Tag: brainstorming

10.

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Thinking About Thinking About Data
Methodology

 

For someone with a Futures project that (at the moment) leans towards a sort of urban sociology (perhaps with a touch of phenomenology, but that’s being ambitious even for me), understanding the user experience of a set of particular spaces from a set of particular users, and sifting through the sort of underpinnings of why and how those experiences come to be… I’m hoping for some level of quantitative method as well as ethnography/qualitative work. Balancing between the two to achieve a mixed methodology, working through codes, attempting interdisciplinarity between (primarily child) psychology and/or sociology and the built environment… it has a sort of ‘grounded theory’ ring to it, right?

While conditional matrices are definitely fascinating to look at and try to parse, I’m not very confident about coming up with one myself. I think partly that’s just because I have no data yet, considering I haven’t started actual research – just been looking up some literature and lectures when I can. But since I think I’ll be trying to look for a genuine understanding of patterns and behaviors, of actors and systems, of dynamics/mechanics, since I’m looking forward to questioning of understanding and theory and not just induction, I do think my best shot is at driving towards critical realist grounded theory. I want that rich data! I’m so interested in the possibility of real emergence, and especially excited by the prospect of arriving at its discovery with my own work! How does class and division and power work into the sort of lived experience I want to dissect? How can understanding those factors – and others – work towards a better typology? How could that typology affect social sustainability – and all other pillars of sustainability (including the fifth, cultural pillar)?

What is ‘actual’, what is ‘real’, what is ‘empirical’… aren’t these the sorts of questions one must ask and try to really get knee-deep in when understanding the user experience of built settings, and the social impacts of urban policy? Won’t navigating through these questions bring us closer to a sort of abduction that may just arrive at a solution for the children of displaced, marginalized communities?

If I’m being realistic, any data I may ‘create’ would be qualitative. I’m not sure I would be able to generate purely quantitative data in the time given for the thesis – and I don’t have a supervisor yet, to discuss the possibility of this with. Relying on previously mined data would probably be the only way I’d be able to use quantitative data, but I’m not complaining about that. What does daunt me, though, is the sort of models people are able to come up with, when talking about quantitative data. For example, in one of the first studies I came across last year, Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital. Journal of Democracy, that had SEM (Structural Equation Modeling). Before this paper, I had no idea I could create a model of social capital, through equations, and that the model could manage to look like this.

A SEM diagram of the parameters and variables from the paper – Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital. Journal of Democracy.

 

A lot to think about. I’ve come across some more interesting model types, but I need to look further into data visualization to see what sort of relationships are possible and how I could represent my ideas and possible data through them.

Very nervous and excited for what’s to come. I hope I can make it.

post ii. measuring up the laydown yard

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The laydown yard is where all the tools needed for the construction project are stored. You’ve got to make sure it’s placed smartly on the site, that it’s safe, that it doesn’t get you caught in a property loss suit, and that it does, in fact, store all the tools. The topographical survey’s still got me divisive, so I should make sure I’ve got an accessible, well-stocked laydown in the meantime, if I’m to make any headway on this thing.

Okay, in all seriousness. Needlessly extended metaphors aside. I’ve been late in my update because I was trying to draft another post. I started right after finishing the Envisioning SLC intensive on October 18th, when I caught up on the news of the day right after I was done. What I started writing may have gotten off topic for an academic blog, though, a bit more pathos to ethos/logos than what might be expected here.

So I quit that, and tried drafting a different post, this time looking at what’s been happening through the lens of evaluating sustainability and the climate crisis. I figured applying my knowledge from what I’ve learnt here would help me understand new, different aspects of this political environment that I have grown up with and known since I can remember. I ended up with 20 pages of source material – since I was collecting articles and news every day – and I’m still parsing through it, hoping that I’ll finish today, or tomorrow, or today, or tomorrow, so that’s how I’ve wound up posting a) late and b) none of that draft at all. (The little problem of my falling sick extremely frequently since the spring of this year and never properly recovering before my body gets stuck in another interesting session of incubating fresh, flourishing, Flus of the Season has also had a hand in this, but that’s neither here nor there.)

I have to write about something here though, right? So, reviews of the intensives so far, and then KIPP it is. Strictly within the boundaries of course material!

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post i: initiating topographic survey

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I’ve been sitting on the first post a while because, despite Luke explaining thoroughly in the first meeting that I can do what I want, I still wasn’t sure what the tone should be. What do I want? Should I be having fun? Casual, writing like I’m speaking to a friend? Or should the writing be formal – maybe I should write like a journalist on a case. Then, absurdly, I suddenly got fixated on having a ‘theme’ and talking like I’m some sailor at sea in the 16th century –

Captain’s log, week 3 day 3

6.30pm. Didn’t know how to write blog post.

The appeal of that to me, for some reason, would be to title the first post Destination: Unknown. Because I honestly don’t know where I’m going. At this point, I’m second-guessing if I should be in the program at all! But I know that’s just me immediately catastrophizing, which I have to get to working around. (Actually, shouldn’t Destination: Unknown be better off assigned to a wandering space pilot? This is Edinburgh Futures Institute.) Forget it, enough digression!

The subject line I’ve decided on is post i: initiating topographic survey, all lowercase so I feel less stressed about formality, and numbered in Roman, meaning I’m letting myself know I haven’t fully started. Like in a table of contents in a book; you have pages going i, ii, iii before you start with 1. And I’m surveying, because there’s a number of spots in the ground I’d like to get to start building on, but I don’t know which one to pick!

Results of this imaginary survey:

  1. Fast-growing metropolitan cities, with deteriorating city cores – different ways of retrofitting these, adding new third places and creative, participatory sites in cities that can help strengthen community identity and pride. Courses I’m interested in regards to this: Regenerating Place, Cities as Creative Sites: Urban Studio
  2. Sustainable community design for marginalized groups – displaced refugees/immigrants due to war and/or natural disaster. (Additionally, in the context of Riyadh specifically, the expatriate blue collar citizens who live in homes of very low quality). Courses: Trauma and Resilience, Mental Health in the Anthropocene, Inclusive Society
  3. Phenomenology and narrative – how every facet of the spaces people live in go on to shape the narrative/trajectory of their lives. What are the ways in which people’s lives are affected by their spaces? What particular qualities of spaces am I interested in, from a phenomenological point of view? I don’t even know. And what will I do with these questions? Is there a practical, socially sustainable application that can be carried out for universal benefit, or will I have to narrow down to trying to find a better design application for a specific set of people? Which set of people? Courses: The World as a Story: Narrative, Self and Society.
  4. Islamic urban studies – what aspects, sustainable or otherwise, are there that can I take from part of my own heritage that may not be studied or recognized outside my sphere, and how could I be able to apply that? This I want to try and incorporate into whatever I do end up doing. Courses: not sure I can take any personally in EFI. Might just have to do my own work for this, go through available course reading lists, contact course instructors at Edinburgh and outside for advice on further readings.

Alright, I have to go now. That’s it for the moment. I’ll come back later, the sooner the better, to try and figure out how to configure any of these into something workable.