#ruralgeography

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Coding Qualitative Research

The Articles I Coded

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

Deductive Coding and Flat Coding Frames

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

The Codes I Used

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

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

Applying This to the Assignment

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

Resources

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

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

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Interview with the Geographer

Interview Participant:

My group and I are researching Rural Geography for our digital storytelling project. A resource our group valued while doing the preliminary research for our digital storytelling project was the Journal of Rural and Community Development. I am interested in community development because I believe that collective decision making produces the best solutions to overcome common issues, and creates resilient, diverse communities, among other things. For the sake of this blog prompt, I would like to interview one of the authors of an article I found particularly interesting that is titled “The Battle of Little Big Puck: Narratives of Community, Sport, and Relationships in Rural Canada”. Specifically, I would interview Kyle Rich. I would interview this author because I am fascinated with the article they co-wrote. The article is about how sport and recreation impacts the lives and cultures of people living in remote communities. Kyle Rich, PHD, is an assistant professor of Recreation Studies at Brock University and is interested in how community, policy, and societal factors impact experiences in sport in rural and remote areas (Brock University, Faculty).

Pictured is a still from the film “The Grizzlies”, which is based on a true story about how lacrosse changes the lives of a group of Inuit students living in the small Arctic town of Kugluktuk. Source:https://www.landmarkcinemas.com/film-info/grizzlies-the

Interview questions:

1. How do you feel sport and recreation impacts people living in remote and/or rural areas?

I would hope to gain insight on the importance of this theme in rural geography. I would hope that Dr. Rich would be able to tell me how his area of study impacts rural people from his perspective since he has done extensive research on this topic.

2. How can municipal governments improve the availability and/or accessibility of activities in their communities? 

For this question, I would hope to get information from Dr. Rich on local government’s role in providing these services for people living in remote communities, based on his analysis of how policies and funding affects communities.

3. How do remote/rural communities differ in terms of availability and/or accessibility of sports, recreation, or other activities?

I would like to get some insight on the differences in urban recreational activities and rural activities. I would like to see the specific importance of these activities in remote settings, as well as understand barriers that rural communities face in terms of capacity and resources.

4. How does working with rural community members and organizers help you to analyze and address local issues?

Since Dr. Rich is a community based researcher, I would like to know how his approaches and methods help to build a bottom-up approach in the research process, and how his work helps local communities. 

5. Why/how is the work you do important to you?

Lastly, I would like to get some insight on why Dr. Rich does this work. I think this is an important question because it would help me understand the potential and driving forces for this kind of community development work in rural geography. This would be a follow-up question, which he could build on answers from all previous questions.

How I Decided on these Questions:

I made sure my questions are open ended, and the possible answers were not just yes or no’s. This allows the interview participant to drive the conversation (Hay, 2016, p.151). My first few questions are primary questions to open the conversation up to the main issues, and the last question is a secondary question to elaborate on the importance of the themes we discussed earlier (Hay, 2016, p.154). Most of my questions are opinion and storytelling questions, which page 155 of the Hay (2016) explains. I chose these types of questions because Dr. Rich is an expert in his field and has lots of insight to share from his personal observations and personal experiences. I started with a question I believe would be easy for Dr. Rich to respond to. Hay (2016) says that this is a good way to get the informant familiar with the interview. Lastly, I chose these questions because they help with my understanding of my research project, and they are questions I truly would like to know the answers to. 

Please let me know how you found my questions, and what I could improve on in my hypothetical interview. :)

References:

Brock University. Faculty. Retrieved from https://brocku.ca/applied-health-sciences/recreation-leisure/faculty-research/faculty-directory/kyle-rich-phd/

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

Rich, et al. (2020). The Battle of Little Big Puck: Narratives of Community, Sport, and Relationships in Rural Canada. Journal of Rural and Community Development. 15.

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