain is that, even with my newfound appreciation for human geography, I much prefer the environmental side of geography that works with concepts such as the human impact on the environment and climatology. With that being said, there are various concepts from this discipline that are useful to all disciplines, including environmental geography

The last thing that I know for certain about myself as a human geographer is that I am nowhere near finished with learning and I don’t believe I ever will be. There will always be new concepts and methods of researching as the year's pass.

What I Need To Feel Confident in My Skills as a Human Geographic Researcher

To feel more confident in my skills, I would like to further my knowledge of coding and the different types. I believe this concept would be extremely beneficial in other courses as I complete assignments, but only if I can obtain a superb understanding of the topic as I believe it would prolong my assignments if I was still met with confusion. I believe furthering my understanding of data collection, specifically, the types of questions to ask would be extremely beneficial for post-undergrad. Knowing what types of questions to ask depends on the results you are looking for could prove to be useful when completing research assignments or inquiring about job positions. The last, and most important, area that I need to spend time on to feel more confident in my human geographic research skills is doing more research outside of class materials and assigned readings when something is unclear to further my understanding of the topic. I often do the bare minimum to receive average grades, but I would like to start implementing a few practices, such as additional research, to receive above-average grades.

Concluding Remarks

As I have stated earlier, and in previous blog posts, this course exceeded my expectations and there are various concepts that I will take away from this experience and apply to my studies and daily life. Thank you Dr. Hooykaas.

References

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

Hooykaas, A. (2021). GEOG*2260 Applied Human Geography. University of Guelph.

[atgeog2260]

Hi Alyssa!

I appreciate your honesty and agree that I may have also overlooked this course too for the same reason. I was attracted to your post because we share a lot of the same ideas.    

We both also mentioned the notion of critical reflexivity, the constant, self -conscious scrutiny of your work and yourself as a researcher is such an important part of being a successful, ethical, respectful researcher (Hay. 2016.pg34). As you mentioned, with this ability comes great responsibility. You must be careful not to use the power you have as a researcher and abuse it, you must be respectful of others. One thing I mentioned in my own post as well was that being a human geographer requires you to be held to a high ethical standard. Because you are dealing with a multitude of people all from rich and diverse backgrounds you must have some respect for fellow human beings.

I really loved what you said for your final point under the ‘What I Know for Certain About Myself as a Human Geographic Researcher’ section. You said:

“I am nowhere near finished with learning and I don’t believe I ever will be”

I think that is such a wonderful mindset to have when it comes to being a student of any subject. I admire this approach you have to learning, there is always more to know and you should never stop expanding your knowledge. Below is a similar quote I love by the famous Greek philosopher Socrates. 

Your references to course material were done very well, as well as your organization and you communicated your thoughts very clearly.  Overall I have enjoyed reading your posts throughout this semester. 

Wonderful post, all the best !

Abi :) 

References 

Hay, Iain. Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford, 2016

[jkageog2260]

My Final Thoughts on GEOG*2260

Throughout the semester, I have learned many new techniques and methods applying to human geography. I thoroughly enjoyed this semester and I want to take the time to highlight the new information I have gathered throughout the semester and my experiences with this course.

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

When starting this class, I had never really done qualitative research. I can now confidently say that I know what is included when it comes to qualitative research. As Hay emphasizes in our textbook, qualitative research demonstrates the relationship between people and places (2016). I gained a lot of knowledge on qualitative research when writing our blog prompt #3 as we analyzed an interview video on Agafia. Qualitative research focuses on the process, rather than the product, and is very descriptive and detailed by using an inductive process (Hooykaas, 2021, Week 2). Hay also highlights the fact that qualitative research typically includes very detailed interviews rather than just questionnaires (2016), which is what the interview with Agafia was. I feel confident in saying that I understand the parameters of qualitative research and how they are applied in real life.

Secondly, this class has taught me how to confidently collect data and create a research proposal. The digital storytelling project really furthered my knowledge in presenting research. Blog prompt #7 taught me how to deductively code using a flat coding frame. Coding is very important in data collection as manually coding qualitative data means that the coder’s cognitive biases can influence the coding process (Hooykaas, 2021, Week 8). Once the coding is done, you can then begin the process of writing up the research and forming a research question/proposal. The textbook taught me the importance of creating a strong write-up that can then lead to a final question (Hay, 2016). We used this technique in our digital storytelling project to gather research and come up with a final research question. 

Lastly, I fully understand the extent of critical reflexivity, objectivity, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity. I learned that reflexivity is the process of continuous self-consciousness of oneself as a researcher and the research process (Hooykaas, 2021, Week 2). Reflexivity comes with power and subjectivity as subjectivity “involves the insertion of personal opinions and characteristics into research practice” (Hooykaas, 2021, Week 2). With reflexivity comes an invisible backpack. We must unpack our own experiences and knowledge to understand how others may think and act differently from us. This is very important in research as we need to be aware of the circumstances of the situation, and how people may perceive things differently.

These three things I am still confused by:

One thing I am still confused about in this course is ensuring that my research question is strong enough. I feel confident in the process of getting to the research question, but when it comes to actually create the question, I am not sure if I fully understand how to make it strong. As the textbook showed us “Writing a Compelling Research Proposal” (Hay, 2016), I still feel unsure on how to verify if it is powerful enough. For my digital storytelling project, our final research question was “What is Rural Geography?”, which to me did not sound intelligent enough, however, it worked very well for us. I want to understand further what would be considered a strong research question. 

Another thing I am still confused about is the other side of coding. As I mentioned, I fully understand deductive coding with a flat coding frame, however, I still don’t quite understand inductive coding with a hierarchical coding frame. We learned that inductive coding means taking your data and breaking it into samples, then individually coding those samples (Hooykaas, 2021, Week 8). I don’t understand what it means to create new codes on all of your samples, to me it seems like it will take more time. I understand that a hierarchical frame shows you how everything relates, but I don’t understand how to layout the frame, and to me, it looks much busier and harder to read.

Lastly, I don’t fully understand how analyzing surveys work. I still get confused by the four types of data responses and how to categorize them. I am then unsure how relative frequency statistics work and the math behind them. We learned that you, “calculate the total number of responses and then divide the number in each category by the total” (Hooykaas, 2021, Week 5). Then sorting the data between ordinal and interval confuses me as they seem quite similar. How I am used to analyzing surveys and data is very different from this approach so I am still slightly confused about how it all works.

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

First, I know for certain that I have my own invisible backpack and my own personal experiences that I can use to further my understanding of human geography. This course has taught me how to recognize my own privilege and knowledge and how it may differ from others. As Hay mentions the relationship between people and places (2016), I know that I also have relationships with places all over the world, the same as everyone else. I have learned how to use this knowledge to strengthen my research and apply it to my work, like in the digital storytelling project I could relate to the struggles of living in a rural area.

Secondly, I know that I can apply human geography to physical geography, as that is where my focus is. As much as I enjoyed this class, my heart will always be set on physical geography. After this course, I realized that there are many techniques I can take with me in my physical geography future. For example, I hope one day to be doing fieldwork, and with my new understanding of qualitative research, I know that I can apply techniques of qualitative research, such as detailed interviews, in my field. The textbook helped me to understand how interviews should be done ethically (Hay, 2016), which I can now use for myself.

Lastly, one thing I know about myself as a human geographic researcher is that I enjoy working in a group setting. The digital storytelling project took up many weeks this semester, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with my rural geography group. I found that bouncing ideas off of each other would help us to create the best work possible and that it helps to have a second opinion. I found that having a group motivated me to work harder as we all shared the same project. After this class, I now know for certain that I enjoy working in a group as it is extremely beneficial to my work.

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

As I mentioned feeling confident in qualitative research, I think it would be beneficial to spend more time understanding quantitative research. I believe that both are important skills to have in human geography, as they build off of each other. As Hay did highlight certain quantitative methods such as surveys and analyzing (2016), I think that I would feel more confident in my research if I could spend more time covering statistics and other quantitative methods.

I also want to spend more time working on my interviewing skills. During our blog prompt #5, I got to dive into an interview process slightly and received some great feedback from other classmates. After reading other blog posts, I think that my interviewing skills can be improved. I want to ensure that my questions hold the power to gather informative answers. I also want to ensure I follow all of the ethical considerations highlighted in the textbook, such as consent and privacy (Hay, 2016). I believe that strengthening my interviewing skills can help me in my future career. 

Lastly, I want to spend time developing research proposal skills as I mentioned I am still slightly confused on how to create the perfect research question. I think that having a powerful question severely impacts all of your other work, and draws the reader in. Hay (2016) taught us the importance and how to generate a research proposal. As I learned many new things, I want to spend more time fine-tuning my skills. I believe that this will have a positive effect on not only me as a human geographer but a physical geographer as well.

Last Comments

Overall, I had a great semester in this class and really enjoyed these blogs posts. Thank you to everyone who engaged with my posts as I certainly enjoyed reading all of yours! 

References 

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

Hooykaas, A. (2021) Weeks 2, 5, 8. 

[atgeog2260]

Hey Jordan!

First I would like to say I loved the photos you used throughout your post, it added a nice visual and kept me engaged in your reflection. We seem to share a lot of points here, especially in what elements of the course confused us.

You mentioned how writing a research proposal confused you and how it would cause doubt in your mind as to whether your research question would be good enough. Similarly I wrote about how chapter 6 of the textbook discusses ‘Qualitative research design and rigour’ and how this would be stressful for me as well. The whole process of designing a research project seems to be a very daunting task to me. With all the different types of research methods and sub methods I found myself getting confused. Asking myself ‘which method is effectively used for which scenario?’ and ‘how do you know you have used the right one?’ Etc. 

We also agreed upon the subject of coding, and how that was a source of confusion for us. Though this is a very useful research tool in narrowing down your sources and searching for new ones, it still seems to be something I need to work at understanding fully. 

We both also mentioned the notion of an ‘invisible backpack’. Recognizing the privileges we carry around with us every day is an important part of critical reflexivity, looking at your situation from another perspective is crucial in this line of work.

Your references to course material were done very well, organization was excellent and you communicated your thoughts very clearly. Again the images you incorporated were beautiful and kept me interested throughout. Overall you did an awesome job and I have enjoyed reading your posts throughout this semester. 

Great post! 

Abi :) 

References 

Hay, Iain. Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford, 2016

[atgeog2260]

My Final post

This course has been an eye opening experience and has taught me so much. For my final post I will discuss some of the ups and downs of the course, concepts that were difficult to grasp, concepts I most enjoyed and how this has shaped me into the human geographer that I am today.            

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

I know for sure that a lot of qualitative methods of research are used more often than quantitative. Because you are dealing with people , stories, experiences and cultures it is hard to quantify this kind of data in a graph or represent it statistically. (Hay.2016.pg5). 

In order to work in the field of human geography having a good sense of ethics and respect for others is essential. Because you are dealing with a multitude of people all from rich and diverse backgrounds you must have some respect for fellow human beings. One thing to keep in mind when dealing with people is the sense of power dynamics (Hay.2016.pg35), this can lead to unjust policy making decisions, data being swayed to favor one group over another etc. This ties into the idea of ‘the invisible backpack’ ,"Does everyone engage in the world in the same ways? Describing one’s privileges makes one newly accountable.”(Hooykaas, Week 2, 2021). An invisible backpack is all the privileges we carry around with us everyday, and heavily influences how we view the world and how we treat others. Treating everyone with the same respect and mutual understanding no matter what they carry with them is an important part to data collection in this sub field.    

Critical reflexivity is also a term used a lot in human geography and is a key element to qualitative research. “Reflexivity, is a process of constant, self -conscious scrutiny of the self as researcher and of the research process. In other words, being reflexive means analyzing your own situation as if it were something you were studying”(Hay. 2016.pg34).  I know for sure that this is a crucial part to any form or research, case study or situation. Always to keep an open minded unbiased approach and to look at your own work from another persons point of view.   

These three things I am still confused by:

Luckily the majority of the concepts discussed throughout this course I found easy to grasp. However, the concept of coding discussed in week 8 still gives me some trouble(Hooykaas.2021. week8). “Coding is a process by which researchers structure and interpret qualitative data. When doing discourse analysis, coding serves two primary functions: organization and analysis of source materials“ (Hay 2016, p302). I understand what coding is and why it is done, but when we were digging deeper into the types of coding (whether you have inductive or deductive coding and whether you use flat coding or hierarchical coding etc) this is when things got a little confusing for me.  

Another concept I found to be challenging was discussed in chapter 6 of the textbook ‘Qualitative research design and rigour’. “The questions we ask, the cases and participants we involve in our studies, and the ways in which we ensure the rigour of our work need to be considered; these are hallmarks of any dependable research”(Hay.2016.p117). The whole process of designing a research project seems to be a very daunting task, and with the numerous types of research methods and sub methods I found myself getting confused. I was asking myself ‘which method is effectively used for which scenario?’ and ‘how do you know you have used the right one?’ Etc. 

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

As a human geographer I know I will try to keep an open mind, be respectful and ethical when conducting research. I know I am capable of searching for sources and filtering out ones that aren't applicable to my research. I am capable of analyzing data and reporting on my findings and effectively communicating with peers and coworkers. 

I know I am personally interested in exploring and learning about different cultures and their unique practices. I absolutely loved the number of case studies we looked at in this class. I watch case studies and documentaries on other cultures' way of life in my free time, so to be assigned this as homework was an absolute joy to me.  Because of this I especially loved the hypothetical research blog post (blog post4), something about learning how the geography of a landscape has such a large impact on the culture that inhabits it fascinates me. This is something chapter 7 of the class textbook discusses in more depth.

 “The primary guiding philosophical assumption is that in-depth understanding about one manifestation of a phenomenon (a case) is valuable on its own without specific regard to how the phenomenon is manifest in cases that are not studied” (Hay. 2016.pg131)   

One documentary I watched recently that I found to be interesting and quite beautiful I would like to share with you all (see below) 

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

What confused me about the topics we discussed in this course are also areas I would like to improve on. These areas may have been confusing but I would also like to work at them as they are essential elements to the research processes. 

As well as the art of conducting a good Interview. Though I have had little experience with this I feel this is a very valuable skill to master. I feel an interview is a valuable piece of qualitative data to support a research project. Oral histories (discussed in chapter 9) are a form of interview and are also a valuable source of data. Having a real life story told by someone who was present during the time of an event , gathering first-hand knowledge surrounding this event/subject is very vital information. 

I would also like to improve upon my research gathering abilities. Narrowing down my research questions/search terms is something I am still working on. This will be useful so that my search results are more applicable to what I am searching for.   

References 

Hay, Iain. Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford, 2016. Chapters 1,2,6,7,8,9

Hooykaas, (2021). Week 8, Coding

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

[asgeog2260]

National Geographic: Locust Plague Hits East Africa

I came across an interesting article posted by National Geographic yesterday entitled “A locust plague hit East Africa. The pesticide solution may have dire consequences” and was quite intrigued. This article was posted on March 24, 2021 by Tristan McConnell and explains the current situation on pesticide use in East Africa.

The article explains that since late 2019, a ridiculous number of locusts have been swarming several countries in East Africa, eating tons of crops and pastureland.  With resources scarce, major steps have been taken in order to eliminate the insects. According to McConnell “a ground and air spraying campaign over eight East African countries, coordinated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, has staved off the worst” (McConnell, 2021). While food stocks have been protected in order to feed millions, the potential effects of these pesticides could be quite devastating. McConnell also stresses that over half a million gallons of chemicals have been dumped, with no signs of slowing down. In my opinion the most interesting part of this article is how the author had expressed his feelings on a seemingly nonexistent environmental assessment plan. Further explaining the lack of research surrounding these chemicals in this particular location.

This article certainly provides an abundance of information on this topic, but is the article trustworthy?  While National Geographic is one of the most popular magazines out today, there can certainly be some bias within the articles. Firstly, it is important to note that no sources have been listed in the article itself, but the author has made several references to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Thus, this article would be considered more of an opinion piece, with the guided help of one decent source. Personally, I would have performed more research on the chemical being used in particular, diving into those scholarly journals to provide a few more solid sources to the case. As we have discussed several times throughout the semester, it is essential to back up all point through multiple scholarly sources to avoid bias.

Honestly, the subject matter of this article was very interesting, but does contain quite a bit of noise. It provides a background on the subject but lacks strong evidence. I would use this article as a steppingstone and perform more research in order to develop my own opinions. After reading the entire article, I do believe environmental impact assessments should be carried out on matters like this regardless.

Do you think the authors style of presenting the information should have been more scholarly, or is this just an example of a Geography magazine attempting to raise awareness?

McConnell, T. (2021, March 25). A Locust plague hit East Africa. the pesticide solution may have dire consequences. Retrieved March 26, 2021, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/locust-plague-hit-east-africa-pesticide-solution-may-have-dire-consequences

Hooykaas, A. University of Guelph, 2021

[atgeog2260]

Hello Antonio, 

I found your post very interesting. I particularly liked that you questioned why the article did not have more scientific sources. I think that for students like us who want to understand why issues are occurring and what can be done about them, a lack of scholarly sources can seem suspicious. however, I think National Geographic has an understanding of the kind of audience they are reaching. I know for many people the point of reading National Geographic is to simply learn something new about the world at large. Where as for people like ourselves, we want to understand the deeper foundations of the issues being presented to us, and be presented with sources that offer concrete solutions. 

The same concerns you had with your article I also experienced with my own. I wrote my post on an article about the poaching of elephants in Africa. While the article itself was informative, it did seem to simply be a lot of noise like you described yours as being. The article clearly took the stance that the poaching of these elephants was a bad thing, but there were no links or references to anti-poaching organizations or any other methods of taking action. I feel you and I both agree that getting information about issues out to as many people as possible is important; however, I think we also both agree that there should be references made to some scientific evidence to ensure the integrity and seriousness of the issue.

Great post! 

[atgeog2260]

Extinction: Elephants driven to the brink by poaching

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56510593 

Background/Key message 

The article I will be discussing is titled “Extinction: Elephants driven to the brink by poaching” written by Victoria Gill on March 25th, 2021. The threat of extinction of African forest elephants and Savanna elephants (the two distinct elephant groups) based on herd numbers is much more underestimated than had previously been thought. Recent studies and statistics being released suggests that poaching seems to be having a large impact on native elephant species and is said to be one of the main drivers for the current situation. 

“-the number of forest elephants fell by more than 86% during the past three decades. In addition, the number of savanna elephants fell by at least 60% over the past 50 years.”

Not only poaching but also land degradation and fragmentation is a large concern, as herds are increasingly losing habitat. Loss of grazing ground because of human activity (e.g. changing farming practices such as increased farm size) exacerbates survival problems as  elephants require a large roaming zone and to be able to travel vast distances. This means that herd protection and conservation is not restricted to individual nations and requires multinational coordination, since these animals do not recognize national boundaries. The wildlife specialists quoted in the article have faith that we can restore the elephant population with careful environmental preservation tactics and that “conservationists doing work on the ground in Africa to protect habitats would be the most crucial players in the effort to protect the animals. Those are the organizations to donate your money to". In particular, it was noted by one conservationist that the mere recognition that wild elephant populations are under threat is a big, positive step forward and she also noted that many African governments are very willing to help in partnerships to support conservation.

Sources and Methods Used    

One of the research methods that was used in this article was “Validity and Authenticity” (Hooykaas, week 9, slide 21) and the main strategy that was used was “use of expert consultations”. Other than data showing percentage reductions in forest and savannah populations over the past decades, not much quantitative data was presented, but rather the author decided to reference many specialized people in the field to give an overview of the current predicament. One of these professionals being Dr.Ben Okita, who co-chairs the IUCN elephant specialist group, Isla Duporge from Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford and also Amy Fraenkel, executive secretary of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals.

The textbook brings up something called “Participatory Action Research” which is “The knowledge about social injustice includes understanding methods for change and thus organizing skills necessary to remedy the injustice” (Hay 2016, p350). I feel this is applicable to the notion of poaching because although this situation is not obviously dealing with social injustices, if you dig a little deeper into the topic it becomes clearer.  The reason for the poaching in the first place is definitely a social issue, they are driven to harmful activity through widespread and abject poverty in many of the regions. Affective policing and reduced poaching of wildlife reserves in turn helps the local tourism industry in some areas which rely on a vigorous and healthy wildlife ecosystem to attract rich tourists. People come from all over the globe to see these beautiful creatures and such tourism helps support both the local economy and finance wildlife reserves. 

The article also highlights the importance of DNA technology (the use of maternal (mitochondrial) DNA to identify individuals in herds and their origins in order to see which herds are under threat and from where. For example, confiscated tusks give a clue as to which herds (and their location) are being targeted by poachers, enabling effective counter poaching/policing.

Consumer expectations 

After reading this article the consumer is expected to and encouraged to think deeply about their own actions and about how situations like these could so readily be swept under the rug if not shared and read about. Consumers are encouraged to read more about this topic and to spread the word, as well as to support conservation groups, anti poaching organizations, and not purchase ivory products (the latter is not explicitly mentioned but is implied). This article will help raise awareness and educate the population on an important, underestimated topic concerning biodiversity, not only regarding the elephant population of Africa, but other animal groups threatened with extinction. 

References 

Gill, B. V. (2021, March 25). Extinction: Elephants driven to the brink by poaching. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56510593

Hay, Iain. Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford, 2016

Hooykaas, (2021). Week 9: Writing Qualitative Geographies, Constructing Geographical Knowledge Data Analysis, Writing, and Re-Evaluating Research Aims Presenting Findings https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/668082/viewContent/2737908/View  

Hooykaas, (2021). Week 10 :How to Market your Skills 

https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/668082/viewContent/2744643/View 

[atgeog2260]

The importance of Interviews.

So far this course has far exceeded my expectations, it has taught me so many transferable, practical skills that will be useful as I progress further in my career as a geographer or in any other field of research. It is very difficult to pick one thing that resonated with me because everything combined together has been such an eye opening learning experience. 

If I were to choose one thing it would be the value and importance of a good interview. Last week we discussed the structure of interviews and what a professional one looks like. I did not realize that there is essentially a whole science behind conducting a successful interview, as I progressed through the textbook chapter I was more and more amazed at all the information I did not know. An interview is more than a conversation, it is a portal into someone else’s reality, seeing the world as they do. 

There are many different kinds of interviews, some with grief stricken inhabitants of remote parts of the world and some with established authors and academics. My above statements apply to all sorts of interview types. Thus far in the course the interviews we have discussed and watched short films about have been more of the ‘oral history’ (Hooykaas 2021, Week 6) type and have been dealing with case studies. This has been the most interesting aspect of the course thus far for me as you can directly apply geographic, environmental, and economic situations we learn about in classes to real people and listen to how these situations affect their daily lives. This information is so pure and powerful that simply writing papers or textbooks about it dulls the impact of the situation, whereas in a video/ interview format you feel as though you are having a conversation with that person and feel a more human connection to the situation. Interviews are such an important piece of qualitative research and hold such a large impact when trying to prove a case to any form of higher power or even the general public. This is why documentaries are so influential and impactful as well, they are easily digested by almost everyone and provide an audio visual representation of a crisis or a situation in a short amount of time. If a picture is worth a thousand words then a video must be many more. 

One of my favorite interviewers is Michael Parkinson, he is a British interviewer and TV personality. What I love about his style of interviewing is he simply listens and waits for the interviewee to fully answer the question with no interruption. He is light hearted, asks thought out engaging questions and makes small jokes when appropriate to put the guest at ease. Unlike many TV hosts/ personalities he gives the guest space to talk and communicate their thoughts and feelings effectively. I have attached below interview he conducted with Jacob Bronowski the scientist, author, and very interesting person. 

An interview is almost like an interrogation and the most effective interrogators build trust with their subjects (according to John Le Carré the author and ex British secret service operative, he said this in an interview I will link below in the reference section if you are interested)

I would love to know more about documentary filmmaking and all the behind the scenes preparation that goes along with it, as well as more in depth analysis of all the various types of interviews and how the outcomes change depending on each style. Physical geography fascinates me but when you combine it with human geographies and add an ethnographic element in there that’s when I am really engaged and my interest peaks. I really hope we learn more about particular groups around the world and listen to more case studies similar to the ones we have already discussed, they are absolutely fascinating to me. 

References

BBC Radio 3. (2013, September 13). John le Carre filmed interview on BBC Radio 3 Night Waves at London’s Royal College of Music. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoSdtgTWPK8

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 6: Data Collection - Interviews, Oral Histories, Focus Groups https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/668082/viewContent/2694661/View 

[smkgeog2260]

Hi Abi! (I was writing this response as you replied to mine and saw you signed it by Abi so I hope that is okay!)

I really enjoyed reading your post this week! For me, it was hard to pick a topic but it seems like you picked one that interested you. I have the same view as you where I did not realize how much goes into a structured interview and what rules researchers should follow to make sure everything is ethical and respectful.

Throughout your post, you mentioned that you had a favourite interviewer such as Michael Parkinson (who I never have heard of) but he sounds enjoyable and humble. I also watched a little bit of the video you linked to your blog. I agree with you in the fact that he is light-hearted and carries himself in a way that makes the guest comfortable. These are extremely important when conducting an interview to make sure the interviewee does not feel uneasy. It seems you are super interested in research such as interviewing people, which is awesome. I am interested in physical geography as well but it would be hard for me to make it a hobby or career in researching it. Although research studies are not as fun for me, I am interested in learning about case studies about groups around the world as you mentioned.

Do you want to continue to research after university? As you mentioned about human geography mixed with physical geography?

[atgeog2260]

Hey Sara, 

Sorry for the late response, 

That makes complete sense to me, a lot of people are turned away from research and I can understand why it definitely isn't for everybody. Personally I have no experience in it though so I might not actually like it either haha. It just seems interesting to me and I would be willing to give it a try someday. 

To answer your questions, I would love to pursue some form of research during University. Something like helping out in a research lab or helping someone complete their research project sounds very fascinating to me. After university however I am looking to get into some form of teaching, whether that be school children or adults looking to learn English. 

-Abi :)

[smkgeog2260]

Coding Social Geography

Hi everyone!

For this week’s blog, I decided to put my focus on COVID-19 and inequality articles since that is my main focus for my role in the digital storytelling project. To start, this pandemic has impacted social geography significantly and using coding can help depict the meaningful quotes in an article and from there we can decide their significance. Another of our group’s goals is to focus on highlighting the effects that social geography has on racial injustice. Social geography has effects on both the topics of racial injustice and COVID-19 in various ways and is an extremely current example of why studying social geography can be so important as we try to figure out “What is social geography?”. The first article I am going to be coding is Geographies of the COVID-19 pandemic and the second is How segregation leads to racist voting by whites.

What coding did I choose and why?

I decided to use deductive coding because when looking through these sources I knew I would be looking for similar themes throughout them. Using this method, I would be able to make a connection between the themes in the sources I was going to use as well. From there, I decided to use a flat coding frame. It was mentioned that this method can “slow down the decision- making” (Hooykaas, Week 8, 2021). Although it may slow down the research, for me I find it nicer to find the most prevalent themes then from there, find the sub-topics of those and what are most important afterwards.

My code themes:

COVID-19 (blue)

Society (pink)

Communities (purple)

Space (green)

Segregation (yellow)

I have also attached an image to demonstrate how these codes were implemented and how I used them.

Applying this these themes to our assignment:

These themes will be applied in our assignment as I and another group member will be discussing the impacts social geography has on our current world. The other half of our group are also discussing the past and future impacts that social geography has had on our world as well. For example, COVID-19 will be my main topic and how many changes we have seen in our society and socially through a geographical lens. By using these themes we will be able to focus on our main goal which is to give a perspective into the current happenings of social geography.

References

Enos, R. (2017, November 28). How segregation leads to racist voting by whites. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/11/28/16707438/social-geography-trump-rise-segregation-psychology-racism

Hooykaas, (2021). Week 8, Coding

Rose-Redwood, R., Kitchin, R., Apostolopoulou, E., Rickards, L., Blackman, T., Crampton, J., Rossi, U., & Buckley, M. (2020). Geographies of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dialogues in Human Geography, 10(2), 97–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820620936050

[asgeog2260]

Hey Sara, 

Great post! As I was reading through, I was able to understand why you chose to select deductive and flat coding for your work. Studying COVID-19 through geographical lenses will surely be an interesting task. We have seen several changes to our society in the past year or so, I’m sure the results of your research assignment will be display your goal. I’m very interested to know what else will you be looking at for your research assignment? 

Best, Antonio 

[smkgeog2260]

Hi Antonio, 

Thank you for the feedback! I am glad you think that our groups topics will be great for the research assignment. Most specifically, for my part of the project ill be looking into how COVID-19 has created social inequalities from a geographical perspective. As this is such a current topic, I’m sure you have even had personal experiences how the pandemic has impacted your views of social geography. I’m interested to know if you have thought about the changes and inequalities that COVID-19 has made geographically? 

Sara 

[atgeog2260]

Hey Sara! 

Thanks so much for the positive feedback on my post it is greatly appreciated :) 

It just so happens that your post was one of the ones I really enjoyed reading as well! Like you mentioned in your response to my post, it was refreshing to read about a different geographic discipline as opposed to my own.  I agree that highlighting sentences may help see the bigger picture of an article, but I feel your approach (highlighting words) is more specific and easier to compile all your codes at the end. It's a more simplified efficient approach I would say, though both approaches are valid and effective. Something we did similarly was choosing deductive coding, I agree that it is a more efficient way to go about this project in particular and especially being entry level coders. Predetermining themes you will be looking for definitely narrows down the research process, however keeping in mind we will probably come across bias. Looking only for specific key themes may sway our research and working so hard to prove our hypothesis will lead us to miss out on other key elements to our topics. 

Overall I really enjoyed reading your blog post, you have a very nice way of constructing arguments, explaining topics and I am excited to read more from you in the future. 

-Abi :)

[atgeog2260]

Coding  Historical Geography Source Materials

What is coding? 

“Coding usually starts with a summary of the text you are examining (called descriptive coding because it forms a summary description of what is in the transcript or the text like an overview”  (Hooykaas 2021) 

“Coding is a process by which researchers structure and interpret qualitative data. When doing discourse analysis, coding serves two primary functions: organization and analysis of source materials“ (Hay 2016, p302)

Basically coding is a term used to describe the sorting out of key words relating to a theme in a piece of writing (or transcript). You then categorizing these words into groups in order to section out/ sort out information.

My Source Codes 

For my digital storytelling assignment my group and I will be discussing historical geography. The two sources I will be coding are both peer reviewed journal articles and are titled:

Late Pleistocene climate drivers of early human migration

And

Speleothem evidence for the greening of the Sahara and its implications for the early human dispersal out of sub-Saharan Africa.

I have used deductive coding in my group research thus far, which means that you begin your work with a predetermined set of themes/codes to be searching for in each of your source materials (Hooykaas 2021). I have used this type of coding  because it seems like a good entry point into the notion of coding. As a beginner it is easier to set out key terms and words that the group can focus on. It retains key elements of our area of study and keeps the search focused and on track. As mentioned in the lecture slides, the one thing to keep in mind about this method of coding is bias. Because you are so focused on the themes already laid out, you might miss out on other key elements to the research by only focusing on a preconceived set of themes. Focusing too heavily on your predetermined themes and working only to prove your own hypothesis could lead you to miss out on beneficial information. 

I have also utilized the hierarchical framing structure for my codes. My hierarchy is essentially based on code specificity to my topic of interest. 

The codes I used are as follows 

“Africa” “Eurasia”---> Pink

“Homo sapiens  Migration” --->Orange 

“Climate Records”--->Blue 

“Vegetated Pathways” ---> Green 

                                              (see screenshots below)

Each code title goes from general terms (keywords that show up) to a more specific event that was supposed to have happened and that caused early human migration. The umbrella term being “Africa” / “Eurasia” following that we have “Homo sapiens migration” meaning the migration within Africa and Eurasia. Then following this is “Climate Records” the records are evidence showing that Homo sapiens migration happened, and then more specifically “Vegetated Pathways” are a result of climate change that the records are displaying”. Once again the hierarchy of my codes being general to specific. 

My Project 

If you noticed my two articles were centered around one particular historical event, that being early human migration out of Africa. This is because my group has chosen to explain the essence of historical geography by explaining three major historical events. My event so happened to be Homo sapiens migration out of Africa. To find these specific articles and sources of information I need to start with tailored codes and sort my data into categories in order to choose which one will be the most effective in helping me piece together my part of the assignment. By explaining these historical events we hope to show our audience precisely how historical events have been shaped and formed by physical geomorphological processes. How physical geography heavily impacts human geography/history, that is what this interdisciplinary topic is all about. 

References 

El-Shenawy, M. I., Kim, S.-T., Schwarcza, H. P., Asmeromc, Y., & Polyakc, V. J. (2018, May 15). Speleothem evidence for the greening of the Sahara and its implications for the early human dispersal out of sub-Saharan Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews. https://www-sciencedirect-com.subzero.lib.uoguelph.ca/science/article/pii/S0277379117307436?via%3Dihub  

Hay, Iain. Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford, 2016

Hooykaas, (2021). Week 8, Coding

Qualitative analysis of interview data: A step-by-step guide for coding/indexing. (2013, May 19). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRL4PF2u9XA 

Timmermann, A., & Friedrich, T. (2016). Late Pleistocene climate drivers of early human migration. Nature (London), 538(7623), 92–95. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature19365

[smkgeog2260]

My Reflection on GEOG*2260

Hi everyone, I hope you have been having a great weekend!

While trying to find a topic that interests me for this blog since we can talk about so many things, I found it challenging. Although I am interested in human geography and to be more specific, cultural or social geography, doing research is sort of uninteresting to me. Although I would dislike researching the future, learning about things such as power, subjectivity, and ethics has been interesting. This course has helped me in the sense that I am more in touch with what I would like to do in the future. Even though I dislike doing research, as a university student I am still doing it extremely often. GEOG*2260 has helped me identify key aspects while I’m researching such as looking for reliable sources, or even if an article/journal is good enough to use in a project. Other than this though doing research like creating questionnaires, interviews, etc seems something I would very much not want to do.

As I mentioned above, I am still interested in things such as power, subjectivity, and ethics. This part of the course is most interesting to me because it is more personal. Rather than research methods or research design which may be less abstract. One thing that stuck out to me in this chapter was ethical and anonymous questionnaires or surveys. It was cited that “the web service, for example, may track IP [Internet Protocol] addresses and hence enable identification of participants” (Hay, 2016, p. 33). In a world where the internet and social media websites are in our everyday use, we might not consider all of the ethical considerations of anonymity. For me, I never thought about any problems in doing an anonymous survey online but it is evident there are ethical dilemmas to consider. It is hard to know how to prevent this dilemma as many students and researchers must resort to the internet, especially in a pandemic. This ties into the idea of critical reflexivity as well which can be defined by thinking more critically about your research and your values towards it. Although I may not like doing research too much, I know that certain things such as critical reflexivity and ethics are extremely important. Things like ethics and subjectivity are also important outside of research so learning about them is interesting to me in that way as well.

Overall, this course has had some things I thoroughly enjoyed learning about and some things that are not as fun for me. Being able to put all of the things we have learnt so far and put them towards our storytelling project has been the best part for me. I look forward to learning more in this class and seeing where that takes me.

References

Hay, Iain. Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford, 2016.

[atgeog2260]

Hi Sara,

I appreciate your honesty in your post and also find this week's topic challenging to tackle, there are too many interesting topics that we have discussed in class to pick only one. I share your interest in cultural geography and love to see how physical geographic processes play a part in the shaping of cultures around the world. I also appreciate your honesty about research work not being something that interests you entirely and I can definitely understand why that would be, this class also helped me narrow down my interests in the field of geography and helped me to make some important decisions regarding which path to take in the future. 

What exactly is it about research that turns you away from it? I would love to see if we have similar opinions.

Great post :)

Abi

[atgeog2260]

The importance of Interviews.

So far this course has far exceeded my expectations, it has taught me so many transferable, practical skills that will be useful as I progress further in my career as a geographer or in any other field of research. It is very difficult to pick one thing that resonated with me because everything combined together has been such an eye opening learning experience. 

If I were to choose one thing it would be the value and importance of a good interview. Last week we discussed the structure of interviews and what a professional one looks like. I did not realize that there is essentially a whole science behind conducting a successful interview, as I progressed through the textbook chapter I was more and more amazed at all the information I did not know. An interview is more than a conversation, it is a portal into someone else's reality, seeing the world as they do. 

There are many different kinds of interviews, some with grief stricken inhabitants of remote parts of the world and some with established authors and academics. My above statements apply to all sorts of interview types. Thus far in the course the interviews we have discussed and watched short films about have been more of the ‘oral history’ (Hooykaas 2021, Week 6) type and have been dealing with case studies. This has been the most interesting aspect of the course thus far for me as you can directly apply geographic, environmental, and economic situations we learn about in classes to real people and listen to how these situations affect their daily lives. This information is so pure and powerful that simply writing papers or textbooks about it dulls the impact of the situation, whereas in a video/ interview format you feel as though you are having a conversation with that person and feel a more human connection to the situation. Interviews are such an important piece of qualitative research and hold such a large impact when trying to prove a case to any form of higher power or even the general public. This is why documentaries are so influential and impactful as well, they are easily digested by almost everyone and provide an audio visual representation of a crisis or a situation in a short amount of time. If a picture is worth a thousand words then a video must be many more. 

One of my favorite interviewers is Michael Parkinson, he is a British interviewer and TV personality. What I love about his style of interviewing is he simply listens and waits for the interviewee to fully answer the question with no interruption. He is light hearted, asks thought out engaging questions and makes small jokes when appropriate to put the guest at ease. Unlike many TV hosts/ personalities he gives the guest space to talk and communicate their thoughts and feelings effectively. I have attached below interview he conducted with Jacob Bronowski the scientist, author, and very interesting person. 

An interview is almost like an interrogation and the most effective interrogators build trust with their subjects (according to John Le Carré the author and ex British secret service operative, he said this in an interview I will link below in the reference section if you are interested)

I would love to know more about documentary filmmaking and all the behind the scenes preparation that goes along with it, as well as more in depth analysis of all the various types of interviews and how the outcomes change depending on each style. Physical geography fascinates me but when you combine it with human geographies and add an ethnographic element in there that's when I am really engaged and my interest peaks. I really hope we learn more about particular groups around the world and listen to more case studies similar to the ones we have already discussed, they are absolutely fascinating to me. 

References

BBC Radio 3. (2013, September 13). John le Carre filmed interview on BBC Radio 3 Night Waves at London’s Royal College of Music. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoSdtgTWPK8

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 6: Data Collection - Interviews, Oral Histories, Focus Groups https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/668082/viewContent/2694661/View 

[chgeog2260]

Interviewing William Clark

Who am I interviewing?

My digital research project focuses on population geography and how demography contributes to all aspects of geography. If I could interview anyone in this field, I would interview William A. V. Clark. He is got his BA and MA in Geography from the University of New Zealand and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. He is now a research professor with his Ph.D. in geography. He has published 10 books and has three main research areas: housing choices, patterns of segregation and their explanations, and migration and mobility. He has received many awards and grants for his work (Clark, 2020). Overall, I think he is very knowledgeable in population geography and well suited for the interview.

5 questions

1. What first got you interested in studying geography, and how did you direct your studies more specifically to population geography?

- This initial question will be a good way for me to gauge how he got into the study and get him talking about his passion and keeping it broad. This is a great first question to get the conversation flowing and to give him an idea of the kinds of questions I will be asking him (Hay, 2016).

2. How influential do you think population geography and demography are for other aspects of geography?

- This is the key topic we discuss in our digital storytelling project, so I would like to know his stance on this. I also think it is a great question to follow from the first question because it allows him to give his opinion and not really have to think too much in detail.

3. What is your stance on population and climate change?

- I think a big part of climate change is our population, so I want to know his take on the contribution, and I am leaving this question quite open and vague to allow him to say as much as he feels on this topic instead of making it super focused.

4. You research migration and mobility and population. Do you think there will be changes in migration and population patterns during and after the pandemic?

With this question, I want to gain some insight into his opinion on what is currently going on with the pandemic and how he thinks this will affect population patterns, and his predictions for the future. This is a more specific question related to his research, but I still want to keep the question quite open for his own elaboration.

5. Is there anything else you would think would be useful for me to know?

- For my last question, I am opening up the floor to him to give Dr. Clark the chance to offer any additional information that he thinks may be beneficial for me. The Oral history that he may provide would be beneficial, and possibly give me the information I was not aware of would be a great supplement to my interview (Hooykaas, 2021).

About my interview

I would do a semi-structured interview so that the questions are more open-ended, and I can get as much detail from the questions as possible. To keep this interview semi-structured, I would ask mostly open-ended questions to allow Dr. Clark to elaborate as much as he can in the 5 minutes. As a researcher himself in a field that most likely involves interviewing people, he is already aware of the types of questions, so I think the semi-structured format is appropriate (Hay, 2016). I would also make sure to have previously memorized the questions so that the conversation flows, and I do not seem unprofessional. I ask a range of questions related specifically to his field as well as broader questions about population geography to get an overview of his thoughts on the subject.

References

Clark, W. (2020, October 21). William A. V. CLARK.

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

Hooykaas, A. "Data Collection - Interviews, Oral Histories, Focus Groups." University of Guelph, 2021.

[atgeog2260]

Hi Caitlyn, 

I really enjoyed reading your blog post, you made some very interesting points and asked some very engaging questions. Your post especially stood out  because your field of inquiry is a very interesting subject to me and I feel is growing in importance as our population increases. William Clark seems like a very knowledgeable man on the subject and a perfect candidate for this interview. Your questions flowed very nicely together and I really do feel like you would gather valuable insight into your field of study to then be used in completing the digital storytelling assignment. 

You began with a relaxed personal opinion question, I feel this is important to establish a comfortable atmosphere and encourage real, genuine answers to the questions that follow. The rest of your questions were relevant and very engaging and you ended on a very strong note, asking for advice is a very good thing to do because it gives you personal advice directly from an expert in your field of study which will be very useful to utilize in your assignment. You asked open ended questions and each response will definitely not be a simple “yes” or “no”. 

Like myself you have also chosen to follow a semi structured interview format. Semi structured interviews fit really well with this assignment because it allows for some structure, guidance and flow of the interview but also allows room for expansion on topics. You are also less worried about following a set structure and making things more formal than they need to be.

Overall you did an excellent job picking and explaining your questions effectively and I feel you would indeed get the desired results you outlined in your post.

Thanks, 

Abi :)

[atgeog2260]

Interviewing Hou Renzhi on Historical Geography

The geographic field of study I am researching for my digital storytelling project is historical geography. If given the chance to interview a key thinker in my geographic field of inquiry I would choose to interview Hou Renzhi. He was not only an important contributor to the field of historical geography but also a very interesting human being. Renzhi was born on December 6, 1911 and died on October 22, 2013 making him 101 when he passed away. He began his learning at the age of 21 where he attended  Yenching University, Beijing and acquired his bachelor's degree and masters degree in history. He then planned to study in England in 1941 but before he could Yenching University was captured by the Japanese and he was sentenced to one year in prison followed by restricted movement after his release. In 1942 after the war he was working toward his PhD at the University of Liverpool and graduated in 1949, his thesis being written on historical geography. He has won many awards in his field and has contributed to many research papers and articles. Some of his selected works include The Principles and Practice of Historical Geography, Four Treatises on Historical Geography, A Brief History of Ancient Chinese Geography, Beijing Urban Historical Geography. Some of his books include: Beijing: An Ancient Capital Of China, An Historical Geography of Peiping, Symposium on Chinese Historical Geography. 

Below are the questions I would use to conduct the interview. In box 8.2 on page 153 of the class textbook, it states that good interview questions are those that: use easy to understand language, non-offensive language, the words used have commonly accepted meanings, are not ambiguous, phrased carefully, and are to avoid leading questions (questions that are engineered to encourage a desired response). These questions are meant to answer the main research question of the digital storytelling assignment, and that is “What is historical geography?”. Keeping all of this in mind here are my questions;

1.(Storytelling question) When did you first learn about historical geography? As you became more familiar with this field of study how did your initial perceptions change?

- What made you interested in studying this area of geography?

2.(Descriptive question) Please describe what historical geography means to you.

- Why is this an important field of study and how does this interdisciplinary subject add to our knowledge about the world? 

3.(Opinion) In your opinion what information is missing in this field?

- What is yet to be discovered? 

4.(Structural) What have been your favorite research projects throughout your career? 

- How do you feel this has impacted / contributed to the further knowledge of your field? 

5.(Contrast) Please explain the main similarities and main differences in both historical and geographical research, and how combining the two fields adds to our knowledge?

- Do you think this is important for the general public to know? And how could we best spread this knowledge ?

I tried to include each type of primary question and represent each listed in the textbook (the sub question below each primary question are there as a follow up to encourage further discussion on the primary question. The textbook refers to these as “secondary questions” ). There are six listed in the textbook (in box 8.3 page 155), descriptive, storytelling, opinion, structural, contrast and devil’s advocate questions. I left out the devil's advocate type just because I didn't feel it was appropriate for this type of interview. To invoke discussion I tried to avoid questions that would lead to a simple yes or no answers. The purpose of my interview would be to gather as much information on historical geography as possible and so I have tailored my questions accordingly, they are more broad questions that are asking about general information as opposed to specific, pinpointed questions. I feel as though the semi-structured interview type would fit best for this instance (Hooykaas, Week 6, 2021), I would want the interview to flow like a conversation. The more relaxed he is, the more likely I am to get his true thoughts and opinions on the area of study that I am researching, and the more insightful information I will be able to gather and use. There was a quote in this week's lecture slides that said semi-structured interviews are a series of open ended questions where the interviewer still holds control over topics discussed during the interview but “...there is no fixed range of responses to each question.”- Ayres 2008 ( Hooykaas, Week 6, Slide 12 ,2021). Despite having used questions that fit under each primary question category, I would not be limited to these questions and they would not be asked in any specific order to honor the definition of a semi structured interview (as a structured interview follows an order and each question must be asked in that said order).

Do you think my questions would harbor beneficial results for my project? Do you think that my semi-structured interview approach is the correct format to be using, or would others be more useful in this situation? 

Your feedback is appreciated :)

References 

Hay, Iain. Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford, 2016

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 6: Data Collection - Interviews, Oral Histories, Focus Groups https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/668082/viewContent/2694661/View

Xiaomeng, L. (2010). Hou Renzhi: Lifelong Devotion to Historical Geography_Peking University. Copyright 2008 Peking University. http://newsen.pku.edu.cn/News_Events/News/Focus/7567.htm

[jkgeog2260]

What I would Like to Research

If money, resources, and time were not a barrier for my research, I would love to work on studying indigenous peoples in the Amazon rainforest. More specifically, I would like to learn about their relationship with the environment around them including the effects of human deforestation.  

One of the first considerations that I would need to think about while preparing my study is to find a group of people that are willing to conduct the research. There are many Amazonian tribes – some who have not been in any contact with the outside world. So, finding a tribe that would be willing to have researchers come study their way of life could prove to be very difficult. Another challenge that I would have to face would be the language barriers. Some of the people native to the Amazon rainforest speak languages that are only spoken by their tribe. This could possibly make it exceedingly difficult to find someone of capable of translating their language.  

I believe that conducting this research could provide a variety of different benefits along with new insights on Amazonian culture that would help us understand human’s relationship with the natural environment around us. If I were to conduct my research, I would do structured interviews and participate (with permission) in subsistence activities. If the research went successfully, it would help people in the western world understand that we as humans still rely on the environment to survive and it is important to conserve large ecosystems like the Amazon.  

When conducting research, it is of utmost importance to be conscious of any ethical issues that your research could pose and try to mitigate them as much as possible. One ethical problem that could arise from this research would be unintentionally bringing foreign disease. As a citizen of the western world, I am vaccinated to a multitude of diseases. The people in the amazon would not have these vaccinations, unintentionally introducing a disease that could potentially harm the indigenous people would be a tragedy. One way to help prevent this from happening would be to bring my own living space when conducting the research to minimize spreading germs. Another risk that is important to keep in mind is making sure that the indigenous people are fully aware on what the research is about and are giving informed consent to the study being conducted. Due to the language barrier between researcher and the people being studied, it could be challenging to make sure both parties have an understanding on what they are consenting to. However, this is extremely important and must be done in order to participate in an ethical study.

[atgeog2260]

Hi Jonah 

Your research topic really stuck out to me because this is a topic that I personally find both captivating and devastating. This topic I feel needs all the research and awareness it can get as this could increase the chances of saving  this beautiful ecosystem. 

The Amazon rainforest, like almost every ecosystem, is extremely complex and is absolutely irreplaceable. According to the WWF “Over 43 million hectares, an area roughly the size of Morocco, was lost in these 'deforestation fronts' between 2004 and 2017”. This cannot continue and the more attention you can direct to this situation the better. 

I agree that you would need a translator and guide If you were to do any sort of field research. Your research plan seems to be quite qualitative, as you speak about conducting interviews and exploring how important the natural environment is to local groups survival. I also think that it is smart to consider any diseases or germs you would carry so as to not risk any participants well being. 

Similarly to my own research project you would be studying a culture and how this culture is being affected by modernity and how modern lives can take a toll on this culture. I feel quantitative data could also be used here to support your qualitative data, as it gives you hard facts to present to any government organization, It gives you some concrete evidence that modern activities really are damaging these peoples way of life.   

Do you think that qualitative research would also benefit your study? Or was the main idea to take more of an ethnographic approach?

- Abi 

References 

Deforestation Fronts. WWF. https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/forests_practice/deforestation_fronts_/

(I encourage you to follow the link above, there is a very interesting interactive map I feel provides an excellent visual which directly pertains to this topic)

[atgeog2260]

My Ultimate Grad Student Research Project

If I were to take part in any research project with limitless resources, I would choose to research how climate change is affecting the Saami peoples of Northern Scandinavia. I am absolutely fascinated by the human aspect and the scientific aspects to geography and combining both of these elements would be a dream come true. The way in which the geographic location/climate impacts groups of people and how the environment around them shapes their culture and belief systems is absolutely captivating. I would love to learn more about how modern day activity is affecting the Saami’s ancient traditional way of life. Getting to immerse myself in another culture, even to spend time in that part of the world would be an amazing opportunity and I think sharing my findings and data could benefit many people in many ways. 

Background So to begin we need to know a little bit about the Saami people. The Saami people are a native Finno-Ugric group of people inhabiting northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia and they call this land Sápmi. The Saami way of life is centered around reindeer herding and reindeer in general. Their main diet is also comprised mainly of reindeer and they do not waste a drop (literally, a common dish is “blood pancakes'' or Blodplättar in Swedish, veriohukainen, verilätty or verilettu in Finnish and verikäkk in Estonianan. The blood in this dish acts as an egg substitute being rich with protein). Over generations most of these people have become more modernized and implement modern technology into their everyday lives to carry out ancient tasks. Each Saami grouping is slightly different and speak in various dialects (see image above). Their religion is generally considered animism, which is a belief that all natural objects have a soul (animals, stones, plant life) their religion also consists of many spirits.

Below are Saami reindeer skin drums with distinct markings on them, each region had a variation in drum illustration patterns (if interested more information  can be found here https://old.no/samidrum/ ). Reindeer skin drums are used in religious ceremonies where the drum beat puts you in a trance and you are then able to connect with other realms.

Here are some traditional Saami folk songs for interest:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_gnoljjBW8 

*Documentary interlude*

I have watched many documentaries on the Saami people and I feel now would be an appropriate time to share my favorites with you all. Hopefully this gives you a little more information about whom they are. Visual/audio representations always benefit me and so I hope these videos will further your understanding of these amazing people. My words alone cannot do these people justice; you must witness them for yourself. I have also included some key quotations that are relevant to my research topic and explained briefly what the video is about. 

(I assure you each video below is truly captivating and I encourage you to at least watch one of them, you will not regret it) 

1. In this video we have a woman who did some field research studying traditional medicine in the arctic landscape, here she discusses her findings. (22 min long)

2.This short clip is of an 83 year old Saami woman who reminds me of a Saami version of Agafia whom we discussed last week (only 3 min long).

3. This video spends 3 days with Swedish Saami (9 min long). You can see how the newer generations are slowly using modern technology. They are using skidoos , mechanized feeding for reindeer, trucks and chainsaws etc. An interesting thing to note here would be the fact that reindeer need extra feeding because typically they eat lichen and due to climate change you get warm periods in the middle of winter. When it's warm it rains and then that rain freezes which makes hard snow and ice so the reindeer cannot eat the lichen on the ground. The man in the video's name is Carl Johan-Utsi and he mentioned in the video "The uncertainty of winter conditions are very challenging.” He had also said how he is probably the last generation of reindeer herders "I do not want to give up reindeer herding it’s like honoring my ancestors, it's something rooted really deep within you, in a way you don't have a choice you just have to go to the end of the path"

4. The Saami people in this next video are considered the “South Saami'' peoples (see map at the beginning of my post ), and they inhabit the North of Norway. This video has beautiful imagery and music. (14 min long)

“The Saami culture is evolving as is any other culture” 

“The way of living with nature Is to take what you need for survival and I think that modern society has a lot to learn from the indigenous people around the world”

5.Now these videos above show the current way of life of the Saami peoples. To give some context/ some insight into the past. This documentary from 1977 shows an older view of this ancient practice of reindeer husbandry. (only 6min long) 

"It would seem that we have been raising reindeer for a long time, together with lichen they are the only energy medium between the sun and us. Once disturbed lichen needs 20 years to re-grow” 

“Our 1000 year culture has left the tundra un-touched and changed only us."

 "We have only one tundra, we all have but one world, perhaps we should be learning ecology from the shamanistic philosophy of life”  

Why the Saami people ? These people are literally on the front lines of global climate change (the same way the Kiribati islands are, the ice melt from up North is causing these islands to be submerged and also creates a layer of ice over reindeer grazing land for the Saami people). Also the Saami’s willingness to adapt to their environment by implementing modern technology shows how resilient and strong a people they really are. They have a strong will to carry out their ancient duties, but sadly with the increase of climate change this will cause a completely new challenge that they may not be able to overcome.

Methods/ techniques The focus of my research would be how the modern day of living is affecting the ancient Saami peoples practice of reindeer herding. This project is consisting of two elements: scientific data collection as well as a humanistic data collection.

Quantitative: Here the main focus would be implementing the use of weather monitoring systems that monitor melting frequency of the snow/ice, they calculate any patterns of warm weather in the winter (causing ice melt ). This information could then be used to show higher up governmental power (as mentioned in the Kiribati post, big organizations need to see numbers and statistics before they make any form of change). This information could also help the Saami people predict when the warm weather will be coming in and try to adapt accordingly. I could also monitor the reindeer population/birth rate and weight of the animals in response to lichen availability, to see if climate change has an effect here too.

Qualitative: Much like the documentaries I have listed above, I would gather stories and life experiences through one to one interviews. As I had mentioned in my last post about Agafia, I would make sure to get out of their way as much as possible and not interrupt any of their daily tasks. I would also have to hire a translator and acquire a camera to record the interviews for further examination. I would try to immerse myself in their culture, live as they do and take in as much information as possible. I would also keep my own biases and my own opinions out of each task I do or with each person I interact with as much as possible (similarly to the way Erika Larsen did in her “The Reindeer People” video I have linked above).

Some questions I would ask during an interview How has the warm weather affected your daily routine? What is different about your herding methods and your grandparents methods? Where do you see the future of reindeer herding heading in years to come? Etc.

Keeping ethics in mind First of all my research would require REB Review, as my research involves living human participants (Hooykaas, week 3, slide 13). I would then make sure everyone involved has consented to me being there, I would make sure everyone knew where the information/data I collect will end up and what it'll be used for. My research would not involve any risks to the participants in any way. Of course when dealing with any other cultural group you must consider your own invisible backpack (Hooykaas, slide 14)  and work around it as best you can. As well as of course maintaining critical reflexivity 

“Reflexivity: a process of constant, self-conscious scrutiny of the self as a researcher and of the research process” (Hooykaas, week 2, slide 4). 

This is to not impose any of my outside beliefs or values onto those whom I interview.

Who would benefit from my research?

Obviously the Saami people would benefit from this, as well as the public and national and international government organizations. With more and more information and evidence to support climate change , supported with personal stories for a suffering tradition the more people globally will listen.

Now for some points of discussion Have you ever heard of the Saami people before? 

What do you think the future holds for reindeer herding and the Saami way of life? 

What can the international community do to help the Saami culture?

References

Brandon Li. (2020, February 18). Three Days with the Sámi Reindeer People [Swedish Lapland] [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tf2Qgcvfk4

Erika Larsen: The Reindeer People | Nat Geo Live. (2014, March 10). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPiKAhhEHXA

Expediton Norway - The South Sami People. (2016, April 5). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mkTQcrxaQA

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 2: Philosophy, Power, Politics, and Research Design [PowerPoint Presentation]. GEOG2260, Guelph. 

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 3: Ethics [PowerPoint Presentation]. GEOG2260, Guelph

The Sami people (from “The Winds of the Milky Way”, 1977). (2013, August 23). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myVHFeyWWM0

Visit Norway. (2019, December 2). Do you know Sami people? People under northern lights in Norway [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBU25yAyeI

Date: this was posted: February 5 at 9:00pm 2021

[chgeog2260]

Surviving Siberia's wilderness for 70 years

What it's about

VICE produced a documentary that explored the life of Agafia Lykov, a woman who has been living in Siberia's wilderness her whole life. Like many others in 1936, her family left their lives behind after being treatened by Stalin for being Old Believers. They settled 160 miles away from civilization in the Sayan Mountains. Agafia was born and raised in the Sayan Mountains with her parents and sisters. The Lykov family lived the wilderness for 40 years before Russian geologists found the family. Agafia’s sisters died from pneumonia after meeting the geologists because they weren’t exposed to people for 40 years and her father passed not too long after. Her mother died in 1961 due to starving herself so that her family could eat. Agafia is now the last member of the Lykov family. The VICE researchers travelled to the Sayan mountains to live with Agafia for three days in order to gain some insight into the life of a 70-year-old woman living in the wilderness alone.

Research techniques

The main research technique used in the documentary was interviews. They did a series of interviews with Agafia and those that know her. They started by asking her general questions about her daily routine and chores. They also asked Agafia about how she manages living alone in the wilderness as a 70-year-old woman and the hardships she’s faced. Following that they got her view on the outside world and her perspective of the city. She mentioned she has visited the city 5 times before, but she could never live there. The researchers asked Agafia about her experiences with the wildlife and discussed how she has confronted bears in the past and how she deals with it. They also conducted observations where they would follow her around on her typical day and help her with some of her chores like chopping wood and clearing the snow off her roof. They would also use these observations as ways to ask more questions and get to know more about her lifestyle. When conducting this research, the researchers had an invisible backpack that could influence the way they viewed her lifestyle and conducted the research. I think the biggest thing that stuck out to me was how she requested that the researchers bring her a goat and chickens. If the researchers were to unpack this and analyze it, they could note that they have easy access to food and resources which is completely different to the lifestyle that Agafia lives. However, it is key to note that during this documentary the researchers did not make reference to this.

Ethics

In terms of ethics, I think they took good precautions when conducting this research. For example, they stayed in a tent outside instead of in her house, so they weren’t coming into her personal space and gave her privacy. From what I saw in the interview they did not try to change her view on the city life or disrespect her religion. They also helped her out with her chores and brought her a goat and chicken. However, I do think when they were filming her praying, they did get a bit up close and could have filmed it differently and they didn’t keep her name anonymous. Overall, I think this research was reasonably ethical and the researchers didn’t try to change her beliefs or discourage her.

Overall, I think if I was given this project, I would approach it slightly different. I would begin by asking Agafia off camera what she is comfortable with and get her consent. I would then go about it from there. I would also try to film it in a way that would show what a typical day looks like for her. With that being said, the most important part of my research would be coming into the project unprejudiced and with the intention of gaining knowledge on her lifestyle. As a university student I would also address my invisible backpack to show the viewers that I recognize my privilege and not let it impact my research. I would also let Agafia know that whatever she is not comfortable with she does not have to answer, and I will consider all the possibilities that could cause harm to Agafia when conducting my research and avoid it at all costs.

VICE. (2013, April 9). Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 Years. Retrieved 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68%29

[atgeog2260]

Hi Caitlyn, 

You raise some very interesting points and we agree on many things. Firstly the point you made about the livestock, this request seems so strange and bizarre to us and I was also taken aback by her request. This just goes to show how far removed from her way of life we really are and how our values and definitions of a gift are so drastically different. I also agree that it was strange that the filmmakers did not elaborate more on this concept, I feel like making this more clear would give the audience a chance to reflect further about their own values in comparison to Agafia's. 

Secondly I had mentioned in my own post that I wonder if the filmmakers had taken any precautionary measures when it came to health. As Agafia had mentioned that her siblings had died from contact with 'outsiders' and had been sick herself every time she took a trip to the city. But I realize now that by them sleeping in a tent, your post helped me to realize that this could be deemed as a precautionary measure. It seems like we have similar approaches as to how we would go about researching this case study, making sure the participants involved are consenting to the project and making sure they know where the recoded information is going/ what it will be used for I agree is very important. 

Overall you made a great post and I am curious to know what other health precautions do you think they could have taken/ did take before meeting with her? 

:) 

-Abi

[atgeog2260]

The Life of Agafia Lykov

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68 

Background Information 

This weeks topic we will be discussing a short documentary by the media company Vice following the life of a 70 year old woman who lives and survives (practically) alone in the Russian wilderness. Her name is Agafia Lykovs. Agafia's father escaped Stalin's terror in the 1930s (in the late 1930's Stalin was murdering and imprisoning many of his political enemies) and fled into the taiga wilderness where Agafia was raised. Agafia lived with her family secluded and isolated (the documentary mentioned it was a 7 day canoe trip from the nearest city and not accessible by any other way during winter) until one day a group of Russian geologists stumbled across their cabin in the woods, Agafia said they had traded with them shovels for nuts and grain. The reson for the trade was because most of their own tools and cutlary had been worn out. However this visit came at a cost and Agafis seems to think that the geologist carried germs with them that caused her siblings to fall ill with pneumonia and die. Contrary to this, there is an elderly man that lives in Agafia's settlement called Yerofei Sedov, he was in fact one of the geologists that discovered her home and he has said Agafia came into contact more with his group than the siblings, so their death is still uncertain. Because of military service Yerofei is left disabled and Agafia takes care of him as well as herself. Agafia has been living alone now without her parents for 25 years, and rises each morning at 6 am to sing hymns as part of her old Russian orthodox religion. Agafia's happiness and overall attitude is admirable, she has suffered/is suffering a lot of hardships yet she remains optimistic and wouldn't have it any other way. Briefly mentioning that she had only visited the city 5 times in her life and each time it had made her feel sick (those around her agree and said that the taiga cleanses the soul, everyone is good to each other and that it makes you reflect on your actions ). Agafia also mentioned that she would rather not listen to her friend Yerofei's radio as it only speaks of people killing themselves or each other and she stated "why would I want to listen to that?" 

Invisible backpack + Ethics 

"Does everyone engage in the world in the same ways? Describing one’s privileges makes one newly-accountable." (Hooykaas, A. slide 16) 

In terms of an "invisible backpack" as in what did the filmmaker bring with him that Agafia does not have everyday access to and what upper hand did they have due to their modern upbringing/ culture. They had technology, factory made clothing to withstand cold, a phone, camera equipment, money, and of course education etc. These tools in the film makers 'backpack' were given to him by a modern society.   

*Food for thought/ a point of discussion* One could also argue that Agafia has privilege that we don't. Agafia has freedom, she is completely in charge of her own life and destiny and no one tells her what to do or where to go. She is not bound by the government nor does she pay taxes (so I assume). Do you agree or disagree? I would like to know your thoughts on this.   

Ethically speaking I think they did a good job (from what we see on tape) of communicating with Agafia, not telling her what to say or influencing her thoughts in anyway, just simply asking her about her life. They had obviously done some prior research and organizing beforehand as they have with them a translator/guide and also brought with them livestock gifts as a way of thanking her for letting them visit. However something concerning that came into mind when she shared the story of the geologists brining with them outside germs and causing her siblings to perish, I wonder if they took any health precautions as to not repeat history. Another thought I had was if they had discussed with Agafia what the purpose for the documentary was and if she knew her story was going to be broadcast allover the world (I am assuming that they would have told her but this was not apparent in the film so it leaves you guessing). If there is any negative side to this film it may be that the filmmaker and us as viewers are treating Agafia and her life style a little like a curiosity or an animal in a zoo.

Personal research 

Some research techniques I realized that were being employed seemed to be that of objective observation, and a qualitative interview based approach. In week 2 we discussed types of research and specifically on slide 21 stated that "Qualitative researchers are concerned primarily with process, rather than outcomes or products., Qualitative researchers are interested in meaning" also stating that qualitative research involves field work and that a case study is a main type of this form of research.  With this being said I would defiantly employ the same research methods as the filmmaker did if I were to approach this research assignment. I would also use an interview based approach to research this case study effectively. Not only interviewing Agafia as she goes about her daily tasks ( I would try to avoid taking her away from such tasks to conduct interviews) but also those she comes into contact with on a daily basis (as the filmmaker has done) to get a full picture and stories from all sides. I would try to refrain from imposing any tools in my "invisible backpack" onto her as well as keeping my own opinions and feelings out of the research in any way, so as not to influence anyone's story or perspective. The tools in my "invisible backpack" are similar to that of the filmmakers, I am a privileged person who grew up in a western society with access to technology, I have also received an education, and so forth. A big part of  this project for me would be communication with all the participants and people I would interview, making it clear when I would be arriving, what the process will be like , and how the information will be used. Language is an obvious barrier here and I would also have to employ a translator and/or a guide to help me navigate through Russia. Finally I would also take health precautions as to not spread any illness onto Agafia or anyone whom I come into contact with.

 For your interest 

This documentary was very interesting indeed and I thoroughly enjoy watching this type of thing in my spare time. This documentary reminds me very much of a documentary/ film called "Happy People: A Year in the Taiga" released inn 2010 directed by Dmitry Vasyukov and Werner Herzog . The film is uploaded in parts on YouTube and if you enjoyed this documentary you will defiantly enjoy this film. I have linked below part one, which follows various inhabitants of the taiga much like Agafia and each part outlines the daily activities of these people in each season (part one documents their spring tasks and routines). It is quite a long documentary but I assure you it is truly fascinating to hear each story and is an excellent window into their culture

References 

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 2: Philosophy, Power, Politics, and Research Design [PowerPoint Presentation]. GEOG2260, Guelph. 

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 3: Ethics [PowerPoint Presentation]. GEOG2260, Guelph

Vice (2013, April 9) “Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 Years (Full Length)” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68

[kgeog2260]

Saving Kiribati

Due to its position in the central Pacific Ocean, Kiribati is located along the equator, making the islands much more susceptible to the tragic impacts of climate change. Majority of the islanders who once lived off the resources the coastal islands provided have been forced to flee, leaving behind significant cultural infrastructure and their indigenous way of life. The “king tides” or rising of sea levels that surround the islands have already began to have irreversible damage on the land – with the risk of water contamination being one of the most prominent issues resulting from this. However, there is possibility for mitigation strategies in order to ensure the future of Kiribati is not lost.

           As a researcher working for the Kiribati government to mitigate the current issues the islands are facing, the role of power in this specific case in order to ensure success, would be to allow locals to have an active role in determining the best possible solutions for mitigation. This is the most efficient method of research collection due to the fact that Kiribati locals have historical and geographical knowledge that could potentially give more insight. This method of indirect power uses personal experiences as an approach to bring a new perspective to the impacts of climate change in Kiribati.

           I believe when considering what role objectivity, subjectivity and intersubjectivity would specifically be applied to this case, intersubjectivity is the best fit. As a researcher, I would hope for as much hands-on experience in this specific case in order to fully understand the resident’s perspective, that can only be achieved through physical interaction with the islands and the people who reside there, as well as individuals who had to flee. The research collected through this method would allow for the opinion of residents and could possibly shape the next steps in implementing a successful plan for mitigation. I believe the importance of using indigenous knowledge in early research is extremely crucial due to the fact that the islands obviously hold historical significance to the residents, and therefore, their active contribution could ensure we are implementing successful strategies that will preserve the islands, whilst also respecting the culture of Kiribati locals.

           I believe the human geographic approach that would allow for the most success in mitigation efforts is the combination of historical geography and ethnography. One of the things that stuck out to me the most whilst watching the documentary was the significance of the local life throughout the island, and the cultural importance that could be seen in the desire to preserve certain structures, as well as the way of life the residents ancestors would have lived. By focusing on the community, in contribution with trends and events of the island, using qualitative research methods could give us more insight on how past residents would have adapted to environmental changes, or when they first began, etc. The use of ethnography in contribution with the historical patterns could be essential in structuring the most successful mitigation methods.

           Overall, from a researcher perspective, I believe I would best serve the islands through the in-depth research, not only on the environmental changes occurring and the proper mitigation methods to combat the “sinking islands”, but as well as the integration of the cultural significance as a way to draw global attention to the problem.

Hooykaas, A. “Philosophy, Power, Politics, and Research.” University of Guelph, 2021

Kiribati: The Sinking Islands Being Destroyed by Climate Change. AJ+, 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P7jXveokDY.

[atgeog2260]

Hi Karina! 

Your post was very well written and I really enjoyed reading your take on this short documentary. Similar to your stance I also believe that sharing the thoughts and experiences of the island inhabitants should be a major part in mitigating this issue. On the other had I really do think that an objective approach should be incorporated to compliment the intersubjective views and stories of the indigenous peoples. When you are speaking with government agencies who ultimately hold the power to make drastic changes , you need to have fact based evidence and data of the issue at hand that is effecting these peoples lives so drastically (metrological data, satellite imagery, etc). Along with geographic scientific data you could also present your case using population numbers, as in how many people are being forced to leave the island.

Overall, I agree that a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection should be used in this case to properly facilitate the change required to help this sinking culture. However one must recognize that the rate of land loss is such that people will inevitably leave the island, and a structure should also be set in place to help those who need to make this traumatic relocation (agreements with Australia, New Zealand and support networks etc.) 

Amazing job :)

-Abi Tetlow