Mapping the interview transcript: Identifying spatial policy areas from daily working practices

Abstract

An interview transcript can be a rich source of geographical references whose potential are not always fully realised in their conventional analysis. Geo-referencing techniques can be used to assign a spatial footprint to place names, adding value to these data and allowing the geographic information within them to be exploited when coupled with GIS technology. This paper discusses a method of analysing and visualising interview transcripts in order to understand the spatial extent of public policy practitioners' activities. Through aggregation and statistical mapping it is possible to gain insight into the importance of space across a range of public policy themes and to understand the relationship between practitioner-defined policy themes and the formal administrative boundaries within which they typically work. The research demonstrates that spatial working practices rarely conform to formal administrative boundaries and that there are varying degrees of spatial focus between different policy themes within localities. It also reveals that spatial working practices can continue to be influenced by historic geographies and can be pulled in different directions, reflecting both the devolved nature of the sector and the particular geographical context of the setting. It concludes that mapping the interview transcript can add value and provide additional insights to more conventional analysis.

Urban growth strategies in rural regions: building The North Wales Growth Deal

“…It is within this climate of joint working between LAs that, in South Wales, two city-regions have been created via LA collaboration and this in turn has led to North Wales seeking a growth deal for itself. The 'region' of North Wales itself also reflects a complicated geography, highlighted by The Wales Spatial Plan (Welsh Government, 2008), which identified the different regions of Wales as having extremely 'fuzzy boundaries', with stretched-out and relational public policy interventions occurring in some instances (Orford & Webb, 2018). 'North Wales' stretches into what has been called the 'Deep Rural' (Wales Rural Observatory, 2009) of mid-Wales; for example, where southern Gwynedd (Meirionnydd) blurs into the mid-Wales LAs of Powys and Ceredigion.…”

City Regions and Devolution in the UK

“…It is within this climate of joint working between LAs that, in South Wales, two city regions have been created via LA collaboration and in turn this has led to North Wales seeking a Growth Deal for. The 'region' of North Wales also reflects a complicated geography, highlighted by The WSP (Welsh Government, 2008), which identified the different regions of Wales as having extremely 'fuzzy boundaries', with stretchedout and relational public policy interventions occurring in some instances (see Orford and Webb, 2018). 'North Wales' stretches into what has been called the 'Deep Rural' (Wales Rural Observatory, 2009) of mid-Wales; for example, where southern Gwynedd (Meirionnydd), blurs into the mid-Wales LAs of Powys and Ceredigion.…”

Situating social policy analysis: possibilities from quantitative and qualitative GIS

“…Yet, as discussed below, both quantitative and qualitative GIS offer considerable potential for such policy making and analysis, examples of which are highlighted in the next section As with any methodological field, GIS techniques, thinking and capabilities continue to evolve, opening up new opportunities for rich spatial insights into social policy issues. Increasingly, for example, more traditional quantitative GIS representations of containerised Cartesian spaces are being challenged through attempts to characterise the relationship between places by mapping flows of data -trade, people, finance, information and so on -rather than displaying static representations of place (Orford and Webb, 2017). Most commonly, flow maps are utilised to map commuting patterns of workers, showing how many people travel from home to work (Rae, 2016) in order to understand the functional geographies of cities and regions -Figure 9.1.…”

“…Finally, a slightly different example of qualitative GIS in social policy research comes from Orford and Webb (2017) and their mapping of social policy areas identified from the daily working practices of public policy practitioners in Wales. Here practitioners were interviewed in depth about their daily working lives and were encouraged to talk about the places that were significant in their activities.…”