Researching Up? Interviews, Emotionality and Policy-Making Elites

Neal, Sarah; McLaughlin, Eugene

doi:10.1017/s0047279409990018

Cited by 39 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…politicians, civil servants, business leaders, etc.) and their views is challenging (Schoenberger 1991, Cochrane 1998, McDowell 1998, Elwood and Martin 2000, Kezar 2003, Smith 2006, Neal and McLaughlin 2009), and we found that it was more difficult to encourage such people to "break the frame" and look at their communities in new ways. The abstract language of zoning maps and other planning tools and rhetoric is, after all, the language of these actors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Visualising community: using participant-driven photo-elicitation for research and application

2010

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Despite a contemporary socio-culture revolving around cultural consumption of imagery, metaphors, representations and "gaze", photo-elicitation is a rarely used method for social scientists and planners to acquire knowledge. In this paper, we discuss participant-driven photo-elicitation, a process in which participant photos are paired with in-depth interviews. Based upon a review of the literature on photo-elicitation and our own transnational fieldwork experiences with it, we argue that this method has four primary advantages: photos can provide tangible stimuli for more effectively tapping into informants' tacit, and often unconscious, consumption of representations, images and metaphors; produces different and richer information than other techniques; and may also help to reduce differences in power, class and knowledge between researcher and researched. Finally, we argue that this method has unique potential to empower participants' involvement in activities related to local planning for sustainable community development and natural resource management efforts.Keywords: photo-elicitation; public participation; sustainability; community IntroductionNo matter how familiar the object or situation may be, a photograph is a restatement of reality; it presents life around us in new, objective, and arresting dimensions, and can stimulate the informant to discuss the world about him as if observing it for the first time. (Collier 1957, p. 859) In an era in which consumption of imagery, "gaze" and metaphors are central to individuals' construction and comprehension of themselves (Urry 1990), of nature (Sack 1997, Macnaghten and Urry 1998), of rurality (Urry 1990, Crouch 2006, and of social life (Rose 2001), it is paradoxical that photo-elicitation is so seldom used. If people understand their world more and more through images, using graphical representations as stimuli for reflection would seem to be a logical development in social science research and participatory planning.Our particular focus is on better understanding the interplay between people and their natural and built environments, which is central to many issues facing communities impacted by tourism, resorts, summer communities, recreation and retirement migrants. Amenity-led development relies on natural beauty and resources to produce what it sells, but the production of amenities may threaten those same resources (Urry 1995, Goe et al. . Simultaneity also characterises social life; migrants often choose to live in amenity communities to enjoy the quality of life, which can lead to population growth and economic diversification (Krannich and Petrzelka 2003). Increased seasonality and extra-local investment, however, may reduce the year-round availability of goods and services and undermine local influence over the shape of the community (Luloff and Bridger 2003).In this context, research methods must capture the visual, so that perceptions of amenities, of changes, of people and their various and conflicting roles can be explored. Power is central ...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Visualising community: using participant-driven photo-elicitation for research and application

2010

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“…As with calls to turn the research gaze upwards onto elites and the powerful the over-research argument tends to work on an interpretation of power as fixed and linear. But, as has been argued elsewhere (see for example Cochrane, 1998;Mohan, 1999;Neal and McLaughlin, 2009), reflections on research engagements with elites have illuminated instabilities and uncertainties about the location of power in research relations. Our emphasis on 'placed' participants' agency and our orientation towards co-productive research relationships in which we established 'circulations of communication ' (Sinha and Back 2014: 473) suggest that disproportionate research attention may allow the development of sustainable forms of research engagement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…In their reflections on researching elites Neal and McLaughlin (2009) (2013) show that not all people in Shatila were against the researchers because of what they saw as potential benefits, both personal and social, from the research process. It is to place-making processes and the constructed localities of our research that we now turn.…”

Section: Places and Re-presentations Of Placesmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘You can’t move in Hackney without bumping into an anthropologist’: why certain places attract research attention

Neal

Mohan

Cochrane

et al. 2016

Qualitative Research

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'You can't move in Hackney without bumping into an anthropologist' 1 : Why certain places attract research attention IntroductionA criminology colleague once told one of us that in the 1990s young people who lived in Somerstown, then a deprived residential area behind Kings Cross station in London, were so used to the presence of researchers that they would confidently In this context we bring together sociology, geography and development studies literatures and draw on the fieldwork experiences from our ESRC-funded project Living Multiculture 2 to make three contributions. First, while the concept of overresearch carries some justifiably negative connotations, we reflect on the possibility of more positive readings of apparently disproportionate research encounters.Second, given that most critiques of over-research treat places as mere containers for social relations, the first step in understanding how sustained research

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“…Accordingly, categories such as 'powerful elites' and 'powerless others' (Smith ibid) are meaningless without considering the extent to which elites can transfer their skills and power across borders (cf Riaño 2011;Neal and McLaughlin 2009). In the case of highly skilled migrant women I propose the term 'marginalized elites'.…”

Section: Highly Skilled Migrant Women and Positionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The conclusion questions what can be learned from the proposed methodology. Neal and McLaughlin (2009) make a distinction between researching powerful and non-powerful subjects and alert us to the difficulties of creating inclusive research relationships with powerful elites. If highly skilled migrants are understood as 'transnational elites' (Beaverstock 2005), are highly skilled migrant women also elite?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minga biographic workshops with highly skilled migrant women: enhancing spaces of inclusion

Riaño

2015

Qualitative Research

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This paper proposes the notion of 'marginalised elites' to examine highly skilled migrant women, a group that has been neglected by feminist participatory research. It asks what principles and methods can be used towards inclusive practices in studies of migration and social exclusion. The paper contributes to the literature by designing and critically evaluating the method of participatory Minga workshops, which create inclusionary spaces of data collection and critical analysis with highly skilled migrant women living in Switzerland. Using this case study, the paper questions notions of privilege, power and positionality commonly used in feminist participatory approaches. Minga Biographic workshops enhance spaces of inclusion, become 'spaces of personal transformation', question the perceived inferiority of migrant women, and produce original scientific insights on social exclusion. These results point to the role of academics as facilitators of personal transformation, and the need to closely consider the added scientific value of feminist participatory methodologies.

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Researching Up? Interviews, Emotionality and Policy-Making Elites

Cited by 39 publications

References 34 publications

Visualising community: using participant-driven photo-elicitation for research and application

Visualising community: using participant-driven photo-elicitation for research and application

‘You can’t move in Hackney without bumping into an anthropologist’: why certain places attract research attention

Minga biographic workshops with highly skilled migrant women: enhancing spaces of inclusion

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