Hi All Student Research

Dissertation summary and timescales: Working with Transition Tynedale

Summary of research project:

Since the 1970s there has been a widespread growth in environmental awareness in reaction to our unsustainable lifestyles. From this community environmental groups have gained significant growth, particularly within the past decade. For this reason a key question is how do we come to develop environmental awareness? And is this related to our relation and perception of ‘place’ (this is to say, does our locality and the submergence in the environment around us inform our environmental awareness)? Furthermore, how do our perceptions of the environment change through the mediation and conglomeration of new knowledge and relations with others? Henceforth, I will be conducting my research with Transition Tynedale in order to analyse the perceptions of individuals and thereafter the political association (‘political nature’) with the environment and local actors leading to environmental action.

I short the project covers:

1. How the individuals within a community environmental group understand or perceive the environment, and whether this is related to the place they live in.
2. How the group acts as a mediator of knowledge of the environment, and how this leads to action.
3. How these perceptions of the environment lead to actions from the group. How does politics affect this process?

Thus, I intend to piece together how ‘frameworks of understanding’ of the environment are formed. This quote illustrates this point:

Dying forests do not contain in themselves the reason for the public attention and concern they receive. The fact that they do receive this attention at a specific place and time cannot be deduced from a natural-scientific analysis of its urgency, but from the symbols and experiences that govern the way people think and act. (Hajer and Versteeg, 2005: 176)

I therefore focus upon the symbols and experiences that govern the way people think (knowledge) and act (seek to take action within the group).

Methods employed:

In order to complete my methodology I am looking to run a sandwich shaped methodology. This will consist of: firstly, a group interview (>10) where we will discuss how Transition Tynedale functions as a group and what the group’s vision is, etcetera; Secondly, semi-structured interviews (individual informal format interviews) where individuals will discuss their personal understandings of the environment through ‘world views’, and from this we can discuss how these discourses lead to a course of action (individually and within the group); and thirdly, a focus group with photohistory (this is a method used in order to discuss personal accounts of what the environment means through a photo taken of a place of significance – holding symbolic or empathic significance to the individual).

Dates and Timescales:

I am looking to have all of my results collated and interpreted by October, and would therefore like to have finished all of my interviews and focus group interviews by September.

I would like to run the first focus group for this research on Wednesday the 24th of July. Thereafter, semi-structured interviews on this subject will be run in order to build upon the focus group (occurring wherever is most comfortable or convenient).  I will then run a final focus group with photohistory – where individuals are invited to use photographs in order to present their understanding of the environment and then discuss it with the group; this should facilitate discussion about what the environment is and how people within the group understand the environment. This will take place (provisionally) on the 28th of August.

I am most grateful for everyone’s participation in my research and I hope that this will provide valuable learning for all those taking part.

Rowan Jackson   (Lancaster University)

Telephone: 07807753217

Email(s): rowan.c.jackson@googlemail.com

               r.c.jackson@lancaster.ac.uk