What Time is this Place?York University geographers explore

Toronto’s Kensington Market

GEOG 3420C Research Design and Field Research

Department of GeographyYork University

Fall Term 2005-2006

Week 2

GEOG 3420CResearch Design and Field Studies

Week 2

Planning Field ResearchAgenda

4. Administrative matters5. Preparing to do field research: The

Research Cycle6. Getting ready to visit Kensington

Market

GEOG 3420CResearch Design and Field Studies

Week 2

1. Administrative Matters- Enrolment, class list, attendance - Course website, listserv, blog- Senate Guidelines on Academic Honesty- Grades and grading system- Lecture/lab schedule, consultation & contact policy- Participation and feedback

Senate Guidelines on Academic HonestyOffences against the standards of academic honesty include:• Submitting work that you have already done in another course• Submitting work prepared in part or whole by another person

Plagiarism is the misappropriation of the work of another by representing another person’s ideas, writing or other intellectual property as one’s own. This includes … paraphrasing another’s writing without proper acknowledgement. … Any use of the work of others, whether published, unpublished or posted electronically, attributed or anonymous, must include proper acknowledgement.

Improper research practices include:• Dishonest reporting of investigative results, either through fabrication

or falsification• Taking or using the research results of others without permission or

due acknowledgement• Misrepresentation or selective reporting of research results or the

methods used.

Grades (Faculty of Arts guidelines)

A+ Exceptional: Thorough knowledge of concepts and/or techniques and exceptional skill or great originality in the use of these concepts/techniques in satisfying the requirements of an assignment or course.

A Excellent: Thorough knowledge of concepts and/or techniques together with a high degree of skill and/or some elements of originality in satisfying the requirements of an assignment or course.

B+ Very good: Thorough knowledge of concepts and/or techniques together with a fairly high degree of skill in the use of these concepts/techniques in satisfying the requirements of an assignment or course.

B Good: Good level of knowledge of concepts and/or techniques together with considerable skill in using them to satisfy the requirements of an assignment or course.

Grades (continued)

C+ Competent: Acceptable level of knowledge of concepts and/or techniques together with considerable skill in using them to satisfy the requirements of an assignment or course.

C Fairly competent: Acceptable level of knowledge of concepts and/or techniques together with some ability to use them in satisfying the requirements of an assignment or course.

D+ Passing: Slightly better than minimal knowledge of required concepts and/or techniques together with some ability to use them in satisfying the requirements of an assignment or course.

D Barely passing: Minimum knowledge of concepts and/or techniques needed to satisfy the requirements of an assignment or course.

E: Marginally failingF: Failing

Grades (continued further)

The difference between a C and a C+Factors which should be satisfied to warrant assignment of a grade of C+:• Understanding the assignment• Organization of the material (exhibiting a sense of the relative

importance of data, observations, criticisms, etc.; and avoiding irrelevancies)

• Articulate expression (saying what one means)• Presenting a case (as opposed to writing descriptively)

The difference between a C+ and a B (or higher grade)Additional factors which should be satisfied to warrant assignment of

grades of B or higher:• Superior grasp of concepts essential to the topic or discipline• Superior grasp of the methodology required to think systematically

GEOG 3420CResearch Design and Field Studies

Week 2

2. Preparing do to Field Research- What is field research? Why do it?- Marshall & Rossman’s (1995) model of the research cycle- Choosing a research topic- Creating a research proposal

Expose Yourself to …

What is research, anyway?• Research is a process of enquiry and discovery.• In human geography, research is the process of trying to gain a better

understanding of the relationship between humans, space, place and the environment and advance our understanding of our interactions with the world.

• Good research occurs at the intersection between theory, method, and practice.

• Research involves asking one or more questions and devising a plan for finding out answers (which may be provisional, varied, and even contradictory).

• Research should contribute to knowledge and understanding about something.

• Researchers seek variously to explore, describe, explain, and predict.(source: Kitchin and Tate, 2000)

Some elements of geographical field research

• “… at least part of what human geography entails is the actual ‘practising’ of human geography: the practical ‘doing’ of it in the sense of leaving the office, the library and the lecture hall for the far less cozy ‘real world’ beyond and, in seeking to encounter this world in all its complexity, to find out new things about the many peoples and places found there, to make sense of what may be going on in the lives of these peoples and places and, subsequently, to develop ways of representing their findings back to other audiences …”

• The field of geographical research is not only a physical location or domain, but also includes the social terrain, the encounter of people with their environment.

• “Being there” is a vital dimension of geographic research; but at the same time raises questions of perspective – the “politics of ‘being there’”; issues of ‘naming and claiming’

• Geography researchers need to navigate access to spaces and cultures and acknowledge our own biases, preconceptions, prejudices, and limitations. There is no such thing as an omniscient, detached, objective researcher.

• Successful field work relies on the senses, especially developing our capacity to see and listen.

• Geographical knowledge is constructed and interpreted• The questions you ask influence the answers you get

(quoted, adapted, and expanded from Cloke et al, 2004)

QuestionFocus

Theory

Models

Concepts

Hypothesis

Operalizational

Tools and IndicesObservations;data collection

DataAnalysis

Description

Generalization

Explanation

Prediction

Policy &Practice

Marshall and Rossman’s Model of the Research Cycle(1989, 1995)

Source: www.uh.edu/uhdistance/elcs/elcs7360/Questionnaire%20for%20principals.doc

But …• “In thinking about research, what I came to see was the enormous amount of

pretentious ritual that students are made to wallow through before they can undertake imaginative inquiry about something they find intriguing. … The problem is that no-one is allowed to say openly and honestly “Well, what I really want to do is poke around in this area and see what I can find.” Before you can do what you want to do, you will have to posture, pose and distort as you formalize and disguise your geographic curiosity in the great ritual of the Research Proposal. This document may have little to do with what you really want to accomplish, or the way you will actually go about it when your adviser or committee have been lulled into thinking that it is alright to unleash you. … When I first started to teach, one of the ‘Great Figures’ of the day said, with characteristically unquestioned authority, that ‘the purpose of writing research proposals, and holding doctoral examinations, is to give the student a good dose of humility’. I cannot think of a more inappropriate or humanly disgusting attitude for a teacher to have, and I despised the man from that day on.”

(Peter Gould, “Expose Yourself to Geographic Research”, in Research in Human Geography: Introductions and Investigations, ed. John Eyles, Basil Blackwell, 1988: 11-27)

What you really want to do is …

• “ … what you really want to do is observe carefully, closely, openly, and with as little prejudice as you can muster, and then describe, with insight, skill, and thoughtful imagination, the topic you have chosen. In the process, you hope that along the way all sorts of interesting things turn up that you could not possibly have anticipated. … something not seen before emerges into the open clearing of our thinking. Something dawns on us, we say ‘Oh, I see!’ …

• “Notice how we constantly use images of light whenever we try to express our own sense of coming-to-understand-something. We direct our thinking, which means we direct ourselves, like an illuminating beam to light up something that was there all along, only we did not see it before. In every science, and in all successful research, there are moments of sudden seeing when something that was concealed from us becomes unconcealed. Which is why aletheia for the Greeks was the word for truth, the a negating the Lethe, the dark underworld of concealment, to make truth un-concealment.”

(ibid)

Navigating these murky waters• Sure, they’re murky. But there are all kinds of interesting things

swimming in these waters, and fascinating terrain at the bottom, and open landscapes waiting at the opposite shore.

Source:http://www.foreverflying.com/new-photos.html

If Peter Gould is right, why do I still have to do a research proposal?

• Gould objects to narrow, inflexible formalization. He does not object to planning. How can you have a ‘eureka experience’ unless you have some idea about where to look?

• Remember, good research begins with good questions, a sense of disturbance or wonderment: curiosity, a desire to account for or explain something.

• If geography field research amounts to a process of mapping, then a research proposal is a record of the initial exploration (the reconnaissance), and an equipment checklist accounting for the directions to be traveled in and the gear brought to help ensure success (or at least survival).

• This is why we will visit the field site, Kensington Market, before you write your proposal. And this is also why you will undertake some library research before you launch into your field work.

Getting ready to visit Kensington Market

Source: www.backpackingtheplanet.com

Source: P.S. Kensington www.pskensington.ca

Field Trip Planning• Next Friday September 23, 2005• Meet in front of 193 Augusta Avenue at 12:30 pm (this should give

students time to travel from York)• Wear comfortable shoes; dress for the weather• Bring: paper and writing materials, camera if you wish, water• Bring field visit handouts and map!• Prepare for the visit by viewing the websites listed on the handout• Following the visit, send your short commentaries to Amy

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/users/melsky/

Kensington egg merchant, 1976 (source: http://www.boldts.net/Tor4.shtml

Source: http://www.cac.yorku.ca/people/harris/harris-links/Kensington/frong.htm

Source: http://www3.sympatico.ca/kkirsch/lscape.html

Source: Amy Lavender Harris, 2005

Source: Amy Lavender Harris, 2005

Source: Amy Lavender Harris, 2005

Source: Amy Lavender Harris, 2005

Source: Amy Lavender Harris, 2005

Source: Amy Lavender Harris, 2005

Source: Amy Lavender Harris, 2005

Source: Amy Lavender Harris, 2005

Source: Amy Lavender Harris, 2005

Source: Amy Lavender Harris, 2005

Source: Amy Lavender Harris, 2005

What Time is this Place?(Kevin Lynch’s version)

How does time inhabit a place?• Social time (chronos?); subjective time (kairos?)• Layered contrasts of persistence and change; physical and behavioral

evidence of transition; the rate of change• Cycles of noise and silence; day and night; weekdays and holidays;

seasons; delivery and garbage cycles; elections (and political regimes); cultures moving in and out of neighbourhoods; economic shifts (gentrification?)

• The speed of movement: walking, cycling, driving, hurrying to a destination or enjoying the journey

• Patterns of personal activity: waking, sleeping, venturing out – all vary if you are homeless, a hooker, a housewife, a child, an orthodox Jew, a student, an employee, an entrepreneur

• Every part of the city makes manifest our wishes, fears, memories, and desires.

• Reciprocal relationship between urban form and behaviour• Contested spaces

Selected research topics from last year• Authenticity and inauthenticity in Kensington Market’s ‘ethnic’ restaurants• Comparing the pace of life in and outside of Kensington Market• Portuguese identity represented in KM’s cultural landscape• ‘Insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ in Kensington Market• An analysis of the meanings of retail signs in Kensington Market• Commercial land use competition between store owners• ‘place legibility’ in Kensington Market• The impacts of a ‘brand name’ grocery store on Kensington Market• East meets west: Kensington Market compared to an ‘eastern’ bazaar• How fashion boutiques align with vintage shops to transform KM’s retail

landscape• Comparing the lived experience of work in two kinds of fresh markets• Graffiti as maps of identity in Kensington Market• Café culture in Kensington Market• Cultural demographic change in Kensington Market• Gentrification in Kensington Market