A living journals approach for the remote study of young children’s digital practices in Azerbaijan

Abstract

This article proposes the living journals method for remotely studying participants, elevating participant agency in the data generation process and minimising or completely removing the need for a researcher to be physically present in the field. Employing this method, the paper describes how the method was used to explore 5-year-old children’s digital practices in five families in Azerbaijan. Mothers were assigned as ‘proxy’ researchers to generate the data following prompts sent through a smartphone application. Mothers’ answers were used to create journals, and subsequently, fathers separately, and mothers and children together were requested to interpret their own journals and those of other participant children. Allowing other families to comment on one another’s journals further revealed their attitudes towards using digital technologies and enriched the data, emphasising its multivocality and metatextuality. The article describes the living journals method in detail, highlighting its affordances for researchers to generate data from a distance in other contexts. The article also discusses the methodological and empirical contribution of the method to this study about young children’s engagements with digital media at home. By decentring the researcher in the data generation process, the method allows researchers to generate both visually and textually complex and rich data. The visual and personal nature of the method goes beyond text-based research accounts to bring the data to life, allowing the researcher to generate multimodal, multivocal, metatextual and multifunctional data.

More than participatory? From ‘compensatory’ towards ‘expressive’ remote practices using digital technologies

“…The purpose of this article has been to open out reflections and questions about the use of digital methods that may be useful to other researchers. Alongside scholarship elsewhere around academic failure ( Harrowell et al, 2018 ; Davies et al, 2021 ) and ‘mess’ as method ( Law, 2004 ), we wonder whether – especially when approaching such methods from a ‘compensatory’ stance – we ironically expect too much of those methods, and our participants/co-researchers/any proxies who might replace us in the field ( Savadova, 2021 ). In other words, if there is a sense that digital technologies may ‘replace’ established PAR methods, we – those of us involved in the co-production of research – may feel under too much pressure to be ‘creative’, to be ‘engaged’, in ways that might meet the ‘gold standards’ of PAR.…”

“…Although some researchers were forced to put their research on hold or entirely suspend their projects during the pandemic, there are numerous accounts of how researchers have adapted their research to compensate for their physical absence from the field ( Hall et al, 2021 ; Liegghio and Caragata, 2021 ; Marzi, 2021 ; Savadova, 2021 ; Woodward et al, 2020 ; Cuevas-Parra, 2020 ; Birkenstock et al, 2022 ; Dodds and Hess, 2020 ; Colom, 2022 ). For instance, ( Savadova, 2021 :1) assigned ‘proxy’ researchers in situ, thereby ‘minimising or completely removing the need for the researcher to physically be present in the field’. Moreover, Liegghio and Caragata (2021) describe the rationale for choosing photo-voice over video interviews to maintain relationships at a distance while Marzi (2021) explains how participatory video-making was developed as an alternative to co-produce research without face-to-face contact.…”

“…Remote research with groups in situations of vulnerability has however raised questions related to digital access for marginalised populations and the accessibility of digital methods ( Kustatscher et al, 2020 ; Liegghio and Caragata, 2021 ; Savadova, 2021 ; Marzi, 2021 ; Colom, 2022 ; Woodward et al., 2020 ). This has brought to the fore questions of rights and equality in relation to internet access, digital literacy, skills and access to technology ( Kustatscher et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Although some researchers were forced to put their research on hold or entirely suspend their projects during the pandemic, there are numerous accounts of how researchers have adapted their research to compensate for their physical absence from the field (Hall et al, 2021; Liegghio and Caragata, 2021; Marzi, 2021; Savadova, 2021; Woodward et al, 2020; Cuevas-Parra, 2020; Birkenstock et al, 2022; Dodds and Hess, 2020; Colom, 2022). For instance, (Savadova, 2021:1) assigned ‘proxy’ researchers in situ, thereby ‘minimising or completely removing the need for the researcher to physically be present in the field’.…”

Sociomaterial Analysis of Azerbaijani Children’s Smartphone Use: Generational Ordering Through User-Technology Interactions

“…Our interest in this chapter focuses on children from Azerbaijan where, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have been conducted on children's perspectives on smartphone use in school and domestic environments. The study's initial hypothesis expected to find smartphone use to be strictly tied to family and cultural values besides being reflective of hierarchical generational order and strict parental mediation (Savadova, 2021). This study explores how smartphones mediate parent-child relationships and generational order in Azerbaijani families and schools.…”