Conducting Research in Human Geography

theory, methodology and practice

Rob Kitchin, Nick Tate

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317885917
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Sciences physiques
• Categoria: Géographie

Reading this book is your first step to becoming a competent human geography researcher. Whether you are a novice needing practical help for your first piece of research or a professional in search of an accessible guide to best practice, Conducting Research in Human Geography is a unique and indispensable book to have at hand.The book provides a broad overview of theoretical underpinnings in contemporary human geography and links these with the main research methodologies currently being used. It is designed to guide the user through the complete research process, whether it be a one day field study or a large project, from the nurturing of ideas and development of a proposal, to the design of an enquiry, the generation and analysis of data, to the drawing of conclusions and the presentation of findings.

Chapter 1
Thinking about research

	1.1	What is research?
This chapter covers	1.2	Why do research?
	1.3	What's unique about geographic research?
	1.4	What choice of approaches have you got?
	1.5	Which approach is best?
	1.6	Summary
	1.7	Questions for reflection

1.1 What is research?

Research is the process of enquiry and discovery. Every time you seek the answer to a question you are undertaking a small piece of research. For the human geographer, research is the process of trying to gain a better understanding of the relationships between humans, space, place and the environment. The human geography researcher, by carefully generating and analysing evidence, and reflecting upon and evaluating the significance of the findings, aims to put forward an interpretation that advances our understanding of our interactions with the world. This book is about how to undertake successful research and aims to provide sound, practical advice and ideas that will help you become a confident, capable human geographer.

Although a research project might at first seem daunting, it should be remembered that we are all capable of conducting research. Many research skills are commonplace such as the ability to ask questions, to listen and to record the answers. The secret of successful research is to develop and harness those skills in a productive manner using careful planning and design. As long as you plan your research care fully, almost any problem can be approached and answered in a sensible way. This is not to say that there is a 'magic formula' that makes research easy. Undertaking a research project, although challenging and stimulating, can be intensely frustrating, confusing and messy. Many first-time researchers run into all sorts of problems: they do not know where to begin; they do not know how to design an effective research strategy or the options available to them; they do not know which method of data generation or analysis is best or the full range of options avail able; they are unsure as to how to interpret or write up their findings. To make things more complex, research is rarely just a process of generating data, analysing and interpreting the results. By putting for ward answers to research questions you are engaging in the process of debate about what can be known and how things are known. As such, you are engaging with philosophy.

As we will see, there are many ways of approach ing each particular question and the research process is not divorced from theory. Theory, methodology and practice are intimately and tightly bound. Your beliefs as a person are going to affect the approach you take to study and also the conclusions you might draw - if every question only had one definitive answer, then there would be no debates, no different political parties, and libraries would contain far fewer books! However, we do all have different beliefs concerning how research should be undertaken and the exact nature of a problem and, as a result, our understanding of the world, the people, creatures and plants which inhabit it, is constantly changing and evolving as more and more studies are undertaken. The aim of this book is to make the process of con ducting research easier and more rewarding by guiding you through the research process from the choice of a research topic to the presentation of your results.

1.2 Why do research?

Given that research is not always easy, why should you want to undertake it? What is your motivation? Research provides us with a picture of specific aspects of the world. By undertaking a piece of research you are helping to contribute to world knowledge. You might feel that your research project will do little for the world other than help you pass your course. However, student projects have contributed to policy issues and at the very least make clear to the groups being researched or associated agencies that there might be a need for greater understanding of an issue. Perhaps more importantly, the undertaking of a study as part of a course will help later in the workplace where you might be expected to collate, analyse and interpret data, often at short notice. Such research skills are increasingly important in the workplace. For professional researchers the reasons for undertaking research usually centre upon five main motivations (see Box 1.1).

Human geographers undertake research for all the reasons presented in Box 1.1, often in combination with each other. It is possible, for example, to link four together. In a large study you might start with some exploratory investigations to determine which variables or factors are important. Next, you might try to describe the phenomena and how they are related. You might follow this by seeking to explain what caused the phenomena, using this information to make a prediction about future outcomes. For example, if we were interested in why people migrate to new, relatively unknown areas, the four could be linked in the following way:

• Explore possible reasons why people might want to move (perhaps these might include improvement of economic status, quality of life, better school ing and other services, family and relatives).
• Describe the patterns of migration in an area based upon the factors found during exploration.
• Explain the patterns of migration identified when describing the exploratory factors.
• Predict possible future migrations based upon the explanation of current patterns of migration.

Box 1.1 Reasons for undertaking a study

1. Exploration
   • To investigate little-understood phenomena
   • To identify/discover important variables
   • To generate questions for further research
2. Explanation
   • To explain why forces created the phenomenon in question
   • To identify why the phenomenon is shaped as it is
3. Description
   • To document and characterise the phenomenon of interest
4. Understanding
   • To comprehend and understand process, inter action, phenomenon and people
5. Prediction
   • To predict future outcomes for the phenomenon
   • To forecast the events and behaviours resulting from the phenomenon

Source: Adapted after Marshall and Rossman 1995: 78.

Given these reasons for conducting research, you may still be lacking in motivation. It may be the case that you are uninterested in conducting research, a task that you have to fulfil only as part of a course. If this is the case then your motivation should be driven by a desire to do as well as possible, and to think about how the skills developed might help you gain employment on completion of the course. One way to try and generate some enthusiasm for conducting a project is to research a topic which you find interesting (see Section 2.2). This does not mean that the topic should be of personal relevance, only that you are interested in understanding a phenomenon or situation better. If you still find yourself unmotivated then Blaxter et al. (1996: 13) suggest that you might find some inspiration by:

• changing your research project to a more interest ing topic;
• focusing on the skills you will develop through undertaking the project;
• incorporating within the research some knowledge acquisition of relevance to you;
• seeing the research project as part of a larger activity, which will have knock-on benefits for your course and future career.

1.3 What’s unique about geographic research?

As this book is designed to help you conduct research in human geography, what is peculiar to research from a geographical perspective? What separates human geography from the other social sciences? Defining geography is a task fraught with difficulty. For decades, geographers have been struggling with their identity, with no clear consensus as to what geographers are, what geographers do, and how they should study the world. We have tried, over a number of years, to get our own students to think about what geography, and in particular human geography, is and what it concerns. When asked, most students will either stare back blankly or have a stab at something which usually includes the words 'people', 'environment', 'world' and 'interaction'. Defining what geographers do can be even more difficult. To help our students, we ask them to consider the following party scenario outlined by Peter Gould (1985):

Party-goer:	What do you do for a living?
Geography reveller:	I teach geography at the University.
Party-goer:	Oh. What do geographers do exactly?

Next, we ask the students to take the role of the geo- graphy reveller and to give an answer. After, we ask them to summarise what they think the party-goer previously suspected a geographer might do. Judging from the responses we have received, the latter task is often the easier to complete. The terms 'geography' and 'geographers' seem to defy easy definition. Indeed, Holt-Jensen (1988) reports that the general public hold three common misconceptions regarding what geography is and what geographers do. First, to many people, geography is the encyclopaedic collection of knowledge relating to places and geographic facts (e.g., longest river, biggest town). Second, many people consider geography to be anything relating to maps, with geographers as the cartographers and collectors of information for these maps. Third, many people consider geography to be about writing travel descriptions at both the local and global scale. So, if these conceptions are wrong, what is geography and what do geographers do?

As stated, there is no clear consensus amongst professional geographers as to what constitutes their discipline. A number of different definitions of geography can be found depending upon where you look These definitions do, however, all generally revolve around the same themes: place, space, people, environment (see Box 1.2). Haggett (1990) suggests that geography is difficult to define because of its historical development as an area of study. Indeed, he contends that geography's identity crisis is a result of its puzzling position within the organisation of knowledge, straddling the social and natural sciences. This is a result of the history of geographic thought, which can be traced back to classical Greek scholars who viewed humanity as an integral part of nature. Geo- graphy thus consisted of a description of both ani- mate and inanimate objects. By the time geography became a university subject in the late nineteenth century, academic studies had already been divided into the natural and physical sciences on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on the other. Geography, with its natural and social constituents, had to be slotted into this existing inappropriate structure. The fitting of geography into the traditional academic organisation has proved uncomfortable and has caused a search for an identity that fits more snugly. Johnston (1985) thus suggests that geographers have sought to constantly refine and redefine their discipline in order to demonstrate its intellectual worth. Indeed, Livingstone (1992) contends that geography is elusive to define because it changes as society changes geography as a practice has changed throughout history, with different people still attaching salience to different interpretations:

Geography ... has meant different things to different people at different times and in different places.

In other words, there are many different geographies, some new, some old. All have slightly different emphases and some are more popular than others. As such, the variability of definition in Box 1.2 is due to the way that the definers cast geography. For example, Hartshorne (1959) saw geography as an idiographic science (that is, its main emphasis is description) whereas Yeates (1968) saw geography as a nomothetic science (that is, its main emphasis is explanation and law-giving). Unwin (1992) suggests that definitions also vary depending on whether we try to define geography as simply 'what geographers do' (academic), as 'what geographers study' (vernacular), or in terms of its methodology or techniques. Whilst it is difficult to pin down a clear definition, it is clear that at present, the totality of geographical research and expertise is diverse, covering both the natural and social sciences, and the interaction of the two (Table 1.1 ).

Box 1.2 Defining geography

Mackinder (1887: 143):

'I propose therefore to define geography as the science whose main function is to trace the interaction of man [sic - see Box 1.15] in society and so much of his environment that varies locally.'

Hartshorne (1959: 21):

'Geography is concerned to provide accurate, orderly, and rational description and interpretation of the variable characters of the Earth's surface.'

The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1964: 511):

'Geography, n. Science of the earth's surface, form, physical features, natural and political divisions, climate, productions, population, etc. (mathematical, physical and political, ~, the science in these aspects); subject matter of ~; features, arrangement, of place; treatise or manual of ~.'

Yeates (1968: 1):

'Geography can be regarded as a science concerned with the rational development, and testing, of theories that explain and predict the spatial distribution and location of various characteristics on the surface of the earth.'

Dunford (1981: 85):

'Geography is the study of spatial forms and structures pro duced historically and specified by modes of production.'

Haggett (1981: 133):

'[Geography is] the study of the Earth's surface as the space within which the human population lives.'

Johnston (1985: 6):

'Literally defined as "earth description", geography is widely accepted ...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Thinking about research
• Chapter 2 Planning a research project
• Chapter 3 Data generation for quantitative analysis
• Chapter 4 Preparing, exploring and describing quantitative data
• Chapter 5 Analysing and interpreting quantitative data
• Chapter 6 Spatial analysis
• Chapter 7 Producing data for qualitative analysis
• Chapter 8 Analysing and interpreting qualitative data
• Chapter 9 Analysing qualitative data using a computer
• Chapter 10 Writing-up and dissemination
• Chapter 11 Final words
• Appendix A Tables
• Appendix B Annotation for the interviews with respondents B, C and D
• Appendix C Addresses
• References
• Index