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Material Geographies

Chapter · January 2010

DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199218714.013.0003

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 1


Material geographies
Ian Cook & Divya P. Tolia-Kelly




1. Introduction.
If you were writing a review chapter about material geographies now, you’d probably have to
begin by saying that geographers’ engagements with materiality had recently become the topic of
widespread and sometimes heated debate. You’d point out that a steady trickle of articles had
appeared in recent years by geographers (critiquing the) ‘materialising’, ‘re-materialising’ or ‘re-
turning’ to the materialities of (various elements of) their discipline (see Jackson: 2000; Lees:
2002; Cook & Harrison: 2003, Latham & McCormack: 2005; Browne: 2004; Bakker & Bridge:
2006; Whatmore: 2006; Colls: 2007; Hoskins: 2007). You might point out other kinds of writing,
like the ten books in Ashgate’s Re-materialising cultural geography series,i or the recent
undergraduate Human Geography textbook with the material cultural geographies chapter
(Crang: 2005). After that, you’d have to mention the numerous conference sessions with those
key words in their titles, as well as the ‘Material Geographies’ conference at University College
London in September 2002 and the ongoing ‘Geography and Materiality’ workshop series held
in Birmingham and Durham in Decembers 2006 and 2007. Then, you’d have to explain what
was distinctively ‘geographical’ about these materialities. So, you might argue that some of this
work tries to rework distinctive ‘material’ traditions in geography – like that associated with Carl
Sauer’s in the first half of the twentieth century (e.g. Crang: 2005; Whatmore: 2006) – and that
geographers have recently been trying to think through their discipline – often divided neatly
down the middle into ‘physical’ and ‘human’ geography – in a more materially interconnected
way (e.g. Harrison, Massey et al: 2004; Harrison, Pile & Thrift: 2004; Bakker & Bridge: 2006;
Harrison et al: 2006). But, then, you’d have to note that it’s no longer acceptable to think of
matter, or the material, or materiality, as the “unmediated, static, physicality that continues to
dominate ... some of the natural sciences” or any “ostensive social structure that over-determines
‘the cultural’” (Anderson & Tolia Kelly: 2004, 670; Kearnes: 2003, Anderson & Wylie: 2008,
Bakker & Bridge: 2006).

We ought to be able to write such a review. Divya co-organised that ‘Material Geographies’
conference (see Anderson & Tolia-Kelly: 2004). Ian is co-organising that ‘Geography and
Materiality’ series. Both of us have convened and taught undergraduate modules on material
geographies (see Cook et al: 2007). But, we do things quite differently, from each other, and
from others. So, we have tried to put this chapter together in a way that will "build bridges and ..
move discussion forward" (Jackson: 2000, 9). To force ourselves to do this, we decided to
organise our reading and writing with and through a widely reported and unexpectedly unfolding
news story that began in early 2007. Then, a stricken cargo ship called the MSC Napoli was run
aground in Lyme Bay - part of a stretch of heritage landscape in the South West of England
called the Jurassic Coast - and its containers began to wash up on the beach of the tiny
‘honeypot’ village of Branscombe. What, we have asked each other, might some of our better-
read students have made of this?; and what ideas, approaches, skills, politics, world-views and
 2


attentions to detail exemplified in different authors’ writing might come to mind? In the
following pages, we have used the 'Napoli story' - as told in the local, national and international
media - to think through three areas of geographical engagement with 'materiality' and
'mattering': in relations, first, between landscapes and national identities, second, between spaces
of commodity consumption and trade, and, third, through the 'afterlives' of the wreck in art and
artefact. Before we get into this, however, we need to set this scene in more detail…

2. Napoli grounding
The MSC Napoli was a 62,000 tonne container ship on its way from the English port of
Felixtowe via Antwerp, Le Havre and Las Palmas to Cape Town, South Africa. On board were
26 crew and 2,394 40-foot containers, half of which were to be unloaded in South African ports.
Inside them, were a strange assortment of cargoes: VW car parts, face cream, nickel, Xhosa
bibles, pet food, fertiliser, and an awful lot more.ii The Napoli was due to dock in Cape Town on
January 29th. But, on the 18th, it got caught up in a storm in the English Channel, was holed and
had to be abandoned. It subsequently developed ‘severe structural failure’ as it was being towed
East through continuing storms for repairs. So, on January 20th, it was beached in the sheltered
waters of Lyme Bay to prevent it breaking up at sea, and causing an environmental catastrophe.
For centuries, Lyme Bay had been “a place where mariners know you go for refuge when there is
a storm”,iii and its shallow, sandy waters were ideal beaching grounds as they could keep a
stricken ship intact. Soon, a 200 tonne, five mile long oil slick from the wreck was threatening
rare marine species, and led to the deaths of three dolphins and over 1,000 seabirds unable to fly,
dive for food or float properly because they were covered in oil, or poisoned because they had
ingested it.iv This event gained international fame, however, after the stormy seas caused the ship
to list by 35 degrees and lose 103 containers overboard, 50 of which washed up on Branscombe
beach. Local people began to help themselves to their contents and, after reports of some taking
away brand new BMW motorbikes reached the national media, thousands more joined them
from as far away as Belgium in what became a “big self-service party”.v The legality of this mass
‘salvage’, ‘beachcombing’, ‘treasure-hunting’, ‘scavenging’ or ‘looting’ quickly became an
issue. Goods removed from the beach had to be reported to the official ‘Receiver of the wreck’.
Perhaps the most widely reported story in the international pressvi went as follows:

"Anita Bokdal, 60, and husband Jan, 58, run a landscaping business near native Stockholm
and a winery in South Africa and were shipping personal belongings to South Africa on
MSC Napoli 'to make it feel like home'. Instead, she watched in horror as her container
was broken open and paintings, embroideries, a Rosenthal tea set and carpets were
removed. … Mrs Bokdal appealed to anyone who took two embroidered pictures made by
her father-in-law to return them as they have great sentimental value. 'There was also a
hand-made copper table, like a tray, which came from Jan's grandmother.'"vii

In the weeks and months that followed, the containers remaining on board were removed, others
washed up on the beach during fresh storms, a massive clean-up operation was mounted, and a
salvage company was breaking the Napoli into pieces, to be towed to shipyard in Belfast,
Northern Ireland, for ‘recycling’.viii
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Beyond the time-frame of these single days and weeks, the 'Napoli story' continued to be told
and retold. The whole event had been documented by a local history group called the
Branscombe Project - headed by retired heritage anthropologist Barbara Benderix – who, in
October 2007, staged a Napoli exhibition in Branscombe's Village Hall.x A month later, it was
the basis of an installation by Melanie Jackson in an exhibition called Human Cargo: the
Transatlantic Slave Trade, its Abolition and Contemporary Legacies in Plymouth and Devon, in
Plymouth's City Museum and Art Gallery.xi And, in February 2008, Devon County Council
initiated a public inquiry to consider the impact of, issues raised by, and ways of preventing any
future, Napoli disaster.xii For us, this 'disaster' and its after-effects illustrate some of the
complexities of recent material geographical scholarship that we should be covering here. The
Napoli's multiple materialities became the subject of widespread attention, excitement, debate,
concern, manipulation, more. But what literatures might geographers have drawn on to help
make sense of them? We start with issues raised by this wreck disgorging its cargo in this
place…

3. Landscape stories…
The beaching of the Napoli was controversial because it spilled its cargo onto the Jurassic Coast,
the ‘beautiful wild landscape’xiii that was the UK’s first UNESCO World Heritage site,xiv a site
“made famous by Thomas Hardy as Dead Man’s Bay in his fictional Wessex”.xv Historically
renowned by fossil-hunters, UNESCO recognised the ‘natural heritage’ of this 95 mile stretch of
coast, as its exposures provide “an almost continuous sequence of Triassic, Jurassic and
Cretaceous rock formations spanning the Mesozoic Era and document approximately 185 million
years of Earth history”.xvi The Jurassic Coast website boats that its coastal footpath “offers the
walker stunning views, with a bird's eye view of many coastal features … the drama of sheer
cliff faces, … the strangely eroded rock formations and above all, … the geology.”xvii What the
disaster brought to light here, however, were clashes between constructions of this landscape's
official, 'natural' heritage, and its more popular, 'cultural' heritage in which "Salvage has always
been part of life on this rugged Devon coast".xviii Newspapers reported that only seven of the
containers that initially washed onto the beach broke open on their own. The rest were “smashed
open” by the “gangs [who] descended”, “scattering the containers’ contents across the pebble
beach”, xix “litter[ing] the World Heritage Site”xx and increasing the wreck’s “damage to the
environment by 800%”.xxi This turned Branscombe residents’ “whole world … upside down”.xxii
Many scavengers reported getting caught up in the excitement of this ‘free-for-all’. One recalled,
“We don’t make a habit of doing things like this”,xxiii while another said, “I took a jelly shoe and
[some] photos, and saw people taking personal things away, it was horrifying”.xxiv The local
coastguard office described this behaviour as “crass greed”.xxv Local journalists likened those
who took things from the beach to “a plague of locusts sweeping through the village” or
“vultures picking over the entrails of Branscombe”. xxvi Anita Bokdal said that the people who
took her possessions “had behaved ‘like a lot of savages’”,xxvii and a local man described what
he'd witnessed as “human nature at its worst”.xxviii In the future, local politicians argued, one
aspect of this landscape’s ‘heritage’ needed to be protected from the other. As one put it, “This is
a World Heritage site. We don’t want every sinking ship brought in here”.xxix
 4


All of these various claims and discourses are about cultures of being that are acceptable. How
we act in a landscape, what we do, ‘who’ we are perceived to be enables us to move in it,
appropriate it and to shape the narratives that are told through it. The triangulation of national
heritage, national culture and embodied citizenship are played out through the responses to the
materials beached here, the reflections on the economies and flows of stuff and capital, and the
moral geographies of the landscape, nature and the folk that make up local society and their
culture. According to Doreen Massey (2006), landscapes - although touchable and seemingly
permanent - should be appreciated as ‘liquid’. This is how geographers are now tending to
interrogate matter in place and space: as mobile, and converging at points of encounter. The
American cultural geographer Carl Sauer (1996/1925) treated the morphology of landscape as
evidence of the material lives, material cultures, social rhythms and cultural heritage of the
people who had lived upon it. The natural landscape - its material presence - could explain and
illustrate social, moral and cultural values of a nation and/or region. And this taxonomy
translated to the typologies of people living upon the land and the cultures that they practiced.
The Jurassic and other coasts of the British Isles could be - and have been - interpreted as
landscapes that are physically, culturally, timelessly and patriotically ‘British’ (Tilley 2006). For
cultural theorist Stuart Hall (1999, 4), this view of "Heritage thus becomes the material
embodiment of the spirit of nation, a collective representation of the British version of tradition,
a concept pivotal to the lexicon of [national] virtues". The material of land, soil and nature
become woven into the story of Britain, almost as a bedrock. Yet, as historical geographers like
David Harvey (2003) have argued, we can learn a great deal more about national identities
through critically examining the 'heritage of heritage', unravelling the seemingly benign and
'natural' embeddedness of its values, and questioning the ways in which 'heritage' can politically
exclude 'others' from the national story (see also Johnson: 2000). Understandings of the physical
materialities of landscapes have served as blurry subtexts to mythologies materialising
nationality via notions of bounded senses of belonging, of a 'natural' flora, fauna species,
architecture, peoples, languages and races (Tolia-Kelly: 2007). Physical bodies, cells, blood
groups and DNA, for example, have become the material tools for evidencing 'proper' national
citizens, ‘proper women’ (Colls: 2004) or a British race (Holloway: 2003; 2004; 2005; Nash:
2005a) belonging to a national landscape (R.J.C. Young, 2007). The collision between the
material bodies of ‘other’ cultures and of the native ‘national’ culture have been shown to be
present in modern day tourism (Johnson: 2004; Saldanha: 2007). Here the materialities of race,
of the racialised body, and the racialised cultures of that body have been seen as concretized
through exclusion (Agyeman and Neal: 2006), the epistemological violence of the tourist
industry (Code: 2006), and the national cultures of landscape (Daniels: 1993) and Englishness
(Darby: 2000; Matless: 1998). Here landscapes are nationalized and the nation naturalized
(Jazeel: 2005; Kaufmann: 1998).

As part of this push to understand the heritage of heritage, geographers and others have argued
that it is part of a nation's economy as much as it is of its history. Hall (2000), for example, has
argued that who is catered for, which transport routes are funded, and what facilities are provided
shape and re-shape the access to the landscape, but also perpetuate questions of whose heritage is
reproduced. Heritage landscapes can therefore be seen as encountered both through branding and
 5


through embodied experience. Stories of a past that can be unlocked through walking, fossil
hunting, imagining and gazing and recreated through embodied encounters with it, have evolved
in relation to films, toys and the currency of dinosaurs in their natural world, 185 million years
ago (in this respect, as Rocksborough-Smith 2001 argues, the popular success of the Jurassic
Coast and of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park were, in the 1990s, not unrelated). Such physical
nature and landscape, we could argue, serves as a site for textual practice, upon and through
which narratives are written, where the texture, natures, forms and feel of the landscape become
tools for the narrator as opposed to being felt, experienced or encountered before or beyond
narrative. Here, narratives of 'heritage' site and 'Jurassic' time combine to compound an
alternative 'real', a narration that abstracts the material space of this stretch of Devon and Dorset
coastline to serve a discourse of the gigantic (Stewart: 1993), its scale of excess and enormity
making it more than the sum of its parts. But what of those writers who argue that matter is
always fluid, in the process of becoming, and cannot be experienced as a known material? Jane
Bennett (2001), for example, pushes us to consider the animatedness, liveliness and enchantment
in/of people's encounters with landscapes and other things; to engage with memories of other
times and spaces embedded within the experience of these encounters as landscapes and other
things refract, eminate and sometimes ‘magically’ transport us to other sites (see Luke: 2000;
Tolia-Kelly: 2004a&b; Hill: 2007). John Wylie, in his (2005, 236) paper walking along this very
coast path, sets out a phenomenology of landscape experience which "aims to spotlight tones,
texts and topographies from which distinctive articulations of self and landscape [can] arise”.
The coastal pathway is inhabited by the silent traveler aware of his/her embodied encounters
between feet and path, meteorology and emotion (see also Macpherson in press). Here, people's
engagements with materials are shaped ontologically, through various knowledges, memories,
histories and discourses that come before such encounters. The material world has a presence
which asserts itself despite and before such mental and imaginative realms. Thus, as Kearnes
(2003) argues, it is necessary to adhere to its agency and mechanisms of being felt, known and
encountered.

What the Napoli and its cargo did, then, was to both wreck and bring out into the open many of
these landscape relations. While, with time, the wreck will no doubt become a naturalised story
of Branscombe, throughout 2007 it was repulsive to the region's notions of itself as a Jurassic
coast characterised by natural beauty and leisure. The contents of its containers were re-written
as vile detritus; anti-human in nature and flow into the sites of a mediated heritage story. But it
did attract more 'out of season' visitors to the area. The fact that many were seen to have
exhibited behaviors, attitudes and interests that were not welcome revealed a particular moral
geography to the acceptable face of visitor culture, motivation and conduct. The ‘plague’ of
visitors was uncivilised, unworthy of a Devon welcome, and - by being called 'savages' or
'locusts' - they were positioned as ‘non-people’. Demeaning bodies in this way is what, Sarah
Holloway (2005, 2007) argues, most often occurs when referring to ‘other’ bodies, considered
not of the land or of the national race. The Napoli disaster left Branscombe vulnerable to this
kind of invasion, and the way in which these visitors valued and appropriated the goods washed
up was discordant with the values of those celebrated in newspaper narrations of regional
citizenship and ‘national civility’(see Gilroy: 1991; Daniels: 1993). Sheller and Urry (2006)
argue that the vicariousness of moving bodies and matter situates them as different, uncommon
 6


in contrast to notions of stable consensual citizens in society. Where matter is suddenly

displaced, suddenly ‘out of place’, it is defiling and contaminating despite not changing form or
aesthetics (Bikerstaff and Walker: 2003). Here, we could argue, both the debris of the Napoli and
the new visitors were positioned as one. Their mobility rendered them a risk to stasis and
consensual citizenry status. Derogatory discourse was attached to these mobile, non-native and
‘other’ materials. Visitors' bodies were equalized with the oil, rubbish, commodities and debris
of the Napoli. All were material equals in the narration of the accident as wholly unwelcome.
Such non-citizens are encountered in the everyday geopolitics of the street; single mums, muslim
clerics, asylum seekers are all examples of non-material citizens, disembodied, and articulated
through text disassociated with names, families and real biographies. It is perhaps easier to
imagine how the literature in this area of human geography might enable us to critically address
the 'Napoli story'. But, we also need to ask how that story might critically engage that literature.
Next, though, we turn to look more carefully at the Napoli and the cargo it spilled onto the shore.

4. Washed up commodities…
The English Channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world. Container ships pass by this
stretch of England’s coast every day. Their cargoes are mysterious, even for those working on
board (Sekula 2003). So, when one runs aground, its containers wash up on the beach, and its
various cargoes spill out, we have a fascinating insight into world trade. Exactly what was being
taken to South Africa from these European ports? What connections, which might not ordinarily
be questioned, came to light through this disaster? All kinds of commodities, in all stages of their
lives, were washed up. Brand new motorbikes. Car parts. Flip flops. Empty oak wine barrels.
Nappies. Packets of biscuits covered in oil. Bibles. Personal possessions. Second hand clothes.
Much more. For sale to the public, to other companies, within companies, or for distribution,
exchange and (re)use in other ways. Relying on just-in-time production, the South African VW
factory waiting for those parts had to slow down production for two weeks.xxx The South African
vineyards waiting for those oak barrels, would have “great difficulty”, having to wait several
weeks for a new shipment too.xxxi Those, like the Bokdals, who had shipped their possessions had
lost not only uniquely personal things – photos, tea-sets, furniture, embroidered pictures – but
also memories of people, relationships, life events.xxxii Often, they were desperate to get them
back. Yet, for people scavenging that beach, these things had no such histories and connections.
This was a ‘treasure trove’. These containers and their contents had appeared unexpectedly, out
of nowhere. They were taken and given new lives. And/or returned to the authorities. Sometimes.
Birds ate the biscuits (and the oil covering them). And then there was the Napoli itself. A
massive commodity, produced in South Korea, ‘consumed’ (or used) all around the world, and
now wrecked, ready for salvage, or ‘recycling’. Broken up at sea, and towed to a shipyard in
Belfast, Northern Ireland. This is the sort of event that brings to life, and perhaps questions, work
that’s been done on the (material) geographies of commodities.

Commodity geographies are, in many ways, nothing new. Anthropologist Daniel Miller (2003),
for instance, recalls a school geography class in which he "watched well-meaning videos of
smiling plantation workers followed by the arrival of cocoa by ship to Britain where it was
turned into bars of chocolate". But, after lying low for "a generation or more in … the dusty
backrooms of economic geography", these geographies have made a "striking resurgence" in the
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discipline (Bridge and Smith: 2003, 257; Jackson 1999, 2002). The materialities of the
commodities studied have not always been centre stage in this work, but there are two main areas
in which they have been. First, there are studies of the material cultural geographies of
consumption (see Jackson & Thrift 1995), in which - for example – ethnographic studies of the
acquisition, wearing, tidying, sorting and divestment of clothes has provided a lens through
which to make wider senses of relations between emotional and embodied experiences,
memories and individual/collective identities within and between the spaces, places and times of
people’s lives (e.g. Gregson & Beale: 2004; Gregson & Crewe: 1997, 2003; Colls: 2004, 2006;
Gregson et al 2007). Second, there are cultural-economic studies of commodity chains, circuits
or networks, in which multi-sited ethnographic research has been undertaken to piece together
‘social lives of things’ (see Appadurai: 1986; Harvey: 1990) like - for example - cut flowers,
food and clothes which comprise stories of everyday exploitations, inequalities, value-
contestations and consumers' reliance on countless 'unseen others' around the world to enable
them to live the lives they live every day (e.g. Long & Villareal: 1998; Lind & Barham: 2004;
Hughes: 2000; Miller: 2003; Cook et al: 2004; Cook & Harrison 2007; Foster: 2006; Benson &
Fischer: 2007; Crewe: 2008). Much of this work has drawn upon arguments about material
cultural studies serving as lenses through which to appreciate complex relations between wider,
deeper and more abstract processes (Miller: 1998; Jackson: 2000; Crang et al: 2003; Cook et al:
2006; Crewe: 2008), and, thereby, as means to critique 'applications' of political economic - and
other - theory (Marcus: 1995; Carrier & Miller: 1998; Leyshon et al: 2003). Yet, Marxian
concepts of 'alienation' and 'commodity fetishism', post-structural understandings of the
liveliness and excess of 'matter' and the co-agency of humans and non-humans, and the political
'edges' that such approaches possess, continue to animate much of the debate (Leslie & Reimer:
1999; Hartwick: 2000; Jackson: 2000, 2002; Castree: 2003; Kirsch & Mitchell: 2004; Page:
2005; Foster: 2006; Bakker & Bridge: 2006; Goss: 2006; Cook et al: 2002, 2007; Hitchings:
2007). Finally, the effects that different forms of academic 'production' - theorising, fieldwork,
‘story-telling’, dissemination, collaboration – (can) have on their ‘consumers’ – students and
other publics – has been the subject of much conjecture and some experimentation as authors
consider how, when, where, if the connective aesthetics of such work can inspire audiences,
confuse them, spark them into action, overwhelm them, encourage senses of connection,
responsibility and care, recognise differences already being made, and so on (see Cook & Crang:
1996; Hughes & Reimer: 1999, 2003; Hartwick: 1998, 2000; Angus et al: 2001; Friedberg:
2003; Miller: 2003, 2006; Castree: 2004; Gough: 2004; Barnes: 2006; Le Billon: 2006; Cook et
al: 2000, 2007; Barnett & Land: 2007; Evans et al: 2008).

While these material cultural geographies have, arguably, made considerable headway within
and beyond the discipline (see Miller 2003; Slater & Miller 2006; Foster 2006), a number of
limitations have also been pointed out. First, there is the argument that they are primarily
consumption-based, with relatively few studies attempting to appreciate not only the roles that
commodities play in other aspects of (other) people's lives (e.g. notably producers, but also
designers, distributors, sellers, repairers, disposers, collectors, re-sellers, thieves, counterfeiters,
etc), but also the ways in which companies and other organisations also act as the 'consumers' of
goods which are often not available on any 'open' market (Gregson & Crewe 1997; Crewe &
Gregson 2003; Pratt 2004; Hetherington 2004; Bakker & Bridge 2006; Rusten & Bryson 2007).
 8


Second, treating commodities as entities that have ‘biographies’ has been deemed problematic,
partly because of the danger of object fetishism that comes with attributing agency to non-human
things, and partly because of the impression that can be given that commodities are discrete,
stable, bounded entities with simple, identifiable ‘origins’ and destinations, rather than entities
which are (part of) more complex assemblages (Boge 1995; Cook & Crang 1996; Cook et al
2004; Latham & McCormack 2005; Bakker & Bridge 2006; Cook & Harrison 2007; Reimer &
Leslie 2008). Third, critics have identified a tendency for researchers to study heavily advertised
/ fetishised, ‘cultural’ or ‘discretionary’ commodities – primarily food and/or clothing (often
'fairly' traded) but also furniture, gold and diamonds - and to ignore 'hidden' and/or more
'industrial' commodities like sugar, oil, electricity, cars, staple foods, water, timber, pictures,
computers, housing, surimi, stainless steel, medicines, the list goes on (Bridge & Smith 2003;
Bakker & Bridge 2006; Goss 2006: see Le Billon 2006; Hartwick 1998; Mansfield 2003;
Hollander 2003; Doel & Segrott 2004; Tolia-Kelly 2004; Page 2005; McCormack 2007).
Fourth, there is a tendency for researchers to study 'consumption' by relatively wealthy people in
the global North and 'production' by relatively poor people the global South, leaving this body of
work open to accusations of Eurocentrism, of neglecting the material cultural geographies of
poorer people, and of neglecting North-North, South-South, and North-South trade (Jaffee et al:
2004; although see Miller: 2002; Friedberg: 2005; Kothari & Laurie: 2005; Edensor & Kothari:
2006; Horst & Miller: 2006). Fifth, and finally, it is fair to say that the things studied are usually
tangible, solid, stable, touchable, everyday, popular, harmless, small, human-oriented things,
commodities which means that things which are (in part) intangible, liquid, gaseous, unstable, on
fire, diluted, ephemeral, spooky, experiential, dangerous, massive, miniscule, illegal, for birds,
not commodified, and so on tend also to be neglected (although, see Jenkins: 2002; Jacobs 2006).

Back on Branscombe beach, then, there's plenty to think about. Here we have goods spilling
from a container ship involved in North-South trade, a ship who - experts said at the time -
"virtually beached herself" in Lyme Bay. Powerful stories emerged of the ways in which
commodities are involved in the making of places and relationships. First, in terms of memories,
personal/social relationships and 'consumption', it showed ways in which the social lives of
things stretch way beyond purchase and initial 'consumption'. In the Bokdal's story, the loss of
well worn possessions, gifts, family heirlooms and other items clearly illustrated the intimate
role of things in making places "feel like home". Yet, by far the main 'consumption' story
concerned the 'scavenging' or 'salvage' of commodities that had not yet had the chance to develop
those personal lives, that weren't bought through any official channels, that weren't part of a neat
display in a shop or dealership, but could end up being part of scavengers' lives or of those they
sold things to via other channels, like Ebay or car-boot sales. Although geographers' work on
second-hand markets is well developed (see Crewe and Gregson: 2003; Hetherington: 2004), a
literature on 'grey' or 'parallel market' goods is developing (see Kothari & Laurie: 2005; Edensor
& Kothari: 2006; Yeung & Mok: 2006), the Napoli event suggests that important material
cultural geographies of (other) places and spaces of questionably legal (or illegal) provision and
consumption are missing. Moreover, it also suggests - given the unintended consumption of oil
by all of those birds, as well as the washing up on shore of lots of 'Science Plan' food for cats and
dogs - that 'consumers' can be accidental and are often more than human. Second, in terms of
cultural-economic geographies of trade, with the exception of the second hand clothes that the
 9


Bokdals were shipping to South Africa for 'poor children' (see, again, Crewe & Gregson: 2003;
Hetherington: 2004), jeans (see Miller & Woodward: 2007), those BMW motorbikes (see,
maybe, Hebdige: 1988 in Crang: 2005), that nickel bound for a stainless steelmaker (see Bakker
& Bridge: 2006) and the ship itself (see Gregson et al’s ongoing ‘Waste of the world’
project),xxxiii the Napoli was carrying little that (material) commodity geographers have become
interested in. This not only adds weight to critiques of this literature as neglecting 'hidden' and/or
'industrial' commodities - where are the studies of exhaust pipes, battery acid, large balls of
woollen thread, methyl bromide, or hypodermic syringes? - but also refines them by ask why
only certain kinds of 'discretionary' commodities get studied - where are the studies of bibles,
nappies, sunglasses, 'L'Oreal Revitalift' cream or bottles of Vodka? We could extend this to ask
what roles events and/or commodities have in choosing us to study them, how and why they end
up 'mattering' enough for us to want to study them, and what the politics and ethics of these
choices might be (see Cook et al 2008). Finally, it’s important to point out how the media stories
of the Napoli were also commodities with their own social lives, which helped not only to report
but – very clearly – to contribute to the ways in which the Napoli ‘disaster’ unfolded. As a result
of the unfolding drama of this attention-grabbing news-story, Branscombe was unexpectedly put
‘on the map’ and local businesses have cashed in on this: local hoteliers reporting increased
bookings, breweries producing Napoli ales, boat owners charging tourists for trips around the
remains of the wreck, and the village post-office selling souvenir DVDs of the Napoli drama (see
Ateljevic & Doorne: 2004; Goss: 2004).xxxiv Here, it seems, we have commodifications of an
event that are proliferating and gradually becoming naturalised, alongside those dinosaurs, in the
Jurassic Coast’s changing landscape narrative.

5. Afterlives...
The body of the Napoli, its cargo and the impacts of its ‘salvage’ have continued to inhabit the
lives of those on the Devon and Dorset coastline throughout and beyond 2007. They materialised
in the spaces of oil slicks, in the homes of Branscombe residents, at local car-boot sales, on
eBay, in stories told in pubs, and – what we are going to concentrate on in this last section - in
the form of exhibitions in the public spaces of art and artefact. In October 2007, as we mentioned
earlier, the Napoli disaster had inspired the Branscombe Project’s annual exhibition. As its
curator, Barbara Bender, explained to journalists, “We camcorded things right from the start, it’s
a view from the bottom up”. Visitors to the Village Hall encountered “hundreds of photographs,
press reports, paintings and songs. … transcripts of interviews with villagers and their thoughts
when it seemed that the worlds had descended on their doorstops. [,] … an art installation made
out of salvage from the ship. … [and a] ‘talking heads’ DVD, expressing [villagers’] feelings
about the … Napoli”.xxxv A month later, the Human Cargo exhibition in Plymouth was
commemorating a much bigger event: the 200th anniversary of the British government’s 1807 Act
for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. As a museum press release put it, however, “Slavery did not
end with the 1807 Act … and this uncomfortable legacy is addressed with new contemporary
interventions by five international artists.”xxxvi One, Raimi Gbadamosi, “re-mapped the museum
in his own guidebook, challenging the Eurocentric version of history and underlining how other
cultures have been looted for their treasures. … [and] made personal selections from the
museum’s collection” to group together display case artefacts as spoils of individual collector’s
travels, rather than by artefact type.xxxvii Another, Jyll Bradley, took “the ‘neutral’ white walls of
 10


the institution and wallpapered an entire room with her beautifully gaudy yellow and gold Lent
Lily design” so that “[r]eferences to the exploitation of workers in the international flower trade
become an assertive backdrop to the displays”.xxxviii A third, Fiona Kam, produced “a Treasure
Map and competition exploring the links between today’s fair trade campaigners and 19th
century Abolitionists, and between fair trade goods and plantation crops”. xxxix The fourth, Lisa
Cheung, created a mobile Sweatshop sculpture – complete with sewing machines and material -
which encouraged and enabled members of the public to design and make parts of a large flag
installation raising “issues surrounding consumerism and cheap labour, in particular child
labour”.xl And, most interesting for us, Melanie Jackson produced an installation called The
undesirables, which - “as if washed up in a corner of the museum’s Maritime Collection Gallery
gallery entirely by accident” and “in unsettling contrast to a collection of grand paintings
confidently celebrating Plymouth’s maritime past” – consisted of a three dimensional paper
model of the Napoli wreck on the gallery’s parquet floor and, ‘washed up’ in a nearby corner, a
“flimsy panorama of etchings” or “paper sculptures” depicting that Jurassic Coast landscape,
those containers and commodities, the people scavenging them, and the media reporting of that
scavenging.xli Jackson had worked with the Branscombe Project, “carefully researched the
products and goods that appeared there … used interviews with eyewitnesses … and interviewed
cargo workers at ABP Port of Plymouth about their experience of moving cargo.” xlii She
included in the installation “transcripts and recordings” also seen in Branscombe Village Hall,
which “offered personal accounts from different eyewitnesses."xliii

Both of these illustrations of the material geographical afterlives of the Napoli disaster could
have been neatly fitted into our previous sections as geographies, landscapes, commodities,
memories, and identities are tightly interwoven in this chapter. However, they also point us
towards the third area of literature that we want to highlight here: where geographers have
studied, collaborated with, been and/or become museum and art practitioners. According to
Sarah Cant and Nina Morris (2006), there is a long history of geographical interest in art but,
what has characterised the past decade of this work, are the ways in which geographers and
artists have begun to work closely together (see, for example, Anderson et al, 2001; Driver et al
2002; Nash 2005b). As artist Kate Foster and geographer Hayden Lorimer (2007, 425-6),
explain:

“…geographers [now] look to artists to help their research ‘outreach’ to communities;

geographers have been curators of art exhibitions; artists exhibit and perform at geography
conferences, as well as offer papers; university departments host artists’ residencies ;
artists contribute to geographers’ research projects; artists employ a spatialised vocabulary
to label, describe and explain their work that geographers recognise as their own.”

On top of this, work has emerged from numerous PhD projects (in the UK, at least) co-funded by
research councils and museums (see, for example, Toby Butler: 2006, 2007; and Hilary
Geoghegan: forthcoming)xliv and from the fact that collaboration is not strictly necessary when
geographers also have training and/or life experience as curators and/or artists (like, for example,
Trevor Paglen: 2006; Helen Scalway: 2006; Caitlin DeSilvey 2006, 2007 and Kathryn Yusoff
2007).xlv These collaborations and crossovers are many and varied, and include our own work:
 11


Divya collaborating with artist Graham Lowe in the English ‘Lake District’ to “disrupt the moral
geography of the landscape as embodying a singular English sensibility, normally exclusionary
of British multi-ethnic, translocal and mobile landscape values and sensibilities” (Tolia Kelly:
2007, 329); and Ian working with, and inspired by, artist Shelley Sacks and her ‘social sculpture’
Exchange values: images of invisible livesxlvi in his work on the ‘connective aesthetics’ of
commodity geography ‘education’ (Cook et al 2000, 2007). Such work invariably focuses
attention on the materialities of geographic and artistic/curatorial practice, and the ways in which
these can differently shape, (for want of a better word) ‘capture’ and draw others into research
projects.

Four examples will hopefully illustrate this point. First, artist/geographer Helen Scalway (2006,
456) has described the materialities of drawing as a research method for her project ‘A patois for
pattern’: “Drawing, like other embodied practices, is a form of corporeal knowing. What I had
not foreseen was what it would reveal. At one moment I would find my pen whisking sharply
along a steel rule as I sought to re-enact the lines of a rack of metal shelves or lighting unit, the
next, the pen went whisping and wandering at an entirely different speed and pressure among the
tendrils of a flowery boteh.” Second, cartographer Edward Kinman and ceramic artist John
Williams (2007), in a project ‘mapping’ the histories of the land and lives on which their
university now stands, talk about the significance of using clay tiles as the ‘canvas’ for their
maps. While Williams “was fascinated with clay’s innate ability to record flame patterns in the
kiln, the marks of the maker, and the patina of use. Clay had memory” (435), for Kinman, “clay
tiles [were] one of the earliest cartographic mediums” and, given the focus on landscape,
“wanted to use a material representative of our subject in the artwork. … we took material from
the ground and altered it” (441). Third, in their work on/with theatre group London Bubble,
geographers Alison Blunt et al. (2007) describe what is added to a play about migration by its
taking-place in a ‘real’ domestic space. London Bubble’s ‘My home’ was performed in a house
whose “rich material layering … suggested the presence of the past in ways which mirrored a
central theme of the monologues: memory and the interaction of homes past and present,
particularly the relationship between places left behind and current homes” (315; see also Tolia-
Kelly 2004a&b). Finally, Caitlin DeSilvey’s (2006, 2007) curatorial/PhD work on a neglected
Montana homestead, involved making sense of the lively but decaying materialities of found
(and archived) items (see Edensor: 2005; Ogborn: 2004). Here, she writes, for example, about a
box of books which had, for decades, been the home of insects, mice and mould: “I could
understand the mess as the residue of a system of human memory storage, or I could see an
impressive display of animal adaptations to available resources. … This book-box-nest is neither
artefact or ecofact, but both” (2006, 323-4). What we are describing here, perhaps, is part of an
emerging field of ‘creative geographies’ combining established and innovative research practices
through and beyond writing (see, for example, Wylie forthcoming). Here, geographies of
landscape, cultural production, economy, emotion, transport, national belonging, nature,
migration, tourism, the sea, and nature can be synthesised through a lens on matter and the
tracings of its flows, immanence, agency, emergence and sometimes invisibility or immateriality.
 12


The afterlives of the Napoli disaster, as they passed through the exhibitions in Branscombe and
Plymouth, seem to illustrate the kinds of collaborations and crossovers that are currently exciting
so many geographers. In her academic life, for example, Barbara Bender (1993) has argued that
the contested natures of landscapes are part of their meanings and values in the contemporary
world: a theme that comes across strongly in her work with the Branscombe Project. The Napoli
exhibition materialised the memories of locals, and exhibited the pieces of the story as a heritage
story for the nation. It became a means through which the geography, history and local memories
of this site, were made, re-made and reflected upon, articulating a particular relationship between
memory and place (Hoelscher and Aldermam, 2004). The nature of the exhibition was also to
present a ‘non-national’ account sanctioned through conventional practices of heritage writing or
political ideology (Hewison, 1987). The Napoli wreck itself called for alternative hierarchies and
localised conventions that could incorporate radical cultural accounts in tune with rhythms of
nature, culture and international trade, located in material lives. ‘Post-human’, ‘post-racial’ and
‘post-national’ accounts could be embraced as part of new artefactual collages of history and
heritage (Anderson, 2003). And these were plural accounts not shackled by bounded senses of
national identity linked to blood, soil, nature and sensibilities (Schama, 1995). Both the Napoli
and Human Cargo exhibitions show how cultural narratives through artefact, art and narration
are central to the ways that geographies of nation of reproduced and reframed. As geographers,
what is striking to us about Human Cargo is that all five artists employed ‘spatialised
vocabularies’: Gbadamosi’s re-mapping, Kam’s treasure map, Cheung’s mobile work-place,
Jackson’s wrecked landscape, and even Bradley’s wallpaper (echoing London Bubble’s use of
layerings of meaning in domestic performance spaces). Each explored ways in which times and
spaces were, and could be, brought together working through materialities, imaginations,
memories, bodies, performance and engagement. And all of their work seemed to be based upon
hybrid art/humanities/social science research practice. The Undesirables, for example, was a
satire in the tradition of William Hogarth, a social comment on the vanities and excesses of 21st
century living. For us it showed, first, an experience of abhorrence that commodities travel
around the world at this scale and quantity at all, and the excesses of this scale of consumption
and production of goods that are fetishised and not always necessary for living. Second, it
demonstrated a reaction to the discordancy of these materials out-of-place, where they become
active pollutants endangering the living nature and the consensual culture of this heritage
coastline. Third, Jackson seemed to be reflecting on the partiality of representation; the
cavernous distance between visual representation and the material extents of the event; its social
and cultural geographies becoming more-than-national, knowable and translatable. In the gallery
as much as on the beach, the Napoli story attained the proportions of the gigantic, denuding the
effectiveness of art, culture and narration. The space-time of the Napoli is linked across the
centuries to the time of slavery; the spaces of the commodity networks and exploitation of this
past are located in a contemporary geography of cargo and shipping. So, finally, Jackson shows
us that the material geographies of the Napoli and its afterlives subsume the tools we have at
hand to recall, retell and record. Here, the materials of heritage, of exhibition and
photojournalism are but a small set of reflections on the raft of materials associated with this
entirely unexpected event.
 13


6. endote: writing wrecks…

It's tempting to end by imagining what we've just written and what you've just read as the
wrecking of the Napoli on the shores of the material geographies literature. Alternatively, we
could imagine scavengers on Branscombe beach jemmying open a container to find books and
journals full of this literature, washed up onto their lives and landscape. Either way, we could
treat this chapter as one of many tendril-like examples of the afterlife of this 'disaster': brought to
you by I Cook, DP Tolia-Kelly and MSC Napoli. Certainly, this has been a way to make us think
carefully about what to read and how to put arguments together. Framing a review of the
material geographies 'literature' was a bit of a challenge. Mainly because there isn't a literature,
per se. So much of geography - given its human/physical character - discusses, fudges and/or
ignores its multiple materialities in so many ways. Thus, what we have written here inevitably
reflects our own interests, experiences, understandings, politics and practices, the ways these
have been influenced from across arts, humanities, and social sciences ns how, in turn, these
have often been influenced by 'geographical' ideas and have used spatialised vocabularies. We
said at the start that we wanted to use the 'Napoli story' as a focus to "build bridges … and move
discussion forward" (Jackson: 2000, 9). Resisting powerful forces within us to write a journal-
type paper about the Napoli, we instead tried to provide sufficient empirical detail not only to
allow us to critically explore three 'main areas' of material geographical work, but also to enable
readers with other expertises and concerns to make other senses out of this. Bridge building and
discussion movement taking place both in the writing and reading of this chapter. All elements of
the afterlives of the 'disaster' we began with. As we finally submit this chapter - beaching it on
Dan's desk - we're hoping this experiment has somehow worked…

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211-233






























 
























i
See http://www.ashgate.com/subject_area/geography_environment/rematerialising_series.htm
ii
Anon (2007) Crane barges sail to Napoli's aid. BBC news 25 January
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6297767.stm); Richard Savill (2007) Beachcombers make
the most of sea harvest. The daily telegraph 24 January
(www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/23/nwreck123.xml)
iii
Anon (2007) So why did they risk our beautiful beaches? Sidmouth herald 26 January
(http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/exmouthjournal/news/story.aspx?brand=EXJOnline&categor
y=news&tBrand=devon24&tCategory=newsexj&itemid=DEED26%20Jan%202007%2013%3A
22%3A03%3A360)
iv
Steven Morris (2007) Fears grow for heritage coast as salvage of wreck likely to last a year.
The guardian Wednesday 24 January
(www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jan/24/pollution.wildlife); ‘Fate of birds caught in oil’
Sidmouth herald 25 June (url).
v
Hasnain Kazim (2007) ‘The night of the treasure hunters’
www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,461595,00.html, 23 January
vi
e.g. Anon (2007) Woman pleads for return of belongings. CNN.com 23 January
(cnn.hu/2007/WORLD/europe/01/23/ship.wreck/index.html); Peter Malan (2007) ‘Best tea set'
goes to looters. Die Burger, 23 January
(http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2058762,00.html); Anon
 21
































 





























 





























 





























 





























 






















(2007) Police clamp down on shipwreck 'looting'. ABC news 24 January
(http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/01/24/1832419.htm)
vii
Anon (2007) Portrayed as thieves. Sidmouth Herald 26 January
(www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/sidmouthherald/news/story.aspx?brand=SMHOnline&category=ne
ws&tBrand=devon24&tCategory=newssmh&itemid=DEED26%20Jan%202007%2010%3A48%
3A31%3A560)
viii
Anon (2007) Adios Napoli’ Sidmouth herald 25 May
(http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/search/story.aspx?brand=SMHonline&category=News&itemi
d=DEED25%20May%202007%2009:53:50:560&tBrand=SMHonline&tCategory=search);
Anon. (2007) Napoli will be tugged along our coastline. Exmouth journal 10 August
(http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/exmouthjournal/news/story.aspx?brand=EXJOnline&categor
y=news&tBrand=devon24&tCategory=newsexj&itemid=DEED10%20Aug%202007%2009%3
A23%3A54%3A110); ‘Napoli reaches Irish shipyard’ Devon 24 17 August
(http://www.devon24.co.uk/exmouthherald/news/story.aspx?brand=EXHOnline&category=news
&tBrand=devon24&tCategory=newsexh&itemid=DEED17%20Aug%202007%2010%3A51%3
A59%3A773.)
ix
Barbara Bender is known as Barbara Farquharson in Branscombe.
x
Laura Joint (2007) Villagers record Napoli experiences. BBC Devon 27 November
(www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/articles/2007/09/18/branscombe_project_napoli_feature.shtml);
Anon (2007) Village exhibition tells of effects of the grounding of holed container ship. Express
& Echo 22 October; Roberts (2008) The bay of the jackals. Sunday Times 20 January
(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3196943.ece)
xi
Anon (ed) (2007) HUMAN CARGO: The Transatlantic Slave Trade, its Abolition and
Contemporary Legacies in Plymouth and Devon. Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery, 22
September – 24 November 2007, (Educators’ Notes, Contemporary Art Responses)
(www.humancargo.co.uk/HC_ContemporaryArt.pdf); Anon (2007) HUMAN CARGO: The
Transatlantic Slave Trade, its Abolition and Contemporary Legacies in Plymouth and Devon.
Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery, 22 September – 24 November 2007, Educators’ Notes,
Contemporary Art Responses (www.humancargo.co.uk/HC_ContemporaryArt.pdf)
xii
see www.devon.gov.uk/msc_napoli_inquiry.pdf .
xiii
Hasnain Kazim (2007) ‘The night of the treasure hunters’ Spiegel online 23 January
www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,461595,00.html,
xiv
See www.jurassiccoast.com/ and http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1029
xv
Roberts (2008) The bay…
xvi
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1029
xvii
www.jurassiccoast.com/281/category/south-west-coast-path-149.html
xviii
Richard Savill (2007) Beachcombers make the most of sea harvest. The daily telegraph 24
January (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/23/nwreck123.xml)
xix
Steven Morris (2007) Fears grow…
xx
Anon (2007) Arrest warning. Sidmouth Herald, 23 January
(www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/sidmouthherald/news/story.aspx?brand=SMHOnline&category=ne
ws&tBrand=devon24&tCategory=newssmh&itemid=DEED23%20Jan%202007%2018%3A16%
3A41%3A897)
 22
































 





























 





























 





























 





























 






















xxi
Morris (2007) Fears grow…
xxii
Anon (2007) Police are left powerless as looters swoop. Exmouth Journal, 26 January
(http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/exmouthjournal/news/story.aspx?brand=EXJOnline&categor
y=news&tBrand=devon24&tCategory=newsexj&itemid=DEED26%20Jan%202007%2013%3A
19%3A32%3A210)
xxiii
Anon (2007) Portrayed as thieves. Sidmouth Herald, 26 January
(http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/sidmouthherald/news/story.aspx?brand=SMHOnline&categor
y=news&tBrand=devon24&tCategory=newssmh&itemid=DEED26%20Jan%202007%2010%3
A48%3A31%3A560)
xxiv
Anon (2007) Eager to return Napoli photographs. Sidmouth Herald, 28 June
(http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/search/story.aspx?brand=EXHonline&category=News&itemi
d=DEED28%20Jun%202007%2017:23:20:740&tBrand=EXHonline&tCategory=search).
xxv
Morris (2007) Fears grow…
xxvi
Anon (2007) 'Plague of locusts descended on us.' Sidmouth Herald, 26 January
(http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/sidmouthherald/news/story.aspx?brand=SMHOnline&categor
y=news&tBrand=devon24&tCategory=newssmh&itemid=DEED26%20Jan%202007%2010%3
A45%3A59%3A803)
xxvii
Anon (2007) Looting victim visits Napoli site. BBC News
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/6687659.stm); Roberts (2008) The bay…
xxviii
Roberts (2008) The bay…
xxix
James Sturcke, Steven Morris and agencies (2007) Salvage boats refloat Napoli cargo ship.
The Guardian, 9 July (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jul/09/oilspills.pollution)
xxx
Anon (2007) Shipwreck forces Volkswagen SA to cut back. SABC News, 25 January
(http://www.sabcnews.com/south_africa/general/0,2172,142583,00.html)
xxxi
Oliver Styles (2007) French barrel maker loses over €100k in Napoli grounding. Decanter,
26 January (http://www.decanter.com/news/107468.html?aff=rss)
xxxii
see also Di Bowerman (2007) Suitcase sent to Africa washed up on shore Branscombe.
Sidmouth Herald, 3 February
(http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/sidmouthherald/news/story.aspx?brand=SMHOnline&categor
y=news&tBrand=devon24&tCategory=newssmh&itemid=DEED02%20Feb%202007%2013%3
A44%3A16%3A517); Geneviève Roberts (2007) Branscombe barmaid saw her case wash up on
beach. The Independent 27 January (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-
britain/branscombe-barmaid-saw-her-case-wash-up-on-beach-433871.html); Richard Savill
(2007) Strange case of the photos that made a return trip via Napoli. The Daily Telegraph, 27
January (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/27/nwreck27.xml)
xxxiii
One project in this ongoing ESRC-funded "Waste of the world" programme specifically
examines the "life and death of ships" (see www.thewasteoftheworld.org/).
xxxiv
Andrew Malone (2008) Branscombe one year on: a village torn apart by greed. Daily Mail
24 January
(www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=510033&in_page_id=1
770)
xxxv
Anon (2007) Village exhibition… ; Joint (2007) Villagers record…
 23
































 





























 





























 





























 





























 






















xxxvi
Anon (2007) Major exhibition considers past and present legacies of the Transatlantic Slave
Trade (www.plymouth.gov.uk/textonly/museumsnewsitem?newsid=148200)
xxxvii
Gabrielle Hoad (2007) Human Cargo. Interface (http://interface.a-
n.co.uk/reviews/single/390419)
xxxviii
Hoad (2007) Human Cargo…
xxxix
Anon (2007) Major exhibition
xl
www.humancargo.co.uk/lisa.html
xli
Hoad (2007) Human Cargo… ; Anon (ed) (2007) HUMAN CARGO…
xlii
www.humancargo.co.uk/melanie.html
xliii
Hoad (2007) Human Cargo…
xliv
see Toby’s Memoryscape project at www.memoryscape.org.uk/index.htm
xlv
see www.paglen.com
xlvi
see www.exchange-values.org

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HERDING SPECIES: Biosecurity, Posthuman Labor,
and the American Industrial Pig

ALEX BLANCHETTE
Tufts University

In the late spring of 2013, Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) first
emerged on the Great Plains and swept through North American hog herds.
Within a year, it had taken a toll of some seven million animals, or 10 percent
of the pigs in the United States (Eisenstadt 2014). One of the disease’s rumored
ground zeroes was near the factory farms where I had previously conducted
twenty-four months of ethnographic research, tracing the making of the industrial
pig across all stages from prelife to postdeath. Moving across this multistate region
on the Great Plains, the disease would hop over the Midwest’s pockets of con-
centrated porcine life that stretch all the way from rural Missouri to Utah.1 I
returned shortly after the first outbreak, as alarmed rumors were circulating that
the town’s slaughterhouse might shut down. In its first wave through Dover
Foods’ animals, PEDv exhibited a near–100 percent piglet kill rate. A friend who
worked for this pork corporation—one of the world’s largest—grimly recounted
how they had lost some 190,000 piglets in that week alone. Across the United
States, the sheer amount of diseased pig carcasses became a source of environ-
mental risk, the seepage from mass burial sites threatening groundwater (Strom
2014). Traveling via aerosolized manure over a still-uncertain number of miles,
PEDv left few of Dover Foods’ 1,400 confinement barns unaffected. In areas such
as this one—a hundred-mile radius region where some seven million pigs are
annually raised and killed—contact with the virus has become almost unavoidable.

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Vol. 30, Issue 4, pp. 640–669, ISSN 0886-7356, online ISSN 1548-1360. 䉷 by the
American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.14506/ca30.4.09
 HERDING SPECIES

For example, a recent study describes how floors from fifty convenience stores
in rural pork-intensive Iowa were swabbed for PEDv. They all returned positive
for the disease (Thaler 2013). For those initial weeks of the outbreak, at least,
PEDv dramatically changed the tenor of farm labor from forcefully maximizing
life to solemnly caretaking death. An acquaintance told me how her son, who
worked in farrowing (the delivery of piglets), was returning home in tears. His
days were a blur of pushing full wheelbarrows of small corpses into dumpsters.
As I visited breeding farms, the acrid smoke of black incinerators saturated the
summer air.
Yet the present urgency of containing PEDv—framed by the pork industry
as a foreign disease agent that appeared out of nowhere—elides more quiet crises
of reproduction that have long been endemic to the factory farm’s routine opera-
tions. Prior to PEDv’s appearance in the United States, far-reaching but mundane,
almost unnoticeable biosecurity regimes were deemed necessary to maintain por-
cine proliferation. And these modes of corporate governance, developed through
porcine vitalities, subtly redefine what it means to be human for those who work
in a world saturated by concentrated animal life. In response, this essay will chart
a political economy of speciation—a critical articulation of the making and ranking
of species—to analyze how an ambiguously postanthropocentric politics of class
and value is emerging in pockets of the rural United States organized around
fragile capitalist life forms. In so doing, my aim is to describe how we can grasp
the factory farm as a project that—in spite of being built to take animal lives—
comes to reverse the typical hierarchy of species and attempts to confine people
in porcine worlds. The story begins near the end of my workplace-based research,
when I first sensed the microbial textures that invisibly surrounded me, jolting
my assumptions about the forms of routine labor and subjectivity that underlie
the industrialization of the American pig.
I was standing with my coworker, Cesar, in the corner of a barn’s concrete
workshop as he took a cigarette break after working the artificial insemination
line of a 2,500-sow breeding farm. This one barn alone births almost one thousand
piglets per week for a pork corporation called Berkamp Meats, one of Dover
Foods’ regional competitors. Cesar carefully balanced on the ridges of a door
frame while making sure his sanitized black rubber boots did not come into contact
with the outside dirt surrounding the barn. His posture exhibited traces of the
biosecurity-based discipline we learned in training, hinting at his tacit biological
proximity to the animal (see Shukin 2009). As we casually discussed his life as a
migrant to the United States, Cesar pointed his blue latex-covered hand outside
641
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 30:4

at a white truck that veered over the gravel roads around the dozens of hog barns
on the horizon. He guessed his father or brother were passengers. They formed
part of the itinerant medical crews that visited dozens of hog barns every day,
checking on the status of automated feeders while injecting vaccines and antibiotics
into growing animals after they left breeding barns. Making idle chatter, I asked
if his whole family worked for Berkamp. He shrugged: “Me and my family, we
have no choice because of biosecurity.”2

Figure 1. Company-supplied boots and coveralls. As part of biosecurity protocols, farm

employees shower at each worksite and wear laundered uniforms. Photo by Sean J. Sprague.

Originally from Guatemala, Cesar had migrated with his parents and siblings
to the Great Plains around 2000, when he was in his early twenties, after hearing
of gainful employment in slaughterhouses, on hog farms, and at feed mills. Sharing
642
 HERDING SPECIES

a trailer on the outskirts of town, the family plugged into the large K’iche’-
speaking community and eventually found work on Dover Foods’ breeding farms.
In so doing, they joined a workforce of four thousand migrants—from twenty-
six different language backgrounds—whose invisible labor underlies the mass-
production of life. The family worked on Dover Foods’ sow farms for years,
increasing their experience, until Berkamp offered Cesar’s father a supervisory
position in the company. But there was a significant catch: on learning this news,
Dover’s managers insisted that Cesar and his siblings must either live separately
from the father or that all the children would have to quit and find work with
another company.
Managers at Dover Foods were concerned that microscopic particles of hog
saliva, blood, feces, semen, or barn bacteria from another company, or from
another stage in Dover’s own meat production process, might get lodged in
workers’ ears, fingernails, and nostrils despite worksite-mandated showering pro-
tocols.3 The corporation’s theory was that prolonged physical proximity between
workers—across firms and across farms—could result in disease transferring over
human bodies and, in turn, rippling through untainted barns of swine. A few
years earlier, managers had allegedly started monitoring addresses on payroll
forms to map overlaps between regional domestic living arrangements and the
corporation’s division of labor across its vertically integrated network of boar
studs, sow farms, growing barns, feed mills, and slaughterhouses.
Intrigued, I inquired with employees in an ESL class and after church events
in the town of Dixon, a small and at times tight-knit rural community of some
fifteen thousand people that is home to Dover Foods’ central slaughterhouse.
Many residents shared a similar story of how biosecurity subtly disrupted their
lives. For example, a newlywed was disappointed that she had to abandon her
job at a Dover breeding farm. She took pride in caring for newborn piglets, but
she had to quit because her husband held a monotonous yet better-paid position
cutting meat on the slaughterhouse disassembly line. Another maintained an old
mailing address since he worked as an assistant manager in nursery barns for
young pigs, while his new roommates were in breeding. There was little overt
outrage directed at these protocols. More often than not, people expressed a
shrug of befuddlement as to why they existed. But these stories have stuck with
me, for they suggest subtle changes in terms of how agribusinesses are coming
to understand the nature and needs of the industrial pig.
Even more striking were the ways that senior managers were not immune
to the social repercussions of their own biosecurity protocols. At an anniversary
643
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 30:4

party for Dover Foods, a slaughterhouse manager felt frustrated that he barely
recognized the faces of his colleagues from the “Live Side” of the company. He
knew them primarily as names on a spreadsheet because, he claimed, principles
of biosecurity suggested that the two sides should not socialize outside work
except on these rare occasions.4 Managers such as this one appeared to be living
out protocols even stricter than those imposed onto workers. This man was
anticipating and modeling his sociality on an imagined future where public space
beyond the domestic household—such as bars, churches, or clubs—is biosecure.
The vertical integration of the hog—controlling all phases of the species’ life and
death, while creating specialized sites and organization for each type and age of
pig—was spawning forms of social reorganization as the corporation mapped out-
of-work human relations onto the fissures of industrialized animal life cycles,
creating microbiopolitical ruts in regional circuits of sociality (Paxson 2008).
The result is a region where both managers and workers—albeit in pro-
foundly unequal ways, each with different relationships to the industrial hog—
are induced to consider their relation to a form of life that redefines people, wind,
and terrain as carriers of disease threatening the productivity of breeding stock.
Over the years, I have read many scholarly studies and journalistic exposés of
factory farms that describe how manure-laden winds and nitrogen-loaded wells
degrade quality of life in surrounding communities (e.g., Thu and Durrenberger
1996; Kirby 2010; Genoways 2014). The neighbors interviewed in these writings
suggest how pork production remains porous, drawing our attention to the shared
mediums—air and water—that continue to bind pigs and people in spite of the
animals’ confinement indoors. But biosecurity here requires another kind of at-
tention to the invisible copresence of the pig in everyday life, a different kind of
multispecies atmospheric attunement.5 Since its founding as a global locus for hog
production in the mid-1990s, this region has become a zone that locals describe
as one of the “red meat capitals of the world,” where hogs outnumber humans
by more than fifty-to-one. In this context, Cesar’s story hints at how a concen-
trated form of porcine life swells across the region, microscopically saturating
human bodies, while potentially buttressing novel forms of discipline and con-
sciousness of one’s relation to surrounding ecologies, kin, and socialities. His
story depicts a place where efforts to sustain the waning vitality of the industrial
hog are provoking the industrialization of many other forms of social and biological
life that exist in this animal’s ever-expanding orbit.
Granted, industrial extension beyond the factory floor is not new.6 Feminist
social scientists have long shown the dynamic ways that domestic households and
644
 HERDING SPECIES

unwaged work are intertwined in the reproduction of capitalist industry. The

household has always been essential to the (re)production of labor power, so-
cialization, and the very meaning of wage labor (see Rubin 1975; Weeks 2011).
Similarly, efforts to rationalize laborers’ domestic sociality for the improvement
of workplace morale date back to Fordism’s founding moments. Henry Ford’s
Sociological Department infamously inspected employees’ homes, hygiene, and
spending habits in exchange for earning the five-dollar day (Meyer 1981). Yet
biosecurity, in this instance, is not about biologically or socially reproducing
human labor power. Nor does it form part of a humanist industrial morality, of
creating the ideal (white, male) worker who can stand on and withstand the
assembly line. Instead, these interventions into human spheres are premised on
reproducing animal reproduction. They suggest an imminent orientation where
the value of routine action—from showering at home to sharing a bottle of wine
in a park—could be indexed and appraised in terms of its potential effects on
pigs’ numerical proliferation.

Figure 2. Breeding sows in individual gestation crates. Photo by Sean J. Sprague.

Much recent scholarship and political commentary probes possibilities for

renewing life in the Anthropocene, of finding ways to coexist with beings beyond
the human. On the one hand, we could continue to practice the fantasy of human
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exceptionalism by pretending it is possible to maintain a pure separation between

human and “animal” worlds (Raffles 2010, 330). As Celia Lowe (2010) articulates
in a study of avian flu’s viral (dis)entanglements, agricultural biosecurity figures
as a central site for generating (impossible) anthropocentric ideals of rigorously
ordered, perfectly planned, and purely human biosocial worlds. On the other, a
broadly more-than-human scholarship has taken up the urgent political task of
opposing such narratives of disembodied and autonomous human omniscience by
articulating how species are relationally entangled at their core (Nading 2012;
Porter 2013), living with and making each other up in interactive everyday flow
(Haraway 2008; Kohn 2013), and shaping each other in codomesticated exchanges
across deep history (Cassidy and Mullin 2007; Tsing 2012). But projects like the
factory farm—seemingly a straightforward site of human domination—suggest
the need for still another approach. These anthropocentric projects, to the extent
that they revolve around satisfying human diets and livelihoods by taking the lives
of other species (Wolfe 2012), conjure fantasies of an ahuman landscape. Such
fantasies are not an idiosyncrasy of industrial hog production. Similar tendencies
are visible in the body-breaking, pesticide-laden fruit farms of the U.S. West
Coast (Holmes 2013), amid Paraguay’s deathly soy fields (Hetherington 2013),
and from the factory farm itself as a key contributor of greenhouse gas emissions
(Weis 2013). Industrial agriculture is manufacturing cheap food for human con-
sumption by overtaking swathes of territory in ways that prioritize the value of
its singular organisms over other forms of life.7
What Cesar’s seemingly innocent family story suggests, then, are the ways
that the working human, in both its social and embodied aspects, is becoming
suspect. This, too, is not necessarily new. The farm laborer’s body has recently
emerged as a site of risk in public health studies that fret about its ability to carry
antibiotic-resistant bacteria off farms (Nadimpalli et al. 2014), or how it could
serve as a transmission point for zoonotic swine influenza viruses (Gray et al.
2007). But what is jarring about this postanthropocentric biosecurity protocol is
its reversal of the typical ranking of species. Human labor is framed as a threat
to industrial pork—albeit, at this moment, a necessary one given that machines
cannot raise hogs alone—and it is the industrial pig whose vital safety requires
intervention. This constitutes the reverse of the standard anthropocentric fears of
public policy, such that wild animals’ suspect movements or leaky bodies will
come to infect human populations through zoonotic illness (Davis 2007). The
indoor confinement of farm animals is itself often justified in the face of the viral
threat of unpredictable contact with beings such as wild geese, whose risky bi-
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ologies make for key natural reservoirs of zoonotic disease (Fearnley 2015). In-
stead this rural space, which is given over to making industrialized organisms,
suggests how the laboring body and its unpredictable rhythms is engulfed by
porcine illness in such a way that human sociality is now marked as the central
virtual reservoir sheltering porcine disease. This reversal marks a zone where the
protection of the porcine species is broadly privileged over the cultural lives of the
corporation’s four thousand employees, in spite of individual pig bodies being
radically killable as a nondescript biomass in the slaughterhouse. Or, more pre-
cisely, such securities suggest an avowedly biocapitalist landscape whereby indi-
vidual porcine lives may be expendable as cheap meat, but intensifying the gen-
erative potentials of swine as a species—the vital processes of birth and growth
(Helmreich 2008)—trumps classic humanist ideals of autonomy, freedom, and
privacy. This distinction between individual hogs and the porcine species, in turn,
is the ground on which corporations are remaking classes of people.
This essay follows the foundational lead of scholars who have developed
ethnographically specific ways of framing how vital governance extends across
species, and how people are made to “work on [themselves] in relation to” other,
often anthropogenically weakened beings (Porter 2013, 144). What intrigues me
about the factory farm’s intimate biosecurities is how they mark an attempt to
convert personal or private actions that seemingly have no bearing on others,
such as looking for an apartment, into what we might label a posthuman form of
labor in the service of maintaining industrial porcine life. Such emerging subjec-
tivities in the factory farm suggest a managerial-capitalist zone where the value
of routine or previously unnoticed human activity is increasingly measured by
how it is taken up by, and expressed in, other kinds of animals. There are many
ways that one might develop the notion of posthuman labor, extending the dis-
course of posthumanism—which aims to decenter humanity as the bearer of
autonomous value and uniqueness in the world (Wolfe 2009)—into a type of
practice. These might involve theorizing how nonhuman beings can also be said
to “work” (White 1995), recognizing distributed worldly agencies such that hu-
mans never labor with other humans alone (Bennett 2010), critiquing the excep-
tional value of human labor (Weeks 2011), or paying attention to how artists and
activists work to reveal interspecies entanglements (see Kirksey 2014). In this
essay, however, my aim is not to develop a philosophical posthumanism that
critiques liberal capitalism from outside, but instead to trace how this sensibility—
however disfigured or co-opted—manifests itself in capitalist practices. For the
site of the factory farm does not so much call for an effort to positively decenter
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the human as it requires us to grasp the work—especially that of managers—

which enables the porcine species’ vitality to mediate a region. This perspective
enables us to see interspecies power relations anew, and it has consequences for
how we interpret the founding myth of industrial agriculture as an efficient or-
ganizational form that uses less land and labor to feed the world.
How, then, did the industrial pig come to embody a regionally exceptional
status; how did this animal species become the central optic through which re-
gional human action is potentially appraised? How did the pig become such a
fragile organism, both in terms of its physical frailty and of agribusiness’s percep-
tion of its weakness, while at the same time it is so privileged and worthy of
protection? What, in short, is the shifting industrial pig (as opposed to the timeless
natural pig) as a form of life? Rather than reducing posthuman labor to an auto-
matic outgrowth of biocapital or the commodity form, the remainder of this essay
follows managers as they construct the pig as a world-defining creature that quietly
overdetermines the lives of regional residents (cf. Sunder Rajan 2012 on over-
determination). In describing this political economy of speciation, I am appealing
not to the classic taxonomical definition of species in terms of reproductive ca-
pacity and difference, much less searching for a stable essence of pig and human
in a context where these beings mutually (re)constitute each other.8 Instead, I
trace managers’ ongoing efforts to know and inhabit the porcine species in its
totality, even as they rank and remake classes of people through this pig.

THE EXPANDING BOUNDARIES OF THE HERD

Managers have learned to intervene in the Great Plains’ saturated microbial
ecology by analyzing how it becomes statistically indexed to the bodies of breeding
stock, using an organizational technology they call the Herd.9 The Herd is invisible
outside of spreadsheets, computer tabulations, scroll charts, or other abstract
representations. Yet it productively mediates managers’ experience of not only
the industrial pig, but also of surrounding socio-ecologies from trucking routes
to wind patterns. In practice, the Herd operates as a species-making device—a
means for managers to abstract from the material, embodied expressions of in-
dividual porcine lives or types such as boars, sows, or piglets. Treating their pigs
as a Herd, as I will show, is what makes managers into proper managers of
vertically integrated life. A worker in the boar stud experiences only boars, a
person in finishing barns works only with grown meat hogs, and a given employee
on the cut floor might interact with thousands of left hams every day.10 Senior
managers, by distinction, are the only people in the factory farm who can work
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across all manifestations of the pig; the Herd is an organizational device that helps
them work on the totality of the species.

Figure 3. Identification cards on farms identify the breeding performance of a given animal.
This information is relayed to administrative offices to provide data for developing a
numerical portrait of the Herd as a whole. Photo by Sean J. Sprague.

The Herd is a complicated icon for the factory farm as a whole. It is at once
a rationalization for the rise of factory hog farms, a class-based mode of grasping
the porcine species as a singular whole, and, in turn, one that helps form regional
classes of people through their relation to hogs. At its simplest, the Herd turns
Dover Foods’ 180,000 breeding animals—which annually produce five million
285-pound market hogs—into a statistically derived unit of life that is used to
appraise the status of the total factory farming process at a given point in time.
Such a status, expressed as the “Herd Health,” is signaled through measures of
the breeding animals’ average productivity in terms of pig output. Depending on
the position from which it is articulated—say, voiced from a growing farm versus
a slaughterhouse—Herd Health might relate to either the average amount of pigs
or pounds of meat produced per sow per year. Once forming this virtual mean-
sow, the most senior managers spend their days inspecting material and microbial
factors in farms that are producing starkly less (or more) than the rest of the
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Herd. But the Herd, as I will argue in some concluding notes, is also a powerful
means of forming species to achieve disciplinary control—and perhaps foreclosing
more complicated ethics—not only over disease-ridden ecologies created by the
factory farm but also over the moral character of farm laborers.
“The old farming mentality was to manage individual pigs,” one senior man-
ager named Barry memorably stated over drinks. “But our mentality is that we
manage the Herd. . . . The old farmer used to like some boar or sow and he’d
say, ‘That’s a good animal, I’m gonna keep it.’” Dover Foods did not favor any
animals, he went on to explain, instead grasping high-performance sows as part
of “natural variation.” They cull and replace their genetic stock of breeding animals
at regular intervals of age or litter sizes regardless of a given animal’s history.
Rather than managing single pigs, then, they articulate themselves as managing
abstracted genetics and probability across the whole of the breeding stock.11 The
Herd is a matter of managing the species as a single mean-sow that is conceptually
standardized, even if individual sows vary in productivity. In this sense, we might
initially read the Herd as an industrial abstraction, because it enacts a conceptual
negation of productive differences across sows by making them disposable and
interchangeable in farm practice (see Braverman 1974).
But if the Herd is a quantitative figure for making sense of epochal shifts in
pork production, it also operated in managerial circles as a discursive term for
establishing managers’ own identity and, in turn, tethered regional class difference
to how people relate to animals. Senior managers repeated an identical stock
phrase whenever I asked them to define their role: “We work on the Herd,” they
would claim, “while hourly employees and farm managers work with the Herd.”
Such a proposition of identity does capture a felt reality, especially for senior
managers whose daily experience with pigs is in statistical, sampling, tour-based
inspection, or paper-based forms. But what interests me is the blurring of differ-
ence in the oppositional identity—a seaming of human labor and hog life—once
senior managers narrate from the position of working on the Herd as a whole.
“Working on” the Herd is best translated as improving the quantitative output of
all the breeding animals, irrespective of given animals’ qualities. This can make
everything from the animals’ feed regimen to workers’ actions become a legible
input toward improving the total Herd. We can glimpse in this stock phrase how
the boundaries of the Herd are open; the Herd is a mode of reading a territory
through the lens of the porcine species in such a way that it incorporates every-
thing from microbes to terrain to human bodies. And without access to the
category and attendant practices of working on the Herd as an abstract species
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whole across workplaces, workers can only relate to (or “work with”) animal
beings through experiences with concrete manifestations, stages, and specific types
of hog life such as boars, sows, piglets, grown pigs, or carcasses. In other words,
social class (and race) become regionally mediated through the type and scale of
animality that people can sense and inhabit.12
Efforts to monitor this region’s socio-ecological landscape through the Herd
thus differ from what biosecurity has tended to signify in anthropological theories
and human-centered situations that problematize it as a virtual or future-oriented
trope of governmentality, technoscience, and health planning (see Lakoff and
Collier 2008; Caduff 2014). Biosecurity here forms a more banal present-tense,
enacted regime of corporate governance, alongside a subtly inculcated ethic for
living amid industrial animals. While its implied consequences may be significant,
it is rarely remarked on in everyday life. Indeed, if a resident was not employed
by these corporations, he or she might not know the protocols even exist. The
Herd is a quiet matter of sustaining porcine life amid regional microbial degra-
dation, rather than a robust preemptive transformation of the social contract in
anticipation of a catastrophic state of crisis such as a bioterror attack (see Cooper
2008; Lakoff 2008). And since the pig diseases that these biosecurity protocols
address do not affect human health—and, unlike in Sarah Franklin’s (2007, 174)
analysis of the similarly innocuous foot-and-mouth disease, they do not impact
international trade and the global circulation of meat—the state and its public
health apparatuses are not present. Indeed, while the latter, under the auspices
of a One Health approach, often struggles in the face of anthropocentrism to
“incorporate the well-being of non-human animals in the purview of [public]
health policy” (Lezaun and Porter 2015, 101), the value of human livelihood in
the factory farm is subordinated to the porcine species, and it is the unruly social
lives of laboring humans that must be monitored to protect porcine proliferation.
Absent the all-or-nothing public imperative of protecting human life from
zoonotic infection, these private biosecurity protocols are often framed by man-
agers as mere economic inputs subject to ethically innocuous cost-benefit analyses
as to whether they achieve returns in terms of breeding animal productivity.13
But not everyone saw such protocols as justifiable ways of comprehending the
improvement of animal life. Many managers at competing companies steadfastly
refused to enact the domestic protocols. As one explained:

I favor a commonsense approach. I don’t think we should be worried about

what people are doing when they aren’t at work. It’s, it’s . . . intrusive. I
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mean, we know that PRRS [a particularly rampant hog virus] can travel in
wind for three miles and we’ve got a lot of pigs here. What’s next? Trucks
spraying the air all over town? Will we put foot baths [iodine buckets] at
every gas station entrance and make people disinfect their boots? Where
does this end?

This manager is describing future techniques for disciplining the region’s ecology,
which requires expanding securitization of the Great Plains once managers open
the Pandora’s box of moving biosecurity beyond the barns. He makes a simple
moral claim, one premised on a classic agricultural biosecurity that aims to exclude
disease from barns (Allen and Lavau 2015, 347). As private businesses, he states,
pork companies should manage pig disease on the confines of their own farm
property. He projects an imminent future of biosecurity interventions run amok
where working country and residential town collapse together via the circulation
of pig disease. At the same time, though, this manager’s refusal to enact the
protocols in his company highlights that this is not a finished project, a totalized
form, or an inevitable future; Great Plains biosecurity remains actual and virtual
(Collier, Lakoff, and Rabinow 2004, 5). On the one hand, unlike large-scale,
purely anticipatory biosecurities, it forms part of an everyday infrastructure—a
routine regime, however incomplete. On the other, I noted how some workers
refuse these biosecurity protocols, and how some managers themselves enact
interventions more extensively in their own lives than they do in those of their
employees. From church gatherings to birthday parties, from sharing a fork to
sitting on a sofa with a coworker, there are as many potential bio-insecure spaces
in this region as there are social relations. Yet as the manager here suggests, such
is the power of the Herd’s expanding boundaries, signaled by arrangements like
the domestic housing biosecurity protocol. Once enacted, such arrangements can
illuminate the multitude of bio-insecure practices that stand to impact the pig.14

A GREENFIELD
The situation was not always like this. Elements of the Great Plains’ natural
ecology initially attracted companies to the region, hoping its relative dearth of
precipitation and deep groundwater could mitigate ecological concerns with re-
spect to waste management emerging out of North Carolina in the 1990s, which
was the first region in the United States to experience the growth of new industrial
hog farms. North Carolina was addled with hurricanes that caused dramatic over-
flowing of concentrated manure lagoons. Witnessing the public outcry that en-
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sued, corporations—from North America, Western Europe, and East Asia—

shifted their focus for new pork development to parts of the U.S. Midwest. They
were drawn by the region’s moderate temperatures, higher evaporation rates that
eased how often they would need to apply manure from the lagoons onto sur-
rounding fields, sharp winds that blow lingering smells onto neighboring property,
and the availability of grain-based feed. Moreover, economically depressed coun-
ties offered tax breaks and other incentives for feed mills, barns, and slaughter-
houses to decrease the cost of construction, while many states have adopted “right-
to-work” laws that limit the efficacy of labor unions. By the late 1990s,
corporations were reshaping the animal ecologies of the rural Great Plains—from
Missouri to Manitoba, and from Nebraska to Texas.
But the crucial attraction for corporations to the Great Plains—at least
outside of the traditional hog belt that extends from Iowa to Minnesota—was its
scarcity of pigs. In 1993, for example, one of the counties that forms part of this
study annually produced only a few thousand hogs. By 2010, it would annually
raise and slaughter millions of animals. The lack of hogs on the landscape proved
crucial for two reasons. The first was the near-total absence of swine disease in
the microbial ecology, an advantage that has clearly diminished during the past
twenty years. But the second was the concurrent lack of independent hog farmers
contracting to raise pigs, the standard form of risk-sharing and horizontal inte-
gration in the corporate pork industry (Rich 2008).15 This enabled these corpo-
rations to attempt full vertical integration by purchasing the land and buildings
themselves, operating entirely on the labor of migrant workers who were said to
have little background in agriculture.
As Dover’s CEO recounted in an interview, the company was “a start-up,
a greenfield,” where “we could design a core system from scratch.” Greenfield is
business-speak for underdeveloped territory, marking a vision of this region as
pure in its absence of pig disease, pig farmers, or preexisting claims on the land.
The result of this frontier-like agricultural space was a series of experiments. One
company imported managers from across the globe—including Ukraine, Japan,
Russia, and South Africa—to pool global swine knowledge. Others installed barns
with cutting-edge technologies such as (relatively) ecologically benign manure
composting, or electronic sow feeders that deliver precise quantities of food read
off computer chips implanted into animal ears. Dover Foods created a closed-
loop network of industrialized hog energetics; their system now includes 1,400
barns, feed mills, one of the world’s most advanced slaughterhouses, and a series
of value-added ventures that recycle blood from slaughtered pigs into plasma for
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piglet diets, or manure into biogas to power the slaughterhouse. They developed
a company region economically and socially constituted by industrial pigs.

THE AGING OF THE HERD

On a midsummer Monday, I was waiting under the black 3:30 a.m. sky for
my management guides to arrive in their company-branded van. For months, I
had been shadowing managers from various stages of porcine life across their
routine working days and joining them in evening classes on Japanese manufac-
turing theory designed to rethink the “biological system” (their words) of pork
production. On this day, we would be driving out to a boar stud facility where
collections begin at 5 a.m. to ensure a steady supply of semen for morning
inseminations on sow-breeding farms. Since many of the most devastating pig
diseases are communicable through the semen that underpins and conjoins (sow)
breeding farms, the boar studs are the most pivotal sites of biosecurity.
My twelve companions on this tour might be best glossed as Pod Managers.
They were geneticists, nutritionists, veterinarians, and executives who fill their
working days on farm tours analyzing the most problematic strands of the Herd
within Dover Foods’ system, usually those undergoing a disease event. Inspecting
the interiors of barns do enable forms of diagnostics—perhaps the farmworkers
were being slack in cleaning farrowing rooms—but much of the Pod Managers’
time is spent driving in a cramped van while diagnosing the external or environ-
mental causes of symptoms witnessed on a set of pigs. Such banter revealed a
hard-earned familiarity with the Great Plains’ ecology as they described how
terrain gradations around a given site might explain disease rates, or how an area’s
wind patterns could seam microbial networks across barns. They learned, for
example, that national data on the spread of disease in highly wooded areas such
as North Carolina did not apply to the Midwestern terrain. Where I saw flat grain
fields, they saw invisible traces of porcine life totally, yet differentially, spread
over an uneven landscape.
Highly respected in the pork industry, this group of managers came together
after working separately in corporations across the United States, Chile, the Phil-
ippines, England, and Canada. Graham, the head of live-production operations,
grew up in North Carolina during the first wave of industrialization in the late
1980s. A working-class kid unable to afford college, and not academically inclined,
he started out as an entry-level power washer in hog barns and jumped across
corporations as he moved up the ranks. Barry, a senior regional manager, went
to agricultural college in the 1980s, planning to take over his parents’ beef cattle
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ranch. He soon found his family bankrupt in the midst of a farm crisis. Recruited
by a pork corporation, he became a global expert in emergent methods of artificial
insemination. Gregory was the company’s lead veterinarian. Though initially skep-
tical, he found himself enjoying the relative stability of corporate agribusiness
after years of treating pigs in his private practice during farm crises. He recounted
walking into a private barn where emaciated, dying pigs had not been fed for
days because their owner was too broke to cover the cost of feed.
These men entered the corporate pork industry under conditions not purely
of their choosing, but they also strove to create the most profitable and ethical
pork corporation possible in an industry with very low margins of return. Though
they had become tight-knit over the years, they were not unified in their beliefs.
The Pod Managers—especially those trained in the veterinary mission—would
often bicker behind each other’s backs over who was more “health-centered”
versus “production-centered.” During the 1990s, they mainly worked apart in
different corporations during what they called Growth Mode, when corporations
rapidly expanded barn sites before states placed moratoria on new hog farms and
competition that would start to bite into profit margins. The current goal, in
Polishing Mode, was to maximize porcine value in the vertically integrated sys-
tem, searching, as they often put it, “now that there’s no more low-hanging fruit,”
to “find new money” in the porcine species. The promise of vertical integration
is twofold: it aims to produce a more standardized porcine body to increase the
value of the species in global wholesale markets, while attempting to make more
pigs per sow (Blanchette 2013).
Yet the grim sights on these farm tours hinted at the ways that vertical
integration’s promises of total control over porcine life remained unfulfilled,
reflecting how life constitutes an excessive entity that cannot ever be standardized
(cf. Hinchcliffe and Ward 2014; Allen and Lavau 2015). Growth Mode’s end
occurred at the same time that, as another veterinarian put it, “the health system
started to erode.” One example of the many endemic illnesses afflicting the mod-
ern hog is Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS). It first
emerged globally during the intensification of pork production in the late 1980s
(Cho and Dee 2006), it disproportionately affects fragile lean pigs (Rich 2008),
and it tends to get lodged in confinement barns (Harris 2004). The industry frames
PRRS as its most economically significant illness (prior to PEDv), costing U.S.
farmers some $560 million per year (Johnson et al. 2012). Though PRRS weakens
pigs’ immunity, it rarely kills them directly. It causes miscarriages in gestating
sows and decreases weight gains in market swine. PRRS is an economic disease—
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Figure 4. Grown hogs in a confinement barn, shortly before being transported to the packing
plant for slaughter. Photo by Sean J. Sprague.

we might call it a species disease—because it throttles the Herd’s vital prolifer-

ation. A couple of Pod Managers lamented how the severity of outbreaks can
increase as the concentration of animals deteriorates the ecology, resulting in
what they called an “aging of the Herd” that worsens with time as strains of viruses
mutate and compound with other illnesses. In these conditions, the demand to
make the Herd’s sows into corporate life forms (Cooper 2008)—expected to
continually increase in numerical productivity, increasing in biocapitalist growth
in spite of microbial aging—proves vexing even to managers who ostensibly
control the system. As one veterinarian declared in frustrated opposition to my
insistence on their agency: “No. The Herd is everything [that is, it is bigger than
them]. We are slaves to the Herd.”
Such, at least, is the Herd’s-eye view of disease rendered into a shifting
statistical portrait of its effect on animal reproduction. The daily tours of barns
reminded everyone of a more visceral sense of pig disease as we walked past rows
of animal cages, fixated on symptoms that might indicate PRRS or some other
illness. One day the veterinarians would point at coughing animals, or hogs’ rumps
streaked brown with scours, or diarrhea. On another, piglets were emaciated
with a condition called “suck-in,” their stomachs taut against their ribs, or “thump-
ing”—a respiratory condition that makes pigs loudly wheeze. Low-level farm
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managers, working extra hours to handle an outbreak, would nervously recount

how many “aborts” (miscarriages) they found on the floor during morning in-
spections. During hundred-mile drives across barn sites, Pod Managers often
discussed animal scientists’ research into the spread of hog illness, revealing how
porcine materials saturate everything. Scott Dee et al. (2002) have conducted
experiments that demonstrate how viruses such as PRRS can blanket a region,
creating an “area spread.” It can infect pigs via wind transmission, through mos-
quitoes, semen, blood, saliva, feces sprayed as fertilizer, rodents, workers’ cloth-
ing, trucks that ship pigs, and in delivery containers. As a Dover manager informed
me, “We don’t know how productive the genetics of our sows might be. We can’t
see the pure healthy animal.”
Invocation of academic research on disease, however, would often lead to
disagreement over managers’ own values of efficiency, animal welfare ethics,
culpability, and limits to containing the Herd’s degradation. In the mid-2000s,
Dover tried to eradicate PRRS. Beyond the economics, most managers agreed
that eliminating PRRS was an ethical imperative given how it causes pig illness.
They invested millions of dollars into cleaning barns, relocating farm sites, in-
stalling so-called biocurtains on barn ducts, and initiating new biosecurity pro-
tocols. For three months, there were no reports of PRRS symptoms. The disease
then broke out in genetic multiplier barns—the nucleus of vertical integration,
where they make the sows that then make meat animals for commercial slaughter.
The vector of transmission was tracked to a hobbyist’s show pig a few miles
upwind. Once the genetic heart of the operation was infected, the disease spread
through the downstream barns with crippling force, because the new lines of pigs
had no inbuilt immunities. Since this time the Pod Managers, like most corpo-
rations, have pursued an endemic “PRRS-positive” production strategy. They man-
age and quarantine the virus as it appears in a barn, stabilizing its quantitative
effects in terms of seasonal pig output and building immunities in the Herd as a
whole.16 The veterinarians also became production-centered, perhaps partially
leaving behind the health-centered perspective learned in school. The totalizing
quality of disease appeared to lead to the adoption of a Herd-based cost-benefit
approach to health, one that frames decreases in sow productivity as the vital
symptom.

MAKING BIOSECURE SUBJECTS

Amid this sense of invisible but dense porcine material, boar studs offer
onlookers a much more disciplined aesthetic of life and labor. The boar stud is
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an icon of biosecurity; it is a destination for company investors and wholesalers

hoping to witness a variation-free architectural image of precise control. Isolated
from human activity by twenty miles and the dividing line between two states,
there are no lights on the horizon save for the stars. The building is nested within
a thirty-foot perimeter of gravel that tamps out plant life. Enclosing this dead
zone is a twelve-foot-high, password-locked fence topped with barbed wire. Even
the specially selected species of grass that extends beyond the perimeter is main-
tained to ensure that there are no weeds to attract rodents.
Nonetheless, these aesthetics of security could be described as a spectacle—
a performance—because the interiors of barns always teem with nonporcine life.
Mice dart out to nibble at pigs’ feed, and birds line the perimeters of the manure
lagoons. Clouds of mosquitoes hover over the animals during warm months,
leading to a measurable summertime decrease in slaughterhouse carcass yields
from cutting out the bites on skin. I once saw a fire extinguisher encased in what
appeared to be a centimeters-thick weave of grey cobwebs. I checked its date,
thinking that it had not been changed for a decade. It had been inspected a few
months earlier. This spectacular aspect, however, does not mean that on-farm
biosecurity is futile. Its performativity is the overarching point.
As a Food and Agriculture Organization (2010, 3) publication for hog farms
states, agricultural biosecurity is not only “the implementation of measures that
reduce the risk of the introduction and spread of disease agents” but also “requires
the adoption of a set of attitudes and behaviors by people to reduce risk in all
activities involving . . . animals and their products.” These aesthetics are what
we might call doubling biosecurities. They excise “disease agents” while demanding
workers’ psychosocial recognition of their corporeal intimacy with the animal.
This doubling mode of biosecurity becomes logical in sites where PRRS and other
diseases are rampant, when the scale of production is so large—and human in-
teraction outside of work so unruly—that it leads managers to see working hu-
mans’ socialities as reservoirs for animal illness.
Doubling biosecurities abound, from the tedium of power-washing farrow-
ing rooms to the human food allowed in barns. The standard process of showering
in and out at barn sites constitutes the prime example, a ritual that I would repeat
as many as six times per tour. Workers undress on “the dirty side” and put their
clothes into a bank of lockers. The first step is to take a regular shower, washing
the body and hair using liquid company soap from a dispenser on the wall. The
second is to scrub unusual parts of the body such as the fingernails, the ear’s
curves, and nostrils. Cotton swabs are available for drying these body parts on
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“the clean side,” prior to donning the company’s socks, brief-style underwear, T-
shirts, blue coveralls, and rubber boots. This five-minute ritual made me question
my actions during the past hours, recalling the animals and people that I had met.
I initially felt paranoid about whether missed flecks would be responsible for pig
illness, once confessing that I had been with workers the previous evening.
Such accounting of one’s corporeality is more pedagogical than it is enactive
of actual biophysical security. It aims to turn workers into biosecure subjects who
monitor their habitus despite managers’ inability to watch their actions at all
moments, such as when they are in the shower. By making workers fear their
potential to harm animals, learned from past experiences of a disease outbreak in
a barn, the shower enlists moral subjects to work with the Herd. Or, these
biosecurities enable managers to maintain their identity as statistically production-
centered by improving the output of the pigs that they confront abstractly—
working on the Herd—while turning workers into health-centered subjects
deemed culpable for the suffering of the actual pigs that they work with in a
tactile manner.17 Biosecurity protocols create new kinds of classes of people,
tethered to concrete manifestations of the vertically integrated pig—boars, sows,
growing hogs, or carcasses—and fixed in single barn sites, while letting Pod
Managers dwell outside any single type of animal and work on the species as a
whole.
Managers have developed a series of sensory technologies that enable them
to powerfully experience a species in its abstract entirety, and which make evident
the need for the off-farm biosecurity protocols that initiated this essay. On farm
tours, as we departed the boar stud and moved across sites in the van, we were
performing a (managerial) form of biosecurity, which I once heard someone call
“walking the pods.” Pod Managers are the only people in the factory farm who
can travel across distinct types of hog farms. A production manager, in distinction,
might manage six sow farms but would not set foot in any growing barns. Senior
managers work on the Herd because they are not locked into working with only
one strand or type of pig; they practice a management of the pig in all of its
possible expressions or manifestations, of a species in potentia. A Pod consists of
a lineage of all animals from genetic sows (that make sows), to commercial sows
(that make meat animals), to piglets, to hogs for the market. The Pod (also known
as a genetic flow) is a genetic grouping or family of pigs that moves through
predetermined sets of barns as the flow grows in weight and age.
Managers begin their tours at a boar stud because these sites sit at the apex
of the so-called Biosecurity Pyramid through which Pod Managers organize their
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means of safely monitoring and physically entering a strand of the Herd without
introducing disease. Managers cannot have contact with pigs in any form lower
on the pyramid—commercial sows, piglets, grown hogs, carcasses—for one to
three days before entering a boar stud, genetic sow farm, or otherwise moving
up. They can, however, move down the pyramid in a single day if they stay in
the same Pod. The system is designed so that a given Pod will (ideally) never
make contact with other lineages of pigs, especially not in forms mediated by
human bodies. The set of barns through which a given Pod moves (or “flows”)
can also be changed over time, such as when a given barn or region of the Great
Plains landscape appears to be saturated with disease.

Figure 5. The Biosecurity Pyramid, an example of a planning document used to manage

movements through the Herd. On any given week, it is updated to denote the farms
currently under quarantine. Illustration by Alex Blanchette.

These are technologies for translating statistical impressions of the Herd into
embodied perception as managers “walk [down] the Pods” by inspecting conditions
across sections of a genetic flow in a day. When managers walk the Pods, they
imagine themselves as moving down the spatiotemporal flow of life to physically
witness all the historical conditions that a lineage of pigs has experienced. The
model requires standardized control of minute conditions over time. It presumes
that young pigs downstream the flow in, say, growing barn #239 once experi-
enced identical microbial and environmental conditions in upstream parts of the
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flow with their maternal sows in breeding barn #10. The essence of the Pod is
that it enables managers to isolate variables outside the Herd’s genetics—focusing
on all of the animate and inanimate beings that make up fleshly hogs in the actual
everyday. The model maintains a sense of static temporality such that pigs in Pod
#4, growing at day 108 of their lives, are identical to those of the same Pod #4
at day 32. Since trucks move these pigs across similar spatial ecologies, geogra-
phies, and sets of barns, managers hypothesize that if a barn of pigs started ex-
hibiting poor performance numbers in terms of, say, converting feed into flesh
at day 92, then the piglets at day 14 will also develop identical problems unless
managers intervene and diagnose problems in the environment that these pigs
will flow through on day 92.
The Pod constitutes an organizational device to interpret the microbial ecol-
ogy of the Great Plains, because it frames all external forms confronting pigs—
barns, workers, wind patterns, terrain gradations, or perhaps even towns on
trucking routes—as inputs affecting the lineage of pigs trickling down from the
upstream genetic sows. As a flow moves through space, managers can see it as
filtering all the material things it confronts. Moreover, the need for the stan-
dardization of all forms of life that orbit around the barns is embedded into this
mode of multispecies organization. Conditions across the Biosecurity Pyramid and
the flow must remain identical for managers to travel down Pods and assume that
pigs on day 14 will experience identical conditions on day 92, or that Pod Man-
agers’ bodies are not carrying new diseases from upstream farms into downstream
barns. Increasing degrees of standardized control over time—over life and la-
bor—is the condition on which the model depends.
These tethered sensory technologies—the Herd, the Pod, and the Biose-
curity Pyramid—enable workplace practices that materialize industrial animality
as a form of life in potentia. Recall, as one manager put it earlier in this essay—
in distinction to old-time farmers who managed individual animals—“our men-
tality is that we manage the Herd.” This abstract industrial animality temporarily
manifests as forms of appearance in boars, sows, piglets, and grown meat pigs in
a continuous flow of becoming that is absorbing the materialities of a region. One
result of such embodied ecological perception of animal life is that it becomes
clear how pigs are no longer raised in barns alone, but across the region as a
whole—including, potentially, in gas stations, churches, or Cesar’s family living
room. Indeed, such a mentality allows them to perceive a kind of swine that
exists as a theoretical abstraction and an animating vitality outside of concrete
forms of animal appearance such as boars, at the same moment that it offers a
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class-based mode of ecological perception arguably required to sustain the modern

pig and its diseases. This is a particular kind of capitalist animal species. It un-
dergirds regional policies, but it is only perceptible to those managers who (unlike
workers) are not tethered to working with a single type of hog. Its effect is to
license managers to speak for the industrial pig as a whole, and to interpret a
region through it, while illustrating the powerful forms of knowledge that underlie
any act of trying to materialize, sense, and value a species in its entirety.

CONCLUSION: PORCINE WORLDS

The standard notion of biosecurity is, at root, founded on a fantasy of
separation—of “enclos[ing] humans and animals in specific, sterile, and segregated
spaces” (Lezaun and Porter 2015, 100). In this essay, I have suggested how the
factory farm pushes beyond logics of hog confinement to the point where man-
agers feel they have to learn how to sense industrial animality as copresent with
and defining every facet of a region, including workers’ bodies. Pursuing such a
project of speciation—tracing the postanthropocentric making and ranking of
species—has been my central concern in this essay, unpacking the forms of spe-
cies-level managerial work that allow the industrial pig’s vitality to gradually
mediate a region’s ecology, class relations, and laboring subjectivities. Unlike
anthropocentric public health efforts that aim to control animality within human
worlds—that police unruly animals’ and insects’ movements to buttress a hope
for a purely human biosociality (see Lowe 2010; Nading 2012)—what is striking
is the partly enacted fantasy that underlies this corporate regime: it signals an
impossible desire to confine humanity in animal worlds. This process is not so
much a matter of regional dehumanization as it is, in ways that remain hard to
articulate given the tendency to grasp agrocapitalist projects such as the factory
farm in terms of anthropocentric domination, a matter of reading and controlling
territory and populations through the porcine species.
In closing, then, I want to return to the troubling core of Cesar’s family
story—that the industrial pig somehow exists in his home—that jolted my settled
sensibilities concerning the factory farm. In theory, capitalist agriculture is sup-
posed to produce carnal abundance with minimal space and effort. Like all in-
dustrial projects, it concentrates labor and land use—even if, as critics are quick
to point out, its externalities saturate the globe by polluting waterways and the
atmosphere (Weis 2013; Wallace and Kock 2012). This efficiency is why it is
deemed ethically necessary to feed the world in the face of growing populations.
This essay has suggested in response that the factory farm is not a straightforwardly
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anthropocentric project of reducing labor and land at the expense of increasing

harm to animals and the environment. The species forms that managers are sum-
moning in the wake of the waning vitality of the modern hog—perhaps as a
feature of lively capital more generally (see Dumit 2012)—are better described
as devices that convert human activities into labor and that reveal how the indus-
trial pig saturates an ecology. They mark the ongoing creation of a being whose
sustenance requires emerging quantities and qualities of work by managers and
workers alike. Once the human becomes sensible as a reservoir of disease—a
necessary threat to the porcine species—forms of mundane sociality, such as
starting a new relationship, have the potential to be deemed bio-insecure, chang-
ing into a form of labor in service of maintaining fragile animal vitalities.
Many potent ironies exist here: the anthropogenic creation of a postanthro-
pocentric landscape; some managers’ species ontologies restricting their own au-
tonomy; the industrialization of life maintained through increasing amounts and
forms of (albeit unpaid and underrecognized) labor; and, most obviously, the fact
that it is individual pigs who are most burdened by their species’ ascent to the
position of a region’s dominant organism. But in a zone marked by such contra-
dictions—and perhaps in other parallel landscapes given over to making capitalist
species—what seems clear is the need for a language that goes beyond the cur-
rently isolated political imaginaries of animal or worker rights, once the health
and liberty of individual pigs and people are affected by the state of vitality in
which they are mutually embedded.

ABSTRACT
This article examines microbial ecologies and industrial ontologies as they unfold in
the animal worlds created by the American factory farm. Based in a hundred-mile
radius region of the U.S. Great Plains—where some seven million hogs are annually
manufactured from prelife to postdeath—it unpacks agribusiness managers’ varied
modes of socio-ecological intervention once porcine overproduction causes disease to
breach the indoor spaces of confinement barns. Maintaining the genetic potency of
modern industrial animals requires managers to appraise how the pig has become
intertwined with wind patterns, terrain gradations, and humanity. One result is that
corporations are enacting intimate biosecurity protocols in workers’ domestic homes,
a move that frames human sociality as a reservoir sheltering porcine disease. Workers
are reimagined as a threat to the vitality of industrial hogs in ways that subtly alter
the value of human livelihood and autonomy in this region. To situate how rural
work became ambiguously posthuman, this essay develops a political economy of
speciation. It inhabits managers’ abstract technologies that allow them to become
attuned to the industrial pig as a fragile and world-defining species in need of new
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types of laboring subjectivity, while analyzing the postanthropocentric politics of class

and value in a zone reorganized around forms of capitalist animality. [labor; ani-
mals; social class; anthropocentrism; biosecurity; industrial agriculture;
United States]

NOTES
Acknowledgments Primary thanks are owed to the many residents of the town of Dixon
whose insights and work are the basis of this article. This essay was initially developed for the
Anthropology and Environment Society’s 2011 Rappaport Student Prize panel, and I thank
Lisa Cliggett for organizing that forum. A wide range of comments and critiques—both
sustained and off-the-cuff—took the writing in new directions. I thank James Brooks, Jessica
Cattelino, Summerson Carr, Tatiana Chudakova, Judith Farquhar, Kathryn Goldfarb, Bridget
Guarasci, Elayne Oliphant, Natalie Porter, Gabriel Rosenberg, Caroline Schuster, Rosalind
Shaw, Ageeth Sluis, Brad Weiss, Kara Wentworth, and most especially Joseph Masco. Com-
ments by three anonymous reviewers, the Cultural Anthropology editorial collective as a whole,
and Cymene Howe in particular, greatly strengthened the article. The research and writing
was supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the
School for Advanced Research. Thanks also to Sean J. Sprague for his company and significant
photographic skills, and to the Wenner-Gren Foundation’s Osmundsen Initiative for providing
funding for this visual dimension of the project.

1. All company and place names in this essay are pseudonyms, intended to provide a
measure of anonymity to individuals in the four pork corporations where I conducted
research. I am unable to specify with precision the exact locale where most of my
fieldwork took place, as the five largest pork corporations in the United States are each
centrally located out of a single state. Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Okla-
homa, Texas, and Utah all contain major corporate pork installations that resemble the
operations I will be describing in this article.
2. The bulk of this conversation occurred in Spanish, but shifted to English as technical
workplace terms such as biosecurity became the subject of discussion. This was the norm
on farms, where the primary spoken languages were Spanish or K’iche, mixed with the
English farming phrases taught during training. At the time of my research, a complicated
racial division of labor extended across the factory farm’s various worksites. For ex-
ample, the people who I encountered in breeding were of Mexican, Guatemalan, or
Cuban descent, while migrants from Burma tended to staff the slaughterhouse’s over-
night sanitation shift. With a few exceptions, the most senior managers tended to be
white and United States–born, and they spoke English as their primary language.
3. Public health researchers have started to find evidence that hog farmworkers can carry
antibiotic-resistant bacteria on their bodies for several days in spite of showering pro-
tocols (Nadimpalli et al. 2014). This form of human-to-human infection is considered
rare and is labeled “tertiary exposure” in the pork industry biosecurity literature, as
distinguished from the relatively more common forms of hog-to-hog (primary) or hog-
human-hog (secondary) exposure (Morrow and Roberts 2002). But this biosecurity
protocol is not unique to Dover Foods. For example, an Australian biosecurity orga-
nization suggests that all hog farm employees sign a declaration that includes, among
other stipulations, a pledge that they will not live with other animal farmworkers (AHA
2012).
4. There is no formal rule, to my knowledge, dictating that managers across different
nodes of porcine life and death cannot socialize. There remain situations at work—such
as planning meetings—when some managers must be copresent. Still, this burgeoning
consciousness and rule-of-thumb was further made clear to me when a couple managers
expressed uncertainty about how (or whether) to interact with my embodied self, as a
researcher who spoke with different social classes and spent time in multiple firms.
664
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5. See Timothy Choy and Jerry Zee (2015) for an account of an anthropology of suspension
wherein beings are diluted, intermingled, and held together through the shared medium
of the atmosphere. The term atmospheric attunement was first used by Kathleen Stewart
(2011).
6. Nor is it unprecedented in animal agriculture. In her remarkable study of small-scale
slaughterhouses in Minnesota, Kara Wentworth (pers. comm.) describes how farming
families would strip off clothes outside their homes and between house and barn after
attending community events such as high school basketball games, church, or 4-H com-
petitions, where they would have encountered other agriculturalists.
7. For this reason, I characterize the factory farm as ambiguously postanthropocentric:
neither fully anthropocentric in its local realization on the ground, and quite obviously
not purely porcine-centric given that it is a matter of making life and death for human
consumption.
8. Emily Yates-Doerr (2015, 309) has called for a multispecies scholarship that rejects the
taxonomic urge to preemptively classify things into fixed natural categories, and that
instead illustrates the ongoing work of enacting species needed to make “an occurrence
of coherence situated amid ever-transforming divisions and connections.”
9. While farmers have called groups of owned hogs a herd for centuries, I refer to the
Herd as an organizational technology that is specific to industrial animal production.
10. In a parallel way, Timothy Pachirat (2011) vividly renders how each worker in the
slaughterhouse experiences animal death differently based on their position on the line.
11. See Henry Buller (2013) for an insightful philosophical analysis of farm animal massifi-
cation, which focuses on how seeing in mass affects off-farm apparatuses such as animal
welfare science.
12. My focus on the workplace division of labor leads me to emphasize class as an analytic
in this article. But one could just as easily characterize this as a process of racialization
through industrial animality. Those who are hired to “work with” the Herd are almost
all people of color, while those who are employed to abstractly “work on” the Herd
tend to be white.
13. See Javier Lezaun and Natalie Porter (2015) for a different—arch-anthropocentric—
kind of privatization of public biosecurities through the development of transgenic ani-
mals that would not shed disease and would require no modification of contemporary
human activities.
14. See Joseph Masco (2014) and Carlo Caduff (2014, 115) for important analyses of what
the latter terms biosecurity’s infelicity, or how “security . . . has itself become a significant
source of insecurity.”
15. In North Carolina, for example, meatpacking corporations tend to contract with osten-
sibly independent farmers to raise pigs for the slaughterhouse. This limits the amount
of land, buildings, and supply of labor that the corporation must supply. See Ronald
Rich (2003, 2008) for a detailed study of the ways that contracting played out in the
state of Illinois, as well as how the biological fragility of lean hogs served as the impetus
for certain indoor-confinement technologies and forms of production contracts.
16. Steve Hinchliffe (2014) and Steve Hinchcliffe and Kim J. Ward (2014) discuss building
immunities in hogs and managing endemic illnesses, noting how supposedly disease-free
barns would only result in the emergence of new illnesses.
17. While disturbing videos of workers beating animals have been picked up by the media
to create the impression that employees are alienated from and indifferent to pigs, I
found the opposite. Workers would often go to incredible lengths—almost jarringly
so—to intimately heal pigs with which they worked (see Blanchette 2013, chapter 3).

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609

Materialist returns: practising

cultural geography in and for a
more-than-human world
Sarah Whatmore
Oxford University Centre for the Environment, School of Geography

This paper surveys the return to materialist concerns in the work of a new generation of cultural
geographers informed by their engagements with science and technology studies and performance
studies, on the one hand, and by their worldly involvements in the politically charged climate of
relations between science and society on the other. It argues that these efforts centre on new ways of
approaching the vital nexus between the bio (life) and the geo (earth), or the ‘livingness’ of the
world, in a context in which the modality of life is politically and technologically molten. It identifies
some of the major innovations in theory, style and application associated with this work and some of
the key challenges that it poses for the practice of cultural geography.

Thinking is neither a line drawn between subject and object nor a revolving of one around the other. Rather
thinking takes place in the relationship of territory and earth . . . involving a gradual but thorough
displacement from text to territory.1

Something/happening

I t seems pertinent, even unavoidable, to begin by confessing that I still feel something
of an outsider in the ‘cultural geography’ camp
at least as it came to be configured
in the formative years of my research career in the late 1980s as the rise of ‘cultural
studies’ in the UK gained disciplinary purchase in the guise of ‘the new cultural
geography’.2 That project’s signature concerns with the politics of representation and
identity cast my obdurately earthy interests in cultivation and property, growing and
eating, in a very unfashionable light. At that time such interests found a more
convenient if not very permissive home in political economy
where the ‘matter of
nature’, as Margaret Fitzsimmons so memorably put it, was marginally less margin-
alized.3 So, in a small but not insignificant way, my being invited to present the cultural
geographies annual lecture4 is testament to some kind of realignment of intellectual
energies underway; that moment of fabulation that Deleuze conjures5 in which cultural
forces regroup and start to generate their own stories: stories which enter the world as
envoys of ‘something happening’
giving that something/happening both shape and
momentum.

# 2006 SAGE Publications 10.1191/1474474006cgj377oa

 Materialist returns

This paper might best be thought of as just such a self-conscious act of storying
an
envoy of the recuperation of ‘materiality’ that is gathering force in this something/
happening through energies as diverse as postcolonial, feminist, landscape, urban,
legal and performance studies.6 Through these diverse currents, cultural geographers
have found their way (back) to the material in very different ways that variously
resonate with what I take to be amongst the most enduring of geographical concerns

the vital connections between the geo (earth) and the bio (life).7 The durability of these
concerns bears the hallmark of geography’s history, which (like anthropology and
archaeology) took shape before the division of academic labours into social and natural
sciences became entrenched. It is a division with which these disciplines have never
been entirely comfortable, and with which they continue to wrestle more self-
consciously, and sometimes productively, than others. With the advent of the ‘new
cultural geography’, this earthlife nexus was written out of, or more accurately, into the
ancestral past of cultural geography
at least in the Anglophone research community.8
I argue here that this nexus is currently being recharged and taken in unfamiliar
directions by a new generation of cultural geographers, not least through multiple
engagements with the ‘geo/bio-philosophy’ of Deleuze and Guattari9 from which this
intervention pushes off. Such engagements have been direct, through close readings of
their work and the philosophical industry that it has spawned, and indirect, through the
twin intermediaries of science and technology studies and performance studies in
which it is differently, and variously, inflected.10 A common commitment in such work
is a view of science and philosophy as projects in which theory does not take on a
representational function, but rather an active and practical one, such that every theory
acts as a ‘mechanics’
simultaneously a technology of practice and an intervention in
the world.11 But this storying of cultural geography’s recuperation of the material works
against forging ‘it’ into the latest in a weary and wearying succession of ‘new turns’ that
have been written into the intellectual history of cultural geography, still less one that is
uniformly or exclusively Deleuzian.
Instead, I want to emphasize that this recuperation manifests a rich variety of
analytical impulses; philosophical resources and political projects that don’t ‘add up’ to
a singular ‘new’ approach, let alone one that has a monopoly of insight or value. To this
end, I use the language of re turns to suggest that what is new (as in different) about the
something/happening in cultural geography is a product of repetition
turning
seemingly familiar matters over and over, like the pebbles on a beach
rather than a
product of sudden encounter or violent rupture. Just as importantly, what is different or
innovatory about these materialist returns is generated as much by the technologically
and politically molten climate that informs cultural geographers’ intellectual invest-
ments and worldly involvements as by any academic repositioning. In this case, I think
there can be little doubt that the materialist returns of cultural geography today are
bound up with the proliferation of what Bruno Latour calls ‘matters of concern’12 and
Michel Callon calls ‘hot situations’13 associated with the intensification of the interface
between ‘life’ and ‘informatic’ sciences and politics. This intensification has been
witnessed in serial public controversies since the 1990s, from GM to nanotechnology,14
in which the practices of social, as well as natural, scientists have been caught up.

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These involvements are reflected in cultural geography’s reworking of substantive

topics (like domestication and sensory perception) in unfamiliar, and sometimes
unsettling, directions such as the burgeoning interest in animal cultures,15 ‘post-
humanism’16 and geographies of ‘affect’.17
I want to start by articulating the broadest sense of this claim that a new generation of
cultural geographers is returning to the rich conjunction of the bio and the geo
or, for
want of a more felicitous expression, to what the writer Jeanette Winterson calls the
‘livingness’ of the world.18 My argument is that the most important difference (a big
claim, I know) in the ‘something/happening’ in cultural geography’s materialist
recuperations is that this return to the livingness of the world shifts the register of
materiality from the indifferent stuff of a world ‘out there’, articulated through notions
of ‘land’, ‘nature’ or ‘environment’, to the intimate fabric of corporeality that includes
and redistributes the ‘in here’ of human being.19 In this it shares the same impulse as
Derrida’s frequently articulated insistence on addressing philosophical enquiry to ‘the
entire field of the living, or rather to the life/death relation, beyond the anthropological
limits of ‘‘spoken language’’’.20 Importantly, however, this redirection of materialist
concerns through the bodily enjoins the technologies of life and ecology, on the one
hand, and of prehension and feeling, on the other, in refiguring the ontological
disposition of research
drawing cultural geographers into new conversational
associations; research practices and modes of address that collectively mark what I
have called ‘more-than-human’ approaches to the world.21 I will tease out this rather
bold claim by sketching some of the key facets of the materialist returns now in play, as
I see them, and the kinds of challenges that they pose.

Materialist recuperations
In the last edition of the Dictionary of human geography , Denis Cosgrove in his entry
on cultural geography distinguishes ‘classical’ from ‘new’ styles of cultural geography
by reference to their approaches to the study of landscape.22 The former, associated
with the work of Carl Sauer and the Berkeley school that he inspired, has as its
reference point his iconic essay ‘The morphology of landscape’ in which
cultural landscape is fashioned from a natural landscape by a cultural group. Culture is the agent, the
natural area the medium, the cultural landscape is the result.23

By contrast, ‘new’ cultural geography is associated with the flowering of cultural studies
in Britain, as signalled by the no less totemic essay of Daniels and Cosgrove introducing
their book Iconography and landscape , in which landscape is defined as
a cultural image, a pictorial way of representing . . . surroundings. This is not to say that landscapes are
immaterial. They may be represented in a variety of materials . . . in paint on canvas, in writing on paper, in
earth, stone, water and vegetation on the ground.24

The point I want to draw from these exemplary quotations is rather different from that
for which they have come to stand in demarcating a ‘new’ from a ‘classical’ regime.

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 Materialist returns

Despite the significant differences they articulate, what I find most striking about
them is that they share an overriding common currency, namely that they both cast the
making of landscapes (whether worked or represented) as an exclusively human
achievement in which the stuff of the world is so much putty in our hands. On these
accounts, as I have suggested elsewhere, ‘the world remains untroubled and
untroubling, waiting impassively for us to make up our minds and making no
difference’ to the landscape (or knowledge, or environment . . .) in the making.25 By the
same token, cultural geography’s investments in questions of identity and culture have
remained largely wedded to that most vociferously silent and self-evident subject of the
social sciences, the ‘in-here’ of human being. So it is that recent contributions have
sought to do (at least) three things. The first has been to re-animate the missing ‘matter’
of landscape, focusing attention on bodily involvements in the world in which
landscapes are co-fabricated between more-than-human bodies and a lively earth.26
The second has been to interrogate ‘the human’ as no less a subject of ongoing co-
fabrication than any other socio-material assemblage.27 The third in my list has been the
redistribution of subjectivity as something that ‘does not live inside, in the cellar of the
soul, but outside in the dappled world’.28
This redistribution of energies puts the onus on ‘livingness’ as a modality of
connection between bodies (including human bodies) and (geo-physical) worlds. In
turn, that acts as a rallying point for geographers (and others) working against the
lexical cast of the ‘new’ cultural geography and the humanist commitments of cultural
geography more broadly, bringing all manner of philosophical resources to bear on
their efforts. These include the corporeal materialisms inspired by Foucault’s bio-
cultures, Merleau-Ponty’s ontology of the flesh and the feminist corporeal ethics of
Diprose29 and others; and the energetic materialisms inspired by the relational
ontologies of Spinoza, Whitehead and Deleuze (amongst others), such as Stengers’
co-fabrication or ‘working together’.30 In conjunction with the molten question of what
‘livingness’ means in a life science era,31 such resources and energies redirect
materialist concerns in ways that have profound ethical and political, as well as
analytical, consequences. As the political theorist Jane Bennett recently put it, they
attempt to hold onto the relational and emergent imperatives of material force in which
the ‘thing-ness of things’
bodies, objects, arrangements
are always in-the-making
and ‘humans are always in composition with nonhumanity, never outside of a sticky
web of connections or an ecology [of matter]’.32
If these are some of the lineaments of the differences/innovations wrought by the
materialist returns of a cultural geography attentive to the livingness of the world, how
is this attentiveness playing out in terms of more specific research directions and
impulses? I want to outline four commitments being taken forward in diverse ways in
such work that strike me as being of particular importance.
The first is a shift in analytic focus from discourse to practice . Inspired by numerous
and non-additive efforts to work against the grain of the logocentric conception of
social agency
‘I think therefore I act’
that is a familiar mantra of orthodox social
science. This shift is associated by some with the so-called ‘practice turn’33 and a variety
of approaches which relocates social agency in practice or performance rather than

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discourse
thinking and acting through the body
and reworks discourse itself as a
specific kind of practice.
The second is a shift from an onus on meaning to an onus on affect . The bodily
register of current work reopens the interval between sense and sense-making, and
multiplies the sensory dimensions of acting in the world and the milieux of inter-
corporeal movement. Affect refers to the force of intensive relationality
intensities
that are felt but not personal; visceral but not confined to an individuated body. This
shift of concern from what things mean to what they do has methodological
consequences for how we train our apprehensions of ‘what subjects us, what affects
and effects us’ or ‘learn to be affected’.34
The third redirection of effort is towards more-than-human modes of enquiry. Such
modes of enquiry neither presume that socio-material change is an exclusively human
achievement nor exclude the ‘human’ from the stuff of fabrication. Animals and
technological devices have variously been used as ‘agents provocateurs’ in tackling the
question of difference and rigorously working it through the specific materialities and
multiplicities of subjectivity and agency.35 Such modes of enquiry attend closely to the
rich array of the senses, dispositions, capabilities and potentialities of all manner of
social objects and forces assembled through, and involved in, the co-fabrication of
socio-material worlds.
The fourth shift is from a focus on the politics of identity to the politics of knowledge .
Here two currents come together in addressing concerns with the ways in which
knowledge is produced, hardwired into the social fabric and contested in a variety
of public forums. One of these concerns the redistribution of expertise attendant
on the recognition of multiple knowledge practices and communities that bear on
the framing of inherently uncertain socio-technical problems.36 The other concerns the
practice of science (including social science) in constituting the phenomena that it
studies as ‘reliable witnesses’ where that reliability is guaranteed by allowing
phenomena to work against, or to exceed, our experimental expectations.37

Practising more-than-human geographies

For if the look purchases the transcendence of the human only at the expense of repressing the other senses
(and more broadly the material and the bodily with which they are traditionally associated), then one way
to recast the figure of vision (and therefore that with which it is ineluctably associated) is to resituate it as
only one sense among many in a more general
and not necessarily human
bodily sensorium.38

I have sought to argue that the creativity of cultural geography is generated not by a
succession of ‘new’ turns but by the gathering force of constant re-turns to enduring
preoccupations with the processes and excesses of ‘livingness’ in a more-than-human
world. Trying not to solidify the heterogeneity of ideas and practices at work in the
recuperation of materiality in cultural geography into the latest such ‘turn’, I have
outlined some of what I see as the most important aspects of an ongoing realignment of
intellectual energies. It is a realignment that promises much in terms of equipping
geography in the life science era, but one that brings real and pressing methodological

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and political challenges in its wake. Before one gets carried away with their claims to
novelty, it is worth recalling earlier efforts to marry the ‘bio’ and ‘geo’ in cultural
geography. Thus, for example, buried in his ‘morphology of landscape’ essay is an
appeal by Carl Sauer (following Vidal de la Blache) that
Geographers should avoid considering the earth as the scene on which the activity of man (sic) unfolds
itself, without reflecting that this scene is itself living.39

In similar vein, current interests in performativity are anticipated in J.B. Jackson’s

concerns with the ‘vernacular landscapes’ generated by what he saw as the
inexhaustible capacity for improvisation in people’s everyday ways of making
themselves at home in the world with and against the grain of ‘aristrocratic’ or political
designs.40 That said, the differences are profound, as these preoccupations with the
intersection between the ‘bio’ and the ‘geo’ become charged with the socio-
technological possibilities, political registers, cultural sensibilities, and intellectual
enthusiasms of a new generation of geographers. The next edition of the Dictionary
of human geography is a few years off, but some glimpse of the ways in which the
treatment of landscape in the updated entry on cultural geography might be recharged
by this work are signalled in Cary Wolfe’s observations on the bodily sensorium, quoted
at the start of this final section.
So what difference do the materialist recuperations and research directions in cultural
geography that I have sketched above make to the question of how, as Karen Barad
puts it, ‘matter comes to matter’?41 On the one hand, such work is clearly marked by the
distinctive axes of academic exchange that inform it, notably the burgeoning fields of
study emerging between disciplines
such as science and technology studies,
performance studies, and feminist studies. On the other, it is their engagement in
matters of public controversy and everyday concern taking place in a proliferation of
other cultural and political forums that most stands out. Here, what makes the question
of materiality matter is the molten climate of relations between science and society,
technology and democracy42 in which the knowledge practices of social and natural
scientists, civil servants and corporate lawyers, NGOs and direct action groups, citizens
and consumers rub up against one another in the event of all manner of knowledge
controversies. Such controversies (around genetic engineering, MMR injections,
pharmaceutical patenting, stem-cell harvesting, reproductive cloning, for example)
are at once about the most mundane and intimate aspects of social life
food, health
and kinship
and the sites of prolific inventiveness in the life sciences. Taking
the working example of what we might call ‘bio-geographies’, a field set to explode in
the cultural geography literature, it seems,43 I want finally to illustrate some of the
differences in the ways in which cultural geographers are currently recuperating the
material, and to signal some of the major challenges that they pose.
The first major difference is that ‘life’ itself has changed, to become the latest addition
to that peculiar socio-material assemblage called ‘natural resources’. The treatment of
animals and plants as biological resources is hardly new, but with the rise of genetic
and, more particularly, post-genomic biotechnologies any vestige of difference
between the ability to manipulate and commodify their bodies and human bodies

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has been removed. This disturbing levelling of biological differences, reinforced by the
re-materialization of biological entities in the guise of machine-readable informatic
codes,44 has profound effects on what bodies count and what counts as bodily in the
work of cultural geographers today.45 Not least are the considerable additional skills
required to study the detailed knowledge practices involved in the production and
circulation of such bio-technological artefacts, if cultural geographers are to get to grips
with the specificity (as against the originality) of knowledge objects like artificial life
forms. The cultural potency of ‘artificial life’ suggests that it might be possible to learn
from the repertoire of techniques employed in artistic work that engages science and/or
scientists to stage public experiments in the possibilities of reworking hum/ani/
machine interfaces through robotic, neurological and genomic amplifications or
extensions of bodily competences and temporalities.46 For example, the Australian
performance artist Sterlarc, who has worked with robotics scientists at Sussex
University in devising an ‘exoskeleton’, seeks to produce a choreography of move-
ments in which
instead of seeing the human body as the choreographer and the robot as the instrument, I really see the two
working together. That is how it becomes an artistic performance. I have no desire to control the
machine . . . . I am open to its doing the unexpected. In this sense the human body has always been a kind
of cyborg. . . . . I am not satisfied with just theorising about it. I want to experience what actually happens
and then try to articulate what that means.47

A second major difference is the changed relationship between science and society in
which new scientific knowledge claims and/or artefacts, particularly in those fields that
touch the visceral vernacular of social anxiety relating to food or health, have become
routinely controversial matters. Such controversies take cultural geographers to
unfamiliar forums. At one end of the spectrum stand the law courts in which the
artefacts themselves are called upon as material witnesses48 in the determination of
competing claims to the ‘intellectual property’ in new biological artefacts.49 At the other
are the proliferation of impromptu ‘hybrid’ forums that swell in the face of new
technologies
like GM or mobile phone masts
gathering to them all manner of
concerned citizens and/or consumers; seasoned advocacy groups; scientific dissidents
and the like that can change the commercial and regulatory fabric of such technologies
in unpredictable ways. How do social scientists, including cultural geographers,
position themselves in these forums? As the clamour grows for greater ‘interdiscipli-
narity’ as a way of addressing such knowledge controversies, cultural geography’s rich
tradition of experimentation provides a valuable resource for resisting the pressures on
us (from within and outside the discipline) to assume the position of ‘interpreters’
between concerned publics and natural scientists.
As I see it, perhaps the greatest challenge presented by these ‘more-than-human’
styles of working is the onus they place on experimentation and, by implication,
on taking (and being allowed to take) risks. Let me dwell momentarily on just
two aspects of this experimental imperative. First is the urgent need to supplement
the familiar repertoire of humanist methods that rely on generating talk and text
with experimental practices that amplify other sensory, bodily and affective registers

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 Materialist returns

and extend the company and modality of what constitutes a research subject.50
Second, the experimental demands of ‘more-than-human’ styles of working place
an onus on actively redistributing expertise beyond engaging with other disciplines
or research fields to engaging knowledge practices and vernaculars beyond the
academy in experimental research/politics such as the ‘deliberative mapping’ exercise
pioneered by Gail Davies and her collaborators in relation to xeno-transplantation.51
I hope and trust that cultural geographies will continue to play its part as a leading
journal in which scholars can take risks and experiment; in which the worldliness that
has been the hallmark of geographical endeavours is reinvigorated; and in which
conversations and politics proliferate in generative ways rather than hardening into
orthodoxy.

Acknowledgements
I should like to acknowledge the valuable feedback I received from audiences on versions/parts
of this paper presented at the ‘Envisioning geographies’ symposium at UCL; the Lennart
Andersson Lecture at Karlstadt University; and the ‘Exhibition of British geography’ plenary
session at the IGU conference in Glasgow.

Notes
1
G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, What is Philosophy? (French original 1991), trans. Graham
Burchell and Hugh Tomlinson (London, Verso, 1994).
2
See C. Philo, ed., New words, new worlds: reconceptualising social and cultural geography
(Lampeter, Dept of Geography, Saint David’s University College, Lampeter, 1991).
3
M. Fitzsimmons, ‘The matter of nature’, Antipode 21 (1989), pp. 106
20.
4
This is a version of the Cultural geographies annual lecture given at the centennial conference
of the Association of American Geographers (Philadelphia, March 2004). My thanks to the
journal’s editors, Mona Domosh and Philip Crang, for the challenging invitation to present the
lecture, and to Hodder Arnold for sponsoring the event.
5
Deleuze is here following Bergson. See G. Deleuze, Negotiations 125 (New York, Columbia
University Press, 1995), p. 125.
6
Exemplary of these recuperations of the material in various fields of cultural geography are the
following: in relation to the postcolonial, I. Cook and M. Harrison, ‘Cross over food: re-
materialising postcolonial geographies’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 28
(2003), pp. 296
317; in relation to feminist scholarship, C. Nash, ‘Genetic Kinship’, Cultural
studies 18 (2004), pp. 1
34; in landscape studies, J. Wylie, ‘On ascending Glastonbury Tor’,
Geoforum 33 (2002), pp. 441
54; in urban studies, A. Latham and D. McCormack, ‘Moving
cities: rethinking the materialities of urban geographies’, Progress in human geography 28
(2004), pp. 701
24; in relation to legal geographies, D. Delaney, ‘Making nature/marking
humans: law as a site of (cultural) production’, Annals of the Association
of American Geographers 91 (2001), pp. 487
503; and in relation to performance studies,
J.D. Dewsbury, P. Harrison, M. Rose and J. Wylie, eds, ‘Enacting geographies’, special issue of
Geoforum 33 (2003).

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7
There are clearly other ways of conceiving of the re-materialization of cultural geography that
owe more to anthropological traditions in the study of material culture; see e.g. P. Jackson,
‘Rematerialising social and cultural geography’, Social and cultural geography 1 (2000),
pp. 9
14.
8
Notable exceptions include the institutional hold of cultural ecology in the Nordic countries
and its persistence as an active research grouping in the Association of American
Geographers. It should also be noted that reservations about the ‘linguistic’ turn in British
cultural geography were articulated even at its height (see esp. Philo, New words, new
worlds ).
9
Both ‘geo-philosophy’ (see J. Bonta and J. Protevi, Deleuze and geo-philosophy: a guide and
glossary (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2004)) and ‘bio-philosophy’ (see K. Ansell-
Pearson, Germinal life: the difference and repetition of Deleuze (London, Routledge, 1999))
provide useful ways into the work of Deleuze and Guattari.
10
Hence e.g. Latour’s famous quip that the acronym ANT (Actant Network Theory) could just as
easily have been ART (Actant Rhizome Theory). See T. Crawford, ‘An interview with Bruno
Latour’, Configurations 1 (1993), pp. 247
68.
11
T. Murphy, ‘Quantum ontology: a virtual mechanics of becoming’, in E. Kaufman and
K. Heller, eds, Deleuze and Guattari: new mappings in politics, philosophy and culture
(Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1998), p. 213.
12
A term he uses in contrast to ‘matters of fact’ and as shorthand for refusing the distinction
between what is controvertible (e.g. values) and what is not (e.g. observational data).
B. Latour, Politics of nature: how to bring the sciences into democracy (Cambridge, MA,
Harvard University Press, 2004).
13
A term he uses to describe situations in which ‘everything becomes controversial [in] the
absence of a stabilised knowledge base’; M. Callon, ‘An essay on framing and overflowing’, in
The laws of markets (Oxford, Blackwell, 1998), p. 260.
14
See H. Nowotny, P. Scott and M. Gibbons, Rethinking science: knowledge, and the public in
an age of uncertainty (Oxford, Polity, 2001).
15
C. Philo and C. Wilbert, eds, Animal spaces: beastly places (London, Routledge, 2000).
16
N. Castree and C. Nash, eds, ‘Mapping posthumanism’, theme issue of Environment and
planning A 36 (2004).
17
D. McCormack, ‘An event of geographical ethics in spaces of affect’, Transactions of the
Institute of British Geographers 28 (2003), pp. 488
507.
18
J. Winterson, Gut symmetries (New York, Knopf, 1997), p. 85.
19
See P. Sheehan, ed, Becoming human: new perspectives on the inhuman condition (Westport,
CT, Praeger, 2003).
20
J. Derrida and E. Roudinesco, ‘Violence against animals’, in For what tomorrow . . . a dialogue ,
trans. J. Fort (Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2001), p. 63.
21
S. Whatmore, Hybrid geographies: natures cultures spaces (London, Sage, 2002).
22
D. Cosgrove, ‘Cultural geography’, in R.J. Johnston, D. Gregory, G. Pratt and M. Watts, eds, The
dictionary of human geography , 4th edn (Oxford, Blackwell, 2000), pp. 134
38.
23
C. Sauer, ‘The morphology of landscape’ [1925], in J. Leighley, ed., Land and life: selections
from the writings of Carl Ortwin Sauer (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1963),
p. 343.
24
S. Daniels and D. Cosgrove, ‘Iconography and landscape’, in S. Daniels and D. Cosgrove, eds,
The iconography of landscape (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 1.
25
S. Whatmore, ‘Generating materials’, in M. Pryke, G. Rose and S.Whatmore, eds, Using social
theory: thinking through research (London, Sage, 2003), p. 92.

608
 Materialist returns

26
For instance, S. Hinchliffe, ‘‘‘Inhabiting’’
landscapes and natures’, in K. Anderson,
M. Domosh, S. Pile and N. Thrift, eds, Handbook of cultural geography (London, Sage,
2003), pp. 207
26.
27
See e.g. K. Anderson, ‘White natures: Sydney’s Royal Agricultural Show in post-humanist
perspective’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 28 (2003), pp. 422
41.
28
B. Latour, ‘Body, cyborgs and the politics of incarnation’, in S. Sweeney and I. Hodder, eds,
The body (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 140. See e.g. Wylie, ‘On
ascending’.
29
R. Diprose, Corporeal generosity (London, Routledge, 2002).
30
I. Stengers, Power and invention: situating science (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota
Press, 1997).
31
See R. Doyle, Wetwares: experiments in postvital living (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota
Press, 2003).
32
J. Bennett, ‘The force of things: steps to an ecology of matter’, Political theory 32 (2004), p. 365
(emphasis original).
33
T. Schatzki, K. Knorr-Cetina and E. Von Savigny, eds, The practice turn in contemporary
theory (London, Routledge, 2001).
34
Latour, ‘Bodies, cyborgs and the politics of incarnation’, p. 140.
35
E.g. C. Wolfe, Animal rites: American culture, the discourse of species and posthumanist
theory (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003).
36
See Nowotny et al ., Re-thinking science .
37
Stengers, Power and invention , p. 85.
38
Wolfe, Animal rites , p. 3.
39
Sauer, ‘The morphology of landscape’, p. 321.
40
J.B. Jackson, Discovering the vernacular landscape (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press,
1984), pp. 7
8.
41
K. Barad, ‘Posthumanist performativity: toward an understanding of how matter comes to
matter’, Signs 28 (2003), pp. 801
32.
42
M. Callon, P. Lascoumes and Y. Barthe, Agir dans un monde incertain: essai sur la démocratie
technique (Paris, Seuil, 2001).
43
In the context of giving the cultural geographies lecture, I was responding here to a number of
sessions at the Centennial Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers at
which I was speaking, and thinking in particular of the ‘Geographies of biotechnology’
sessions organized by Beth Greenhough and Emma Roe.
44
See Doyle, Wetwares .
45
See P. Thurtle and R. Mitchell, eds, Semiotic flesh: information and the human body (Seattle,
Walter Chapin Simpson Centre for the Humanities, 2002).
46
O. Dyens, Metal and flesh (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2001).
47
Quotation from www.stelarc.va.com.au.
48
See M. Strathern, Property, substance and effect: anthropological essays on persons and things
(London, Athlone Press, 1999).
49
See Delaney, ‘Making nature/marking humans’.
50
For an example, see S. Whatmore and S. Hinchliffe, ‘Living cities: making space for urban
nature’, Soundings: journal of politics and culture 22 (2003), pp. 37
50.
51
See G. Davies, J. Burgess, J. Eames, M. Mayer, K. Staley, A. Stirling and S. Williamson,
Deliberative mapping: appraising options for addressing the kidney gap (Wellcome Trust Final
Report Grant 064492, 2003). See also: http://www.deliberative-mapping.org

609
 Progress in Human Geography
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Geographies of food: following

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Progress in Human Geography 30, 5 (2006) pp. 655–666

Geographies of food: following

Ian Cook et al.*
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of
Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK

One . . . thing that we want the consumers to appreciate is that . . . they could assist the farmers by
purchasing our fruits . . . If they’re willing to purchase them, use them as if they’ll be helping human beings
just like them . . . Because it is very difficult for a man, or somebody, to produce something. But we who
consume it, or make use of it, we have to appreciate the people who produce it. (St Lucian banana farmer
Renicks Doxilly, 1996, quoted in Cook et al., 2002: 1)

I Here . . . them. Looped voices, with car horns and

In May 2004, I was sitting in a small art
gallery in a leafy part of Birmingham. Shelley
Sacks’s social sculpture Exchange values:
images of invisible lives filled the room. It had
recently returned from Johannesburg’s
National Gallery where it had been presented
during the 2002 Earth Summit. With the help
of a couple of postgraduate students, I’d
helped Shelley to assemble the sculpture’s 20
steel frames, and attach them to the walls.
We used each frame to stretch a sheet of
dried and cured banana skins, about the size
of a broadsheet newspaper. In a metal box
below each sheet, we placed a CD player
with a set of headphones resting on top. And
we scattered thousands of loose, dry banana
skins in the middle of the floor.1 Afterwards,
we went to the café, and Shelley told me
about something that had struck her in a quiet
moment in that Johannesburg gallery. Getting
the sculpture ready for visitors involved just
switching on the CD players. So, there would
be a time before the gallery opened when the
room was full of whispers. With a rhythm to
other noises in the background. Leaking out
of those headphones around the room.
Visitors would later pick up those head-
phones, put them on, and listen to what the
farmers who had grown the bananas whose
skins were made into those sheets had to say
to them. One by one. Around the room.
Farmers like Renicks Doxilly talked about
their lives and their relationships with the
‘consumer’ whose demands for cheaper and
safer food were responsible for the increasing
hardships of their lives. It seemed. They had
some questions to ask, too. About money.
Political economy. Globalization. Their grow-
ing impoverishment. More besides. Seriously.
II . . . there . . .
A few days later, sitting in that Birmingham
gallery, I heard those whispers too. And I
thought. Suppose you went to a supermarket
before opening time. Switched on the food.
And could hear whispering like this. Suppose
you could pick things off the shelf, put them
to your ear and listen to the people who had

*For an explanation of why the author refers to himself in this way, see Ian Cook et al. (2005).
Email: i.j.cook@bham.ac.uk

© 2006 SAGE Publications 10.1177/0309132506070183

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656 Geographies of food
helped to get them there talking to you. What
would they say and ask? Could you have a
chat? Did you ever pretend that a banana was
a telephone when you were a kid? Or make a
telephone with two tin cans and some string?
I did. Probably. A few months later, Shelley
sent me a CD recording of a discussion I’d
missed. Between an invited group of artists,
philosophers, geographers and activists who’d
become fascinated in this sculptural process. I
was too busy to sit down quietly and give this
the careful attention it deserved. So I loaded
it onto my MP3 player, and listened to it when
I was doing other things. Like driving. And
shopping in our local Sainsbury’s supermar-
ket. After work. Alone. Picking up odds and
sods before it closed at 8pm. There, I had a
shopping list. I was browsing the shelves. I
was putting things in the basket. As usual.
But there were these voices in my head.
Talking about where food comes from. About
the politics, poetics, economics of connect-
ion. This changed my shopping experience.
But they weren’t talking directly to me (or
someone like me). Like Shelley had asked
those banana farmers to (see Sacks, 2006).
So, what if I’d gone shopping with their
voices instead? You can listen to them talking
to you at www.exchange-values.org, or on
the CD in the back of the exhibition cata-
logue. Most of us could easily download what
they said onto our MP3 players and go shop-
ping with them. I’ve just given this as an
assignment to some final year undergrads,
and to some GCSE school geography stu-
dents, in Birmingham. What will their experi-
ences be? I wonder. It’s not the same as
reading about the lives of people who make
the things we buy. Or any of the production-
consumption literature I’m going to review
here. It’s a fuller bodied experience. Multi-
sensory. Warm. Emotional. Spooky. Maybe.
In our heads. In view. Within our grasp. In our
baskets. Exchanged for money. Later in our
mouths. Or those of others we shop for.
Nourishment. Part of our bodies. But out there,
too. In the countless connected places where
people’s lives meet and become entangled
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through the complex lives of things. Bananas.
Food. Anything. We could listen to these
kinds of voices anywhere.
III . . . everywhere?
This introduction may seem like an odd flight
of fancy, but academics and activists have
been using this language lately. There’s Pierre
Stassart and Sarah Whatmore (2003: 451),
for example, saying that ‘a farm chicken, a
bunch of onions, and a pound of flour do not
“speak” to consumers in the same way’; Ray
Bryant and Mike Goodman (2004: 348) writ-
ing about fair trade goods that ‘veritably
shout to consumers about the socionatural
relations under which they were produced’;
and the 2005 World Food Day conference in
London promising that each session would
focus ‘on a particular kind of hidden story
from the food chain, which our food might tell
us if it could talk’.2 There’s a core argument in
this literature that food can tell us about any-
thing and everything. It’s simultaneously
molecular, bodily, social, economic, cultural,
global, political, environmental, physical and
human geography (Probyn, 1999; Crewe,
2001; Stassart and Whatmore, 2003). Stories
of food can therefore reveal ‘like any good
biography or travelogue, a much bigger story’
(Freidberg, 2003: 4), in the sense that ‘contin
ued attention to the most mundane and inti-
mate aspects of people’s ordinary lives . . .
can help us understand the big issues of
twenty-first-century politics’ (Watson and
Caldwell, 2005: 1–2). As Michael Watts
(2005) has argued, in the right hands some-
thing like an oven-ready chicken can be a
valuable theoretical, as well as pedagogical,
device. His chicken could never be alone,
though.
IV Food’s (un)disciplined
geographies . . .
I’m picking up arguments, here, from Michael
Winter’s (2003; 2004; 2005) reviews of vari-
ous (sub)disciplinary attempts to ‘re-connect’
the production and consumption of food. In
doing so, I’m trying to work through a small

but fascinating literature following foods and
telling stories with them. This, however, is
much more difficult than it sounds. A good
following story has a clear focus. Like a
chicken. That never goes out of sight. But
anything and everything that’s in and around
it (throughout its conception, birth, life, death
and travels) could become part of that story.
But where exactly are the beginnings and
ends of such a story? And where are the
edges (Miller, 1997)? Do we want or need to
delimit them? How ‘(un)disciplined’ should
these geographies be? This kind of research
can involve exciting but risky ventures. And it
can do your head in. So many things that
aren’t supposed to go together in theory
come together in practice. There’s a lot of lit-
erature to draw upon which treats different
life stages of food in different ways. A key
question that food geographers are asking is
how the widely acknowledged and longstand-
ing division between an agricultural geogra-
phy/agro-food studies literature dominated by
political economy and quantitative methods,
and a cultural studies of food literature domi-
nated by poststructuralism and qualitative
research can be ‘bridged’ (Stassart and
Whatmore, 2003; Watts et al., 2005). Some
argue that this boxing-up of food studies is
what is stopping ‘analyses of the nature, cul-
ture and political economy of food . . . tak[ing]
place on the same page’ (Freidberg, 2003: 6;
see also Goodman, 2002; Morris and Evans,
2004). Others, however, argue that key prob-
lem-finders and agenda-setters too often
make their points by ‘ignoring, misrepresent-
ing and summarily dismissing’ existing bodies
of literature where these analyses are on the
same page (Fine, 2004: 338).
Both of these perspectives could be true.
Boxing-up may not necessarily be stopping
this work from being done. But it may be
stopping it from being recognized as being
done, or making it easy to find. Is this work
‘rural’, ‘cultural’, ‘economic’, ‘production’,
‘consumption’, ‘Marxist’, ‘poststructural’,
‘qual’, ‘quant’, ‘physical’, ‘human’, ‘geogra-
phy’, ‘sociology’: some, all, more, none? Does
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Ian Cook et al. 657
this matter? Is it interesting? Or important?
And to whom? Louise Crewe, for one, seems
to have become bored with that model of
academic writing in which we try to put sep-
arate things together. Her (2003) Progress
review of the geographies of retailing and
consumption began with an admission that
she was ‘purposefully side-stepping the now
locked-in and tired refrain of “let’s join econ-
omy and culture” through “unveiling” com-
modity chains . . . or via circuits or networks’.
But what if, in Jacquie Burgess’s (2005: 273)
terms, she’d had stuff to read that had ‘fol-
low[ed] the argument where it leads’; had
been a bit (un)disciplined; or, in Andrew
Sayer’s words,3 had come in the form of more
‘postdisciplinary studies’ where:
scholars forget about disciplines and whether
ideas can be identified with any particular one;
they identify with learning rather than with
disciplines. They follow ideas and connections
wherever they lead instead of following them
only as far as the border of their discipline. It
doesn’t mean dilettantism or eclecticism,
ending up doing a lot of things badly. It differs
from those things precisely because it requires
us to follow connections. One can still study a
coherent group of phenomena, in fact since
one is not dividing it up and selecting out
elements appropriate to a particular discipline,
it can be more coherent than disciplinary
studies. (Sayer, 2003: 5)
For post(sub)disciplinary food researchers,
then, the boxes could be ditched. At least as
a way of framing arguments. The ‘bridging of
divides’ would be unnecessary. Instead, the
organizing principles for research could be
specific foods and ingredients, simple or com-
plex. We’d ‘get inside [their] networks, go
with the flows and look to connect’ (Crang,
2005: 49; see also Crang et al., 2003). I’ve
been imagining the small talk at conference
bars. ‘What do you do?’ I’m a cultural-
economic geographer. What do you do?’ ‘I fol-
low chickens. . .’ But this isn’t as unlikely as it
sounds. Meet Becky or Ted and I’m hoping
they might tell you that they follow fish
(Mansfield, 2003a; 2003b; Bestor, 2005);
Pierre and Sarah, beef (Stassart and
658 Geographies of food
Whatmore, 2003); Deborah, Susanne, Emma,
Edward and Peter, fresh veg (Barndt, 2002;
Freidberg, 2004a; 2005; Roe, 2006; Fischer
and Benson, 2006); Terrane, Gregory, Daniel,
Jack, Mario, David and Elizabeth, tortillas
(Gabel and Boller, 2003; Jaffee et al., 2004;
Lind and Barham, 2004); Aimee, Ian, Mimi,
Charlie and Carla, fresh fruit (Shreck, 2002;
2005; Cook et al., 2004; Sheller, 2005;
Mather and Mackenzie, 2006); Ian and
Michelle, hot pepper sauces (Cook and
Harrison, 2003; Cook, Harrison et al., 2006);
and Michael, chewing gum (Redclift, 2004).
But what’s the theoretical and political point
in saying that? Or doing that? And how can it
be done?
V Capital, volume 1, chapter 1:
[not] again?
In Jon Goss’s (2004) Progress review of geog-
raphies of consumption, he argued that
research in this area had become hostile
towards theory. This was notably, but not
only, because researchers were ‘self-
consciously rejecting political economy’ (p.
371), and increasingly relying on the complex
and detailed description of commodity cir-
cuits and actor networks. Echoing earlier
arguments made by Debbie Leslie and Suzy
Reimer (1999) and Elaine Hartwick (2000),
he argued that this made it more difficult for
consumers/readers to understand and to
engage in ‘politically meaningful action’ (Goss,
2004: 374) regarding the processes described.
Goss was surprised that geographers studying
people-commodity relations seemed so
unwilling to follow the ‘materialist turn’ in
social and cultural research. In this literature,
commodity fetishism was typically treated as
a ‘mask to be unveiled’. Hence, this aspect of
Marxist theory was being rejected by carica-
ture. However, read Alex Hughes’s (2005a:
501) Progress report on ‘alternative trading
spaces’ and she points out that these theoret-
ical arguments are being drawn upon by
researchers seeking to understand how food is
fetishized and can be ‘defetishized’ in ‘politi-
cally engaged ways’.4 Recently, for instance,
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Mike Goodman has argued that, rather than
trying to sweep aside any ‘veil’ that a com-
modity might have, food research should take
Michael Taussig’s (1992) advice and ‘get with’
its fetish to help reimagine and more equitably
reshape (postcolonial) economic relationships
between ‘Southern rural livelihood struggles
and morally reflexive (Northern) consumers’
(Goodman, 2004, in Hughes, 2005a: 501; see
also Cook and Crang, 1996; Castree, 2001;
Cook et al., 2002; Cook and Harrison, 2003;
Cook, Crang and Thorpe, 2004); Daniel
Jaffee et al. (2004) have argued that, given
the appeal of ‘family farming’ in popular US
imaginations, many have ‘got with this fetish’
to market fair trade apples there; I’ve argued
that the international fresh papaya trade was
shaped by this fruit’s commodity and sexual
fetish-like powers in its marketing and
farming (Cook et al., 2004); and, in Charlie
Mather and Carla Mackenzie’s (2006) weird,
wonderful and disturbing paper based on
interviews with white South African
‘Outspan girls’ employed to represent to
UK shoppers all that was ‘good’ about their
country and its fruits during the apartheid
era, there’s plenty to ponder about commodi-
ties that were fetishized by having people
attached to them, people who you could ask –
and argue with – about conditions of produc-
tion: which is exactly what anti-apartheid
activists did.
All of these papers concern the ways in
which commodities are (re)valued by those
working with/on them on their complex,
entangled journeys from farms to plates and
beyond, and how, why, where and between
whom these values get unequally exchanged
internationally (see, in particular, Long and
Villareal, 1998; Lind and Barham, 2004). And
all fit into the argument made by Susanne
Freidberg (2003: 5) that ‘political economy
has forced us [food geographers] to re-evalu-
ate certain assumptions about the nature and
extent of consumer agency, both past and
present, in the light of the formidable
resources mobilized to shape taste and sell
food’. Here, food stories always end up

involving bigger stories of dominance,
exploitation, ‘civilization’, imperialism,
racism, anti-unionism, gender discrimination,
emotional and physical harm, to say the least.
And, occasionally, it must be said, hope and
difference that’s centred around ‘fair trade’,
other ‘alternative food networks’ and much
more besides (see Long and Villareal, 1998;
Cook and Harrison, 2003; Crang et al., 2003;
Jaffee et al., 2004; Freidberg, 2005; Watts
et al., 2005; Hughes, 2006a; Cook, Harrison
et al., 2006).
VI Do the following . . .
Much of the talk in the food studies literature
(and, indeed in UK government legislation) is
about ‘re-connecting producers and con-
sumers’ (Winter, 2003; Duffy et al., 2005).
It’s a powerful argument. First, there’s the
hope that doing research that exposes con-
sumers to the hidden exploitations in the food
that they buy will cause them to change the
way that they spend their cash. Second, in
the project to document and encourage the
proliferation of ‘alternative economic spaces’
(Leyshon et al., 2003; Hughes, 2005a), there
are many studies of already-existing initiatives
like fair trade (Shreck, 2002; 2005; Bryant
and Goodman, 2004; Goodman, 2004),
organic food (Guthman, 2003; Mansfield,
2003a; Raynolds, 2004), farmers’ markets
(Hinrichs, 2000; 2003), ‘North-to-North’
‘South-to-South’ (Jaffee et al., 2004), and
other alternative food network initiatives
where producers and consumers do, it seems,
better understand and work to improve their
interrelationships.5 Here, for instance, you’ll
find the argument that ‘shouty’ ‘fair trade’
labelling conducts a ‘moral charge’ between
producers and prospective consumers
(Goodman, 2004; Jaffee et al., 2004). And,
third, there’s the belief that government and
food trade initiatives to enable consumers,
retailers, producers and politicians to ‘walk
the food chain’ will allow them to appreciate
each other’s difficulties, reduce wasteful prac-
tices, and allow much more economically effi-
cient relations to develop between them:
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Ian Cook et al. 659
thereby helping to solve the UK’s food and
farming crisis.6
Having said all of this, there are many who
doubt the changes that can result from these
‘defetishizing’ knowledges and ‘moral
charges’ on ‘consumer’ behaviour. First,
there’s Jon Goss (2004: 373), arguing against
circuit and network-based commodity work
because he’s ‘not sure . . . that greater com-
plexity in analysis of consumption will help
consumers themselves to understand the
processes of consumption, much less to inter-
vene in them’. Second, there is Louise Crewe
(2001: 631) arguing that, if any of these
knowledges and charges do have an effect, it’s
only on ‘a growing food elite who are know-
ledgeable about tracing the origins of their
foodstuffs . . . This is, thus, deeply socially
divisive’. And, third, there are those who
argue that the ‘consumers’ who could be on
the receiving end of this food-following
research have neither a lack of knowledge
about their relations with unseen others
(Cook et al., 1998) nor a lack of morality or
feelings of care and responsibility to others
near and far (Barnett et al., 2005; Barnett and
Land, 2006). Indeed, they might just question
why so much of the care and responsibility
for, and behaviour change necessary to
redress, the inequalities, injustices and
exploitations of the world have been laid at
their doors when governments, corporations
and other bigger actors could be, and should
be, doing so much more (Hobson, 2002;
2003a; 2003b). So, you may now be wonder-
ing why you wasted your time reading this
paper! The kind of work I’m trying to advo-
cate and showcase is a waste of time. Barnett
and Land (2006) certainly seem to believe
this, boldly stating that ‘the theory of com-
modity fetishism’ is ‘defunct’, and that ‘track-
ing geographical relations of actions and
intended or unintended consequences does
little to establish the locus or scope of moral
responsibility’. I couldn’t agree less. And I
don’t think that this can take the lead out of
my pencil here. But it probably needs some
sharpening.To pick through the arguments. In
660 Geographies of food
a postdisciplinary style. Collapsing methodol-
ogy, theory and spaces of/for empathy and
identification. For political effect. Thank you
very much.
VII Go with the flow . . .
First, if we’re going to do the kind of research
that’s going to engage ourselves and our read-
ers in not only gaining knowledge but also
empathy and care for unknown others whose
lives are bound into the food we buy and eat,
then we have to do more ethnographic
because its core methodology – participant
observation – is explicitly intended to enable
researchers to ‘empathetically consider the
perspective[s] of the people one is working
with’ (Miller, 2001: 231). We have to under-
take research that might allow ourselves and
our readers – as much as this is possible –
vividly to appreciate the lives that others live
partly because of us. This isn’t a call to shore
up the new ‘orthodoxy’ of qualitative
research that so many seem to be bothered
about (see Crang, 2002). There’s not much
ethnography around in contemporary human
geography and this is a methodology that,
apart from participant observation, has to
involve other data construction activities:
contemporary and/or historical, qualitative
and/or quantitative (Herbert, 2000; Cloke
et al., 2004). We need look no further than
the two ethnographies featured in this journal
as ‘classics in human geography’ for evidence
of what this work can lead to (first Ley, 1974 –
see Jackson, 1998; Palm, 1998; Ley, 1998 –
and second Western, 1981 – see Dewar, 1999;
Simon, 1999; Western, 1999).
But, based on the experience of my own
food-following research, I also think we could
do more to narrate our own ‘detective work’:
the emotional geographies involved in search-
ing for, meeting and learning about the lives of
the people (and other others) who might be
helping us to live the lives we live (and vice
versa), and the processes through which our
politics might radically change by doing this
(nobody that I know who has done this has
simply illustrated their already-established
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politics). This is why, with James Evans,
Helen Griffiths, Becky Morris and Sarah
Wrathmell (Cook et al., 2006), I’ve advo-
cated autoethnographic storytelling like that
of the journalist Leah Hager Cohen (1997).
She tells the story of travelling to meet three
of the people who helped her to enjoy her
morning coffee shop routine in Boston: Basilio
Salinas, a Mexican coffee farmer; Ruth Lamp,
an American glass factory supervisor; and
Brent Boyd, a Canadian lumber contractor.
She found that they’d heard a lot about (peo-
ple like) her and, like the story that Shelley
Sacks (2006) tells of travelling to St Lucia to
meet the farmers who had grown the
bananas whose skins she used in her sculp-
ture, her writing about these meetings is
sparky and affective. To me and to a lot of
students I know, at least. Both invite their
audiences to step into their heads, hearts and
bodies as they try to briefly step into those of
the people they meet. And this can be a col-
laborative/participatory project, too, as
Deborah Barndt’s (2002) ethnography of the
tomato trail connecting women farm workers
and consumers in Mexico and Canada illus-
trates so well.
Second, this isn’t a call for new research
and writing that’s hostile towards theory.
That couldn’t be further from the case. Those
familiar with writing on multisite ethno-
graphic research will know that this draws on
both Marxist and poststructural theory (see
Appadurai, 1986; Marcus, 1995; 1998;
Marcus and Fischer, 1999). This was one of
the issues that Jon Goss (2004) raised: the
possibilities and problematic theorizing
together of Marxist and actor network theo-
ries in commodity-centred research. But let’s
move laterally. 2004 also saw the publication
of the second of the papers I’d written to try
out what it says in the paragraph above
(Cook, 2001; Cook et al., 2004). I hope read-
ers will forgive this self-indulgence. I’d strug-
gled with a project that started out as a
response to David Harvey’s (1990) call for
geographers to ‘de-fetishize’ commodities.
And I’d tried to do this with a tropical fruit by

finding out where it came from, undertaking
ethnographic research with the people whose
lives were wrapped up in it, and studying the
inequalities and exploitations in its interna-
tional trade. This was quite a ‘Marxist’ pro-
ject. But I also found all kinds of (historical
and contemporary) tangents and feedback
loops in what might have appeared to be a lin-
ear study, and became more and more con-
vinced that the fruit I was following was far
from a discrete or passive object. For starters,
it secreted an enzyme that ate into the skin of
its pickers and packers; an enormous amount
of specialist, intensive labour had to be under-
taken for it to bear fruits of the right shape,
size and quality for export; the weather could
easily change the sex of its flowers, with only
the hermaphrodites producing export-
quality-shaped fruit; and – obviously – its fruits
started to die as soon as they were picked, so
everyone was hurried to get them packed
and on the plane to the supermarket shelves
in the UK and USA before they went manky
and couldn’t be sold. I’d read quite a lot about
commodity fetishism (see Cook et al., 2002)
and had used a lot of ‘actor network’ readings
in my teaching (eg, Dant, 1999; Michael,
2000). But I couldn’t see my way to making
sense of these bodies of theory together. I
couldn’t gain – and wasn’t sure I wanted – a
big, complex theoretical position on all of this
that my research would illustrate. So, I wrote
a paper for Antipode that trusted that readers
would be able to locate these theoretical
arguments ‘between the lines’ of an appar-
ently descriptive ethnographic account. I also
thought that this writing was doing some theo-
retical work. Developing a postdisciplinary
papaya theory. Sort of. This fruit’s life and
travels made out of, and bringing together,
often wildly contrasting knowledges/prac-
tices/ethics/technologies/natures/affects/mo
re. But a paper called ‘The nature of things:
dead labour, nonhuman actors and the per-
sistence of Marxism’ by Scott Kirsch and Don
Mitchell (2004) appeared in the same issue.
Talk about parallel worlds! Theirs was an
attempt to piece together that big, complex
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Ian Cook et al. 661
theoretical position that I’d chickened out of.
Critically combining the politics of Marxism,
the complexities and ANT and the
materialities in both (see also Castree, 2002;
Bakker and Bridge, 2006). These different
approaches to theory and empirics – which
hopefully question the unhelpful and often
hierarchical divide between the two – are try-
ing to do more or less the same thing. For
more or less the same reasons. But differ-
ently. Let’s keep this going. Experiment some
more.
VIII Whole some ones . . .
Finally, we should return to the issue of if,
when, how, and to what degree this ‘connec-
tive’ knowledge can have any effects/affects
on its audiences. Apart from, perhaps,
Deborah Barndt’s (2002) tomato study
(Mexico-Canada), Norman Long and
Magdalena Villareal’s (1998) tamale study
(Mexico-USA), Edward Fischer and Peter
Benson’s (2006) broccoli study (Guatemala-
USA), mine and Michelle Harrison et al.’s
(2006) hot pepper sauce study (Jamaica-UK),
Susanne Freidberg’s (2005) French bean
study (Burkina Faso-Burkina Faso), and her
(2004b) study of the threat posed to the UK
food trade by a follow-the-thing Mange Tout
documentary (Zimbabwe-UK), I’ve found it
difficult to find many multilocale ethnographic
food studies which illustrate relations
between producers and consumers. Ted
Bestor’s tuna study stops at the quayside
(although we await his forthcoming Global
sushi book; see Gewertz, 2001); Susanne
Freidberg’s (2004a) French bean book just
about gets to the supermarket shelf (although
its comparative approach more than makes
up for this); I (Cook et al., 2004) fudged the
consumer connection in that papaya paper
(none actually ate it, but a by-product of its
farming – that enzyme, papain – was much
more likely to be in their jumpers and beer);
and Michelle Harrison and I (Cook and
Harrison, 2003) got as far as producers’ and
retailers’ understandings of the consumption
of Jamaican hot pepper sauces. What a lot of
662 Geographies of food
us seem to assume is that our audience is the
missing ‘consumer’, and that’s how s/he
becomes part of our research and the stories
we tell about things. But our audiences are
much more likely to be the consumers of our
work than of the things we study. So, I won-
der, why shouldn’t they be invited to identify
and empathize with the shop and office work-
ers, executives, traders, managers, farm
workers, consumers, and/or whoever else is
in the story? Plenty of our audience members
have (in)direct experience of being one or
more of the above (Barnes, forthcoming).
What could any of us/them know, feel and do
about the inequalities and injustices in this
trade? Now and/or in the future. Alex
Hughes’s (2005b; 2006b) recent work with
executives responsible for their companies’
‘ethical trade’ policies is interesting and
important here (see also Stassart and
Whatmore, 2003; Jaffee et al., 2004).
So, why shouldn’t our audiences be invited
to read about, and to identify with, rounded
human beings rather than separate categories
of people: ie, ‘producers’ or ‘consumers’ or . . .
(Ettlinger, 2004)? Let’s just research the lives
of diversely located ‘people’ (ourselves and
others) all ‘with names and toes and sores and
wages and fancies and parents and memories’
(Cohen, 1997: 14) whose lives are connected
through food. Let’s also not forget those non-
human others that are worth caring for. And,
if we want our readers to care about these
others, we really can’t see our writing as the
creation of finished products that our main
audiences – students? – will then just be asked
to learn about for their course work and/or
exams (Hay, 2001). If we want to make a dif-
ference, these radical postdisciplinary food
studies need to be less disciplined and less fin-
ished in order, as Rich Heyman (2000: 299)
puts it, to ‘Keep . . . open the problematics of
knowing beyond the end of writing’. This is
perhaps the problem that’s caused Barnett
et al. to be so pessimistic about the value of
the work being advocated here. We could
make our writing much more widely accessi-
ble, leave things open to interpretation, give
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our readers (and other audiences) some
sense-making to do, so they can get more
involved, put more of themselves into the
picture, draw upon their existing knowledges,
ethical frameworks, and so on. And they
might get sucked into our stories, the lives of
the people (and other) we set out to meet,
and the connections we set out to gain a
better feel for. This is exactly what Shelley
Sacks’s Exchange values aimed to do. This
‘social sculpture’ wasn’t the skins and voices
in that gallery, but the social processes that
helped create, were channelled through, and
then radiated out from them: encouraging
people living in different parts of the world to
better imagine, feel, discuss, appreciate and
maybe try to improve their relationships with
one another. That’s what Renicks Doxilly was
asking for. Maybe our classrooms could be like
this, too (see Angus et al., 2001; Cook et al.,
2006; Barnes, forthcoming). Maybe it would
be a good idea to shut down academic jour-
nals like this one and force academic geogra-
phers to write for more public audiences for a
few years.7 Maybe we could do other things
with different ‘publics’ to further this cause.
Maybe we already do. Some might see this as
‘dumbing down’. But I think it’s the smartest
thing that a lot of us could do.
Acknowledgements
Big thanks go to Shelley Sacks, Lucius
Hallett, Alex Hughes, Mike Goodman, Helen
Griffiths, James Evans, Phil Crang, Michelle
Harrison, Louise Crewe, Jonathan Murdoch,
Roger Lee, Sarah Wrathmell, Martin Buttle,
Andrew Ormerod, Andrew Murphy, Peter
Jackson, Becky Morris, Charlie Mather, Alice
Williams, Derek Gregory, Helen Clare,
Emily Quinton, Trevor Barnes, Jo Norcup,
Jacqueline Wilson, the GCSE geography stu-
dents at St Edmund Campion School,
Erdington, et al. for their chat, in press papers
and pencil sharpenings.
Notes
1. To picture this sculpture, see Cook et al.
(2000) or www.exchange-values.org.

2. This conference was organized by Action
Aid, the Food Ethics Council, the Guild of
Food Writers, Sustain, the UK Food Group,
the Co-op, and London Food. For more
details, see www.ukabc.org/wfd2005.htm
(accessed 11 October 2005).
3. See also Whatmore (2002; 2003), Gregson
(2003), Suchman (2005), Barnes (forth-
coming).
4. Interestingly, this is exactly what Goss did in
his second Progress paper (Goss, 2006).
5. See the ESRC-funded ‘Re-connecting con-
sumers, food and producers: exploring “alter-
native” networks’ project, currently being
undertaken by Moya Kneafsey and colleagues
at www.consume.bbk.ac.uk/research/kneaf-
sey_full.html (accessed 14 February 2006).
6. Work on an ESRC-funded project entitled
‘Manufacturing meaning along the food chain’
is currently being undertaken by Peter
Jackson, Polly Russell and Neil Ward. See
www.consume.bbk.ac.uk/research/jackson.
html (accessed 14 February 2006) for details.
7. This is Derek Gregory’s suggestion, and
relates to the Very public geographies book he
is editing with Michael Dear.
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Postscript
The next food report is on ‘mixing’ and will dis-
cuss recent work that critically examines rela-
tions between food and ‘culture’. These first
two reports are/will be partial in both senses of
the term. Please accept my apologies if you
feel misrepresented or left out. But I’m looking
forward to the third report: afters. Here, if
readers would like to send feedback, ideas, etc.
that engage with the arguments in ‘following’
and ‘mixing’, I’ll try to work them together for
the third (with credit shared, drafts circulated,
work shown as appropriate). Hopefully.
_________________ ______________________

Follow the Thing: Papaya

Ian Cook et al*
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of
Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK; i.j.cook@bham.ac.uk

In a recent round table about Antipode’s radical geographies, contributors argued that the
journal needed more papers which stimulated debate, were accessible to academics and non-
academics alike, didn’t ‘‘preach to the cognoscenti’’, were written to fit into radical teaching
agendas, and were diverse and eclectic in style (Waterstone 2002:663; Hague 2002). This
paper has been written to fit this bill. It outlines the findings of multi-locale ethnographic
research into the globalization of food, focusing on a supply chain stretching from UK
supermarket shelves to a Jamaican farm, and concluding in a North London flat. It addresses
perspectives and critiques from the growing literature on the geographies of commodities, but
presents these academic arguments ‘‘between the lines’’ of a series of overlapping vignettes
about people who were (un)knowingly connected to each other through the international
trade in fresh papaya, and an entangled range of economic, political, social, cultural, agri-
cultural and other processes also shaping these connections in the early 1990s. The research
on which it is based was initially energized by David Harvey’s (1990:422) call for radical
geographers to ‘‘get behind the veil, the fetishism of the market’’, to make powerful, impor-
tant, disturbing connections between Western consumers and the distant strangers whose
contributions to their lives were invisible, unnoticed, and largely unappreciated. Harvey
argued that radical geographers should attempt to de-fetishise commodities, re-connect
consumers and producers, tell fuller stories of social reproduction, and thereby provoke
moral and ethical questions for participants in this exploitation who might think they’re
decent people. This paper has been written to provoke such questions, to provide mater-
ials to think through and with, for geography’s ongoing debates about the politics of
consumption.

The Idea
… if we accept that geographical knowledges through which com-
modity systems are imagined and acted upon from within are
fragmentary, multiple, contradictory, inconsistent and, often,
downright hypocritical, then the power of a text which deals with
these knowledges comes not from smoothing them out, but
through juxtaposing and montaging them … so that audiences can
work their way through them and, along the way, inject and make
their own critical knowledges out of them. (Cook and Crang
1996:41)

2004 Editorial Board of Antipode.

Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA
Follow the Thing: Papaya 643

The Thing

The Following
Producing Papaya

Figure 1: Left: 30 foot trees. Right: packing papaya1

Once they’re picked, they start to die. Twisted off the stem. Just as
they have ‘‘turned’’. From fully green, to green with a yellow streak.
By farm workers. Men. Walking slowly along an avenue of ‘‘trees’’.
Alongside a trailer, full of green plastic crates. Pulled by a tractor.
Work that’s undertaken in the hot sun. But they’re shaded by the
leaves splaying out from the tree top. Leaves that shade the fruit

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644 Antipode

growing around that column. ‘‘Turning’’ fruits at the bottom and

flowers at the top. These ‘‘trees’’ are perhaps ten feet tall. And eight
months old. Picking is easy. But, in the next field, the ‘‘trees’’ are
eighteen months old. Thirty feet tall. And soon to be felled. The
leaves finally succumbing to ‘‘bunchy top’’. The sprayer can’t reach
them. But, picking is still going on there. Thirty feet up. On a platform
made from scaffolding. Welded to another trailer. Pulled slowly along
by another tractor. Wheels following undulating tracks in the baked
mud. Eight pickers leaning precariously off that platform. Four a side.
Jerked about. Slowly moving. Looking for those colour changes. Cupping
the bottom of the ‘‘turning’’ fruits. Carefully twisting them off. Each a
good handful. Placing them in crates for the packing house, where
they’re washed, weighed, graded, trimmed, wrapped and packed neatly
in boxes. Primarily by women. All trying to prevent the white latex
oozing from the fruits’ peduncles from dripping onto their skin. It’s
nasty. We’re on a papaya farm. Picking for export. To the USA and
Europe. Fresh. Sold in mainstream supermarkets. ‘‘Product of Jamaica’’.

The Papaya Buyer

I know that if I was going to buy, you know, mangoes (or) papayas,
I wouldn’t go into (my stores). But then I wouldn’t go into (our
competitors’) either …‘‘Ethnic’’ shops … have a lot of good lines. So
I’d probably go there ‘cause I know it would be a lot cheaper
(laughs) … I know my mum would never go into (my stores) to buy
mangoes. I don’t think I would either, purely because it’s an image that
we’ve created in the supermarkets. Everything’s got to look perfect. But,
just the fact that it’s got a blemish in there, I mean, it’s edible.
In 1992, Mina had been a speciality fruit and veg buyer for eight
years. Buyers don’t usually last that long in one department. She
worked at a supermarket HQ just outside London. Most of this
work revolved around her phone and computer. Keeping tabs on
the market. What crops had done well in which parts of the world.
That month or week. And how this should influence their supply and
price. All of her produce came via three big suppliers. Never directly.
Each supplier able to offer her a wide range of produce. From huge
volumes of mainstream fruits like pineapples, to dozens of boxes of
obscure fruits like sapodillas. People in the trade expected papaya to
go mainstream. Soon. Alongside mangoes. Following kiwi fruits
before them. Broken into the market through promotions: low prices
and high volumes. £1 per fruit too expensive for the consumer. A
psychological barrier. But 99 p was good value. She said.
There was a weekly rhythm to Mina’s work. Early in the week, she
got a ‘‘feel’’ for the market. What’s out there. What’s coming ‘‘on line’’
from where, when. At what price and quality. To keep everything on

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Follow the Thing: Papaya 645

the shelves year round. Regardless of season. How had sales gone, line
by line, during previous week? What were the figures from checkout
scanning? Each fruit was bar-coded, or had an ID photo at the till. To
accurately register sales. She placed her orders every Tuesday. Set her
prices that day. What she was going to pay her suppliers. What she was
going to charge her consumer. To achieve a 37–38% profit margin.
Which she wouldn’t make overall. Because of wastage. Manky or
unwanted fruits left on the shelf. Damaged, rotting or past their
sell-by dates. Their shelf lives. Perhaps only three days long. One of
her rivals placed his orders on Thursdays. His company had better
computers. So he could buy stock closer to the day it reached the
shelf. Keeping his money for a couple more days. New stock started to
arrive on the shelves on Sundays. In all supermarkets. They’d be on
sale for the same price. For seven days. Changing the following Sunday.
Supermarket shoppers usually pass through the fresh fruit and veg
first. Not pet food. Those colours. Shapes. Smells. Textures. Mundane,
strange and plain weird. From all around the world. Questions were
being asked in the trade press. Was the speciality or exotic produce
there to make money? Or was it a statement about supermarkets’
global reach and sophistication? Photographs of exotic fruits were
used in annual reports and promotional materials. To symbolise some-
thing. The decreasing cost and increasing popularity of package holidays
to the tropics meant first-hand exposure for many British consumers.
To fruits in their ‘‘natural’’ settings. And what about those Indian,
Chinese, and other so-called ‘‘ethnic’’ restaurants in the UK where
this took place closer to home for many more people? Mina assumed
that these two exposures were responsible for 90% of her sales.
Consumers wanting to recreate at home what they had experienced
elsewhere. The rest were probably impulse buys. But how did her new
product development work? How did she change her offering? Sup-
pliers would offer something new at the right price and volumes. She’d
take a sample and try it out with a ‘‘taste panel’’ made up of her work
mates, other buyers, secretaries, cleaners. She’d get a home economist
to prepare it fresh, or in a recipe. Then ask what her panel thought
about it. Would they actually buy it? For how much? £1? They had
kept prickly pears and tamarillos off her shelves. They didn’t like them.
The seeds in one were annoying. And the other looked great, but
tasted like an unripe tomato. To them.
Mina vividly remembered the first time her panel sampled Jamaican
papaya. It was delicious. Jamaican airfreight tasted so much better than
the Brazilian seafreight she was used to. The quality was much higher.
People raved about it. It was brilliant. And the price was competitive.
How could she not stock it? If she could be sure of the supplies. These
papayas could become mainstream sales. Like kiwi. But they’d need
promotion. Lower prices for suppliers. Increasing volumes. Dropping

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her profit margin to 16%. Producing leaflets free from the shelf fixture.
Making papayas look attractive. Explaining what they were. What they
tasted like. Where they came from. Jamaica! How you knew they were
ripe. And how you ate them. Providing preparation and recipe ideas.
Borrowed from her exotic fruit book or suggested by her home econ-
omists. Suppliers used promotions to get their foot in the door in order
to up the price when the market was broken. Sometimes. Like Tony’s
company had. That was ‘‘taking the mickey’’. So she dropped them for
a cheaper Jamaican papaya supplier. Yet, as a British Asian woman
whose mum wouldn’t buy mangoes from her stores, she knew her
produce was unnecessarily blemish-free and too expensive. You could
get a much better deal at a local ‘‘ethnic’’ store, or a market stall. She
said. But these were the standards her bosses and consumer wanted
from her. You couldn’t sell lower quality produce than your competi-
tors. Her performance was reviewed monthly. Occasionally, she went on
big trips. With a company technologist: an expert in plant physiology,
husbandry and packing technologies. Visiting sites of production.
Maintaining relationships with big suppliers. Advising them on quality
standards. Recently she’d visited a pineapple farm in the Ivory Coast.
That really upset her. Seeing all that poverty. First hand. Knowing that
she was directly involved. But these experiences and feelings went with
the territory. They were discussed back at the office. But were
bracketed out when facing the figures on their spreadsheets, and
computer screens. They had to be.

Papaya Political Economy

Figure 2: Left: nineteenth century sketch of sugar estate. Right: ruined factory
chimney amid the papayas

A fifty-two acre farm in Jamaica. Where sugar cane used to be grown.

The plantation’s great house, sugar factory, and rum distillery in
ruins at its centre. Ancient equipment rusting away inside. The farm
manager’s house built in the ruins of the overseer’s. Traces of the
agricultural, export-oriented society Jamaica was set up to be. When
world trade was in its infancy. Capitalism had its clothes off. Starting
in the 1500s. Much has changed. But, in 1992, this land was still

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Follow the Thing: Papaya 647

devoted to export agriculture. Jamaica was still an impoverished

country. The farm workers were descendants of enslaved African
people. Its owners and managers weren’t. But at least they weren’t
still farming sugar cane. That’s a horrible business. Back breaking.
Seasonal. With unpredictable yields and prices. No predictable or
steady income. Grinding poverty. And with that historical connection.
To slavery days. Sugar’s reliant on preferential markets now. Quotas.
An uncompetitive industry kept afloat. But threatened by the WTO.
The ‘‘free market’’. And from EU expansion. Involving countries with
no colonial obligations. Changing voting patterns. On international
trade agreements. For sugar. And bananas. Jamaica has needed to
diversify exports for some time. To service debts. US$4.5 billion in
1991. US$1800, or J$14,000, per person. At the 1990 exchange rate.
Or J$ 38,000. At the 1993 rate. Or 38,000 J, as this would be described
locally. Export diversification should help to tackle rural poverty, too.
Identifying niche markets. Overseas. For high value commodities.
Like tropical fruits. Like papaya.

The Papaya Importer

Most of the population in this world are using sunshine to turn into
dollar bills because they haven’t got an awful lot going for them … It
does precious little good for the average man in the street … but it
creates wealth for a few individuals who reckon to hold onto the wealth
and not spread it around too much. You can try and give yourself some
sort of comfort and believe it leaks through and everybody becomes a
little better off. Most of that is bullshit … I don’t have any sleepless
nights over it. I hate it when I have to go and visit it and have it pushed
in my face. And I’m honest that I’m a bit hypocritical about it … My first
priority is my wife and children.
Tony’s family had been in fresh produce for three generations. He’d
recently set up a specialist fruit importing business in a small suite of
offices in central London with two Israeli partners. They had good
contacts in the diaspora of Israeli agronomists working on small and
medium sized farms in the ‘‘third world’’. Mina bought her Jamaican
papayas from Tony. Sometimes. He, in turn, was an agent for a large
number of suppliers in Israel, Zambia, Egypt, Brazil and the Caribbean.
He spent a lot of time on the phone. Talking to buyers and suppliers.
Negotiating a balance between what one needed and what the others
could provide. Week by week. Which fruits, volumes, prices, quality?
His company didn’t handle these fruits. That was contracted out. To a
specialist ‘‘pre-packer’’. Who picked up shipments from (air)ports.
Trucked them to a central depot. Unpacked them. Re-graded or
rejected them. According to supermarkets’ specifications. Put a sticker
on each one. With information and a barcode on it. Fruits of equal size

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and ripeness placed together. Fruits not yet ripe enough placed
together. In huge, atmosphere-controlled ripening rooms. Alongside
other fruits. As long as one’s gases didn’t affect the others’ ripening.
Like bananas can. All kinds of fruit and veg, often in small quantities,
delivered straight to the stores. Uniform produce. Ready to eat. During
the next three days. Perhaps.
Tony had met Jim, the manager of a Jamaican papaya farm he
acted for, via his colleague’s contacts with a man he had shared a
tent with in the Israeli army. An agronomist headhunted to run an
experimental farm growing Jamaican strawberries for export. The
experiment had failed and he moved to a pioneering papaya farm
on Jamaica’s north coast. Owned by an American billionaire. Who’d
made his fortune in grain and animal feed. This was where Jim
learned his trade. Before setting up on his own. Adding to the
Jamaican papaya supplies handled by Tony. Tony regarded Jim as
his mate. He visited him once a year. But had no worries. Jim’s
operation was smooth. He could see that. But that wasn’t the case
everywhere. Trust and confidence in your suppliers had to come from
personal contact. So, you had to visit people. Talk to them. See what
their farms were like. How they were run. How they could produce
what you wanted. Better. But these visits—taking up six or seven
weeks a year—meant Tony continually had to face up to the ugly
realities of world trade. Rich getting richer. Poor getting poorer. The
rich often using that trickle-down argument. Their money-making was
good for everyone. To him, this was ‘‘bullshit’’. But he wasn’t trying to
change the situation. How could he? His wife and children were his
main responsibility. Not the thousands of people whose lives he might
only have glimpsed. His greatest business pleasure was ‘‘turning a
penny into tuppence’’. He was a hypocrite. He said. But he didn’t lose
any sleep over it.
It wasn’t people like him or Mina or Jim who were responsible for
ripping off poor farm workers. In the third world or anywhere else.
Of course. The New Zealanders were being ‘‘totally and utterly
ripped off in kiwi fruit’’. Having a disastrous time. Losing a fortune.
But it was ‘‘supply and demand’’ that was ripping them off. Demand
had grown. So more farmers got involved in supply. They over-produced.
So prices dropped. So low that many went bankrupt. And stopped
growing them. Meaning there were less on the market. So prices
increased. Leaving those still producing having a ‘‘nice time’’. But New
Zealand had a welfare state. Unemployment benefits. Unlike Jamaica.
Where, if export prices went down, you could cut wages. ‘‘If nothing is
your option’’, he said, ‘‘you’ll do it for less. … Third World suppliers are
still over-supplying the market with produce. Getting less, earning less,
receiving less, but still coming back for more punishment. Because
there’s nothing better for them’’.

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Follow the Thing: Papaya 649

This was a cut-throat business. Mina could easily get her fruit from
someone, somewhere, else. Offering identical quality, but a better
price. To get a foothold in the supermarkets. Tony had persuaded
Jim to sell cheap to get a following there. Price promotion. It had
worked for kiwis! Once the market was broken, they could up the
margin to make some ‘‘proper money’’. But the buyers had been
‘‘bastards’’. Tony and Jim had helped them to break papaya into the
mainstream. Lower prices increased sales. Consumers gave their 99 p
papayas a go. But they were dumped when they claimed their
‘‘reward’’. Other Jamaican papaya growers were desperate for the
business. At that lower price. And they got it. But this hadn’t really
affected Tony. Suppliers came and went. If there was a scandal. An
exposure in the British press of child labour, dodgy management
practices, below the breadline poverty of farm workers, or anything
else. A supplier could easily be dropped. And some went bust. Unable
to survive on the price cuts they constantly had to offer. Or, if
exchange rates changed, their produce became too expensive on the
world market. Tony talked a lot about exchange rates, and how the
international trade in fresh produce was connected to currency markets.
He could make money out of both on, say, a shipment of Brazilian
mangoes. Currency devaluations subsidised trade. Making mangoes
cheaper to buy in sterling, while costing the same amount in reals.
This was an up and down business. So, someone like Jim had to make
and stash as much money as possible. Quickly. While conditions were
favourable. Supply and demand, currency markets, any number of
factors outside anyone’s control meant that disaster could be just
around the corner. Jim would need the capital to ride this out. But the
world of fresh produce didn’t like a vacuum. Tony said. When one
supplier disappeared or became too expensive, another one always
turned up. Just when you needed them. He had faith in that. He had
the contacts. People were always phoning him. Desperate to get their
produce on the shelves of British supermarkets.

The Papaya Plant

Figure 3: Left: variation in fruit size. Right: a standard box2

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650 Antipode

The spread of papaya in central America and the Caribbean marks the
historical travels of the Carib/Arawak people. After their increasingly
ugly encounters with Columbus and his followers, papayas followed
the colonial exploits of the Spanish and Portuguese. Their copious,
durable seeds travelled well. Germinating and becoming naturalised
in tropical environments with plenty of rain and fertile, well-drained
soils. In the ‘‘wild’’, or in people’s back yards, papayas are far from
uniform. They can be monsters. Ten pounders! There are male, female
and hermaphrodite trees (big herbs, really). With hollow fibrous
trunks. Males pollinate. Females produce round fruits (berries, really).
The export markets doesn’t want these fruits. It wants hermaphrodites.
They’re smaller. And more pear-shaped. But papaya trees change sex
with the climate. Soil nutrients affect the taste. Fruit size is inversely
proportional to tree height. And the taller a tree the slower it grows.
Fruits get closer together. With less space to grow. Each bearing
imprints of those around it. Compacted. Misshapen. And extremely
vulnerable to viral diseases. Like ‘‘bunchy top’’. Which stops the fruits’
carbohydrates being converted into sugar. And the ‘‘ringspot’’ virus.
Which stunts growth. And deforms the fruits. Yet the ones on the super-
market shelf are (almost) identical. Size. Shape. Colour. Look. Ripeness.
Price. Available year round. Like cans of beans. Commercialised.
Standardised. Most notably in the FAO/WHO/WTO’s (1993) Codex
Alimentarius volume 5B. Setting global trading standards for ‘‘tropical
fresh fruits and vegetables’’. In the name of ‘‘consumer safety’’.

The Papaya Farmer

Humming bird. You see that humming bird?… Generally I spend most
of the morning running in between the field and the packing house.
Checking each picking trailer. Making sure they’re picking OK. Going
out to each job at least every 15 minutes. Circling round and round …
Some days I don’t know what I’m gonna do to get them motivated … I
tried so many things … The packers don’t start packing seriously until
half past four … When my orders are disrupted … it’s not worth losing a
market for.
Jim ran the papaya farm with his wife. Both in their thirties, they had
two young children. Then at primary school in Jamaica, but likely to
get secondary education in the US or UK. Like he had. He was a
second generation white Jamaican whose parents had emigrated from
the UK just after the second world war. His father worked as an
engineer in a sugar factory before setting up a small dairy farm. Jim
and his wife met at agricultural college in England. They moved to
Jamaica and his first job was on the estate where his father worked.
He next job changed his life. Working on a farm on Jamaica’s north
coast owned by an American billionaire. He’d bought it as a tax break

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Follow the Thing: Papaya 651

cum tropical holiday retreat. He’d invested J$1 million to see if and
how papaya could be grown there. The first crop failed. Papaya is
notoriously difficult to grow commercially. Nobody there had the
right experience. Even the Israeli agronomist brought in to oversee
the experiment. They were all learning ‘‘on the job’’. Their second
attempt was more successful. This was how Jim learned to grow
papaya. And he knew its export potential. His bosses had commis-
sioned some market research in Europe. It showed the benefits of
Jamaican production. The easy airfreight. The superior taste of fruits
picked a little later. The added value of being ‘‘Produce of Jamaica’’.
An iconic place. Conjuring up plenty of positive associations.
So Jim took his chance. Rented 52 acres from a wealthy white
Jamaican friend. Along the coast. On an old sugar estate then run
as a horse farm. Which had excess land. Borrowing money to set
things up. Taking a core group of workers with him. Working through
the other farm’s contacts in the export trade. To supply the same,
expanding, markets. In the USA and UK. The first graduate of that
‘‘papaya school’’. Setting up on his own. A terrifying but thrilling
prospect. A brave move, taken in 1990. Two years before this research
was done. An incredibly successful gamble. Everything had just fallen
into place. Local labour was easy to recruit. The Jamaican dollar had
been devalued. Exporters had been allowed to trade entirely in US
dollars or sterling. The demand for fresh Jamaican papaya continued
to grow in North America and Europe. And he’d got a PhD student
studying his ‘‘success’’. Already. The timing couldn’t have been better.
He’d worked hard. But also been lucky. An ‘‘overnight’’ success story.
That was bound to go horribly wrong. His bubble could burst. At any
moment. He thought. So, he had to keep on top of things. That plant.
Which he’d come to know so well. Producing those gorgeous fruits.
Was so awkward. And vulnerable. Especially to viral diseases. Like
ringspot and bunchy top. Ringspot had devastated commercial
papaya growing in Oahu in the 1950s. Much the same was happening
in Puna, Hawaii as we spoke. It delayed the Jamaican government’s
planned expansion of papaya production between 1991 and 1994. It
had all gone horribly wrong. For others. He knew it. So he feared those
virus-carrying bugs. Sprayed his trees with insecticides. And got his
workers to clear the tracks between them of weeds, dropped fruit, and
fallen leaves. Potential homes for those dangerous bugs. These weeds
could have bound that soil together. Prevented it from becoming so
muddy and uneven. And stopped those pickers being jerked about on
those trailers. But, if those bugs didn’t go, everyone else would.
Jim spent most of his time trying to get his ninety workers to do
their jobs properly. In the fields. And in the packing house. They were
too slow, unwilling to multi-task, and showed no initiative. He said.
He introduced incentive schemes. And engaged in multiple acts of

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surveillance. He saw ‘‘them’’ as a big wheel that he had to get rolling.

Through enormous efforts. Every day. Because he had to produce
what he’d promised. Perhaps 1200 boxes in one shipment. Over
10,000 export quality fruits. Picked, processed and packed in a couple
of days. Orders to be satisfied. Predictions and promises kept to. So
they had to work until they were done. Whatever time that was. Those
orders had to be on those flights. Or they’d all suffer. He couldn’t tell
importers he had labour problems. He had to be seen to be in control.
When they missed a shipment, he blamed the weather. You can’t pick
when it’s raining hard. There are difficulties, as well as advantages, in
doing business with people you rarely see. The flip side of this
weather argument was being told that a shipment wasn’t up to stan-
dard. After reaching the pre-packers in the UK. Where it was
unpacked and checked against the ‘‘specifications’’. He wouldn’t get
paid. He’d make a loss. If those fruits didn’t measure up. But how
could he be sure that he wasn’t being ripped off? If he’d seen his
papaya onto the plane. In perfect condition. Had they been cooked as
the flight was delayed in Montego Bay? Had they been bruised when
an airfreight container fell off its trailer at Gatwick? He didn’t know.
So much was out of his control. So he needed to visit these places.
Talk to the people involved. See how they did things. Make personal
contacts. With Tony and those supermarket buyers who seemed to
change jobs so regularly. He’d also pop into a Sainsbury’s, a Safeway,
or a Tesco store. To see his fruit on their shelves. What a buzz! A little
guy running a tiny farm in the Third World. Making it. There.

Papaya Routes

Figure 4: Papaya routes

Carica papaya L. was the one grown on Jim’s farm. Also known as the
‘‘Solo’’. Found in the Caribbean. Taken to Hawaii in 1911. Its only
commercially grown papaya by 1936. Setting the standard for the
Japanese and US west coast markets. But also selling the seeds,
knowledge, expertise for others to grow the solo elsewhere in the
tropics. To boost exports to other wealthy markets, too far from
Hawaii. Like the rest of North America. Europe. From places with

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the right conditions, connections and needs. Like Jamaica. Which has
to do things ‘‘properly’’. Using ‘‘advanced’’ agro-technology and agro-
chemicals. Modern tractors, sprayers, drip irrigation, water pumps,
fertilisers, insecticides, fungicides, plastic crates. Training and super-
vising pickers and packers. To be careful. Accurate. On time. Or else.
Washing. Checking. Weighing. Trimming. Wrapping in paper.
Papayas which fill standard 4 kg gross—3.5 kg net—boxes. With fruits
of the same size. Twelve of 290 g. Ten of 350 g. Seven of 500 g. Or
thereabouts. They’re flown to Miami or Gatwick. On direct, regular
BA or Air Jamaica flights. Taking tourists home. Making diasporic
and business connections. Not like Brazil which produces 90% of
papayas sold in Europe. There’s little or no commercial air traffic
to/from its papaya growing regions. They go by sea. It’s a longer
journey. Fruits picked a little earlier. Possibly over-ripe on arrival. Or
never ripening. Variable quality. A big problem. But not for Jim.

The Farm Foreman

… mi se go out in di fiil an gwaan go wiid som graas. Se yuu and
sombadi els gwaan fers. You fers come, you fers go out dier. Shi se shi
naa go go wild no graas. So shi kom an kaal ar mada. Mi neva nuo se
shi kaal ar mada. ‘‘… She shouted …‘You no raas white man, you
black man!’…What did she mean by that?’’3 Laik se mi a tek op fa di
wait man … Laik me a fait gens di blak wan dem fa di wait man …
I no haad fi mek som a dem tink dat wie …‘‘What do you have to do?’’
Jus shuo likl muor powaz … dem se yu hav a wait man haat.
Philipps was the man Jim trusted to run things. To get those fruits
picked and boxes packed. On time. His work overlapped with Jim’s.
But he dealt with day-to-day decisions about job allocations, disci-
pline, illness and time off. He’d worked alongside Jim for most of his
working life. They met on the sugar estate where Jim had his first job.
When Jim moved to the ‘‘papaya school’’ farm, he took Phillips with
him. The same happened when Jim left there to start his own farm.
Philipps wasn’t the only ‘‘school’’ worker who made that journey. Jim
took a core team with him. Trusted workers. Who had learned their
trade alongside him. On the other farm. During this move, Philipps
became seriously ill. He needed expensive hospital treatment. But
had no medical insurance. He couldn’t get free treatment from the
state. So Jim paid for it. Perhaps saving Philipps’ life. Everybody on
the farm knew this. It explained why Jim paid his workers’ medical
insurance. It also explained why Phillips was so loyal to Jim. Jim also
provided Philipps with somewhere to live. A small house within
shouting distance of his own. Right at the centre of the farm. You
wouldn’t know it, but Philipps’ house was made out of a container.
The kind that goes on the back of a lorry. In the hold of a ship.

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Phillips had a relatively good standard of living. Relatively high

wages and the free use of a pickup truck. But his was a lonely life. He
didn’t like to socialise with the pickers and packers because this could
undermine his authority. Especially because of the rumours that
could spread. Like the ones that got back to his wife about his affairs
with various women on and beyond the farm. He had to keep his
distance. He’d learned that from Jim. Watching how he conducted
himself all those years. When dealing with Jamaican farm workers,
you have to be calm but authoritative. Give them a ‘‘bly’’ sometimes.
A break. Let them take a day off now and again to shop in the local
town. Or for sickness. Especially ‘‘female’’ ones. But always check that
it’s genuine. Make use of the fact that almost everybody has family
members who also work on the farm. Ask them how things are ‘‘at
home’’. See if what they say corresponds with what you were told. If
not, confront the person when they get back to work. But don’t
necessarily suspend or sack them. There are rules here, which every-
one knows about. You get a short suspension for disobeying orders,
and a much longer one for fighting. Especially if export quality papaya
are flying around the packing house. That’s a serious offence. But
only if you get caught stealing, or running a scam, would you get
sacked. Workers living on the poverty line are sometimes tempted by
opportunities to augment their pay. By doing things right under your
nose. Which is another reason why they need to be watched. They
could be up to something.
Another thing Philipps had learned from Jim was to never let the
workers see when you’re rattled. Never lose your temper. Whatever
happens. Even if you’re getting ‘‘traced’’, harangued, by the angry
mother of a person you have suspended from work. For repeatedly
disobeying orders. Even if she does this in the open space between the
canteen and the packing house. A packing house whose sides are
open. Meaning that there’s a big audience. On both sides. Watching
someone trying to humiliate you. Stopping work to watch someone
trying to humiliate you. An elderly woman screaming at the top of her
voice. Gesticulating wildly. Right in your face. Reminding you, and
everyone else, that you’re a black man, not a white man. But that you
must have a white man’s heart. Judging by the way you treat black
people. You should be ashamed of yourself. When this happens, just
stand there. Take it. Wait until she has had her say. And then move
on. Embarrassed and humiliated. But trying to hide it. By getting
behind the wheel of your pickup and driving out of there. Away from
that place where you are constantly surveying others. But also being
surveyed yourself. At work and at home. Living on the farm means
you’re constantly on duty. So you need to find a place like a crowded
town square. Where nobody really knows you. At night, so you won’t
be spotted by anyone who does. There, you can think things through.

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Follow the Thing: Papaya 655

Show your emotions. Sort yourself out. So that you can drive back to
the farm and resume your role. The cool, calm but authoritative
foreman. A managed role. Performed so that people don’t really
know what you’re thinking. Including your boss. Undetected in
1992, Philipps had a scam going. Making extra money off papayas
which weren’t export quality. The ones sold to local hoteliers. A scam
that came to light much later. When Jim sacked him. After all those
years of service. And trust. In 1999, Jim told me that Phillips was in
the UK. In prison. For drug smuggling.

Papaya Payments
Money. The ‘‘bottom line’’. Exchange rates constantly monitored.
Between the pound, Jamaican dollar, and US dollar. Exporters
weighing up margins to be made selling to the US or UK. Importers
weighing up the option of buying from Jamaica or Brazil. In 1992,
there were big changes in exchange rates. The J$ was devalued. In
1990, US$1 would get you J$8. In 1993, it would get you J$21.5. This
was handy for Jamaica’s ‘‘Registered Exporters’’, like Jim, who
ensured their workers paid taxes. Allowing them to conduct their
international business entirely in foreign currency. Converting to J$
only for domestic purposes. Like paying workers. So, labour costs
plummeted without pay cuts. And workers had to cope with soaring
prices for everyday goods imported into this export-oriented econ-
omy. Inflation, in May 1992, was 90%. Jim’s farm workers didn’t
enjoy this squeeze. But his UK and US importers and retailers did.
Devaluation made Jamaican papayas more ‘‘competitive’’ on the
world market. Exchange rates weren’t the only monetary calculations
shaping this trade, though. The price paid by Jim’s US importer
varied from week to week (from US$4.50 to US$7.50 a box) and
between boxes (depending on the size of the fruits). Tony paid Jim
£4.00 a box, regardless. But the supermarkets Tony supplied had
different demands, catered to by a UK-based ‘‘pre-packer’’. They
unpacked, re-graded, ripened, stored and packed papaya differently
for different supermarkets. ‘‘Twelves’’ (ie 12 · 290 g) for Asda. ‘‘Nines’’
for Sainsbury’s. ‘‘Eights’’ and ‘‘sevens’’ for Marks and Spencer. With
longer or shorter shelf lives, more or less scarring. Some were happy
with the farm’s packing. Others wanted them re-packaged into haggis
trays. All set out in supermarkets’ specifications. Closely guarded
secrets. Most of the value was added to these fruits after they left
Kingston or Montego Bay. Perhaps six-sevenths of the final shelf
price. A box of carefully wrapped Jamaican air would have been
only slightly cheaper in Asda, Sainsbury’s or Marks and Spencer.
Their shoppers weren’t just paying 99 p for a nice, discrete thing.
They paid for boxes, wrapping, agrochemicals, fuel, wages, insurance,
dividends, wastage and so much more.

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656 Antipode

The Papaya Packer

Som a di taim ai prefa di fiil, yu no. Uuzwali hav nais taim duon dier.
Wi uuzwali get a res, sit doun an hav a nais res. ‘‘Do you find that you
can’t get a nice rest in the packing house then?’’ Noo. Evri sekon dem
kaal yu. You cannot sit down far yu get faiyad. Dem doun waant yu get
eni res … Dem se if yu waant res yu fi go houm. ‘‘So Phillips keeps an
eye on you?’’ Ye, kiip aiz an yu all di wail…(It) haad werk. Tu moch
presha. ‘‘… How much did you get paid last week?’’ Laas wiik me
get … trii hondred an fifti dala … ‘‘A hundred went to tax?’’ Ye …
Tumara nou a goin tu maakit. An a bai di fuudz an bai som biskit fa di
kidz dem an milk an suop an raip bananaz, kawnmiil, shuga and flowa
an rais. Last week I went an I spend 350 dollar.
Pru was twenty-one and lived at home with her parents, brother and
four sisters. Her mum had had nine children. Her father had one
outside. One of her sisters had had four. But two died very young. Pru
had two daughters. Six and four. She couldn’t afford more. In the
current financial climate. Unlike her mother, twenty odd years ago.
She worked with her mother and sister on the farm. Getting paid
around 300 J per week. But spending more on her weekly trip to the
market. Where devaluation had vastly inflated prices. Jim had given
Pru and her colleagues above average pay rises. But they were still
well below inflation. They’d all experienced a financial squeeze. She
continued to put 40 J a week into a ‘‘partner’’ that gave back 600 J
every 15 weeks. To buy big items. Like clothes. But she still had to
find the money for her kids’ school fees, books and lunch money, her
family’s electricity bill, and more besides. She saw few benefits from
the taxes she had to pay. Much helping to pay off those huge govern-
ment debts. She did have better pay and benefits than other agricul-
tural workers. Like cane cutters. However. Things could have been
worse. Jim told me.
Given the standard shift pattern, Pru saw her kids off to school
early in the morning, but was only able to come home when those
boxes of papaya were packed. Whatever time. Nine in the evening. Or
one in the morning. Sometimes. They stayed at their grandmother’s in
the evenings. Unless Philipps gave her a ‘‘bly’’. Let her go home early.
She found work tiring, especially in the packing house. Three pairs of
eyes were constantly on the women working there. Jim’s, Phillips’, and
Mavis the packing house supervisor’s. Jim was relocating his office to
one end of the packing house. Five feet up, on stilts. A container,
panelled, with windows cut out of the sides. Windows so high that,
when sat at his desk, the packing house workers wouldn’t see him. Or
know if he was there. But he’d be able to see what they were doing. If
anything. Any time. By simply standing up. The fear of being caught
red handed, or slacking off, was supposed to keep their minds and

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Follow the Thing: Papaya 657

bodies focused. Mavis’ surveillance was more overt. She stood at the
back of the packing house. Making notes in her book. About who
worked the hardest. Did the best job. Notes taken alongside the
packing house stats. Crates in. Boxes out. Numbers of sevens, eights, and
so on. For Miami. Gatwick. Data for Jim’s computer. Its spreadsheets.
Wages software. And farm management programme. Her observations
helped him to identify the ‘‘worker of the month’’. Who was awarded
500 J. Quite an incentive. He thought. The carrot to go with the stick.
Papayas of all shapes, sizes and conditions arrived there in plastic
crates. Freshly picked. The ‘‘pickers’’ tipped them into tanks of Benlate
solution. A fungicide. Helping ‘‘washers’’ to clean the fruits. Which were
passed to the tables behind. There, ‘‘weighers’’ selected those of the
right shape, ripeness and blemish for export. Weighed them. Indivi-
dually. On kitchen scales. Marked not in ounces or grammes, but in
segments marked 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12. These fruits were placed on the
wrapping tables behind. Those of the same size grouped together.
Rejects put in crates underneath for ‘‘Indian’’. Who collected them
daily to deliver to local hotels. Cut price. The ‘‘wrappers’’ trimmed the
peduncles of export quality fruits to the quick with sharp knives.
Scraped out dirt, dead caterpillars, or anything else, from the crease
and divot at either end. Wrapped each one in white paper. Double
thickness. Like a towel around your waist. Peduncle end down.
Finished off with a twist and a fold. Placed in the standard box.
Face up. A small sticker with the farm and importer’s name put on
some. The paper preventing fruits from rubbing against each other.
In transit. Causing abrasions. Making them worthless. Possibly. At
their destination. Jim had to get exactly the right fruits, in the right
condition, at the right time, ready for export. He felt he had no
choice but to be strict with his workers. His importers, retailers and
consumers demanded it.
The packing house workers were supposed to wear gloves to handle
this fruit. Gloves you might use when washing dishes. Marigolds.
Gloves which were supposed to protect their skin from that latex,
oozing from peduncles, freshly snapped and trimmed. But they wore
out quickly. Developed cracks and holes. On fingertips and the sides
of thumbs. That latex burned through rubber. And human skin. So
latex burns were common. A constant topic of conversation. In that
packing house. Some of the women had had to take time off. Because
they couldn’t handle anything. Their blistered fingertips and thumbs
hurting so much. These gloves were uncomfortable to wear. In that
heat. And the management wouldn’t just ‘‘give away’’ new pairs. So
many didn’t wear them. Preferring to handle the papayas quickly.
Gingerly. Or else.
Pru didn’t enjoy her job. She said she’d prefer to work elsewhere.
Like the USA. She had family there. They’d offered to pay her air

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fare. To put her up. Just for a visit. But, like the vast majority of
Jamaican people without thousands of dollars in the bank, she wasn’t
entitled to a visa. To travel in a passenger jet. Which could be carrying
fresh papaya. For export. Down below. They had much more freedom
to travel than she ever would. She’d wanted to become a seamstress.
But this hadn’t happened. She could never afford a sewing machine
or the right classes. Or to travel to Montego Bay to buy or take them.
Buses and taxis were expensive. So few people in Ibrox, the village
next to the farm where she lived, worked far from home. Most of the
farm workers lived there. It was a short, free journey. By foot. Yet
there wasn’t a lovely village atmosphere at work. There, she had no
real friends. The boredom, monotony, pressure and stress made
people do mischievous things to liven up the day. Like spreading
rumours that she’d said that Philipps had begged her to marry him.
The rumours got to him, as they knew they would. He confronted her
about them, as they suspected he’d have to. She argued with him. To
keep him in his place. Acting like a white man from the slavery days.
Always pressuring the black people.

Papaya Fetishism

Figure 5: Left: papaya in a basket beneath a palm. Right: a goat4

Tropical fruits just fall from the trees. Pure, lush, nature. Yours for
99 p. In the books, brochures and fliers addressing the concerns of the
(imagined) ‘‘British’’ consumer. Who needs to know what these fruits
look like. What you do with them. How you know when they’re ready
to eat. Which bits are edible. What they taste like. Where they come
from. The ‘‘geography’’! Often fetishised. Linking tropical fruits to

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Follow the Thing: Papaya 659

Europeans’ imperial ‘‘adventures’’. Through photographing them on

crumpled maps of tropical oceans and islands. And to representations
of tropical paradises. With their standard issue palm trees. Under
which the fruits can lie. In a basket. Or spread out on some palm
leaves. Or on a woman’s head, Carmen Miranda style. Takes you
there. Doesn’t it? To somewhere ‘‘exotic’’. To the tropics. Where
you may have been on holiday. That’s the idea, anyway. Buying
these fruits could help to take you there. Magic! Even if only for a
short time. And even if you know that the tropics really aren’t like
that.
Tropical crops have fetish-like powers in the places where they
are grown, too. But the imagery and magic associated with them is
often quite different. Many, like sugar, growing in places where their
cultivation for export was initiated during colonial times. Descendants
of plantation workers often see them as perpetuating those unequal
and exploitative relations between colonisers and colonised. That’s a
political fetish. But other crops are more sexual. Papayas are known
as ‘‘lechosa’’ in some Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands. That’s
street slang for female genitalia. Cut out a slice and use your imagina-
tion. Like Frida Kahlo did in her 1943 painting The bride frightened at
seeing life opened.5 For others, their shape and the way they hang from
the tress brings to mind breasts or testicles. In Jamaica, though,
Papaya can do sexual harm. Folklore has it that tethering a male
goat to a papaya tree will make him impotent. Planting one too
near your house, gentlemen, will do the same to you. Papaya can
‘‘cut your nature’’. Tenderise your meat. Although it hadn’t happened
to any of the men who worked on the farm. They were keen to
point that out. The fear that it might, however, promised to reduce
praedial larceny. So one visitor to the farm told me. Men would think
twice before breaking into a papaya farm to steal fruit from the trees.
Or so he hoped. When he started growing papaya for export.

The Papaya Consumer

I’d love to buy lots of fruit and so on. But I don’t because I know
I wouldn’t get enough time to eat it and it would go off … (And)
you know everyone else had been picking them up and prodding
them … I always have apples and nectarines when they’re in season,
and strawberries when they’re in season, and melons if they’re good
value for money. And I always have lemons and limes. But, apart from
that, they’re probably the only fruits I’ll go for. Purely for the fact
(that) … if I bought a mango, it’d go off … Mango is an acquired
taste. So I wouldn’t want to eat a whole mango in one go. Unless
I was making something like a sorbet … I don’t like to eat a lot of it in
one go. If I have mango, I’d normally buy it … dried.

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660 Antipode

Nine percent of British consumers buy ‘‘exotic’’ fruits. So called. ‘‘AB’’

consumers. Wealthier people. ‘‘Better educated’’. Professionals. Like
Emma.6 25. Single. Living in a North London flat. Art school and
a Textile Design degree under her belt. She enjoyed food. Read
cookbooks, home and food magazines. Getting inspiration. For cook-
ing. Eating out. And work. Designing fabrics. Collections. Colours.
Textures. Patterns. British food had internationalised. In her lifetime.
She loved that. Her grandmother wouldn’t even consider eating pasta.
But she’d just been to her local Afghan restaurant. With a friend
who’d just returned from Afghanistan. Travelling to the Far East had
given her a taste for Thai and Indonesian food. Bringing back cookery
books. And ingredients. Looking up Green Thai Prawns in her Delia
Smith cookbook. Trips to restaurants made Emma want to travel
more. The taste of fajitas, chilli and guacamole drawing her to Mex-
ico. To experience the ‘‘real thing’’. She could get what she needed to
approximate them at home. Ready-made or from scratch. A quick
meal for herself. A big meal for friends. Or an evening in with Ed.
Her boyfriend. But shop-bought food was nothing like the ‘‘real
thing’’. Like those Sainsbury’s ready-made Thai fish cakes. £3 for
‘‘six little round things’’. They looked, and tasted, awful! And that
Sainsbury’s lobster didn’t taste anything like the one she’d eaten in
New England. Chosen from that tank. Cooked/killed for her. There
and then. Fresh as you like.
Emma worked four days a week. And had flexible hours. She
shopped when Sainsbury’s was quiet. Ambling up the aisles. Taking
her time. Looking around. But shopping systematically. Taking all
week to write her list. For one ‘‘big shop’’. Noting what she’d run out
of. Things she’d seen on the TV. In cookbooks. Magazines. Wherever.
And thinking about things she’d like to buy. Expensive or unusual
food with money off. Making their purchase worth the risk. She
couldn’t resist ‘‘offers’’. She sometimes wrote her list in the order
she’d encounter things. In store. Fresh produce, first into the trolley.
If it looked nice. Clean. Frustrating for those growing and shipping
it with such care. Because it was likely to be damaged. Punctured.
Bruised. Abraded. By shoppers. Like Emma. Handling them. Squeezing
them. Seeing how ripe they are. Returning them to the shelves. Or
putting them into their trolleys to be further damaged. Perhaps. By
other goods. Placed on, or around, them. Unloaded at the checkout,
scanned and packed into bags. Placed back in the trolley. Stuffed into
a car boot. And/or carried home. In bags swinging against one
another. Perhaps unlikely to be eaten when they get home, anyway.
Because of busy lifestyles. AB ones, in particular. People who eat a lot
of ready meals. Have little time or energy to prepare food. But value
fresh produce. Buy it. Store it in fridges. Display it in bowls. And
reunite much of it in binbags. Past their sell-by dates. Off. Waste.

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Follow the Thing: Papaya 661

Decomposing. No longer ‘‘food’’. Purchased but not consumed. What

people feel they ought to eat not matching what they can and do
eat. But still piling it into those trolleys. In hope as much as expectation.
A problem Emma recognised. Not buying fresh produce when she
was going away for the weekend. Not buying what she’d never get
round to eating. Because it was too fussy. Too specialist. Or too big
for one person. Like mangoes. She left much of her produce buying to
‘‘little shops’’. Several times a week. Popping out. Picking up ‘‘bits and
bobs’’. From her local Tesco Express, deli, or greengrocer. They kept
things fresh. Better than she could.
Emma often imagined where her food came from. She couldn’t
help it. Believing she could experience faraway cultures. Through
magazines. Getting a picture in her mind. Like the ‘‘Vietnamese in
those hats and things’’. Right or wrong, she ‘‘still got that feel’’. A feel
also gained from her favourite TV cookery shows. Where chefs went
to places where dishes and/or ingredients originated. Rick Stein
cooked crabs on an Australian beach. So she wanted to eat crab.
And visit Australia. Ideally at the same time. She’d also grown up
on a pig farm. With a vegetable garden. That made a difference, too.
She valued fresh, home-cooked food. Like her Mum made. But not
chicken. She’d seen chickens running around one day. And on her
plate the next. She stopped eating them, aged 7. Hating the taste
and texture. The mere mention of the meat provoking a vision,
‘‘a chicken just popping up in my head’’. She had ‘‘a thing about
chickens’’. And their eggs. Eating them only when scrambled. Or
an ingredient. Never eating an ‘‘actual egg’’. Her brothers had
stayed at home. Become farmers. Teasing her about being ‘‘a
vegetarian’’.
Like Pru, Emma worked on a fruit farm. In 1992. Picking strawberries.
A summer job. While she was at art school and university. Earning
money to pay off debts. Saving for a holiday. In the sun, perhaps. Unlike
Pru, she’d enjoyed it. Picking with everybody else from 7 to 9 am. The
right fruit from the right parts of the farm. The biggest, most attractive,
ones for the top layer of each standard box. Destined for the same
supermarkets as Pru’s papayas. She’d sit in her deck chair. Once
they’d gone. In a field. All day. Working on her tan. Making little
baskets. Weighing and selling fruits. Picked by members of the public.
Picking their own. She had to answer their questions. About how they
were grown. They’d say, ‘‘You don’t put any pesticides and sprays on it,
do you?’’ And she’d reply, ‘‘No, not at all’’. Knowing that wasn’t true. The
ones people would buy couldn’t be grown without them. You had to lie
to sell them. She said. Picking strawberries had made her ‘‘very careful
and aware … of what I buy now’’. Thinking about where her food came
from. Some of it, anyway. Chickens and eggs. Horrible in their ‘‘actual’’
form. For reasons she couldn’t quite explain. And strawberries. Coated

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with agrochemicals that were bad for her health. Probably. Her dad
insisted she wash her fresh produce when she got it home from the
shops. She didn’t, though. And the ‘‘origins’’ she imagined and spoke
about never included people like Pru or Phillips. Or anyone else. Or
what they talked about. That poverty and exploitation. But she didn’t
buy fresh papayas from that Sainsbury’s or that Tesco Express. So why’s
she in this paper?

Papaya Consumption

Figure 6: Left: in the flesh. Middle: clear beer. Right: shrink-resistant wool7

A papaya consumer is supposed to pick the fruit fresh off the

supermarket shelf. Exchange it for cash. Take it home. And follow
the instructions: ripen it; cut it in half for breakfast; scoop out the
seeds; slice off the skin; cut the flesh into strips; sprinkle some lime
juice over them; eat them. A taste of the tropics. Delicious. One per
person. Solo production for solo consumption. Exactly! Part of that
recommended daily intake. Five fruits a day. This one rich in vitamins
A and C, potassium and folic acid, low in calories, and a digestive
aid. But that’s not all. Face-lift treatments. Slipped disc operations.
Beer clarification. Chewing gum. Toothpaste. Contact lens cleaning
materials. Indigestion remedies. Canned meats. Leather goods. Shrink-
resistant woollen fabrics. Vegetarian cheese. More complex commod-
ities. Some much more likely to be part of Emma’s weekly shopping
than papaya. But all containing papain. Commercially extracted. From
that white latex you wouldn’t want to drip onto your skin. From an
unripe papaya’s peduncle. Because of its unique protein-digesting
enzymes. Commercially farmed. In East Africa and Sri Lanka. Another
part of this trade. Its nature far from pure. Or simple. An invisible part
of countless people’s lives. In countless ways. Papayas are impossible to
avoid. Perhaps. Even if you’ve never eaten one. Because they’re not
discrete things. By any means. Like any thing you could try to follow.
Unravelling and becoming more entangled in the process. Attempts to

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Follow the Thing: Papaya 663

de-fetishise commodities raise tricky but important questions. Like,

what can any ‘‘radical’’ and/or ‘‘sustainable’’ politics of consumption
realistically involve? If things are so. Discuss.

Acknowledgments
Versions of this paper were presented at the 2002 AAG conference in
Los Angeles, and to the Geography Departments at the Universities of
Sheffield, Birmingham and Coventry. A short version has recently been
published in Harrison, Pile and Thrift (Cook 2004) and a ‘‘director’s cut’’
(including an expanded bibliography, and a discussion on the politics in/
of its writing style) is available online via http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/
people/index.asp?ID=118. Thanks to these audiences and editors, and
to the Antipode referees, for their diverse responses and suggestions;
and to Jane Wills and Ros Whitehead for their encouragement and
patience. Kevin Burkhill drew an excellent map. And the research
participants, Michelle Harrison, Phil Crang, Mark Thorpe, Celia Blake
and Cath the Red are first on my ‘et al’ list. Thanks must also go to
the ESRC (for a PhD studentship and through the Eating Places
project [ref R000236404]), UW Lampeter’s Geography Department,
and Birmingham University’s Science Faculty Research Fund for
financing this project. All proper names have been changed in an
attempt to preserve anonymity.

Endnotes
* For an explanation of why the author refers to himself in this way, see Ian Cook et al
(in press) ‘‘Positionality/Situated Knowledge’’ in David Atkinson, Peter Jackson,
David Sibley and Neil Washbourne (eds) Cultural Geography: a critical dictionary of
key ideas. London: IB Tauris. A draft copy is available at http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/
people/index.asp? ID=118
1
For a more detailed step-by-step photographic journey of a papaya’s life from seed to
box, see the story of ‘‘Papaya Joe’’ at http://www.exportjamaica.org/papaya/story1.htm
(accessed 12 March 2004). Unless indicated in these endnotes, all unattributed photo-
graphs are either the author’s own or the copyright owner is now out of business.
2
Left photo sourcehttp://www.baobabs.com/fruitiers.htm, used with kind permission.
3
Words not in italics are the author’s.
4
Right picture source http://www.coachhousecrookham.com/ch_gall/goat.jpg, used
with kind permission
5
See http://www.honmex.com/paintings/frida_kahlo/fk028.jpg (accessed 19 May 2004).
6
‘‘Emma’’ was interviewed in 1997 by Mark Thorpe as part of the Eating Places project
undertaken with Phil Crang. Thanks to them for allowing me to use this here.
7
Middle photo source http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/
2000/04/10/beer.jpg; right photo source http://www.artfibers.com/Chunky_Gauge/
60.14.jpg, used with kind permission.

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664 Antipode

References
Cook I (2004) Trade. In S Harrison, S Pile and N Thrift (eds) Patterned Ground:
Ecologies of Culture and Nature (pp 124–126). London: Reaktion
Cook I and Crang P (1996) Commodity systems, documentary filmmaking and new
geographies of food: Amos Gitai’s Ananas’. http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/downloads/
gesdraftpapers/iancook-pineapple.htm. (last accessed 12 March 2004)
Hague E (2002) Antipode, Inc? Antipode 34(4):655–661
Harvey D (1990) Between space and time: Reflections on the geographical imagination.
Annals, Association of American Geographers 80(3):418–434
Waterstone M (2002) A radical journal of geography or a journal of radical geography?
Antipode 34(4):662–666

2004 Editorial Board of Antipode.

Agric Hum Values
DOI 10.1007/s10460-016-9753-9
Synergies in alternative food network research: embodiment,
diverse economies, and more-than-human food geographies
Eric R. Sarmiento1
Accepted: 13 September 2016
 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract As ecologically and socially oriented food ini-
tiatives proliferate, the significance of these initiatives with
respect to conventional food systems remains unclear. This
paper addresses the transformative potential of alternative
food networks (AFNs) by drawing on insights from recent
research on food and embodiment, diverse food economies,
and more-than-human food geographies. I identify several
synergies between these literatures, including an emphasis
on the pedagogic capacities of AFNs; the role of the
researcher; and the analytical and political value of using
assemblage and actor-network thinking to understand the
far-reaching forces and power disparities confronting pro-
ponents of more ethical and sustainable food futures.
Keywords Food systems
Alternative food networks

Assemblage thinking
Food politics
Subjectivity
Introduction: alternative foods
and the transformation of food systems—where
to now?
In recent decades, various approaches to food production,
distribution, and consumption that are conceived as alter-
natives to conventional or industrial food systems have
flourished. These ‘‘alternative food networks’’ (or AFNs),
to use an umbrella term deployed in much critical food
research, are diverse in terms of form, function, and raison
d’être, and include varied organizational models, from
& Eric R. Sarmiento
sarmiento@txstate.edu
1
Department of Geography, Texas State University, Evans
Liberal Arts Rm 362, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA
community supported agriculture to cooperatives; certifi-
cation and designation schemes such as Fair Trade and
geographic labeling; and institutional programs such as
farm-to-school and local and organic food procurement
policies. Precisely what makes these varied phenomena
‘‘alternative’’ has been the subject of much scholarly
debate, as has the utility of the term ‘‘network,’’ and I will
discuss these points further below, but broadly speaking
these initiatives typically seek to address ecological, social,
and/or political economic problems associated with con-
ventional food systems, such as human and environmental
health risks, exploitative labor conditions, animal welfare
concerns, corporate control of food resources, and a host of
other issues. However, scholars, popular observers, and
AFN participants themselves diverge on the question of the
broader ultimate significance of the proliferation of AFNs
with respect to conventional food systems: do these varied
and increasingly ubiquitous alternatives represent the
beginnings of a sea change, a fundamental reworking of
food systems along more ethical and sustainable lines, or is
their reach more limited? Put a bit differently, the onto-
logical status of AFNs remains a topic of debate: what
exactly are these proliferating alternatives? And what can
they do?
While the efflorescence of AFNs has encouraged and
excited scholars and the broader public, critical agri-food
research has long provided reasons to be skeptical about
overly celebratory assessments of the capacities of AFNs to
rework food systems and enable progressive food politics.
Through studies of organic food (Buck et al. 1997; Guth-
man 2003, 2004), farmers markets (Alkon 2008a, b, 2013;
Slocum 2007), food localization (Hinrichs and Kremer
2002; Hinrichs 2003), Fair Trade (Jaffee 2007; Wilson
2014), farm-to-school (Thornburg 2013), and other initia-
tives, scholars have demonstrated that AFNs occupy
123

tenuous niches on the margins of industrial food systems
and are typically susceptible to co-optation or annihilation
by corporate actors along the food chain. Just as impor-
tantly, this work also makes clear that alterity is often hard
to disentangle from expressions of elite exclusivity on
classed and racialized grounds, and from romanticized and
thus depoliticized imaginaries of ‘‘nature,’’ farming, and
labor. Such cautionary notes are perhaps necessary to
replacing naı̈ve, consumerist framings of alterity with more
reflexive and engaged approaches to food politics (Bryant
and Goodman 2004; Johnston 2008; Johnston et al. 2009).
Indeed, the success of these important studies can be
judged by the fact that concerns about exclusivity, co-op-
tation, and social justice have now arguably become more
common amidst the rationales and strategies of many
AFNs and popular discussions thereof (Bittman 2013;
Kenner 2008; Philpott 2013).
Against this backdrop, however, AFNs—and scholar-
ship about them—continue to proliferate and differentiate,
suggesting that neither AFN participants and proponents
nor critical scholars are ready to concede that these ini-
tiatives should be defined by their limitations and failures.
In this context, a crucial question stands out: how might
AFN proponents best maximize the potential of these ini-
tiatives to extend the reach of their social and ecological
innovations so as to fundamentally transform food systems
writ large?
It goes without saying that our response to this question
depends in part on how we understand the ontological
uncertainties I pointed out above: we do not know how to
maximize the potential of AFNs if we do not know what
these phenomena are, or what they can do. In the following
pages, I explore some of the ways critical food scholars
have recently approached these broad concerns, focusing in
particular on ideas drawn from feminist-inspired work on
embodiment and the ‘‘visceral’’ nature of foodways1;
studies deploying the ‘‘diverse economies’’ framework
developed by Gibson-Graham2; and relational and
1
As the interface between the phenomenological world of the subject
and the often-expansive networks of food provisioning, the body that
eats, enjoys health or suffers disease, and is bombarded with
information about food, is viewed by many AFN scholars as a
contentious and contingent site where the norms and values under-
girding conventional food networks are often contested. As such,
while these scholars agree that structures of gender, race, class, and
other markers of social identity discipline bodies that eat, this is not a
unidirectional process.
2 economies and embodiment research already share much in
A number of critical AFN scholars have drawn on the work of
feminist poststructuralist economic geographer Gibson-Graham
(1996, 2004, 2006) to understand AFNs not as isolated aberrations,
non-capitalist islands in a sea of ‘‘the economy’’ viewed as
monolithically capitalist, but as ongoing experiments in (potentially)
ethical economic relations scattered across a landscape that is already
economically heterogeneous, in terms of what might broadly be called
relations of production.
123
E. R. Sarmiento
neomaterialist approaches that call attention to the agentic
roles of non-humans in food systems, including the myriad
organisms that constitute food, as well as inorganic actors
shaping food systems. In concentrating on ideas advanced
in these three areas of inquiry, I must offer a couple of
quick caveats. First, my goal is not to advocate these
approaches over others; they are of course parts of a larger
ecosystem of analytical frameworks for food research, the
diversity of which is an encouraging bulwark against any
one perspective gaining hegemony in the field of critical
food studies and thus stifling this dynamic and relevant
area of inquiry. Secondly, in this article I impose what may
seem at times a degree of artificiality in assigning works to
one of these three categories of research. Some of the
authors that I discuss in terms of assemblage thinking, for
example, do not perhaps situate their own work in those
terms, and there is considerable overlap between many
scholars of embodiment and diverse economies. I hope that
the reader will accept this as a product of synthesizing
extensive literatures to bring broad currents of thought into
what I see as productive encounters.
Rather than offer a comprehensive review of these three
threads of research, each of which merits extensive con-
sideration (see Cook et al. 2006; Goodman 2015; Gritzas
and Kavoulakos 2015; Hayes-Conroy and Hayes-Conroy
2010), I focus on some of the aforementioned overlaps and
complementary emphases between them, which I argue
produce certain synergies that are advancing our under-
standing of AFNs in important ways. First, I explore how
these threads—particularly embodiment and diverse
economies approaches to AFNs—emphasize the generative
capacities of the ruptures and tensions associated with
conventional food systems by foregrounding to differing
degrees concepts of pedagogy, practice, and subject for-
mation, all of which highlight the active, situated role of
the researcher in mediating AFNs. I then go on to consider
critiques of diverse economies research (and, to a lesser
extent, of some studies focused on embodiment) that hold
that this work, in its explicit emphasis on difference rather
than dominance, does not adequately account for the larger
forces shaping the prospects of diverse economic practices
and relations. With this position in mind, I argue that AFN
scholars drawing on diverse economies and embodiment
frameworks stand to benefit from further engagement with
relational, neomaterialist research concerned with more-
than-human food geographies. To be clear, diverse
common with more-than-human research, and I sketch that
common ground below before focusing attention on several
key concepts and areas of more-than-human research that I
see as potentially valuable for continuing to push ahead in
understanding and facilitating the reach of ethically ori-
ented food initiatives: scale and assemblage; hybridity,
Synergies in alternative food network research: embodiment, diverse economies, and more-than-…
quality, and embeddedness; and recent theorizations of
infrastructures and the built environment.
Pedagogy, participatory research, and cultivating
ethical food subjects
Food is ‘‘good to think with’’ in part because of the social
and biophysical volatility of foodstuffs, positioned as they
are within complex, often very lengthy webs of connec-
tions, and because of the unpredictability of human bodies
as they interact with these webs of connections through
eating, growing, cooking or otherwise laboring with food
(Probyn 2000; Roe 2006b; Whatmore 2002). One way to
understand such volatility and its potential political rami-
fications for many AFN scholars drawing on diverse
economies, embodiment, and more-than-human approa-
ches is to strongly emphasize the practices of food pro-
duction, distribution, and consumption, asking what people
actually do with food, and how food is sensed, felt, and
experienced by specific people in particular times and
places. This emphasis on food practices has produced
several insights that are important to critical assessments of
AFNs and their political potential. First, while political
economic analyses have exposed the marked power dis-
parities and geopolitical calculus that underwrote the his-
torical and continued rollout of the industrialization and
globalization of food systems (Fine 1994; Friedmann 1982;
Goodman et al. 1987; Goodman and Watts 1997),
researchers of food and embodiment and more-than-human
food geographies, and to a lesser degree the diverse
economies of food, have added to this work by tracing how
the success of these processes required that people’s bodies
were ‘‘tuned’’ over time and through specific, sensual
experiences in order for industrial food systems to become
widespread and accepted as the norm (Carolan 2011; see
also Freidberg 2004, 2010; Gabriel 2011). This emphasis
on attunement foregrounds what might loosely be called
‘‘education’’ as essential to the establishment and perpet-
uation of all foodways and the food systems with which
they are entangled. Accordingly, such work complements
(and perhaps complicates) political economic analyses by
highlighting the notion that neither conventional nor
alternative food practices are exempt from this imperative
to continuously disseminate particular knowledges and
skills and shape individual and collective understandings of
and conventions related to food (Weiss 2011).
The resources mobilized in the educational efforts of
conventional and alternative food actors are of course quite
disparate, but without eliding this point it is also important
to note that foregrounding questions of pedagogy accom-
plishes two things that are crucial for thinking about the
broader potential of AFNs: on the one hand, it directs
attention to the strategic practicalities facing AFN propo-
nents, including the necessity of working to educate con-
sumers, and on the other hand, it can reveal contingencies
and weak spots plaguing even the most hegemonic seeming
actors in food systems. I will return to the second of these
points below, but for now, I will focus on the first by noting
that embodiment, more-than-human, and diverse econo-
mies-inspired AFN studies tend to emphasize the peda-
gogic capacities (or at least potentials) of AFNs. Broadly,
the idea here is that active involvement with an AFN can
expose participants to new ways of thinking about and
doing food and food systems, and ultimately allow them to
develop a deeply felt, embodied knowledge through which
to become more aware of issues such as food insecurity and
inequality of access to healthy foods, producer livelihood
struggles, and the ecological and human health implica-
tions of particular foods and diets. This research focus has
done much to illuminate the processes and mechanisms
through which our desires for particular foods are ani-
mated, shaped, and directed, but also how food-related
desires link to broader social and political imaginaries. Just
as importantly, what also often comes to the fore in much
recent AFN research are the difficulties of effectively
controlling desires and social imaginations. A compelling
example here is Slocum’s analysis (2007 pp. 529–530),
drawing on feminist and critical race theory, of racial
exclusivity in farmers’ markets in Minneapolis, which
argues that while whiteness ‘‘forms materially’’ and ‘‘co-
heres’’ in these markets, these are also ‘‘spaces where
hopeful interactions across difference may be apparent,
[where race might] become fuzzy and more open to
change.’’ For Slocum, while interactions over an unfamiliar
vegetable in the market may be ‘‘fleeting,’’ these encoun-
ters across racial difference are still potentially significant
when they are viewed as part of the ongoing production of
the meaning(s) of white and brown bodies, as moments
when established racial boundaries and the power relations
associated with them can become less coherent and stable,
thus more open to change. Similarly emphasizing AFN
practices as part of how the broader meanings associated
with foods are made and remade, Morrow (2011) argues
that urban homesteading activities such as canning, pick-
ling, and backyard gardening and husbandry produce
pleasurable sensations that ‘‘are not an end in themselves[,
but are instead] the means by which we learn how to dwell
differently, politicize everyday practices of self-provi-
sioning, and learn to desire something besides capitalism’’
(see also Hayes-Conroy and Hayes-Conroy 2008 on Slow
Food; Sarmiento 2015b on local food; and White 2008 on
roadside farm stands).
As such studies suggest, many AFN scholars working
with these approaches (particularly embodiment and
diverse economies-inspired work) follow critical agrifood
123

research (Alkon 2008b; Guthman 2003, 2007) in empha-
sizing that a politics of consumption—or ‘‘voting with
one’s wallet’’ in the parlance of popular variants of envi-
ronmentalism—alone is not sufficient for producing far-
reaching changes in food systems. Instead, much of this
scholarship explores how individual involvement in AFNs
can play a part in broader political struggles, which might
certainly include voting with one’s vote alongside one’s
wallet, as well as boycotts, protest, or other forms of
concerted action. But many scholars working with the
approaches under consideration here also foreground
questions of how an individual becomes an ethical food
subject, in the Foucaultian sense of the term, i.e., someone
who is emotionally and affectively alive to their interde-
pendencies with the countless others—both human and
more-than-human—who converge in food systems, some-
one who is subject to the ways in which their food practices
impinge on the livelihoods, well-being, and life prospects
of these myriad others (Carolan 2005; Valentine 1999;
Whatmore 2002). This is perhaps in some sense the ‘‘citi-
zen consumer’’ (Johnston, 2008) or ‘‘neoliberal subject’’
who has often been critiqued in geography and cognate
fields. For diverse economies and embodiment scholars,
however, who tend to view subjectivity as a multiple and
emergent phenomenon, the citizen consumer is rarely if
ever solely that, and in any case is always a ‘‘work in
progress’’ (Galt 2012; Harris 2008), the ongoing result of
labored practices of ‘‘self-cultivation’’ (Foucault 1990).
Following from this stance, a pertinent question then is
what forces are at work in this process of cultivating food
subjects?
The role of the researcher: theoretical
and methodological choices
One of these forces, particularly for many embodiment and
diverse economies scholars, is the researcher herself. This
is because most of this research operates with the post-
structuralist assumption that the researcher is always
unavoidably situated within the world she is studying, and
thus always actively affecting that world, rather than sim-
ply observing from some disembodied viewpoint and
reporting on a world to which she is essentially external
(Haraway 1988; Latour 2004). From this perspective,
several points about the role of the researcher emerge from
recent studies that impinge on our understanding of the
capacities of AFNs. First, AFN scholars deploying a
diverse economies approach have argued that focusing
exclusively on the shortcomings or failures of AFNs not
only risks missing or undermining an opportunity to work
with research subjects in constructing more just and sus-
tainable food systems, but also may be seen as contributing
to the resilience and durability of conventional food
123
E. R. Sarmiento
systems (Harris 2008; Cameron and Wright 2014). This
understanding, which follows from the work of Gibson-
Graham (1996, 2006), Mitchell (1998, 2008), and others,
derives from the idea that the successful expansion and
maintenance of capitalism depends in part on its repre-
sentation in various forms of scholarly and popular
knowledge as hegemonic, ever-expanding, monolithic,
natural, and inevitable. From this perspective, ‘‘capitalo-
centric’’ analyses may inadvertently contribute to the
strength of the object of their critique.3 Emphasizing this
idea then places the researcher’s choice of theoretical
frameworks as a key element of the political efficacy of
research, and often leads to participatory action research
design.
Following from these points, an analytic strategy for
much AFN research drawing on diverse economies and (to
a lesser extent, or not often as explicitly) embodiment
frameworks is ‘‘reading for difference rather than domi-
nance,’’ an analytical technique developed by Gibson-
Graham in economic geography from Sedgwick’s ‘‘queer
reading of sexuality and gender that appreciates the wide
diversity of biological, emotional, social, and cultural
manifestations of sexuality and gender without subordi-
nating them to the binary hierarchies of heterosexual and
homosexual, male and female’’ (Gibson-Graham 2008,
p. 623). Within AFN research, this technique can sharpen
the researcher’s ability to recognize and examine social
relations across a nuanced spectrum of power dynamics. It
also serves to reframe AFNs as widespread components of
food systems (and economies more broadly) that are in fact
constituted by an array of relationships, rationales, and
social values. This enables researchers to avoid approach-
ing AFNs as the quixotic, vestigial, or doomed Other to
conventional, i.e., capitalist food systems understood as
monolithic and singular. Cameron and Wright (2014), for
example, recently pointed out there are more than a billion
food producers in the so-called ‘‘developing world’’ who
engage in subsistence and non-commoditized production, a
point that not only reinforces the idea that AFNs are parts
of widespread diverse food economies, but also raises two
additional considerations related to how conceptualizations
of scale shape understandings of AFNs and food politics:
first, we might note that by placing individual AFNs, in all
of their diversity and with all of their shortcomings,
alongside this heterogeneous and widespread collection of
noncapitalist food practices, Cameron and Wright cast
them as, in a sense, ‘‘global.’’ This raises an important
point regarding the ‘‘local trap’’ outlined by Born and
3
To be clear, the assertion here is not that capitalism is simply
‘‘made up,’’ or that representations alone account for its expansion,
but rather that practices of representation and knowledge production
are among the many forces constituting any economic formation.
Synergies in alternative food network research: embodiment, diverse economies, and more-than-…
Purcell (2006), who caution against naively posing ‘‘the
local’’ scale of food provisioning as inherently progressive
in ecological or social terms. This critique of romanticized
notions of the local is important, and alongside critiques of
‘‘defensive localism’’ is now well established in critical
food scholarship (DuPuis and Goodman 2005; Valiente-
Neighbours 2012). However, Cameron and Wright’s recent
essay suggests another reason for eschewing ‘‘the local
trap’’: focusing exclusively on the ‘‘localness’’ of food
relations in place can obscure their ubiquity across the
planet, thus casting them as ‘‘small,’’ ‘‘isolated,’’ and
quixotic in contrast to the ‘‘global’’ nature of conventional
food systems (also see Marsden and Franklin 2013).
Following from this point, research on the diverse
economies of food systems helps us recognize the impor-
tance of avoiding what might be called the ‘‘global trap’’ of
theorizing conventional food systems as operating at a scale,
level, or extent that is assumed a priori as inherently domi-
nant because of its place in a hierarchical scalar imaginary,
which makes it difficult to approach actors relegated to the
local scale without seeing them as virtually bound to be co-
opted or annihilated by actors operating at the global scale
(Marston et al. 2005; Gibson-Graham 2002).4 In sum, the
‘‘take home’’ message from much of this work is not simply
to tally the number of ethically or ecologically oriented
versus profit-oriented food practices, but rather to be wary of
theorizing conventional food systems in a way that obscures
their contingency and the constant work required to maintain
them, while marginalizing the diversity, scope, and potential
of actually existing food practices.
While diverse economies theory in particular has long
struck skeptical observers as overly abstract and logocen-
tric, and thus removed from the material realities of power
and the messiness of ‘‘the real world,’’ a point to which I
will return below, in practice diverse economies and
embodiment research on AFNs typically produces studies
that are quite pragmatic and grounded. For some
researchers, the goal is to explore with research subjects in
the midst of everyday life the blind-spots and inconsis-
tencies of AFN practice and discourse with respect to
power, which clearly render AFNs susceptible to co-opta-
tion and convergence with CFNs (Alkon 2013). In Hayes-
Conroy’s work (2010, p. 741), for example, she seeks to
‘‘put at risk’’ elitist or exclusive framings offered by Slow
Food advocates ‘‘by asking questions to indicate [her]
uncertainty, by telling counter-stories that suggest other
4
Moreover, as Cameron and Wright point out, the discursive
marginalization of diverse food practices in the so-called developed
world has unfortunate if unintentional parallels to the long history in
economic discourse, well-documented in feminist economic research,
of rendering household labor and other unpaid labor illegible,
unaccounted for, and thus unimportant to economies or to economic
transformation.
legitimate ways of feeling, and simply by continuing to
bring up the issue of difference in feeling and sensation.’’
Another key example here is St. Martin’s research with
New England fishing communities, in which community
members themselves conducted interviews with fisherfolk
using maps of community fishing practices to provoke
discussion, reflection, and co-learning. This approach not
only produced findings that disrupt fundamental assump-
tions in marine resource management about fisherfolk as
utility maximizing individuals, but has also played an
important role in inspiring fishers in Port Clyde, Mas-
sachusetts to start a community supported fishery, a busi-
ness model that builds on existing social ties in the
community and introduces new ways of negotiating eco-
nomic and ecological interdependencies (St. Martin
2007, 2009; Snyder and St. Martin 2015). Studies such as
these make a compelling argument by demonstration that
the generative potentials of AFNs are, to some extent at
least, linked to how we as researchers approach and
interrogate these initiatives, which may be helped along by
reading for difference and adopting the ‘‘weak theory’’
sensibility of ‘‘refusing to extend explanation too widely or
deeply, refusing to know too much’’ (Gibson-Graham
2008, p. 619).
Analyzing power: inequality and the limits
to the generative capacities of AFNs?
And yet, while ‘‘weak theory’’—or, put in more positive
terms, remaining ‘‘stridently dedicated to the uncertainty of
outcomes’’ (Lorimer 2005, p. 91)—and participatory action
research may indeed enable AFN scholars to contribute
towards the pedagogic potential and generative capacities of
AFNs, it must also be said that diverse economies and
embodiment approaches are not typically designed to ana-
lyze the expansive webs of relations and the marked power
disparities therein that impinge on AFN practice, both
enabling and constraining the generative capacities of AFNs
to effect fundamental transformations of food systems.
Embodiment research tends to represent something of a
middle ground between political economic and diverse
economies approaches to AFNs in reading for difference but
also often retaining an imaginary of AFN practices as
operating against a backdrop of expansive power structures
that pose limits to the ethical cultivation of the self (e.g.,
Hayes-Conroy and Hayes-Conroy 2013). While such efforts
to tread a middle path have clearly been productive, it
remains true that the precise nature of the far-reaching forces
converging on bodies embedded in expansive food systems
is not typically scrutinized in much of this work (but see
Guthman 2011 for an exception). This point is perhaps even
more salient for diverse economies research, which, as
already noted has been critiqued for failing to adequately
123

consider power and scale. As Kelly (Kelly 2005) put it,
‘‘Gibson-Graham’s approach must still reconcile the cultural
power to define with the political-economic power to
deprive,’’ (p. 40) and ‘‘while we celebrate the release of new
subjectivities when the non-capitalist economy is rightfully
recognized, we must also ask whether the scale of the
problem and the power relations involved are fully encom-
passed by the promotion of a community economy’’ (p. 42).
To an extent, this is not a point of dispute for diverse
economies scholars: strategies such as ‘‘reading for differ-
ence’’ are by design not focused on the exploitative power
relations that concern political economy theorists, and from
the perspective of diverse economies research, to concen-
trate on the political economic power to deprive is often to
fall precisely into the capitalocentrism that Gibson-Graham
seeks to avoid. Moreover, for Gibson-Graham, power is
more than just a constraining force, and scale, as I discussed
above, is best thought of in terms that eschew a priori
assumptions about hierarchy. For these reasons, diverse
economies research has not tended to focus on analyzing the
relationship between individual subjects or community
economies and more expansive networks of forces.
Nevertheless, if we are to understand, further explore, and
facilitate the political potential and broader significance of
AFNs, it is necessary to grapple with questions about how
AFNs articulate with far-reaching forces and powerful actors
(Jonas 2013), including state actors and the large corpora-
tions that dominate conventional food systems. As Gritzas
and Kavoulakos (2015) recently remarked in their discussion
of diverse economies and AFNs, ‘‘the mapping of new
characteristics has to be accompanied by the mapping of
external constraints and internal contradictions.’’ It seems
clear, for example, that while AFNs may play a part in cul-
tivating more reflexive food consumers, AFN discourse also
often shares affinities with neoliberal ideologies that may
undermine notions of politics beyond the citizen consumer
(Allen and Guthman 2006; DuPuis and Goodman 2005).
While critical agri-food research continues to provide one
essential avenue through which to understand these and other
questions about the articulation of AFNs with larger, more
powerful actors, I contend that research on the capacities of
AFNs to play a part in effecting fundamental transitions in
food systems can also be fruitfully furthered by building on
several additional synergies between embodiment and
diverse economies-inspired work and more-than-human
food research.
Ontologies of alterity: beyond food-in-itself
While diverse economies and embodiment research on
AFNs represents a range of theoretical orientations, it can
be broadly said that these two threads of scholarship reflect
123
E. R. Sarmiento
the broader shift towards ontological concerns and interest
in materiality that has characterized much social science
and humanities inquiry in the past decade or more, and
which is central to more-than-human food research
(Goodman 2015). Recent work from the Community
Economies Collective, for example, has explicitly engaged
with posthumanist and assemblage theories that cast
agency as a collective phenomenon (cf. Gibson-Graham
and Roelvink 2010; Hill 2014; Morrow 2011; St. Martin
et al. 2015), and for many embodiment scholars, bodies are
not wholly autonomous, discrete subjects but rather rela-
tional phenomena, whose agency is tied to a range of other
types of actors (Carolan 2011; Goodman 2001; Hayes-
Conroy and Hayes-Conroy 2010; Longhurst et al. 2009). In
this section, I would like to highlight a couple of ways in
which these overlaps, alongside the broader (re)turn
towards ontological and material concerns in social theory,
have strengthened AFN research and enhanced under-
standings of the potential of AFNs to effect far-reaching
changes to food systems.
As I noted above, embodiment and diverse economies
approaches often foreground questions of knowledge/
power and the pedagogic capacities of AFNs, thus drawing
attention to the contingencies of current configurations of
power. For a growing number of food scholars, however,
analysis of such contingencies requires a shift in emphasis
from epistemological to ontological and non-representa-
tional (or more-than-representational) concerns (Hayes-
Conroy and Hayes-Conroy 2010). To begin with, what
makes bodies ‘‘volatile’’ rather than ‘‘docile’’ in many of
these analyses are forces that are well beyond ‘‘the social,’’
or even fully conscious forms of intentional action,
reaching into the realms of fear, desire, and instinct. The
political potential of foods is tied here to the visceral nature
of food and eating, to ‘‘food as profoundly and deeply felt
in the gut, yet also quite ordinarily instinctive, elemental
and ‘everyday’ in the biological sense’’ (Goodman 2011,
p. 244; see also Hayes-Conroy and Hayes-Conroy
2010, 2013; Sandover 2013). Benson and Fischer (2007)
offer an example of this in their study of the globalized
broccoli commodity chain, in which they argue that while
this industry exploits participants at the level of desiring
itself, this is not simply a matter of powerful agribusiness
actors dominating less powerful producers and consumers.
Instead, Benson and Fischer contend that ‘‘Desire is the
condition of possibility for the broccoli trade. It mobilizes
energies and makes producers and consumers into reflexive
agents who monitor their own practices and comport
themselves to the opportunities and risks that blossom out
of this seemingly innocuous vegetable’’ (p. 816, emphasis
added). Casting desire—a transpersonal force that is
unpredictable and difficult to control—rather than capital
or political economic might as the condition of possibility
Synergies in alternative food network research: embodiment, diverse economies, and more-than-…
for this globalized industry allows us to recognize that the
power relations constituting the global vegetable trade,
while highly unequal, are perhaps not as neatly sewn up as
we might imagine.
The unruliness of foods and food systems, moreover, is
increasingly understood in terms of relationships between
various kinds or orders of actors reaching across scales that
underpin but also potentially destabilize power relations in
food systems and produce openings for the cultivation of
more ethical foodways (Hayes-Conroy and Hayes-Conroy
2008; Probyn 2000). Thus ill health, disease, and microbes,
for example, play active parts in motivating consumers to
navigate the labyrinth of competing claims about and
representations made by activists, experts, mainstream
media, and personal networks of friends and family
(DuPuis 2000; Sarmiento 2015a; Whatmore 2002). Such
work makes a compelling case that the pedagogic capaci-
ties of AFNs and the process of becoming an ethical food
subject involve more than just consumers or critical AFN
researchers and their desires and fears, and more than
political economic dynamics, but rather include as well a
range of animals, plants, microorganisms, ecological rela-
tionships, and many other more-than-human actors. From
this perspective, the ruptures and tensions produced by
conventional food systems, which are often understood to
provoke the ongoing proliferation of AFNs (Cook and
Harrison 2003; Murdoch and Miele 1999; Whatmore
2002), can be viewed as tears in the broader fabric of
relations between human cultures and other forms of life
and inorganic materials that together constitute food sys-
tems. As Carolan (2005, p. 379) puts it, ‘‘To discipline an
‘object’ of nature is to view it as truly an object and thus
deny its larger ecological connections …. This is why
disciplinary control over nature is so precarious, for it
ignores the ontological assemblages … that make up these
‘objects’’’ (see also Coppin 2003; Goodman 1999; Michael
and Still 1992; Probyn 2014a). Approaching foods in this
way, as constituents of assemblages, as relational phe-
nomena rather than discrete things-in-themselves, is one of
the productive ways that critical food scholars have
recently worked to move ‘‘beyond food’’ itself as an object
of analysis (Passidomo 2013).
These ontological emphases deepen and complement the
pedagogic focus discussed above by illustrating that AFN
proponents must negotiate with and ceaselessly work to
enroll a range of actors in building more just and sustain-
able food systems and cultivating more ethical food sub-
jects. Concomitantly, this perspective also highlights the
fact that the contingent and often unstable nature of food
systems is a function of the complex of relations between
the swarms of actors constituting and mediating these
systems. However, as precarious as disciplinary control
over the wide array of actors converging in food systems
may be, it seems clear that conventional food systems and
the power relations that cohere in and through them remain
remarkably durable and resilient. In the face of this
apparent intractability, I turn now to several specific con-
cepts from more-than-human food geography that make
crucial contributions to how we might understand the
potential of AFNs and continue pushing ahead in AFN
research.
Hybridity, scale, and assemblage thinking
A spate of AFN research has of late deployed the concept
of hybridity to understand the relationships between ‘‘al-
ternative’’ and ‘‘conventional’’ food worlds. Implicated in
debates about what makes a particular food practice,
enterprise, or relationship ‘‘alternative’’ (McCarthy 2006;
Whatmore et al. 2003), there are a number of studies that
fruitfully explore AFNs and conventional food systems as
intertwined in multiple ways, and indeed as mutually
constitutive, opening up new ways for thinking about the
practicalities and strategies of ‘‘scaling-up’’ AFNs, as
follows.
First, hybridity allows us to avoid several tensions
inherent to framing ethically oriented food practices as
‘‘alternative,’’ as demonstrated in several recent AFN
studies. One of these tensions has to do with the connection
between framing products as ‘‘alternative’’ to industrial
foods in ecological and/or social terms and capturing the
‘‘value added’’ by such narrative distinctions. Alkon con-
veys this dynamic particularly well (2013, p. 676), arguing
‘‘The sustainable agriculture movement’s understanding of
their preferred foods as socio-natural while other food is
merely industrial parallels its strategy of creating alterna-
tives rather than transforming the food system entirely. …
This carving out of utopian niches stands in contrast to a
potential alternative strategy that might emphasize conti-
nuities between industrial and alternative food systems in
order to think about large-scale transformation.’’ As Alkon
and others (e.g., Gunderson 2014) have pointed out, such
uses of alterity can be linked to romanticized and fetishized
notions of food production, obscuring more than they
reveal and undermining the ethical potential of particular
approaches to rework food systems by instrumentalizing
them. Approaching all food-related practices and relation-
ships as hybrids does not necessarily render them all the
same, but rather requires engagement with specific quali-
ties that distinguish one food network from another. This is
a more demanding and difficult task, but also one that is
potentially more potent, a point I will take up again shortly.
Returning to a theme discussed above, hybridity also
helps us rethink scalar assumptions embedded in a stark
conventional/alternative binary. In a seminal piece, What-
more and Thorne (1997, p. 289) explored how both
123

alternative and conventional foodworlds might be con-
ceived as ‘‘performative orderings (always in the making),
rather than as systemic entities (always already consti-
tuted),’’ which calls for analysis that traces the work done
to assemble any given food system, examining ‘‘points of
connection and lines of flow, as opposed to reiterating fixed
surfaces and boundaries.’’ This approach, which has
arguably become common to much AFN research, does not
deny the far-reaching—indeed global—capacities of some
actors in food systems. Rather, it transforms the ‘‘key
question’’ from one of ‘‘scale, encoded in a categorical
distinction between the ‘local’ and the ‘global’’’ to one of
connectivity and potential discontinuities, ‘‘marking lines
of flow of varying lengths and which transgress these
categories’’ (pp. 289–290). From this perspective, it is
curious that, ‘‘alternative food networks’’ is a common
term in critical food studies while ‘‘conventional food
networks’’ is not. This is perhaps an important oversight, as
the tendency to view socially and ecologically oriented
foods as ‘‘alternative,’’ and capitalist, industrial foods as
‘‘systemic’’ suggests power imbalances that are somehow
intrinsic and (at least nearly) immutable, rather than
painstakingly constructed, contingent, and transformable
through strategic, concerted action. In short, thinking about
both conventional and alternative foods as hybrids, in many
ways mutually constitutive and entwined, helps us to
escape the global trap I discussed above and draws atten-
tion to the pragmatic, strategic, and logistical elements of
‘‘scaling up’’ AFNs, which we can now think of as
assembling, expanding, deepening and so on, instead of
scaling per se.
These concepts from assemblage and actor-network
thinking have been particularly effective in analyzing
quality and embeddedness in food systems, two concepts
that have received considerable attention recently (Alkon
2008a; Barham 2003; Marsden and Arce 1995; Thornburg
2013; Winter 2003a, b). In exploring the heterogeneous
actors that must be successfully brought together in order
for particular qualities associated with foods to emerge and
cohere, Mansfield’s (2003) science and technology studies-
oriented study of surimi commodity networks and Freid-
berg’s (2004) French beans and food scares are exemplary
analyses. These works provide theoretical and method-
ological examples for analyzing unequal power relations
coursing through food networks with global reach, while
remaining grounded in particular spaces and times where
power is assembled and maintained, but also modulated,
transformable, and always in process. In a somewhat
similar vein, researchers have fruitfully explored the
embeddedness of foodways in particular cultural ecologies,
institutions, and spatialities (Winter 2003a). Sonnino and
Marsden (2006, p. 190) see this conceptualization of
‘‘embeddedness’’ as essential to ‘‘creating a new and
123
E. R. Sarmiento
durable action-space within the prevailing conventional
economic system’’ for the expansion of AFNs as ‘‘spaces of
hope.’’ Their outline of the concept is worth quoting at
length, as it in many ways exemplifies the processual and
pragmatic aspects of assemblage thinking, including a call
for further analysis of the interactions and interdependen-
cies between ‘‘alternative’’ and ‘‘conventional’’ food
actors:
To be successful, this needs to ‘‘embed’’ sets of dis-
tinctive organizational principles, knowledges, and
natures in new ways. Thus embeddedness is not just a
reliance upon the social over and above the eco-
nomic. Rather, it relies upon an incorporation and
manipulation in and of space, involving social
economy and nature. Moreover, this holistic approach
we propose also implies progressing a research
agenda that explores in more detail the competitive
(and often highly dependent) relations that such
alternative food networks have with the corporate
sector (particularly the retailers) and that analyzes
more thoroughly their regional/institutional context,
social configuration, and the extent to which they are
spreading and impacting on wider spatial develop-
ment processes.
Mount’s work (2011) on local food, scale, and gover-
nance resonates with this research agenda, emphasizing
that as long as value is attached to ‘‘local food’’ as a thing-
in-itself, inherently desirable, rather than a set of rela-
tionships and democratic processes (potentially) embedded
within AFNs that are heavily contested and political, AFNs
are susceptible to co-optation and domination by corporate
actors (see also DuPuis and Goodman 2005; Watts et al.
2005). This brings us back to the question of differentiating
one food network from another. Bringing Mount’s per-
spective into conversation with assemblage thinking sug-
gests that the materials and actors enrolled to extend the
reach of AFNs must enable—and perhaps require as a
condition of differentiating ethical food initiatives and
practices from conventional foods—shared responsibilities
and democratic modes of governance. While this emphasis
on what might be called agonistic democratic structures for
AFNs emphasizes grounded, localized relationships, it also
recognizes the need to encompass far-reaching connec-
tions, thus calling attention to questions of infrastructure, to
which I now turn.
Infrastructures, aesthetics, and the diverse materials
of subject formation
Some of the most interesting recent AFN research linked to
assemblage thinking and more-than-human analysis con-
stitutes part of a broader effort to develop new
Synergies in alternative food network research: embodiment, diverse economies, and more-than-…
understandings of infrastructure in urban research (e.g.,
Gandy 2003; Graham and Marvin 2001; Kaika 2004) and
anthropology (e.g., Larkin 2004). Here, infrastructures are
understood as more than inert objects or the outcome of
purely political economic struggles, but rather as sites of
technopolitics (Mitchell 2002, 2011), networked and often
lively materials that direct flows of matter and energy in
(greater or lesser) accord with the imperatives of gover-
nance. While much of this work is critical of the deploy-
ment of rationality and objectivity as tools of governance,
such studies also help us understand how the linkages
between infrastructures, technical capacities, and social
imaginaries also require the attention of those working to
assemble more just and sustainable futures. A number of
recent AFN studies resonate with this approach, focusing
on built environments, spatiality, and infrastructures as key
elements of expanding the capacities of AFNs. For Mount
and a growing number of food scholars (Ballamingie and
Walker 2013; Blay-Palmer et al. 2013), regional and local
food hubs represent one potential avenue through which to
expand both local governance processes and relations of
production and more expansive webs of connections:
Because they offer the promise of alternative identity,
legitimacy, reflexive governance, and added value in
[local food networks] operating at increased scale,
food hubs deserve intense scrutiny. … The collabo-
rative nature of the enterprise—and the exchange—
shows the potential for open, responsive governance
while delivering the benefits of both scale efficiencies
and direct relationships. While many have operated
successfully at smaller scales, the food hub format
has the possibility to include—as active members—
producer and consumer groups, restaurant service and
institutional purchasers, and regional food councils
(Mount 2012, p. 117).
Similar contributions are made by Beckie et al.’s (2012)
research on the spatial concentration of farmers’ markets in
western Canada, which focuses on the benefits of cluster-
ing, including regular social interaction, the facilitation of
social innovation and knowledge transfer, alongside the
institutionalization of knowledge, which can provide
training, information, tech support, and so on, and Blundel
and Tregear’s (2006) historical sketch of the transforma-
tion of the British cheese industry from small-scale cottage
industry to full-blown industrial sector. Such studies, in
highlighting the links between particular social values and
infrastructural and logistical elements of food systems,
illuminate the intersection of different powers that shape
these systems, operating at varying spatial and temporal
extents and registers. This includes technologies and
infrastructures for shipping, measuring and reproducing
quality, as well as political economic factors, ‘‘natural’’ and
material elements of foodstuffs, and social/cultural ele-
ments. As such, this work does not always foreground
questions of power and inequality, but rather (explicitly or
implicitly) is concerned to trace the constitutive elements
or building blocks of power, a task that is eminently useful
for those interested in assembling more expansive ethical
food initiatives, or ‘‘systematizing’’ AFNs (Amin and
Thrift 2002).
The role of infrastructures and the built environment
more broadly as mediators of social power is also tied to
aesthetics. As Larkin (2013, p. 329) points out, infras-
tructures, from engineered hydroscapes to the rhyzomatic
spatiality of the Internet, are aesthetic forms that ‘‘emerge
out of and store within them forms of desire and fantasy …
that sometimes can be wholly autonomous from their
technical function.’’ MacDonald’s (2013, p. 96) recent
study of Slow Food’s annual Cheese! festival presents an
excellent case in point, demonstrating how the meanings or
values of particular cheeses are extracted not just from
discourses or representations of nature, farms, or traditional
rural practices, but emerge in conjunction with the built
environment of Bra, the Italian town that hosts the festival,
as well as the particular spatial organization of the festival
itself in the town:
The value of Cheese! to Bra lies largely in the private
wealth accrued over the space of a few days every
other year, but the value of Bra to Cheese! lies in the
qualities that the space can attach to the product. The
Baroque architecture … imparts an air of tradition,
and setting a number of events inside churches and
stately mansions buttresses that tradition with an aura
of authority. It also firmly situates … cheese in the
context of what Slow Food would represent as the
durable social relations that help to reproduce the
structure of the town.
In this aesthetic register, infrastructures and architecture
play important roles in the constitution and transformation
of subjects, and it is on this point that research on the
infrastructures and the spatiality of AFNs might come
together with embodiment and diverse economies-inspired
food research on food subjectivities. Following Larkin
(2013, p. 329) again, an analytical focus ‘‘on the issue of
form, or the poetics of infrastructure, allows us to under-
stand how the political can be constituted through different
means. It points to the sense of desire and possibility, what
Benjamin would term the collective fantasy of society.’’ If
we accept Benson and Fischer’s (2007) assertion, discussed
above, that desire is not just the outcome of but rather the
condition of possibility for both global agribusiness net-
works and their alternatives, then the role of infrastructure
and architecture in shaping such desires and fantasies
merits further scholarly scrutiny. Scholars interested in
123

cultivating community food economies through research or
interrogating the embodied elements of foodways might
fruitfully turn their analytical gaze towards the aesthetics of
a wide range of mediators beyond foodstuffs, food tech-
nologies, foodborne illnesses, and food regulations. To
borrow from Roe’s (2006a) formulation, ‘‘things becoming
food’’ might well include expansive networks of highways,
shipping ports, and hydrological flows, as well as the
highly visible architectures of high-end supermarkets and,
conversely, the largely hidden architectures of factory
farms and meat processors. All of these actors and more
contribute towards the construction of certain senses of
quality and value in foods, which are in turn linked to the
production of particular kinds of food subjects.
Indeed, as diverse economies and embodiment scholars
have argued, this is what makes the embodied food subject
such an important field of contestation. The work of
scholars focusing on the more-than-human elements of
food assemblages provide a fundamentally important cut
through the analytical terrain of the subject, highlighting
the diversity of actors involved in subject and value pro-
duction. Thus, for MacDonald (2013, pp. 101–102), while
Slow Food—a notably international network that is trans-
forming relations of production and consumption in both
rural and urban spaces but is built in part on valorizing
locality, tradition, and nature—represents a paradox, this
paradox is not an ‘‘analytic end’’ but rather an ‘‘empirical
means’’ through which to explore ‘‘how ‘the local’ and ‘the
global’ are relationally brought into being through the
multiple and interrelated cultural–political-economic pro-
jects that set ‘goods’ like cheese in motion and direct their
flow,’’ a process explicitly understood as creating ‘‘a partial
gap … in which a new politics of recognition and distri-
bution becomes possible.’’ Similarly, Latham (2003), in his
analysis of the cultural spaces accompanying gentrification
in Auckland, argues that these sites, while marked by
‘‘their own tensions and exclusions’’ (p. 1713), have also
‘‘acted as a key conduit for a new style of inhabiting the
city’’ (p. 1710), which ‘‘can be read as a kind of sexual
polymorphization … [or] ‘queering’ of public space,’’ (p.
1712).
Finally, insights into the articulation of the ‘‘molar
subject’’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1987) with more expansive
assemblages are but one part of the broader critical and
strategic analyses of AFN infrastructures being made by
scholars of more-than-human elements in food networks.
Also of crucial importance going forward here are the links
between materials, values, and particular ethical and moral
questions highlighted by a number of posthumanist schol-
ars. Lorimer and Driessen (2013, p. 248), for example,
offer a schematic conception of the biopolitics of a rewil-
ding of Heck cattle, which disentangles the links between
particular values and specific interspecies relations, thus
123
E. R. Sarmiento
throwing into stark relief questions of ‘‘diverse responsi-
bilities … frictions and compromises between several
modes of relating.’’ This case has more to do with con-
servation practices than food systems, but Lorimer and
Driessen’s analytical approach to Heck cattle could just as
easily be brought to bear on the bio-technical calculative
regimes through which the life cycles of most livestock
pass today (Buller 2013). The work of these and other
scholars (e.g., Didur 2002; Fox 2011; Harbers et al. 2002;
Orlie 2009; Probyn 2014b; Roe 2006a, b; Rowe 2013;
Sarmiento 2015a; Waitt 2014) concerned to move beyond
the anthropocentric bounds of much ethical deliberation
broadens considerably the ethical landscape of AFN stud-
ies, and in doing so, also proffers a much richer scope for
understanding what is meant by the ‘‘politics’’ of AFNs
(Braun and Whatmore 2010; Hinchliffe et al. 2005).
Conclusion
In this paper, I have discussed a series of overlapping ideas
advanced in three now-substantial strands of AFN
research—work on food and embodiment, the diverse
economies of food, and more-than-human food geogra-
phies—exploring how these ideas provide ways forward as
AFN scholars pursue what Marsden and Franklin (2013,
p. 638) have recently called ‘‘a more robust evolutionary
theoretical arm to the economies of alterity.’’ Each of the
three bodies of work discussed in this paper is growing
rapidly and making important contributions to critical food
studies, particularly with respect to our understanding of
how the ongoing proliferation of AFNs might contribute to
fundamental transformations of food systems. As noted
above, there are scholars whose work already productively
bridges these approaches. In support of the argument that
much remains to be done in this regard, I have discussed
the shared resonance of and overlaps between these
approaches, highlighting several key synergies between
them. First, these threads of research draw attention to the
pedagogic potentials of AFNs. When it comes to maxi-
mizing the political efficacy of these pedagogic capacities,
embodiment and diverse economies scholars in particular
emphasize the importance of the researcher’s theoretical
and methodological choices. Here, strategies such as
‘‘reading for difference’’ or ‘‘putting at risk’’ discursive
frames one encounters in the field, when combined with an
understanding of economies as heterogeneous and perfor-
mative, offer useful tools for AFN scholars interested in
working with research subjects in cultivating more ethical
food systems. This emphasis on situated, participatory
action research is perhaps one area where embodiment and
diverse economies approaches have much to offer more-
Synergies in alternative food network research: embodiment, diverse economies, and more-than-…
than-human research, which is often perceived as insuffi-
ciently engaged with political struggles.
At the same time, more-than-human food research
makes quite clear that the pedagogic capacities of AFNs far
exceed the interventions of researchers, as these capacities
stem from the relations between a wide range of actors,
including the many biological and ecological components
of foodstuffs as well as political economic and cultural
materials. While this insight has already been taken up by a
number of embodiment and diverse economies researchers,
I argued that scholars wishing to work with research sub-
jects in cultivating more ethical food systems stand to
benefit from further encounters between the three threads
under consideration here. Broadly, actor-network and
assemblage thinking, while increasingly common in
embodiment and diverse economies research, might be put
to further use in analyzing the expansive networks that
impinge on specific bodies—whether on individual bodies
or those of specific social groups—and shape the prospects
for what Gibson-Graham refer to as community economies.
This is not simply a matter of tracing relations of domi-
nance to demonstrate the constraints and limitations of
AFNs, although this is clearly a crucial element of under-
standing the prospects of AFNs, as critical agrifood
research demonstrates. As I hope to have illustrated by
considering recent research on alternative/conventional
hybridity in food systems, quality, and infrastructures, it is
also a question of assaying what needs to be done in order
for more ethical foods to no longer be simply ‘‘alterna-
tives’’ to conventional foods.
Acknowledgements Funding from the Center for Cultural Analysis
at Rutgers University partially supported the writing of this article. I
would also like to warmly thank Monica Barra, Nate Gabriel, Kevin
St. Martin, Sean Tanner, and Luke Drake for their invaluable feed-
back. All shortcomings of the work however are my responsibility
alone.
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123
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Methods for Change:

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Barron, A., Browne, A. L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S. M., Pottinger, L., & Ritson, J. (Eds.) (2021). Methods for Change:
Impactful social science methodologies for 21st century problems. University of Manchester.

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Methods for Change:
Impactful social science
methodologies for
21st century problems.

Edited by:
Amy Barron, Alison Browne, Ulrike Ehgartner,
Sarah Marie Hall, Laura Pottinger and Jonny Ritson
Acknowledgements

Methods for Change is an Aspect (a Social Sciences Platform for

Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation and Transformation) funded
project, supported by Research England and UKRI (UK Research
and Innovation). Taking place across the course of 2020-21 the
Methods for Change team comprises projects leads Dr Alison L.
Browne and Dr Sarah Marie Hall with research associates Dr Laura
Pottinger (co-investigator), Dr Amy Barron, Dr Ulrike Ehgartner,
Dr Jonathan Ritson, and Sawyer Phinney; alongside 37 academic
contributors from nine higher education institutions within the
Aspect network. With thanks to Dr Melissa Markauskas (School
of Environment, Education and Development, The University
of Manchester), and Sarah MacNaughton, Emily Seward, Adam
Richards-Gray, Sean Farron, Camilla Premachandra and the
wider Oxentia team for their support with the administration and
communication of the project.
We would also like to thank Mandy Tootill (graphic designer, The
University of Manchester) who designed this collection of how
to guides and Sam de Tomasi for their design expertise, as well
as the artists and creatives who collaborated with contributing
academics to generate the creative outputs for the project.

Please cite chapters as: [Chapter Authors] (2021) [Chapter Title],

in Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L.
and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social science
methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect and
The University of Manchester.

PAGE 2
 Contents 01

Introduction......................................................................... Page 7
Contributer Biographies........................................... Page 9
Photo go-alongs.............................................................. Page 14
Dr Amy Barron

Participatory Activist Research........................ Page 24

Prof. Jenny Pickerill, Dr Laura Pottinger and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner

Gentle Methodologies.............................................. Page 32

Dr Laura Pottinger

Object-oriented Interviews.................................. Page 41

Dr Jennifer Owen, Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger

Oral Histories and Futures................................... Page 50

Dr Sarah Marie Hall and Dr Amy Barron

Sociological Discourse Analysis....................... Page 58

Dr Ulrike Ehgartner

Participatory Mapping.............................................. Page 68

Dr Deborah Ralls and Dr Laura Pottinger

The Change Points Toolkit:

A Method to Design Interventions
that Unlock Sustainable Practices.......................... Page 77
Dr Claire Hoolohan, Dr Alison L. Browne, Dr Ulrike Ehgartner and Dr Matt Watson

Open Interviews............................................................. Page 85

Prof. Jude Robinson, Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger

Playing Games as Method.................................... Page 94

Dr Ralitsa Hiteva, Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger

Geographical Biography.......................................Page 105

Dr Cheryl McGeachan, Dr Amy Barron and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner
 Contents 02

Systems Origami..........................................................Page 114

Dr Kersty Hobson, Dr Ulrike Ehgartner and Dr Amy Barron

Social Practice Art as Research......................Page 124

Dr Jenna C. Ashton, Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger,

Follow the Thing...........................................................Page 133

Dr Stephanie Sodero, Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger

Life Mapping....................................................................Page 142

Dr Elisabeth Garratt, Dr Jan Flaherty and Dr Amy Barronr

Graphic Interviews: Graphic Elicitation

and Sketch Reportage...................................................Page 151
Prof. Nik Brown, Dr Christina Buse, Dr Laura Pottinger and Dr Amy Barron

A Place-based Case Study Approach.........Page 162

Dr Jessica Paddock, Dr Laura Pottinger and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner

Mobile Visual Methods..........................................Page 171

Dr Jennie Middleton, Dr Laura Pottinger and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner

Walk-along Interviews............................................Page 180

Dr Rashida Bibi and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner

Digitised Ethnography:
Creating Interactive Stories.....................................Page 189
Dr Andrea Pia, Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger

Participant Packs........................................................Page 198

Dr Amy Barron

Participatory Film Making..................................Page 207

Prof. Andrew Irving, Dr Amy Barron, Dr Laura Pottinger,
Robyn Swannack and Nenio Mbazima,

Participatory Qualitative Interviews........Page 217

Dr Lucy Jackson, Dr Laura Pottinger and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner
 Contents 03

Visual Organisational Ethnography..........Page 228

Prof. Stephen Linstead and Dr Laura Pottinger

Life Histories..................................................................Page 241

Dr Divya Sharma and Dr Amy Barron

Hands-on engagement
and learning with Ketso.......................................Page 250
Dr Joanne Tippett, Fraser How, Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger

A Comprehensive, Qualitative
Approach to Evaluation........................................Page 260
Dr Mayra Morales Tirado and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner

Elliptical Methodologies.......................................Page 270

Prof. Stephen Walker, Dr Laura Pottinger and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner

Biographical Mapping............................................Page 279

Prof. Penny Tinkler, Dr Laura Fenton and Dr Amy Barron

Engaged Capacity-building
Workshops.......................................................................Page 289
Dr Megan Blake, Dr Laura Pottinger and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner
Introduction

About the Methods for Change project and collection

Change defines the contemporary world. As social science researchers we are often
interested in investigating various forms of social, environmental, economic or political
change, but we rarely directly explore the ways that the research methods we employ
themselves create change. Given the complex and interconnected problems the world
is currently facing, this is an important moment to mobilise the potential of social
science methodologies with non-academic stakeholders to invoke transformative
socio-ecological and political change.

The Methods for Change project arose out of
a recognition that the robust methodologies
developed within the social sciences –
qualitative, interpretive or creative – could be
more widely shared with non-academic sectors.
Change does not always have to be dramatic
or large-scale to make a difference to peoples’
lived experience. This collection therefore
focuses on a range of methods that invoke
change at a variety of scales – from large-scale
environmental, social or economic changes
through to organisational, community and
personal change.
Herein you will find a unique compilation of 30
‘how to’ guides about innovative methodologies
from across the social sciences. Each guide
is led by, and based on the research of,
academic colleagues working within one of the
Aspect network institutions, co-authored with
members of the Methods for Change team.
The guides cover the depth and breadth of
interdisciplinary qualitative social research,
across multiple perspectives and topics. All the
guides are free to use and open access – so
please do share widely.
Interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral working
is commonplace within the social sciences,
with growing interest across academic, policy-
maker and practitioner communities as to
the possibilities of method for deepening
understandings of societal, environmental
and political problems. These sectors already
engage with a range of social science research
methods, and there is increasing recognition
of the value of creative, participatory and visual
methods to enliven understandings of social
and material worlds. There is still so much
more to learn across practitioner and academic
communities around ways of collaborative
working including how we might more fully
utilise social science methods across various
sectors to create change. Not least, we are
mindful of the often resource constrained
environments in which academic research,
policy research, and practice takes place.
Therefore, these how-to guides are a way of
sharing methods to create and understand
transformative change in research across
sectors.

PAGE 7
Introduction
Using the collection
All the guides in this collection are written in
an accessible, jargon-free style. Each chapter
provides a bite-sized overview of a method
used in the social sciences, case study
examples from real-world research, and ideas
for how these methods could be used in future.
The guides aim to equip the reader with an
understanding of how to use the method in
practice, in a range of settings. Step-by-step
guidelines are included to give a sense of the
types of practical and ethical considerations
as well as activities and equipment to consider
when using each approach. These guidelines
are not intended to be prescriptive, but
instead invite the reader to think about how
the method could be reinterpreted in different
contexts.
We envisage that these guides will be useful
to researchers and teams working in a variety
of ways, including in research projects, policy
research and design, programme monitoring
and evaluation, staff training, and in teaching
research design and methodology at
undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
This collection therefore has two key
functions. First, to introduce readers to new
and exciting methodologies for researching
social, environmental and political change, and
second, to inspire readers to innovate with
these methodologies themselves.
About the guides
Each how-to guide follows a similar structure.
A short introduction to the method is first
provided, followed by a consideration of how
the method creates or contributes to change.
Next, the ideas and concepts that influence
the method are discussed, before highlighting
why the method is particularly useful. This
is followed by a step-by-step guide outlining
how the method might be used in practice.
Examples of how the method has been used
in social science research and where else the
method could be useful in future are then
discussed. The guides close by offering ‘top tips’
to keep in mind when using the method and a
list of further reading.
Each guide is also accompanied by a creative
output that communicates the value of the
approach. These include illustrations, booklets,
animations, videos and more. The how-to
guides and creative outputs can all be found on
the Aspect website
PAGE 8
Contributor Biographies
Jenna C. Ashton,
The University of Manchester
Jenna C. Ashton is an artist and curator, and
Lecturer in Heritage Studies, at the Institute for
Cultural Practices, University of Manchester.
Jenna’s research contributes to the evolving
multidisciplinary area of “heritage studies”
theory and practice. Her expertise concerns
feminist social practice and creative methods
for a critical understanding, construction and
analysis of heritage, where it intersects with
social and ecological (in)justice.
Amy Barron,
The University of Manchester
Amy Barron is a cultural and social geographer
interested in ageing, place-making, participatory
methods, and inclusive urban futures. She is a
Research Associate on the Methods for Change
project and a Lecturer in Human Geography.
Rashida Bibi,
The University of Manchester
Rashida Bibi is a Research Associate in the
School of Social Sciences in the University of
Manchester.
Megan Blake,
The University of Sheffield
Megan Blake is a Senior Lecturer in geography
and an expert in food security and food
justice. Megan’s particular focus concerns how
harnessing the social value of food through
locally-based activity can enhance household
and community health and wellbeing.
Nik Brown,
University of York
Nik Brown is professor in sociology at the
University of York working across Science and
Technology Studies (STS) and the Sociology of
Health and Illness (SHI).
Alison L. Browne,
The University of Manchester
Alison L. Browne is a Senior Lecturer in Human
Geography at the University of Manchester and
is Co-PI on the Methods for Change project. In
a mixed methodological and transdisciplinary
way she plays with ideas of how everyday
practices come to be disrupted, changed and
governed, with specific interest in bringing
these insights into water, sanitation, waste and
tourism sectors.
Christina Buse,
University of York
Christina Buse is a Lecturer in Sociology and
Social Psychology. Her research interests
include ageing, dementia, material culture and
embodiment.
Ulrike Ehgartner,
The University of Manchester
Ulrike Ehgartner is a sociologist interested in
questions related to environmental issues,
social inequality, agency and behaviour
change. Concerned with how framings
and understandings of social challenges
are interrelated with policy making,
collective individual behaviour and physical
environments, Ulrikes work focusses on the
interplay between discourses, imaginaries and
practices.
PAGE 9
Contributor Biographies
Laura Fenton,
The University of Manchester
Laura Fenton is Research Associate in Sociology
at the University of Manchester. In Spring 2021,
she will take up the post of Qualitative Research
Associate at the University of Sheffield’s Alcohol
Research Group. Laura’s research interests
include gender, youth, and creative biographical
methods.
Jan Flaherty,
Kings College London
Jan Flaherty is a Research Fellow on the
Relations Study, a 3-year ESRC funded project
examining policies and practices in the
governance of parents who use opioids and
their families.
Elisabeth Garratt,
The University of Sheffield
Elisabeth Garratt is a Lecturer in Quantitative
Methods whose research interests are in
homelessness, poverty, food poverty, and
mental health.
Sarah M. Hall,
The University of Manchester
Sarah Marie Hall is Reader in Human
Geography and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at
the University of Manchester, and is Co-PI of
the Methods for Change project. Her research
interests revolve around everyday life and
economic change, social reproduction and
inequalities, and feminist methods and praxis.
Ralitsa Hiteva,
University of Sussex
Ralitsa Hiteva is a Research Fellow specialising
in infrastructure and energy governance,
business models and low-carbon transition.
Kersty Hobson,
Cardiff University
Kersty Hobson is a Reader in Human
Geography. Her research interests focus
on issues of social and environmental
transformation, particularly in the fields
of sustainable production and consumption,
and multi-level environmental governance.
Claire Hoolohan,
The University of Manchester
Claire Hoolohan is a Research Fellow at the
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change
and Social Transformation. Her research is
focused on understanding how research on
social change and everyday life can be used to
inform policy and planning around emissions
reduction, water demand and dietary change.
Fraser How,
Ketso trainer and facilitator
Fraser How is an independent consultant
in the areas of design, communication and
effective collaboration. He is a trainer and
facilitator in Ketso, co-developing many of the
approaches used with the toolkit. His interests
include regenerative systems (particularly the
RoundView project with Joanne Tippet), and
sensemaking.
PAGE 10
Contributor Biographies
Andrew Irving,
The University of Manchester
Andrew Irving is Professor of Anthropology at
the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology,
University of Manchester. His research areas
include sensory perception, time, illness,
death, urban anthropology and experimental
methods, film and multi-media. Recent books
include “The Art of Life and Death: Radical
Aesthetics and Ethnographic Practice: (2017)
and Beyond Text? (2016). Recent creative works
include: See, Make, Sign (Exhibition; 2019).
The Man Who Almost Killed Himself (BBC Arts,
Edinburgh Festival 2015).
Lucy Jackson,
The University of Sheffield
Lucy Jackson is a Lecturer in qualitative
methods. Lucy is a feminist geographer working
across themes of feminist geopolitics, bodily
rights, identity, difference and inclusion.
Stephen Linstead,
University of York
Stephen A. Linstead is a Professor of
Management working in a transdisciplinary way
to bring concepts, processes and methods from
the humanities into the ambit of research on
organizations and organizing. A management
development professional by training, he holds
fellowships in the arts and social sciences and
is a published poet, exhibited photographer,
broadcast and recorded performer, and multi-
award winning filmmaker.
Nenio Mbazima,
University of the Witwatersrand
Nenio Mbazima is a deaf filmmaker, script
writer and video producer based at The
Centre for Deaf Studies, University of the
Witwatersrand. He is the co-founder of
Deafinition Projects (Pty) Ltd that campaigns
to raise the profile of and advocate for the
rights of deaf persons. He recently authored his
autobiography, Strong Wind, and is currently
working on a new children’s book about the
adventure of sesame oil.
Cheryl McGeachan,
University of Glasgow
Cheryl McGeachan is a Lecturer in Human
Geography. Cheryl is an historical and social
geographer interested in researching the lived
experiences of mental ill-health in historical and
contemporary contexts.
Jennie Middleton,
University of Oxford
Jennie Middleton is Associate Professor in
Human Geography at the University of Oxford.
Her work is concerned with differentiated
experiences of everyday mobility and innovative
methodologies for urban research.
Mayra Morales Tirado,
The University of Manchester
Mayra Morales Tirado is a postdoctoral
Research Associate at the Manchester
Institute of Innovation Research in a
collaborative research project that aims to
understand research assessments, standards
and practices in different fields of research.
PAGE 11
Contributor Biographies
Jennifer Owen,
Kings College London
(previously Cardiff University)
Jennifer Owen is a human geographer whose
interests sit between cultural and social
geographies. Her work considers the materiality
of domestic everyday life, and what this can tell
us about home, family, identity, mobility and the
life course.
Jessica Paddock,
University of Bristol
Jess Paddock is a senior lecturer in sociology.
Jess’ research agenda is concerned with how a
sociological understanding of everyday eating
practices - how they are reproduced, and how
they change - can inform transitions towards
more sustainable societies.
Andrea E. Pia,
London School of Economics
Andrea E. Pia is Assistant Professor of
Anthropology at the London School of
Economics. His work draws on debates and
is inspired by techniques developed within
the experimental digital arts to create digital
artifacts in support of a wider public role for
anthropology.
Jenny Pickerill,
The University of Sheffield
Jenny Pickerell is a Professor in Environmental
Geography working across the themes of
environment, difference and experiments to
encourage socio-eco transformations.
Laura Pottinger,
The University of Manchester
Laura Pottinger is a human geographer at
the University of Manchester and Research
Associate on the Methods for Change project.
Her work explores everyday forms of social and
environmental activism using ethnographic and
participatory methodologies.
Deborah Ralls,
The University of Manchester
Deborah Ralls is a Leverhulme Early Career
Research Fellow. Her research explores the
complex interrelationship between socio-
economic policies and education theory, policy
and practice in urban contexts.
Jude Robinson,
University of Glasgow
Jude Robinson is a Professor in Health &
Wellbeing. Jude is a social anthropologist
teaching and researching in the field of critical
public health.
Divya Sharma,
University of Sussex
Divya Sharma is a Lecturer in Sustainable
Development. Her work focuses on postcolonial
rural transformations, mapping changing
landscapes of work, and the politics of
sustainability in food systems.
PAGE 12
Contributor Biographies
Stephanie Sodero,
The University of Manchester
Stephanie Sodero is a Lecturer in Responses
to Climate Crises. Her research centres on vital
mobilities, that is, how medical goods, such as
blood, saline IV solution, and oxygen move from
the point of manufacture to the point of care.
Robyn Swannack,
University of the Witwatersrand
Robyn Swannack is a deaf researcher based
at the Centre for Deaf Studies, University of
the Witwatersrand. She works with students,
faculty, local communities and global
representatives to create film and social media
content for education, research and the wider
public. Recent projects that she has developed
include EyeBuzz, SafeSpace and Deaf Students
Community of Practices. A masters graduate
in anthropology she is currently undertaking a
PhD on educational practice at the Centre for
Deaf Studies, University of Witwatersrand.
Penny Tinkler,
The University of Manchester
Penny Tinkler is a Professor of Sociology and
History. Her research centres on two fields:
C20th gender history, with particular reference
to girls/women, age and ageing, consumption,
visual culture and print media; also on
biographical and photographic methods.
Joanne Tippett,
The University of Manchester
Joanne Tippett is a Lecturer in Spatial Planning
in the School of Environment and Development
at The University of Manchester. Joanne began
working in community participation in 1993 in
Southern Africa. She is the founder of the social
business, Ketso, and has run workshops with
over 5,000 participants across the world.
Stephen Walker,
The University of Manchester
Stephen Walker is a Professor of Architectural
Humanities whose research interests are
broadly informed by art, architectural and
critical theory and examine the questions
that such theoretical projects can raise about
particular moments of architectural and artistic
practice.
Matt Watson,
The University of Sheffield
A Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Matt
Watson’s work is concerned with understanding
social change in relation to sustainability,
through a focus on everyday life and the socio-
technical systems that shape it.
PAGE 13
Methods for Change
Photo go-alongs
Dr Amy Barron,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Amy Barron
amy.barron@manchester.ac.uk
Photo go-alongs

Photo go-alongs involve undertaking a journey with

a participant whilst talking and taking photographs.
The walk or journey may follow a predetermined route
designed by or for the participant, perhaps visiting
significant places or a site of interest.
Alternatively, the photo go-along may take the form of an
unstructured wander around a place, such as a town centre. It could
also involve accompanying a participant on an activity, perhaps one
they usually undertake like a walk to the shop or walking a dog.
Whilst moving, participants are encouraged to photograph and
discuss anything of significance to them. This could be anything
from litter on the street, to renowned buildings, and everything
between. The combination of movement, talking and photography
allows participants to think about places and events critically, as
they consider which route to take and what to photograph and
discuss. Photo go-alongs are particularly useful for researchers who
are interested in understanding the complex lives of participants in
order to bring lived experiences to light. Like other arts-based and
participatory approaches, photo go-alongs allow researchers to
understand the world from the perspective of participants, provide
rich insight into how participants make sense of the world, and
illuminate the dynamics amidst people and place.

PAGE 15
Photo go-alongs
How do photo go-alongs create or
contribute to change?  space for people to talk about themselves and
Arts-based methods (which include photo
go-alongs, video, collaging, mobile and other
participatory approaches) recognise how positive
change can happen in the process of researching
rather than just from research outputs. While
the material created using photo go-alongs can
have a measurable impact by feeding into the
development of policies, change can also be
subtle, shifting and emotional, taking place at an
individual and group level. Participatory and arts-
based methods can provide an opportunity for
capacity building for participants which can take
the form of new social connections or by simply
providing a space for participants to talk about
their lives and interests. For example, participants
may use their involvement in the research project
to introduce themselves to others and discuss
the activity, where they visited and what was
photographed, allowing new connections to be
forged.
While arts-based methods can be used to
generate material, they can also assist in
creatively communicating and disseminating
research findings. The photographs and
narratives gathered might be used to create an
exhibition or a photo and story collection to share
with different audiences. The material generated
using photo go-alongs can be used to influence
policy and businesses by providing reflections
on local policy decisions, or to get at the lived
experiences of certain policy areas. For example,
photo go-alongs can be used to understand
areas and services that need improvement, such
as waste and transport infrastructure; to provide
insight into the experiences of under-represented
groups, such as older people, ethnic minorities
and children; and to shed light on those facets
of experience that are often obscured in policies
in favour of ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches. Sharing
the photographs and narratives also creates
their lives.
What ideas or concepts
influence this method?
Photo go-alongs might be understood as a
participatory and arts-based method. Like the
creative arts, photo go-alongs can be used to
facilitate imagination, discovery and exploration.
They are concerned with the process of
researching and knowledge creation as much
as the product of research. They are usually
less concerned with the number of participants
engaged with than the depth and richness of the
material created. Photo go-alongs might also be
influenced by participatory approaches in that
participants can be invited to interpret and lead
on how the method is used. For example, while
one participant may prefer to drive, pausing
and walking at significant places; another might
invite the researcher to go-along to an activity
they usually take part in, such as an exercise
class or shopping trip. While one participant
may have planned a walking route on which
several significant places are predetermined,
another may prefer to wander around a
place, pausing and reflecting when something
piques their interest. Part of the participatory
and arts-based approach then involves being
flexible, responsive and adaptive to both the
needs of the participants and the researcher
as they arise. This ethos of openness means
that it might be useful to use photo go-alongs
alongside other approaches, such as object-
oriented interviews, group discussions or video,
to add depth to the material created.Participants
are encouraged to share in the process of
conducting research, from deciding where and
how research encounters happen, to identifying
research questions and problems that need
investigating.
PAGE 16
Photo go-alongs

Why might I want to use photo go-alongs?

l Photo go-alongs help to see the world from
the perspective of participants. They create
detailed material which can provide insight
into the lives of participants, foregrounding
what matters to them.
l They get at the messiness of life. While
participants may have selected specific
places to visit, it is likely they will vocalise
thoughts and feelings as they move through
landscapes. A fleeting smell may momentarily
connect a participant with their childhood,
or a glimpse of litter might encourage a
participant to photograph it before reflecting
on societal change.
l Photo go-alongs encourage mindfulness.
Rather than skimming across the surface of
things, they encourage participants to reflect:
What is significant? What shall I choose to
photograph?
l They allow the researcher to see the decision-
making processes of participants as they The Place, Belonging Manchester photo and
decide what is significant to them and what
story collection at the Festival of Ageing
to photograph. Sometimes observing this
process can reveal more interesting dynamics l Photo go-alongs can be enjoyable. Often,
and provocations than the photographs participants really engage with the creative
themselves. nature of the task, using it as an opportunity
l Photo go-alongs can add depth and richness to reflect and learn about their lives in relation
to policy. While it is often necessary for to different places, generating a wealth of
policies to reduce the complexity of people’s material.
lives to simple action points in order to get l The photographs and narratives shared can
things done, it is equally as important to be used to creatively communicate research
understand everyday lived experiences, as a to different audiences, whether this be
reality check for what policy is doing. Photo through websites, presentations, exhibitions
go-alongs make it possible to tailor policy to or to accompany more traditional policy briefs
the lives of people that it affects. and reports.

PAGE 17
 Photo go-alongs
Step by step guide to using photo go-alongs: 
1. Think about why you want to do the
photo go-alongs. What are you trying to
find out? Try to come up with a broad aim
for your research and supplement this with
two to three research questions which get
at specific dimensions of this aim. Research
questions might focus on the population,
community, context or place you wish to
better understand, for example.
2. Recruit participants and provide
information on the project. You could
recruit participants by contacting an existing
group (such as a community group); by going
through an individual or gatekeeper; by
spending time in a place and approaching
people; or by placing adverts in a local
newspaper or online.
3. Approach participants to meet for a walk
or journey. If possible, let the participant
lead on what form the journey might take
and its length. Perhaps they may choose to
devise a specific route with points of interest
or maybe they prefer to wander around one
place of significance.
Photo go-alongs may be usefully
adapted in relation to different needs.
If a participant is unwilling or unable
to walk, why not accompany them on a
drive, pausing and walking at significant
locations. Perhaps you could join them
on a bike ride or accompany them on a
bus journey. If they cannot leave their
home you could undertake a virtual
journey online.
4. Be flexible to the needs of the
participant. Before you set off, show the
participants the camera you have and ask
whether they would like to use it or if they
prefer to use their own. Explain that they can
take the photographs themselves or they may
prefer you to do this. The aim is to make the
participant feel comfortable. If the participant
does not wish to use a camera, why not ask
if they are able to share some photographs
they already have or to point you to online
visual materials and resources. Be clear about
where the photographs will be stored and
for how long. Repeat this process with all
participants.
Photo go-alongs can also be used to generate
quicker outcomes over shorter timescales
without the researcher needing to be present.
To do this, participants could be equipped
with a camera and asked to follow a
predefined instruction. A follow-up meeting
could then be arranged to discuss outcomes.
5. Record the conversations while walking
and talking. If the participant does not
want to be audio-recorded then make notes
afterwards about the photo go-along and
what was discussed. Some participants may
be more comfortable using a more discrete
recording device such as a mobile phone. If
the participant is happy to be audio-recorded,
recordings can provide another layer of
sensory material to analyse alongside the
PAGE 18
 Photo go-alongs
photographs. Moreover, do not forget about
sounds other than the participant’s voice. Can
you hear birds, cars, talking? Is the participant
commenting on the sound or smell-scapes?
You might also take notes on other senses
that came into play in addition to aural and
visual senses.
Why not arrange to meet participants on
more than one occasion to do another go-
along in a different way? If the participant
had planned a route for the first photo
go-along, why not ask to accompany them
on an activity next time? Would the photo
go-along be very different at another time
of day, week, season, or year? This might
provide insight into what the participants
understand to be significant changes over
time and in relation to different contexts.
6. Safely store the photographs and
audio material on a computer and
transcribe the recordings. Read the
transcriptions on several occasions,
highlighting recurring topics and points
of interest. The photographs should be
analysed in conjunction with the photo-walks
and on-going conversations rather than
independently. Understanding photographs
as situated within the go-along can help
to tease out nuances between different
participants.
Given the immersive nature of photo go-
alongs, it is important to remember that the
material generated will not be representative
of the experiences of all and to consider
the diversity of experiences that might fall
outside of the individuals engaged with.
7. Use the photographs and accounts
collected to creatively disseminate
research findings. Think about how to
communicate these findings to diverse
audiences. The photographs and narratives
could be used to tell a story about the
community, individuals and places engaged
with. Why not create an exhibition or use
some of the photographs and narratives to
punctuate a report or presentation? Can they
be used as a provocation to open further
areas of research?
Sharing the material created can be a good
way of bringing people together, celebrating
the project and thanking participants for
their time and participation.
PAGE 19
Photo go-alongs
Examples of using photo go-alongs in social science research
More-than older age: making sense of place
Researcher: Dr Amy Barron, The University of Manchester
This research used photo go-alongs whilst
researching with thirty-two older people from
Prestwich, Greater Manchester. One aim of
this research was to foreground the lived
dimensions of older age against the policy
backdrop of creating what the World Health
Organisation call ‘age-friendly cities’. Policies
targeted at older age have a tendency to
focus on common medical and/or mobility
needs, overlooking the rich diversity of what
it means to be an older person. As such,
this research sought to highlight the social
and cultural components of being an older
person in Prestwich. Photo go-alongs were
used alongside a suite of other creative and
participatory approaches to understand the
city from the perspective of older individuals.
This flexible combination of methods shed
light on those often-overlooked aspects
of life (memories, emotions and practices)
which are obscured in policy agendas geared
toward older people in favour of a top-down
approach. In this project, photo go-alongs:
i) Demonstrated the importance of creating
spaces in the city that are welcoming and a
space of respite.
ii) Foregrounded commonalities amongst a
diverse group, such as the importance of
specific buildings, monuments or statues as
way-finders and memory-joggers.
iii) Highlighted how individual life histories
shape the ways people understand and
engage with a place.
 
iv) Showed how the experience of the city
can vary greatly depending on the other
practices and events that are encountered.
v) Revealed how age, disability and the urban
landscape combine to effect feelings of
safety and belonging. For example, points
where being a wheelchair user might be
challenging.
The photographs and narratives created
by participants were used to collaboratively
assemble a photo and story collection called
‘Place, Belonging, Manchester’ which was
shared at different venues across Greater
Manchester for the region’s ‘Festival of Ageing’
which was part of the age-friendly initiative.
The focus of the event was not about the
number or quality of the photographs, nor
on the composition of the collection. Rather,
the collection i) offered a way of disrupting
reductive representations of older age by
showing the diverse ways participants led
their lives and ii) provided a place for visitors
to discuss and share their own opinions and
perspectives. The collection served to open
conversation between policy makers, older
people and academics about what ‘older
age’ means whilst also sharing it with the
communities who had shared their time and
thoughts.
PAGE 20
Photo go-alongs
Examples of using photo go-alongs in social science research
Age-friendly seating and sense of place
Researcher: Dr Amy Barron, The University of Manchester
This research explored how older people
understand and experience a variety of
seating in five different city-centre areas in
Manchester. The study focused both on the
design of seating and the more complex
aspects of place, from an age-friendly
perspective. The relationship between design,
people and place was explored through
surveying the number and style of benches
available and semi-structured walking
interviews in which participants photographed
different seating and places used as seating,
such as walls. These photographs were then
overlaid onto a map to create a picture of
feelings associated with the variety of seating
 
available in the city. The photo go-along
highlighted the importance of developing a
place-based understanding of seating, based
on the perspective of older people going
about their everyday lives. A report was then
written for Manchester City Council which
was shared with the Age-Friendly Manchester
Design Group, The Older People’s Board,
Age-Friendly Bristol and the Intergenerational
Design Symposium. This report is available on
Manchester City Council’s website and is used
to inform policy decisions on how to make
cities more inclusive and accessible for older
people.
PAGE 21
Photo go-alongs
Where else could photo go-alongs
be used?
The diversity of ways photo go-alongs can be
used makes them suitable for researching a
range of topics. For example:
l Photo go-alongs might be usefully
incorporated into urban design or place-
making decisions and policies by providing
insight into how different people use, interact
and relate to a place. The combination of
movement and photography can reveal
patterns of interaction between different
people, shedding light on how communities
and places come into being. Photo go-alongs
would highlight how depth and meaning
emerge through everyday practices, showing
what is important to those who live there.
l History groups, museums and other cultural
venues could use photo go-alongs to
document the living memories and histories
of places and communities. The mobile and
mindful nature of photo go-alongs means
participants reflect on things that are part
and parcel of everyday life, foregrounding
accounts that might otherwise be forgotten or
overlooked.
l They might be used to foster dialogue
between different stakeholders, particularly in
diverse communities. For example, individuals
from different backgrounds could be asked
to photograph what is important to them in
their neighbourhood in relation to a proposed
redevelopment or initiative. The photographs
taken could then be used to engender
conversation, build understandings of
difference and enable a decision to be made
that will best serve the community as a whole.
Top tips
1. Be clear about the flexible, open and
participant-led nature of this method.
Sometimes the freedom provided by
this approach can be unfamiliar to
participants who might expect a more
defined set of instructions.
2. Let participants lead on deciding how the
research will unfold by being open and
responsive to needs and suggestions as
they emerge.
3. Immerse and engage in the process.
Too often research is presented as
a neat and definitive activity in which
a ‘researcher’ extracts information
from a ‘participant’ to then ‘accurately
represent’ it back to the world in the
form of statistics and facts. The reality
is that the world is much messier than
these categories allow. Trying to confine
the messy and evolving world into pre-
defined boxes not only undermines
how life takes place but can exclude
interesting and important aspects of life.
PAGE 22
Photo go-alongs

Further reading
l More-than-representational
 approaches to the life-course.
l Seating
 and sense of place report.
l Checklists
 alone cannot create age-friendly places:
lived experiences matter.
l Beyond
 ‘older age’: a photo and story collection to
illuminate the individual.
l Pluralising
 the walking interview:
Researching (im)mobilities with Muslim women.

To reference: Barron, A. (2021). ‘Photo go-alongs’, in

Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger,
L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful
social science methodologies for 21st century problems.
Manchester: Aspect and The University of Manchester.

PAGE 23
Methods for Change
Participatory
Activist Research
Prof. Jenny Pickerill,
The University of Sheffield

Dr Laura Pottinger,
Dr Ulrike Ehgartner,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Prof. Jenny Pickerill
j.m.pickerill@sheffield.ac.uk
Participatory Activist Research

Participatory Activist Research requires the researcher to

participate in the thing that they are trying to understand.
This approach can be useful for exploring the workings of
communities, groups and organisations, and contributing
to their goals in the process.
It is premised on the researcher spending time in a place, observing
and experiencing what happens in the daily lives of individuals
involved in that setting. The type, duration and level of participation
may vary depending on the needs of the group and the wishes
of participants. In some contexts, the approach may be based
primarily around observing what is taking place in an organisation
and reporting back. In others, the researcher may play a more
active role in shaping what happens in the scene in which they are
working. It builds upon Participatory Action Research and other
ways to describe this more activist oriented participatory approach
are ‘scholar activism’ or ‘doings in place’.

PAGE 25
Participatory Activist Research

How does Participatory Activist

Research create or contribute to
change? 
Participatory Activist Research is a method that
supports organisations and communities to meet
their own objectives, which may include social
or environmental transformation of some kind.
As such, the types of change that this approach
facilitates tend to be led by the individuals and
groups involved. While change is often assumed
to occur when a research project is complete and
recommendations are published, in participatory
research change can begin from the moment
the researcher starts asking questions. The initial
dialogue between researcher and participants
provides an opportunity for reflection that may
not ordinarily take place. By offering an outside
perspective on day-to-day activity, Participatory
Activist Research can provide fresh insight for
participants into practices and ways of working
that they may otherwise take for granted. By
documenting activities and achievements and
presenting them back, Participatory Activist
Research can often validate and encourage
organisations in their work. Tao teaching Jenny carpentry as he builds his house
at Lammas Eco-village
What ideas or concepts
as well as what they say, to really understand
influence this approach?
what is happening within that community. It
Participatory Activist Research is influenced by builds upon earlier notions of Participatory
feminist and postcolonial frameworks, which Action Research in its explicit call for researchers
ask us to read the world for difference, and to to not only participate but to actively work with
notice the mundane and the everyday. Ethically, communities to help them achieve their goals.
Participatory Activist Research is committed
to going beyond extracting knowledge from
communities, by instead actively contributing to
the goals of the individuals and groups involved
in the research. Like other participatory and
ethnographic approaches, it looks beyond
surface explanations and verbal accounts. It is
based on the idea that the researcher needs to
be involved in the detail of what participants do,

PAGE 26
Participatory Activist Research

Why might I want to use Participatory Activist Research?

l Participatory Activist Research can be used l As well as exploring particular questions
when working with organisations of various or issues, Participatory Activist Research
sizes, including activist groups that have a can benefit participants by describing and
strong intent and clear idea of what they documenting their activities, achievements
are trying to achieve. It can be used to help and journeys, and presenting these
organisations, groups or communities check observations back to them. It can play an
that their work is meeting its aims effectively, important role in validating the efforts of
and to point to problems, opportunities or groups or organisations, encouraging and
questions they may otherwise overlook. raising awareness about their work.
l It works with participants as equal partners
in the research, to identify the questions
or issues they wish to explore. As a result,
participants may feel more invested in the
research and be able to recognise a tangible
benefit from their involvement.
l By working to support the aims of participants,
it is useful for researching communities and
groups that are busy, focused on campaigning,
or with limited resources or time to devote
freely to a research project. Designing
research around the needs of participants and
offering to volunteer in the day-to-day work of
the organisation can support the researcher
to gain access, and can make the process
of research more meaningful and useful for
those involved.
l This is an approach that requires patience
and often intensive, long term participation,
but it can yield surprising results. Spending
time observing and listening carefully can
expose complex issues, around, for example,
race, gender or income that participants may
be less inclined to talk about in an interview.
Taking part in mundane, everyday activities
Hoppie cutting old wine bottles into glass bricks for
can help identify the barriers that may be
use in the construction of a wall in her eco-house
stopping a group reaching its goals.

PAGE 27
 Participatory Activist Research
Step by step guide to using Participatory Activist Research:
1. Learn about the organisation and
context: Start by doing some background
research to understand the organisation
involved in the research. This may include
reading online materials or reports, or
perhaps some light touch observation in
the space where this group comes together.
This is important for developing a base of
knowledge before discussions begin and for
establishing rapport with participants.
2. Connect with key individuals: Arrange a
meeting with key individuals to talk about the
issues or questions they may be interested
in exploring through the research. Ask the
group what they would like to achieve, what is
preventing them reaching this goal, what are
they struggling with, or what would they like
to know more about?
The aim of initial conversations is to reach
an agreement about what the research will
explore. This dialogue is not completely
participant led - the researcher will bring
their own questions and ideas, but should
approach these discussions with an open
mind and aim to build the research around
the needs of the participants.
3. Make a research plan: Write down an
outline of the research, including its focus,
duration, methods involved (e.g. recorded
interviews, taking photographs, writing field
notes), and outputs that will be produced (e.g.
a summary, a report, articles). Give the group
time to reflect on this document when the
researcher is not present, to ensure everyone
agrees on what has been proposed. Provide
participants with options for how they will be
identified or anonymised, both individually
and collectively, and expect consent to be an
 
ongoing process that may be revisited and
renegotiated over the course of the research.
4. Articulate the value of the research:
Participants may be busy, with limited time
or resources. Work with participants to
understand what the researcher can do to
support their aims and day to day activities.
This may mean volunteering for an agreed
period of time.
If you are staying with a community, be
clear on whether you will be paying for
accommodation or food, and if there are any
rules you are expected to follow while on site.
5. Spend time with participants: This could
include volunteering on specific tasks (e.g.
gardening, building), joining in with meetings
and communal activities (e.g. cooking, eating
together, washing up), and carrying out
some core methods such as semi-structured
interviews, filming, or writing observational
notes. It can be useful to present yourself as
an enthusiastic novice, rather than an expert,
to encourage participants to explain what
they are doing or working on.
6. Be present and stay on track: Pay
attention to what happens in the moments
between these more structured activities.
Something as mundane as sharing a cup of
tea can give both researcher and participant a
chance to relax and reflect, often yielding rich
insight. Make time for breaks, and remember
to write up field notes at the end of each day
while they are still fresh.
7. Share findings diversely and creatively.
Plan to produce a range of different outputs,
with differing timescales, considering what
would be most interesting and useful for
participants.
PAGE 28
Participatory Activist Research

An example of using Participatory Activist Research

in social science research 
Affordable eco-homes: low-income environmental solutions
Researcher: Prof. Jenny Pickerill, The University of Sheffield

This research project aimed to understand months later, and shared with the community
the approaches and practices that make for feedback. When complete each case study
affordable eco-building possible, in order to was sent a hard copy of the book ‘Eco-homes’.
identify how we can create more opportunities
The Participatory Activist Research approach
for people to self-build their own eco-
was particularly useful in this context as
homes. It focused on working with successful
residents initially struggled to articulate what
small-scale, community-led, self-built eco-
was different about how they built their homes
developments targeted at low-income
or how they lived because it was normal for
residents in England, Spain, Thailand, USA
them. It often took doing things with them,
and Argentina. The researcher worked with
and for the researcher to ask why something
organisations who advocated for more self-
was done a certain way, for interviewees to
build or eco-homes.
then explain and reflect on a process that to
It involved the researcher staying with the them appeared obvious and mundane.
community, paying for accommodation, joining
This work has been impactful in how it has
with communal activities such as eating,
shared the possibilities of self-build low-cost
washing up and cleaning. Other methods
housing practices, has been used to support
included interviews (with builders, architects
planning applications, and has resulted in
and residents), writing observations, and
productive conversations with planners and
taking photographs. In the process of writing
architects. Participants have also noted how
up the research, new themes emerged. These
the research helped them feel validated
were then taken back to the community and
and enabled further conversations in their
discussed in communal conversations. The
communities about some of the issues raised.
researcher produced a short, descriptive
report about the place which was shared
with participants, and then published in a
blog. Academic articles and a book based on
the research were drafted between 6 and 12

PAGE 29
Participatory Activist Research

Where else could Participatory

Activist Research be used?
Participatory Activist Research has great
potential to be used in settings where it is
helpful to build up a systematic picture of
how ordinary everyday action is making a
difference to the world. Charities, third sector
organisations, community groups, global
activist organisations and start-up companies
all engage in a variety of practices that build
a sense of purpose, trust and action. Some
groups have a specific vision of how to move
forward; other groups may have less of a clearly
defined purpose. Whatever the structure of your
organisation it can sometimes be helpful to stop
and reflect on how things are actually working,
in practice, and whether this aligns with overall
goals and the change a group wants to make in
the world.
Top tips
1. Start slowly. Take your time to get to
know the place and the people.
2. Write everything down, including things
that seem irrelevant at the time. The
smallest observation can turn out to be
the most interesting.
3. Listen very carefully if people tell you
there is an area they do not want to
discuss. The aim is not to understand
every detail of a person’s life, but to
explore a topic, issue or question.
4. Make sure you do your bit and
participate fully. This may mean doing
the washing up or the cleaning. Make
sure you are contributing and pulling
your weight!

While monitoring and evaluation (M&E) 5. Always provide feedback. If you just
frameworks may help to assess what is disappear, participants can be left feeling
working; Participatory Activist Research is confused and disappointed, and it can
useful for organisations who are interested in damage any potential future research
demonstrating how the ‘mundane’ activities in that space or community (for yourself
build up to create organisational culture and and other researchers).
wider societal and environmental impact. It is
sometimes helpful to bring in an external person
(researcher) to do this, and there are often
students, academics and other researchers
who might be interested in participating in
your organisation to create change – reach
out to your local university! Alternatively, this
can be done within the group, by setting up a
framework for the research, creating space for
conversation and analysis, and noting the small
details.

PAGE 30
Participatory Activist Research

Further reading
 he following bibliography is a good starting point for resources on
T
activist research methods:
l Activist
 Research Methods
These academic journal articles are also useful further reading on
Participatory Activist research and related approaches:
l Doings
 with the land and sea: Decolonising geographies,
Indigeneity, and enacting place-agency
l Feminist
 geographies and participatory action research: co-
producing narratives with people and place

To reference: Pickerill, J., Pottinger, L. and Ehgartner, U.

(2021). ‘Participatory Activist Research’ in Barron, A., Browne,
A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.)
Methods for Change: Impactful social science methodologies
for 21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The
University of Manchester.

PAGE 31
Methods for Change
Gentle
Methodologies
Dr Laura Pottinger,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Laura Pottinger
laura.pottinger@manchester.ac.uk
Gentle Methodologies

A Gentle Methodology offers an approach for designing

research that is sensitive, collaborative, and careful, and
which can attune to small-scale, mundane and non-verbal
detail. Gentleness is understood as a particular orientation
towards participants, materials and oneself in planning,
carrying out and representing research with individuals,
groups and environments. It can be useful to think about
Gentle Methodologies as bringing together three key
components: 1) the body; 2) pace; and 3) sharing.

As a methodology (rather than a method) this approach offers

a particular way of thinking about or framing participatory and
ethnographic research. Gentle Methodologies can therefore bring
together an array of different methods. These are often focused
on doing activities (which will vary depending on the research
context) together with participants, over an extended timeframe
where possible. Gentle Methodologies have an ethical commitment
to treating research participants, places and materials with care,
minimising disruption, and contributing in a meaningful way to the
objectives and priorities of those involved in the research. They are
particularly useful for shedding light on lived experience and subtle
detail, and for understanding what is important to people in their
everyday lives.

PAGE 33
Gentle Methodologies

How do gentle methodologies What ideas or concepts are

create or contribute to change?  connected with this approach?
Gentle Methodologies can lead to powerful Gentle Methodologies are closely linked to
change. As well as generating new participatory and ethnographic approaches,
understandings and theories about the topic which involve taking part in, observing and
under investigation, Gentle Methodologies, going along with participants either in their
like other participatory approaches, provide daily activities, working environments or as they
opportunities to directly support the perform a particular task. They are influenced by
transformative objectives of those involved in feminist approaches that foreground mundane,
the research. This could happen in a number embodied experience and care, and are
of ways, such as: working with members informed by recent writing about ‘humble’, ‘slow’
of a community group to understand and and multi-sensory approaches in geography and
raise awareness of a particular local issue; the wider social sciences.
volunteering at an event or as part of the daily
A Gentle Methodology is formed of three
activities of a charity or service provider while
elements: the body, pace, and sharing. Research
observing what is taking place; or producing
adopting this approach pays attention to
written or photographic material to document
the bodies and bodily conduct of researcher
and evaluate a project, which could be used
and researched, and is concerned with small
to secure future funding. As such, they are
details, emotions, and materials. It aims to be
particularly useful in research that sets out to
responsive and is often slowly paced, involving
work with (rather than on or for) communities,
repeat engagements with participants over an
groups, organisations or institutions as co-
extended duration or activities that encourage
researchers or partners.
slower ways of moving, working or reflecting.
At an individual level, participants involved in Participants are encouraged to share in the
gentle research may value the process of talking process of conducting research, from deciding
about, showing, or reflecting on things that they where and how research encounters happen,
view as important. A gentle approach extends to to identifying research questions and problems
the process of presenting and sharing research that need investigating.
findings, and using them to galvanise change.
Sarah Corbett’s work on ‘craftivism’, for example,
highlights the disarming effect of presenting
decision makers with crafted items featuring
activist messages. These gently rendered,
often hand-stitched demands can provoke a
powerful response in the receiver. By attuning
to and amplifying small, subtle details, Gentle
Methodologies can make the mundane matter.
They draw attention to and make a case for
actions, concerns, or connections between
people that are important, yet often overlooked.

PAGE 34
Gentle Methodologies

Why might I want to use a gentle methodology?

l Gentle Methodologies aim to document,
analyse and understand embodied detail:
what is done by and felt within the body of
both researcher and participant, including
emotions and sensations, as well as what is
verbally spoken or written.
l The slow pace of gentle approaches enables
meaningful, trusted relationships to be
developed over time. It allows space for
researchers and participants to reflect, to
return with new questions, and to build
theories that can be tested.
l Gentle Methodologies can complement the
agendas of individuals or groups, by working
alongside participants towards shared goals
and by amplifying quiet or overlooked aspects
of their activity.
l They are well suited to understanding
motivations, enthusiasms and practices.
They ask what is meaningful or important to
people, by looking closely at, for example,
where participants’ time and energies are
focused, which actions are repeated, and the
material and immaterial things that are shared
in the course of the research. Like other
participatory and ethnographic approaches,
they are interested in what people do, as well
as what they say.
l Gentle approaches can shed light on
the things, relationships or causes that
participants care for and about. They can
illuminate how care is expressed and
performed in mundane, material and
interpersonal forms.

Going along with practical, seasonal tasks:removing seeds from ripe tomatoes with participants
during a research encounter

PAGE 35
Gentle Methodologies
Step by step guide to using gentle methodologies: 
1. Identify research participants: This
may mean working with an existing group
or organisation, or locating a collection
of individuals connected by a shared
occupation, interest or practice. Start
conversations about how the research
could be valuable to participants. Are there
questions they want to investigate, concerns
they wish to amplify or resources that could
be developed as part of the project?
2. Locate the spaces of research: Find out
about where these groups or organisations
get together, or the types of spaces where
shared activities take place. Understanding
the places that make up the research field will
help with designing appropriate methods. E.g.
is there a key location or multiple research
sites? Are they indoor or outdoor? Who else
uses the space?
3. Timing and pacing: a gentle methodological
approach works best when carried out slowly,
over an extended timeframe that allows for
seasonal variations in activity and long-term
immersion in a place, community, or practice.
This is not always possible, however! To
make the most of available time, think about
organising several separate encounters,
at different times of day, days of the week,
or points in the year. Are there key events
or activities that are important for you to
join? Try to make space in the research for
activities that go at a slow pace – gardening
or crafting together are a few examples. Build
in opportunities during research encounters
for quiet and reflection – this can be effective
where the research has a shorter timeframe.
4. Get involved: The process of deciding on
methods for collecting data is likely to be
ongoing and evolving. Think about what
ordinarily takes place in these groups or
communities and find activities you can go
along with. Can you volunteer in a way that
supports their work? Perhaps cook or eat
a meal together, or take part in building
or making something? You could ask
participants to design an experience based
on the topic of the research, or you could
facilitate a collective writing or filming session
to document their priorities or interests. The
conversations around this process can be
illuminating – notice what is included, what
is cut and how decisions are made. You
may also wish to introduce new methods
such as photo go-alongs, interviews, or
object oriented methods, each of which will
generate different insights.
Continual reflection on the practical and
ethical issues raised by the research is part
of this process. Remember to check in with
participants throughout, develop mutual
understandings about what participants are
consenting to and what activity is included
within the research.
5. Collect data: Record some conversations,
take notes, take photos, and pay attention
to the material and immaterial things that
are shared with you in the course of the
research. Observe what participants are
doing with their bodies – where do they
congregate, how long do they linger, what
activities are they immersed in, what do they
handle? What practical or physical tasks can
you experience yourself? Draw on as many
senses as possible, and note what you feel,
smell, taste, hear and see. Notice emotional
responses, both your own and those of
participants.
PAGE 36
Gentle Methodologies
6. Share findings: Again, you don’t need to
wait until the end - there may be insights
to share at various points in the project.
Participants can play an active role in this
aspect. Think about how you can work
together to persuade, raise awareness,
celebrate, or create change. Methods for
sharing findings could include an exhibition,
a workshop, a co-written blog or article, or an
online resource. This depends on research
context, participants’ priorities and what you
want to amplify.
Seed swap table at Seedy Sunday Brighton, an annual seed sharing event
7. Analyse data: Approach analysis as a
process that happens throughout the
research, not just at the end. Build in time
to look for patterns and themes across
your data as you go. This may generate
new questions or topics to introduce to
participants. Seek out their reflections, ideas
and questions too.
PAGE 37
Gentle Methodologies
An example of a Gentle Methodology
in social science research 
Cultivating alternatives: crafting, sharing and propagating seed saving practice in the UK
Researcher: Dr Laura Pottinger
This research examined the practices of
“seed savers” - gardeners who cultivate
fruits and vegetables, then select, process,
and save seeds for themselves and other
growers. It explored the relationship between
the mundane dimensions of seed saving
and gardeners’ broader experiences of
environmental activism. With fieldwork carried
out over fourteen months, the research
took place in gardens, allotments, and seed
exchange events with seed savers identified
through an annual seed swap event, Seedy
Sunday Brighton, and Garden Organic’s
Heritage Seed Library.
Rather than setting out with a clear set of
research questions or hypotheses, it instead
began through a process of going along with
gardeners in their everyday activities with
plants and seeds. Practically, this included
helping out with garden jobs like weeding or
tying in tomatoes, putting seeds into packets
ready for a seed swap event at which the
researcher then volunteered, and generally
spending time with participants in their
growing spaces. The research was organised
around repeat encounters with participants
spaced across a full year, or ‘growing season’,
in order to gain insight into the different
seasonal practices they performed. Themes
and questions developed throughout this
process, with each new visit enabling fresh
questions to be explored together with
participants. The methods used also evolved
as the project progressed. Participants often
initiated a guided walk as part of these
encounters, as well as building in time to
share food or a cup of tea. Eating, walking
and working became important methods
in themselves, allowing for multi-sensory
observation and participation.
Though gentle, these methods are highly
significant to understanding important local
to global challenges including biodiversity
loss, climate change, local urban greening
to mitigate heat islands, food sovereignty
and more. Paying attention to the different
things that were shared across the research
– seeds, plants, recipes, advice, time, crops,
stories – helped shed light on the ideas,
principles and material things that were
important to participants in practical, often
non-verbal ways. Using Gentle Methodologies
here highlighted gardeners’ everyday and
embodied contributions to preserving
biodiversity, keeping cherished varieties
in circulation, and avoiding commercial
transactions in favour of community seed
production. They helped to shed light on
practices that were often performed quietly
or at a small scale, yet were widespread
within this community. Understanding
these dynamics can benefit community
organisations and interest groups working on
complex socio-environmental challenges by
identifying, drawing together, and amplifying
attitudes and behaviours that may otherwise
be under-acknowledged, and they therefore
hold the potential to galvanise further action.
PAGE 38
Gentle Methodologies

Where else could a gentle

methodology be used? Top tips
1. As well as paying attention to what is
This approach can be used to research spaces
tender, quiet, careful, and subtle, notice
already considered gentle, where care is
things that are not gentle too. Observe
performed, or where things happen at a slow
where they contradict or collide with
place or low volume, as in the seed saving
gentle ways of being or doing, or can be
research outlined above or other community
expressed in the same actions.
settings. It would also be well suited, for
example, in research into everyday experiences 2. Try not to edit out uncomfortable
of mental health or related care settings, for sensations and emotions that arise in
investigating arts practice and for evaluation the process of research. Though they
of the wide-ranging impacts of mutual aid or are often discounted as trivial or even
community projects. Elements of a Gentle unprofessional when it comes to writing
Methodology could also be introduced into and representing findings, they can point
many different aspects of policy research or to what is important.
other institutional processes. A gentle approach
3. Build in time to pause. Taking a break
can be adopted in these settings by ensuring
from the field or changing the pace can
that time, space and reflection is embedded in
be a useful strategy, allowing time for
research or planning processes; by creating fun
ideas to percolate and for the researcher
and creative moments in teams to foreground
and participants to reflect, return, and
embodied practices, the sharing of knowledge
revisit the research afresh.
and material things; and by paying attention to
the pace of activity and whether moments of
calm and creativity may be conducive to building
new ideas or cultivating trust in teams. Gentle
Methodologies can also offer fresh insight into
places or practices less often associated with
gentle qualities, where quietness or tenderness
may be undervalued or glossed over. As such,
gentle approaches could be used to research
the working practices of activist groups or
corporate organisations, or for understanding
the impacts of national and regional policies on
local communities.

PAGE 39
Gentle Methodologies

Further reading
l Craftivist
 Collective. BBC Radio 4 Four Thought: Full Script.
l Treading
 carefully through tomatoes: embodying a gentle
methodological approach.
l Planting the seeds of a quiet activism.
l Towards
 humble geographies.

To reference: Pottinger, L. (2021). ‘Gentle Methodologies’

in Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger,
L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social
science methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester:
Aspect and The University of Manchester.

PAGE 40
Methods for Change
Object-oriented
Interviews
Dr Jennifer Owen,
Cardiff University

Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger,

The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Jennifer Owen
owenj4@cardiff.ac.uk
Object-oriented Interviews

Object-oriented Interviews involve talking about and with

objects to learn about the everyday lives of different people.
The interview might happen around objects which have
been deliberately selected by the participant or interviewer,
or it might unfold in a more ad hoc way, talking around a
loose collection of objects.
Either way encountering objects happens as a result of a
participant-led tour of their space or when undertaking a task
together, such as sorting or cleaning. Object-orientated interviews
may take place in a participant’s home, at their workplace, or even
in a self-storage unit, in order to see the objects in-situ and allow for
opportunities to handle them.
Rather than being determined by a list of questions, object-
oriented-interviews are often concerned with the journey that more
open discussions about objects might take us on. Participants are
encouraged to reflect on their relationship with their objects, how
this may have changed over time, and is revealed by where the
object resides. Approaching the interview from a recollection of
memories or feelings associated with an object(s) leads organically
to narratives of an individual’s personal or family biography,
including discussion of responsibilities, challenges, hopes, and fears.

PAGE 42
Object-oriented Interviews
How does this method create or
contribute to change?  influence this method?
As with many social science research methods,
a lot of change occurs in the process of
undertaking Object-oriented Interviews. This can
vary from a participant having a realisation or
expressing emotion, to being a subtle thought or
feeling that ‘sticks around’ with a participant for a
while after the interview has finished. Often these
moments of change occur because participants
are engaging with objects that they had stored
away or forgotten, which may signify an important
person, place, or event in their life. Participants
have described object-orientated interviews
as being cathartic, as they have provided the
opportunity to share and reflect in-depth on their
experiences, such as bereavement, instability,
or strains on relationships. Throughout the
interview, the researcher takes on the role
of a supportive listener and is equipped with
information about advice and support services
should the participant need them.
Object-oriented Interviews can also contribute
to the creation of change in a broader sense,
for businesses, charities, or organisations.
The material collected from Object-oriented
Interviews provides an in-depth insight into
people’s lived experiences of using particular
services or ways in which their daily needs are
being met or not. This information can be used
when building the case for funding or investment
in services, such as domestic support, highlight
ways in which these services can be improved to
better support clients, and also be used in the
lobbying of councils and national governments.
What ideas or concepts
Object-orientated interviews are a form of object
elicitation which became popular in the social
sciences during the ‘material turn’ of the 1990s.
This shift led researchers to focus on other parts
of consumption, other than acquiring an item, to
include using, keeping, and disposal. Research
in this area worked to better understand the
mundane and everyday interactions we have
with our things, which are fundamental to our
identities, homes, and relationships. A number
of approaches were developed to understand
objects as parts of networks or assemblages, or
focusing on their ‘affective’ qualities, but object-
orientated interviews take the approach that
objects are ‘biographical’. This means that they
are enlivened by the memories and emotions
endowed upon them, and therefore become an
extension of the self.
The object-orientated interview combines the
method of using objects to elicit responses from
participants with home tours or ‘go-alongs’ and/
or hands-on tasks such as sorting or cleaning.
The tactility of picking up and viewing objects as
part of a tour or task, means that objects can
be examined, touched, and even smelt by the
participant if they want. Unlike traditional object
elicitation methods, object-orientated interviews
also allow for instances when objects are not
visible but can be talked about in a general or
collective sense. For example, a participant could
gesture to a box and talk about the contents
belonging to their child and this would generate
discussions around parenthood and care. The
box could be opened during the interview to
look at specific items, but it is not necessary for
the method to work.
PAGE 43
Object-oriented Interviews
Why might I want to use Object-oriented Interviews?
l  bject-oriented Interviews are a great means
O l
to talk about the mundane things that make
up our everyday lives, but we rarely pay much
attention to. In particular they are well suited
to research about people’s homes, as this is
where we keep most of our things.
l  hey can provide rich insights into an
T l
individual’s life course. Talking about and with
objects can be used to discuss significant life
events such as divorce or bereavement, or
transitions including becoming an adult or
ageing. l  aking part in object-interviews can be
l  bject-oriented Interviews help participants
O cathartic for participants, as they have the
to untangle complex processes that make up
their lives. The tactile nature of this method
helps participants to talk about emotions,
feelings, and memories to a greater depth than
in a more traditional interview.
 articipants have a large degree of autonomy
P
in choosing the direction and content of the
interview, so can decide what they would or
would not like to talk about. As a researcher
noting which objects are ignored or avoided
can also be revealing.
 bject-orientated interviews provide large
O
quantities of rich data as participant’s recount
their everyday experiences, as well as their
reflections on how these relate or are
significant to broader issues or concerns.
T
opportunity to share and reflect in-depth on
their experiences in a supportive environment,
and with someone outside of their immediate
networks.
PAGE 44
 Object-oriented Interviews

Step by step guide to using Object-oriented Interviews: 

1. Recruit participants. This can be done

through gatekeepers, advertising on social Think about how you record the interview.
media or specific community platforms, or Object-oriented interviews often involve
word of mouth. Working with gatekeepers moving around a space or undertaking a
can help you get in touch with people who hands-on task, so holding your recorder or
might not be reachable in other ways, such as setting it up in one place might not be
service users or marginalised groups. convenient. Instead wear the recorder
around your neck or wrist.
If you are working with a gatekeeper,
you might need to come up with a
partnership agreement together. This
would cover issues such as the sharing
of data, which may be important for
participants to know before they agree to
take part. It is worth paying attention to how the
participant is interacting with the objects.
Are they picking it up and inspecting it? Are
2. Meet your participant. Whilst this step isn’t they holding it close? Where do they put it
totally necessary, do consider meeting your afterwards?
participant in a public place, like a café, before
the object-orientated interview. This allows
you to build rapport in a safe environment
before meeting in a private or more secluded
place. During this meeting you could conduct
a more traditional interview if that provides Remember that object-oriented interviews
useful background information to the object- may unexpectedly unearth sensitive topics
orientated interview. and memories. Check-in with participants
regularly to see if they are comfortable,
3. Conduct the object-oriented interview. would like to change topic, take a break,
Keeping the tone conversational and begin or stop.
the interview with broad questions to put the
participant at ease. Then ask your participant
to discuss the things in the room/cupboard/
box. Some participants won’t need much
prompting, but if you need to you can direct
4. Take photographs. Having a photographic
their attention to different objects. Although
record of the objects discussed can be really
you may have an idea of the type of things you
helpful in the analysis process, to remember
hope to discuss, have the confidence to let the
or contextualise what is being discussed
participant lead and observe their reactions
in the transcripts. If you have permission
to particular objects only asking follow-up
from participants, you can also use the
questions to tease out their significance if
photographs in outputs.
needed.

PAGE 45
 Object-oriented Interviews
5. Tidy and finish up. If you have got things out
or made a bit of mess during the interview,
help your participant tidy up or put things
away before wrapping up and ending the
interview.
If you have been undertaking a task as
part of the interview, such as decluttering,
you might need to do things afterwards
– like take the bins out or make
arrangements for objects to be taken to a
charity shop – which have been agreed in
advance but go beyond the scope of the
interview itself.
Examples of using Object-oriented Interviews
in social science research 
Getting your stuff together: The role of decluttering services
in the management of domestic materiality over the life course
Researcher: Dr Jennifer Owen, Cardiff University
The Attic Project, between Care & Repair
Cymru, Safer Wales, Care & Repair Cardiff and
the Vale, and Newport Care & Repair, funded
by the National Lottery Community Fund.
The project supported older people to sort
through accumulated things in their homes
which were preventing adaptations, repairs or
downsizing, and therefore impacting on their
quality of life in several ways.
The researcher worked as a volunteer on the
project to assist older people to declutter, and
in the process reminisce about the objects in
their home. This decluttering took different
forms, depending on what the older people
needed and on their physical capabilities.
6. Write down fieldnotes. Since you’ll have
been busy during the object-orientated
interview you will need to find a time as soon
as possible afterwards to write down any
reflections or immediate thoughts. These
notes may form the basis of your analysis or
future writing.
7. Back at your computer. Be sure to back-
up recordings, photographs, and fieldnotes
securely, and transcribe interview recordings.
Analyse your collected data by identifying
reoccurring or significant themes; an analysis
software such as NVivo can be helpful here.
This project adopted a more participatory
approach to object-orientated interviews
where decluttering was the primary task and
the ethnographic conversations came about
organically from undertaking the process. Topics
which emerged from conversations included
support needs, family disputes, fears about
health and growing older, independence, and
loneliness.
The report generated from this research is
now being used as a means to promote the
importance of decluttering as a service that
sits between housing, social care and health
provision.
PAGE 46
Object-oriented Interviews

Examples of using Object-oriented Interviews

in social science research 
‘Out of sight, out of mind’ - The place of self-storage in securing pasts,
ordering the present and enabling futures
Researcher: Dr Jennifer Owen, Cardiff University

The researcher worked with self-storage

companies to recruit participants who rent
storage units of various sizes, for different
durations, and for a range of different reasons
including moving to a new house, following a
bereavement, hiding an activity from a partner,
and making space at home.
After an initial interview at a nearby café,
the researcher went with the participant to
their storage unit. Here participants were
confronted with things they had not seen for a
long time, and talked through their memories,
feelings, and attachments to their things and
how this had changed as a result of them
being distanced from their homes for a period
of time.
Conversations often unfolded around
Emma’s rejected things from her self-storage
collections of sealed boxes which participants
unit, visiting it for the first time in 3 years on
were reluctant to open, because they
were difficult to access in the tight and not return from working abroad
completely private space of the self-storage
facility or because they did not feel ready
to see their contents. The object-orientated
interviews nevertheless provided interesting
insights because participants could talk
about the process of moving their things
to self-storage when reminded of how they
had placed things into the unit for example,
and discuss what they remembered or had
forgotten about what was stored within.

Myles’s storage unit, keeping things out of

harm’s way during major home renovations

PAGE 47
Object-oriented Interviews

Where else could object-

Orientated Interviews be used? Top tips
1. Go with the flow and don’t not expect a
The diversity of ways Object-oriented Interviews
linear timeline from interviews. Allow the
can be used makes them suitable for
participant to take the lead, open boxes,
researching a range of topics. For example:
and the conversation to meander around
l  his method could be usefully applied to
T different objects, topics, and times. The
business, charity and other organisational way the interview unfolds will match how
contexts where domestic possessions the participant makes sense of their
are foregrounded, either temporarily or things and circumstances.
permanently, in people’s lives and are
2. Don’t worry if you can’t see or touch any
linked to wider issues or challenges they are
objects. Objects can be talked about in a
encountering.
collective sense and seeing things boxed
l  or example, object-orientated interviews
F up and put away can be just as emotive
could be used by homeless or refugee as engaging with single objects.
charities, or elderly care facilities, to
understand how to support people
moving between different between home
environments, by identifying what is important
to them in their daily lives.
l  ousing Associations may come across
H
residents who need help with dealing with
accumulations of things. Using object-
orientated interviews could help them to
better understanding of why things have been
held on to or are meaningful and then make
personalised recommendations.

PAGE 48
Object-oriented Interviews

Further reading
l 
Object interviews: getting participants to encounter and/or
connect with things
l 
Object interviews, material imaginings and ‘unsettling’ methods:
interdisciplinary approaches to understanding materials and
material culture
l Sensory Methods
l The Hidden History of the Mantlepiece
l 
Enhancing Meaning-Making in Research through Sensory
Engagement with Material Objects

To reference: Owen, J., Barron, A. and Pottinger, L.

(2021). ‘Object-oriented Interviews’ in Barron, A., Browne,
A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson,
J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social science
methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester:
Aspect and The University of Manchester

PAGE 49
Methods for Change
Oral Histories
and Futures
Dr Sarah Marie Hall,
Dr Amy Barron,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Sarah Marie Hall
sarah.m.hall@manchester.ac.uk
Oral Histories and Futures

Oral Histories and Futures involve the recording of people’s

experiences and opinions about their pasts, present
and futures. They adopt a detailed and comprehensive
approach to thinking about an individual’s life, as situated
within a particular economic, social and political context.
Typically used to research, document and preserve the unique life
trajectories of marginalised groups, they move beyond collecting
and recollecting life-courses to consider the present and the
prospective. Oral Histories and Futures are about accessing
imaginaries – thoughts, hopes, dreams, desires, possibilities – and
understanding how the person we are today is shaped by the
person we might want to become at some other point in the future.
Participants are encouraged to talk about what they wanted to
happen that has not, as much as where they might like their lives
to go, thereby providing narratives that are multidirectional and
multitemporal. While interviewing is the primary means of gathering
data, Oral Histories and Futures can also incorporate a participatory
component. This might involve asking participants to map their
biographies on a timeline or asking them to write a note to their
future self, and to reflect on these activities as part of the interview.

PAGE 51
Oral Histories and Futures
How do Oral Histories and Futures What ideas or concepts
create or contribute to change?  influence this method?
With Oral Histories and Futures, change does
not have to be extravagant, grandiose or overtly
transformational. Rather, change can be minor,
subtle and something that is induced collectively.
Through listening to the stories of individuals and
understanding them as situated within particular
contexts, Oral Histories and Futures can capture
experiences of change surrounding culture,
choice and preferences over time. Change can
also come from unearthing and sharing often
overlooked and marginalised experiences.
Simply taking the time to listen to someone’s life
story can change how the participant and the
researcher feel about themselves and their place
in the world. If an interview has the potential to
change someone then the researcher also has
a responsibility to make sure they signpost to
available support or counselling, and to recognise
that the change might not always be positive or
expected.
Oral Histories and Futures build on the
Oral History tradition by using interviewing
techniques to record, document and preserve
marginalised experiences. The innovation
comes with the incorporation of the ‘Futures’ or
prospective component. Building in a futures-
oriented element is based on the premise that
the narratives participants offer about their
past and future imaginaries are always crafted
in relation to what participants imagine for
themselves in the future. This future might be
immediate or further afield. In Oral Histories
and Futures, participants are also encouraged
to discuss how present experiences are shaped
by their past. To miss out these imaginaries of
the past and future would therefore provide an
incomplete account of everyday life. Driven by
a curiosity to gain rich insight into people’s lives
from personal perspectives and in the round,
Oral Histories and Futures also take inspiration
from participatory approaches by incorporating
an interactive element. The participatory
component is optional (see below) but insightful
for how it encourages reflection, engagement
and deeper consideration on the part of the
interviewee.
PAGE 52
Oral Histories and Futures
Why might I want to use Oral Histories and Futures?
l The storying of biographies, as the key
purpose of Oral Histories and Futures, can
encourage participants to understand all
elements in their lives together in novel ways,
by enveloping in reflections on past, present
and future selves. As such, the method
facilitates a comprehensive and in-depth
understanding of the lives of individuals and
how they relate to particular contexts.
l Oral Histories and Futures can be used to
bring marginalised voices and experience to
the fore. Marginalised does not only apply to
a particular social group (such as women or
older people, for example). This method could
also be used to shed light on an industry, a
place, or an event, or to document a particular
cultural, economic or political moment, such
as a music genre or sub-culture, protests or
elections, or economic crises.
l Oral Histories and Futures are also flexible
methods that can be enrolled with other
A hand reaching for a recorder, produced by Tom Young.
techniques, such as participatory life mapping
or photo elicitation.
l Oral Histories and Futures provide rich
material and often vast amounts of data –
interviews are usually 60-90 minutes, and
when accompanied by a task this produces
a transcript and additional materials. By
providing a space for participants to openly
reflect, this method produces a mix of detailed
day-to-day accounts and experiences as well
as thick description of the life of a participant
in the round.
l This method respects participants’ narratives
and can provide an open reflexive space
for interviewees. Participants often feel
better having spoken about something with
an uncritical stranger and tend to leave
understanding that their story matters. The
space of the interview is also often used to
work through ideas which the researcher is
simultaneously considering.
PAGE 53
 Oral Histories and Futures
Step by step guide to using Oral Histories and Futures:
1. Who
 and what to research? Before you
start collecting data, make sure you know
what marginalised experiences you are trying
to capture and what will be done with that
data. If the data will be used for an archive
or in a public capacity, you will need to make
sure that you draft recording agreements
beforehand.
2. Recruit participants. You can recruit
participants in different ways including
through gatekeepers, word of mouth,
advertising on social media or through
specific platforms to target people in an area
or community. Once research has started,
you could also ask participants if they know
of anyone who is experiencing similar things
who might be interested in being involved.
Make sure participants are aware that
an Oral History and Future is different
to an interview in that they will be
talking about details of their personal
biographies, and to only answer
questions that they are comfortable with.
3. Arrive equipped with a very simple
sheet of questions and prompts. These
questions should be a mixture of broad
questions and generic prompts. You should
start with questions that give the participant
the chance to talk freely. Perhaps ask why
they wanted to take part in the project. If the
participant opens up at the start, this might
provide a hint into something in their life that
you can pick up on later.
 
Remember that Oral Histories and Futures
are a conversational tool. You should try
to keep as quiet as possible, rather than
aim for a dialogue, giving the participant
the time and space to talk and offering an
interested, empathetic ear. As you move
through the questions, work at a pace that
matches theirs, so the participant does not
feel rushed.
5. Introduce a participatory task. The
participatory element can happen in any
part of the interview, but experience shows
it works well when embedded later into
the interview. If you are incorporating a
participatory element, be sure to let the
participants know beforehand. You could,
for example, ask participants to reflect on
what one piece of advice they would give to
their future self and ask them to write it on a
postcard.
5. How to end? When you feel you have
addressed all questions let the participant
know in a gentle way to avoid an abrupt end
to the interview. Ask the participant if there
is anything that you have not asked that they
think you should know, or whether there is
anything about their situation that you might
be interested in.
6. Checking in.. At the end of the interview,
check that the participant feels okay and
that they are still happy with what they
have agreed to. If you are worried about
somebody’s wellbeing or the impact the
interview has had on them, ensure they have
somebody with them, in person or on the
phone. You can also ask them to contact
you later in the day, or you can contact them
the next morning to check they are okay.
Remember to signpost them to support or
advice channels where necessary.
PAGE 54
Oral Histories and Futures

An example of where Oral Histories and Futures

have been used in social science research 
Lived experiences of reproduction in austerity
Researcher: Dr Sarah Marie Hall, The University of Manchester

This project is based on decisions around understandings and real-world applications

‘reproduction’ – namely, having children or concerning socio-spatial economic
more children – within the context of austerity. inequalities.
The project took place with participants in the
Many policy and charity organisations
North East of England as this area has been
working on issues related to the focus of this
hit particularly hard by austerity cuts and also
project (poverty, welfare, family life, gendered
has some of the lowest birth rates in the UK.
inequalities etc.) recognise that policymaking
Oral Histories and Futures were developed
processes need room for experimentation.
in this project to look at the experiences of
There is also a wide appreciation that research
people between the ages of 18 and 45 to talk
which feeds into policy should go beyond
about and understand why they have not had
shallow or anecdotal accounts. Policies which
children, or as many children as they may have
have an impact on people’s lived experiences
wanted, because of concerns about income,
need to be informed by data that comes
living arrangements, childcare costs and other
from people’s lived experiences. The depth
factors.
of Oral Histories and Future can provide
In previous ethnographies of everyday life such richness and detail, by investigating how
in austerity I had integrated biographical life people situate their lives and experiences in
mapping into discussions with participants, broader contexts.
and the Oral Histories and Futures
methodology evolved from here. The Oral
Histories and Futures interviews ask about
personal biographies, expectations of having
their own children, present circumstances
and future imaginaries. They also involve
participants giving advice to their future selves,
in the form of writing (or imagining writing)
on a postcard. By experimenting with Oral
History and Futures methods, the project has
transformative potential for interdisciplinary

PAGE 55
Oral Histories and Futures
Where else could Oral Histories
and Futures be used?
In capturing biographies in their fullest sense
(memories, present experiences, imagined
futures), Oral Histories and Futures can
be applied to the study of people, things,
institutions and places, and how they have
changed over time. Oral Histories and Futures
could be useful in research interested in the
particular histories of a community, place or
event, and they could also be used to explore
different generational experiences or sub-
cultures.
They can be useful beyond academia, and apply
well to policy, third sector and industry; e.g. to
explore the histories and futures of institutions,
the formation or dissolution of community
organisations, consumption and brand
identities, or policy processes and adaptations.
Some examples of organisations that could
find this method particularly valuable include
social housing providers, activist groups, and
organisations that provide welfare support, who
may be interested in exploring Oral Histories
and Futures with service users, group members
or other stakeholders.
The method can also be repeated over time,
such as in projects with a longitudinal focus. Oral
Histories and Futures can be incorporated into
a broader research design, and match well with
archival methods, ethnographic research and
discourse analysis. They can also be integrated
with secondary analysis and quantitative data,
such as local and national demographic and
economic statistics. The inclusion of Oral
Histories and Futures can help to ensure that
real world experiences are incorporated into
policy-making in these various arenas.
Top tips
1. Be patient. Don’t push participants to
respond if there is a silence or a pause.
2. Be flexible. Respond to the needs of the
participant and adapt the method in a
way that suits you.
3. Be comfortable with silences. A gentle
prompt can encourage participants to
speak further, knowing that you are
interested in what they have to say.
PAGE 56
Oral Histories and Futures

Further reading
l The
 Oral History society have a fantastic website and set of
resources, including information on training in Oral History
methods
l The
 US based equivalent, the Oral History Association, also have
a very useful website
l The
 UK-based Scouts and Guides have some information on their
website about activities and reflection on writing to future selves

To reference: Hall, SM., Barron, A. (2021). ‘Oral Histories

and Futures’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U.,
Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for
Change: Impactful social science methodologies for 21st
century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The University of
Manchester.

PAGE 57
Methods for Change
Sociological
Discourse Analysis
Dr Ulrike Ehgartner,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Ulrike Ehgartner
ulrike.ehgartner@manchester.ac.uk
Sociological Discourse Analysis

Sociological Discourse Analysis provides a lens to analyse

writings or speeches as ‘social texts’. This approach is
designed to reveal what we take for granted and the
boundaries of what we consider relevant and possible as
we talk about issues.
By studying the ‘common sense’ meanings, forms of knowledge and
cultural conventions that people share in conversations, people’s
actions can often be better understood, than by directly asking
people to share their attitudes and experiences. Understanding
socially shared meanings can help to better understand practices
and ways in which things are routinely done, which can hold
environmental or social challenges. This approach can combine
different methods and is most commonly applied to forms of
text available and shared within and between communities and
institutions, such as business or governmental reports, newspapers,
websites, speeches or advertisements. However, researchers also
use Sociological Discourse Analysis to analyse texts produced in
research settings, such as interviews or written narratives. Methods
to observe customs and habits have also been proven to be well
suited for this approach.

PAGE 59
Sociological Discourse Analysis
How does Sociological Discourse
Analysis create or contribute to
change?   Discourse analysis emphasises the role of
In this particular form of discourse analysis,
culturally shared forms of knowledge –
assumptions and associations about how
the world works – are identified. These forms
of knowledge are also inherent in debates,
speeches and other forms of communication
about contemporary challenges and the solutions
that are regarded as possible. Investigating these
shared forms of knowledge can help to identify
the constraints that they impose on the type
and extent of change that is considered possible
within communities, such as policy makers,
businesses, interest groups or the general public,
as to how societal or organisational challenges,
for example gender equality, access to education,
pollution or workers’ rights, are approached. In
this way, discourse analysis can be understood
as a means to study limitations to social change:
it enables us to see implicit assumptions about
what we take as a given in society. By illuminating
limitations as to how social problems are debated
as well as barriers to how agendas for change are
formulated, this method can highlight avenues
for change in society and within organisations,
communities and institutions.
What ideas or concepts are
connected with this approach?
language in the ways we see and organise social
reality. It is applied in many disciplines, including
linguistics, communication and psychology.
Discourse-analytical approaches from sociology
and related disciplines are influenced by the
work of Michel Foucault and their focus is less
on the rules and conventions of conversations,
but on accepted, institutionalised, power-
constituting forms of knowledge that are
present in conversations. This does not mean
that the people or organisations who are the
speakers or writers of the texts analysed are
privileged and powerful. Rather, texts are
studied as examples of ‘naturalised talk’ within
social contexts, regardless of the roles and
positions of the participants. While privilege and
power play a key role in how these interpretative
practices affect different peoples’ lives, they all
communicate based on the same unspoken
agreements on what is ‘naturally’ taken as a
given, considered possible or impossible, and
seen as relevant or irrelevant.
The sociological discourse-analytical approach,
in which texts are analysed as ‘social text’,
suggests that instead of being individual or
universal thinkers, human beings subscribe to
‘thought communities’ - communities of differing
interpretations of how the world works. Such
‘communities’ could include, for example, expert
circles, generations, nations or interest groups.
In this sense, this approach is also inspired
by contemporary philosophical theories of
intersubjectivity according to which individual
experiences are developed and maintained as a
‘common sense’ which is shared with the wider
social community.
PAGE 60
Sociological Discourse Analysis

Why might I want to apply Sociological Discourse Analysis and what do

I have take into consideration when choosing this approach?
l Sociological Discourse Analysis is designed This approach captures what is assumed
to identify the various ways in which as obvious and ‘natural’ to the extent that
communities and institutions identify social it is often not spoken about. In this way, a
phenomena and the problems associated with study does not become valid and reliable
these phenomena. In doing this, it illuminates based on the selection of participants and
also perspectives that are marginalised or the interaction between researcher and the
overlooked, and paths that have not been researched. Rather, it is the researchers’
taken. interpretation of the text, which must be
consistent and comprehensible.
l This approach, rather than trying to solve pre-
defined problems, seeks to identify ways in l It is not the individual person or group who
which problems could be framed differently. is analysed, but what they say and how they
Research findings open up alternative ways say it. It is based on the idea that when
to approach problems faced by communities, people communicate, they may express
organisations and society as a whole. These their own intentions or viewpoints, but
can concern wider social structures, the ways have to formulate their thoughts based
in which institutions work and also the roles on the background of ‘common sense’
played by different actors. understandings shared by the community
they are part of or speak to. Unlike
l This approach is particularly suited to
behavioural and cognitive approaches, for
study social problems where the previous
example, this approach does not consider
interrogation of people’s attitudes and
the contents of documents or interview
experiences has not been fruitful. For
answers as the product of the person or
example, it might be useful when behaviour
group who wrote the document or answered
change policy repeatedly leads to the
an interview question. It is thus not suited
identification of a gap between people’s
for projects which seek to capture individual
attitudes and behaviours related to types of
peoples’ authentic attitudes, experiences and
interventions.
intentions, as it inherently breaks with the
l Analysing text through the lens of Sociological view that this is what social science does.
Discourse Analysis means that what
people say or write is not taken at face
value. Research results are therefore not
descriptions of a social phenomenon or
problem, but rather descriptions of the
possible ways in which such phenomena
or problems are seen or interpreted by
people within a particular cultural context.

PAGE 61
Sociological Discourse Analysis
Step by step guide to Sociological Discourse Analysis: 
1. Identify text material that is well-suited
to studying the research problem:
Depending on the research question,
discourse analysis can be applied to large
volumes of text material as well as to a small
selection of samples. It can cover a range
of origins (i.e. different ‘producers’ of text),
formats (i.e. different forms of written or
spoken texts, even images), contexts (i.e.
4. Identify internal contradictions: Scan
audiences and general reach of text) and
timescales (e.g. in and around a certain event
or over a longer time period). Specifying the
research question(s) will help to select an
appropriate range of material.
2. Identify the sources and context
of production of the collected text
material: What is known about the socio-
political and historical context in which it
was produced and how does it fit into the
‘bigger picture’ of the research problem?
When were they produced, by whom, and
for what purpose? Were they related to any
major events, how do they tie into broader
debates? If the materials were generated in
the research process, what was the setting
and context in which these texts were
created, how were participants selected and
what were they asked to do? What genre
does the text material belong to?
3. Identify the patterns of variation: After
making yourself familiar with the material to
identify thematic contexts raised, organise
text by (sub-)topics and recognise the kind
of descriptions and accounts of a topic that
come up. What are the different versions of
the topic that can be found within and across
texts? What statements about the social
problem/phenomenon are made in this text?
What are the different ‘angles’ from which the
social problem/phenomenon is approached?
The aim of this process is to establish how
these topics are brought up and connected
in communication, rather than to identify
topics in themselves. While it can be helpful
to identify a big set of topics, the aim is not to
produce an accurate account on the range of
topics that come up, or the frequency/depth
to which they are discussed.
individual texts for various descriptions
and accounts and look for inconsistencies
within this text. Is there a variation to the
ways in which the topic is approached within
one text? Argumentative inconsistencies
in the speech of one person are normal in
communication, as the interpretations and
arguments that are considered acceptable
are dependent on the context of the
conversation. At the same time, two people
might express divergent opinions, but derive
them from the same interpretation. The
aim of this process is thus not to ‘catch out’
speakers for contradicting themselves or
speakers of their community, but to further
establish variability as to how a topic can be
interpreted in different contexts. The same
speaker/document taking more than one
viewpoint on a topic without making an effort
to resolve tensions between these viewpoints
is an indication that these different
interpretations exist in the wider discourse
– studying additional material is helpful to
verify this.
PAGE 62
 Sociological Discourse Analysis
Texts are not studied as descriptions of
the research object, rather they are the
research object in themselves. Text is
viewed as a representation of the culturally
shared ‘common sense’ ideas available to
people in the community in and for which
this text was produced. In this way, the
discourse analytical approach illuminates
the common contextual backgrounds and
culturally shared ideas which are at the
basis of the varying attitudes and aims
that different individuals and groups
express. Interviews are, for example, not
analysed to find facts about how people
think or behave, but are seen as linguistic
expressions of shared understandings
of how the world works. Therefore, in an
appropriately executed study, questions
on the speaker’s political views or
trustworthiness are irrelevant. Regardless
of their intentions, speakers make
themselves understood by referencing
culturally shared interpretations of social
phenomena or problems – and this is what
we want to capture when we study writings
and speech as social texts.
Examples of Sociological Discourse Analysis
in social science research 
Much discourse analysis is concerned with texts that address social challenges and
ideas of social change. The projects presented below represent two such examples.
5. Identify basic assumptions: Establish
regular patterns, repeatedly occurring
descriptions, explanations, and arguments
across different texts to illuminate the
particular ways in which social problems and
phenomena are talked about. Does the text
contain references to sources of evidence, or
does it imply facts or knowledge on a subject
matter?
6. Identify the rules of the discourse and
the ways in which they are interrelated
with problems and possibilities: In this
final step, the findings of the text analysis
are placed in the broader context that was
established at the beginning. How do the
basic assumptions provide starting points to
speak about a topic in a specific way? How
do they contribute to commonly accepted
knowledge? What is the ‘state of things’ that
these assumptions imply and how might this
reflect and shape societal and institutional
practices?
PAGE 63
Sociological Discourse Analysis
Environmentally and socially responsible consumption?
A study on food sustainability discourses
Researcher: Dr Ulrike Ehgartner, The University of Manchester
This PhD project aimed to explore tensions
within the wider agenda of sustainable food
consumption and production in the UK. To
meet this aim, the language of those who
arguably have the power to influence food
consumption to become more sustainable was
analysed: professionals involved in matters
of food distribution, retail, consumption and
waste. The data used was a combination of
policy documents, journalistic articles and
interviews with practitioners who occupy
senior roles in the field. Using Sociological
Discourse Analysis, the projected assessed
how these people speak and write about
sustainability in the food system between
2005-2017.
One finding that came out of this research
was that ‘common sense’ understandings
about what is or is not ‘sustainable’ change
over time, causing issues to come in and out
of focus. One such dynamic concerns ‘ethical
premium’ consumption, meaning consumers’
willingness to pay a premium for a product
communicating ethical information. Ethical
consumption was an important way in which
experts talked about food sustainability during
the time from around 2006 to 2008, but was
subsequently excluded from sustainability
debates. While some food-industry related
issues have profited from this development
and gained prevalence to sustainability
policy, it caused other concerns to fall off the
sustainability agenda.
One such concern is organic farming.
While an increase in consumer demand
for organic produce in the ‘early days’ was
considered a key evidence for progress
towards a more sustainable food industry,
organic consumption is barely mentioned
in most expert accounts of sustainability.
The experts focussed on eco-efficiency and
arguments around global food security and
thought organic farming to be irrelevant
and a ‘misnomer’ to the sustainability
agenda. Professionals had internalised these
contradicting views to the extent that when
they were formulating an agenda for food
sustainability in the research interviews that
were conducted in 2017, they would argue for
conventional farming over organic, based on
the argument that the former would be more
‘eco-efficient’ and therefore more sustainable.
However, when thinking back to what had
been achieved over the past 10-15 years in
the same interview, they would refer to the
organic movement as a positive example of
progress towards sustainability. The organic
chicken represents the symbolic object of
this tension. In the years from 2008 onwards,
experts have continuously referred to it for
its low energy performance in comparison
to the conventional chicken by the experts
interviewed.
The analytical approach taken thus illuminated
not only that there are contradictions to the
ways in which ‘sustainability’ is tacitly defined,
but it also allowed the tracing of the historical,
political and economic background and
context of competing interpretations. The
findings can help practitioners in the field of
organic production and consumption and
the wider agri-food system to consider their
positioning in relation to their contribution to
a sustainable food system.
PAGE 64
Sociological Discourse Analysis

Imagined Futures of Consumption

Researchers: Dr Daniel Welch & Dr Ulrike Ehgartner, The University of Manchester

TThis project on ‘Imagined Futures of
Consumption’ explores how the general
public imagines the future of consumption,
and the opportunities and limitations that
come with these ‘imagined futures’. For
this purpose, an empirical study was set
up to identify the varying ways in which the
future of consumption is interpreted in the
public domain. This was realised through
a collaboration with the Mass Observation
Project at the University of Sussex, which
involved a panel of volunteer writers, known as
Mass Observers, writing descriptions of how
they imagine ‘the future of consumption’.
Applying Sociological Discourse Analysis
showed that the idea of a future in which we
are all consuming less is not only ‘out there’,
as an ‘interpretation’ of the future that is
shared amongst the general public, but many
also attach positive values to this idea, as
well as a sense of agency and responsibility.
Most strikingly, however, it showed that
as opposed to other types of imagined
futures (i.e. one dominated by technological
innovation, which was vividly described with
accounts of a re-organisation of everyday life
around technological trends such as artificial
intelligence, automation at work and at home,
medical advances, human enhancement,
artificial foods, advanced transport and
renewable energy), imaginations of a future
in which we consume less or in simpler, more
considerate and slower ways, lacked ideas
about what people would do on a day-to-day
basis, i.e. how they would work, learn, socialise
and enjoy themselves.
From a sociological viewpoint, these findings
matter because they reveal the dominance
and influence that technology-based
storytelling has on how the future is imagined
in the public domain, as opposed to accounts
of environmental and social justice. Taking
a discourse-analytical lens was absolutely
essential to identify this. If, in contrast, a
content analysis-based research approach
had been taken, ideas of constrained
consumption (both positive and negative)
would have appeared much more prevalent
than technological accounts. This would have
led to the conclusion that the general public
is highly concerned about the unsustainable
impacts that our consumer culture has on
society and environment. Having applied
discourse analysis, this critical perspective
on over-consumption could be observed,
but it also revealed our lack of ability to
imagine alternatives to the mass- and over-
consumption that defined much of our day-
to-day lives over the past century, illuminating
limitations and challenges for social change.
Practitioners who seek to establish more
sustainable lifestyles across society might
find this observation helpful and adapt
their strategies accordingly, for example by
working towards building stories of alternative
lifestyles, rather than focussing on campaigns
to convince people that consumerist lifestyles
are not desirable.

PAGE 65
Sociological Discourse Analysis
Where else could Sociological
Discourse Analysis be used?
Taking a radically different perspective to study
the experiences and motivations that people
express, this approach is suited to investigate
social phenomena and problems for which
previous research and intervention has not led
to the desired change. Applying this approach to
analyse discourses in the public domain could
help public and private sector organisations
to better understand the shared meanings
behind what appears to be polarised public
opinions. Organisations could benefit from
this approach to gain insights on how different
causes that they stand or campaign for are
framed and contextualised by the public or
the scientific community. Gaining a different
perspective in identifying problems associated
with phenomena, policy makers could develop
forms of interventions that have been not taken
before. Activists, charities and those pushing for
more radical change can use analysis to help
build positive stories of alternative lifestyles.
Top tips
1. Start with a small sample. Although
the process of analysis can be labour
intensive, the point where no new
possible interpretations of a topic can
be identified can be reached relatively
quickly. Even a small sample text may
suffice to indicate patterns of variation
and what kinds of interpretations are
possible. Once the statements and
angles taken to talk about a social
problem/phenomenon start to repeat
themselves, the researcher is close to
completing their analysis. The smaller,
thoroughly analysed sample can then be
tested against a larger set of data.
2. Combine different types of research
material. In many social science
approaches, the quality and
generalisability of research findings can
be increased by combining multiple data-
gathering methods (e.g. observations,
interviews and questionnaires). The
study of speech as interpretations of
how the world works can be enhanced
by combining different types of research
materials which were produced in
different contexts of communication (e.g.
websites of organisations, interviews with
affiliates and social media engagement of
members of the public).
3. Always remain critical of your own work.
Make sure you only make claims that
your material supports. Always have in
mind that the aim of this method is not
to show what people think or believe.
PAGE 66
Sociological Discourse Analysis

Further reading
l T
 he discursive framework of sustainability in UK food policy: The
marginalised environmental dimension
l Imagined Futures of Consumption. Lay Expectations and
Speculations. Discover Society

To reference: Ehgartner, U. (2021). ‘Sociological Discourse

Analysis’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M.,
Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful
social science methodologies for 21st century problems.
Manchester: Aspect and The University of Manchester.

PAGE 67
Methods for Change
Participatory
Mapping
Dr Deborah Ralls,
and Dr Laura Pottinger,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Deborah Ralls
deborah.ralls@manchester.ac.uk
Participatory Mapping

In this method, a map is understood as ‘a space to work in’

that can reveal new possibilities and potential, rather than
as a tool for representing data about a place. It involves
the researcher working collaboratively with groups of
participants to think about a neighbourhood, community
or institution, and to locate the things that are meaningful
to them within that place.
Maps are created by participants, who may draw their own map
of a place or add to an existing map with place markers, text, or
drawings, in response to questions from the researcher. A map
contains movement, processes, and relationships, it can illuminate
the connections between people and place, and it can be seen as
a space for interaction. Mapping approaches can help participants
and researchers to see and use data differently, and to access types
of data that may otherwise remain hidden, including perceptions,
emotions and experiences. Through this method, participants are
able to show the researcher and one another where they ‘see’
themselves and others on the map, to link different activities and
feelings to places, to say where they go and with whom, and where
they don’t go and why. Participatory Mapping can therefore tell
researchers something about the nature of a place, and can be
particularly useful for understanding how various groups in an area
or community may use, experience and value places in different
ways.

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Participatory Mapping
How does Participatory Mapping
create or contribute to change?  influence this method?
Participatory Mapping can offer participants
an opportunity to challenge current
conceptualisations of a place. Maps produced
in the course of the research are not viewed
as static, but as open to the potential of being
changed. Change can happen for participants
in the process of carrying out the activity and
discussing it afterwards. As a participatory activity,
mapping can build individuals’ confidence and
foster understanding and connection between
group members. Participants are encouraged to
see the world from the viewpoint of others, as
well as feeling that their own perspective on a
place is recognised and valued.
An important aspect of this method is comparing
maps that are produced by different individuals
and groups. Involving participants in a process of
comparison and discussion can lead to deeper
understanding of the perspectives and values of
different groups, as well raising awareness about
challenges, exclusions or barriers that may be
faced. This method therefore has the potential to
contribute to the development of more inclusive
places.
What ideas or concepts
Participatory Mapping approaches draw on
theories of relational identities, power and
positionality; they are concerned with where
we position ourselves in relation to others,
and where others, particularly those in power,
position us. Through this method, researchers
and participants can ask what a map claims
to represent versus what we and others see
and experience. By facilitating deep interaction
with varied data on perceptions, emotions and
experiences, this approach can prompt critical
reflections on traditional, officially produced data
about a place. It can therefore be particularly
powerful for research in places that are typically
viewed in ‘deficit terms’ – i.e. in terms of what
they lack, rather than their attributes. Like
other participatory and relational methods,
Participatory Mapping research is seen as a
process of ‘doing with’ rather than ‘doing to’. It
emphasises relationship building among and
between different groups of participants, and
aims to support the capacity of individuals and
groups to develop leadership, decision-making
and agency. The visual and artistic elements
that are brought together in this method can
enable participants to reflect on relationships
and experiences and to make judgments about
them.
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Participatory Mapping
Why might I want to use
Participatory Mapping?
l This approach is particularly useful in research
that is interested in belonging. As well as
looking at what it means to belong to a place,
it can also reveal how particular groups
are excluded from certain spaces and can
support the identification of practical steps to
overcome barriers to inclusion.
l Participatory Mapping can bring quantitative
data to life. Looking at a map can make
quantitative data or statistics feel more ‘real’
to the viewer, encouraging them to think more
deeply and in a less detached way about the
people that use that space.
l It can provide a rich picture of perceptions,
emotions, and experiences of a place, in a way
that survey data cannot.
l Participatory Mapping can help researchers
and participants understand aspects of
a place that are important to groups and
individuals, but which may otherwise be
hidden. It can therefore be useful in research
that aims to change the way people or
institutions see and understand themselves
and their relationships with others.
l It can also raise awareness about unfamiliar
places and help to demystify them. The maps
created by participants can be used as a
starting point for learning about a new place.
In sharing their maps, participants are given
the opportunity to tell a different story about
an area or place than that which is usually
presented.
l This method is engaging and interactive, and
can be used with a wide range of groups
with differing priorities or abilities. It can
quickly and cheaply produce captivating visual
artefacts, which provide an accessible way for
participants to respond to data produced in
the research and to play a role in its analysis.
Step by step guide to
Participatory Mapping: 
1. Get some maps. This method can be used
at a range of different scales. The map(s)
you use could be an Ordinance Survey map
or Google map of a city, neighbourhood,
university campus or hospital, to name a
few examples. You could also use internal
floorplans of a building such as a school
or shopping centre. You may want to print
multiple copies of large maps, depending on
how many people you are working with, or
you could use virtual maps.
2. Engage with the map. Look at the map
together with participants. This activity may
be repeated several times with different
groups of participants who use a space
in different ways, for example teachers,
students and parents within a school. The
first question could be: How do you feel when
you see this map? What is your first reaction?
It’s important to build a trusted relationship
with participants before starting the
mapping activity so that they understand
the purpose of the research and feel
comfortable sharing their ideas and
perspectives with you. This could involve
focus groups, informal meetings or chats,
which will also help develop your research
questions and understand what areas or
issues may be important to explore.
3. Ask directed questions. The aim is to
find out about relationships, activities and
connections. The specific questions asked will
depend on the group and the overarching
research questions, but some examples
include:
l Where are you on the map?
l Where do you go? How do you get there?
Who do you go with? How often?
PAGE 71
Participatory Mapping
Step by step guide to Participatory Mapping: 
l What do you do there?
l Where haven’t you been?
l  hat are the assets in this community? What
W 7. Compare the maps. Participants involved in
makes this place great?
l Where do you go to have fun?
l  here are the important people in your life
W compare similarities and differences in their
located? Where are the people who hold the
power?
l  hat emotions do you associate with
W alongside images of different maps. This
different parts of the map?
l What would you like to change?

This is likely to generate lots of discussion,
including around why participants do not go
to certain places. You can also ask what is
missing, or what don’t they see represented in
the map.
4. Use different materials to redraw the
map. Participants can be invited to answer
these questions in creative, practical ways.
Pins, coloured dots, or post it notes can be
used to mark important places. Participants
can draw or write on the map. Blue tac and
string can be used to show connections
between people or places. At this point
the activity can become a little chaotic and
confusing! You could also ask participants to
draw their own version of a map or a place,
then compare this with an ‘official’ map. How
does it differ?
5. Record everything that is produced.
Audio recordings and notes can be useful
for documenting the conversations that
take place around the mapping activity. It
is also important to photograph the maps
– these can then be compared later on to
demonstrate visually how different groups
have responded to the activity.
6. U
 se complementary methods. As well
as recording the conversation that goes
on around the mapping activity, you could
carry out interviews, focus groups or other
complementary methods to gather in-depth
responses from participants.
the research are invited to share the things
they have produced with one another, and
maps. Word clouds can be made to display
the things that were said about places
begins the process of analysing the data (the
maps themselves and conversations taking
place around them) and it can also generate
additional data as participants talk through
their ideas and compare perspectives.
It is important that it is not just the
researcher who gains an understanding of
how groups experience a place differently,
but for the groups and individuals involved
in the research to see this too.
8. Identify what happens next. Ideally,
tangible change should result from this
activity, and it has the potential to support the
formation of more inclusive and collaborative
places, communities and practices. It can
highlight how there are multiple experiences
and understandings of a place that are
important to take into account in decision-
making, such as the different perceptions
of assets in a community by policymakers,
members of different communities, or people
of different ages, for example. To make
the most of this potential, the researcher
may wish to facilitate a discussion between
different groups as they share their maps,
perspectives and findings, with the aim of
identifying practical steps that can be put into
action. Think about how the maps and any
other artefacts produced can be used in the
future to illustrate reports, in an exhibition, or
to introduce a place to newcomers.
PAGE 72
Participatory Mapping

Examples of Participatory Mapping in social science research 

Filling in the Blanks: Looking Inside Blakemore School
Researcher: Dr Deborah Ralls, The University of Manchester

This research project, funded by The University
of Manchester, aimed to find examples of
where a school and its students, parents and
community members were moving towards
a more ‘relational’ model of engagement. A
Participatory Mapping activity was carried
out as this research focused on the forms of
interaction and engagement taking place in a
large urban state secondary school, Blakemore
School (pseudonym).
School floor plans were used to explore
lived day-to-day experiences within the
school, identifying the school spaces
where participants understood there to be
possibilities for engagement as ‘doing with’
others. Having already conducted research
activities using photographs of the outside of
the building, floor plans were used as a way
of going inside the school, asking students,
parents and community members about
the relationships and activities that they
had experienced within the four walls of
Blakemore School. Teacher interviews had
already revealed the ways in which teachers
associated strong feelings of belonging with
particular spaces in school, and spaces that
were linked to participatory and collaborative
activities like the drama classrooms and school
theatre, and certain team staffrooms.
Each stakeholder group including staff,
parents, students and community members
was supplied with laminated copies of the
school floor plans and asked to put colour-
coded stickers on the plans to indicate where
in the school they felt that they were working
together with others. Participants were asked
‘where have you been?’ and ‘what did you do?’
and were encouraged to use post-it notes
to provide explanations, in order to gain an
insight into their lived experiences of the spaces
within Blakemore School. The Participatory
Mapping approach proved helpful in enabling
stakeholders not only to look at those spaces
(in the form of school floor plans) but also to
deconstruct, or read beyond the lines of the
school floor plans generating new data that
populated the plans with evidence of dynamic
social relations, or relational engagement.
The findings showed that students identified
particular spaces in school with activities and
interactions that generated supportive and
collaborative relationships, and provided
some description about the detail of these
engagements. Parents and community
members, however, were far more restricted in
their access to time and spaces in the school,
allowed into the building by invitation only. As
such, their responses to the floor plan were
limited to naming an activity or person, rather
than describing emotions and relationships.
Using Participatory Mapping highlighted
the diversity of previously unknown formal
and informal lived experiences and social
interactions that had occurred within what
appeared, physically, to be the same space.

PAGE 73
Participatory Mapping
Student responses to the floorplan. Red
stickers show where in the building students
work on engagement activities with other
students from their year, green stickers show
engagement activities with teachers and blue
stickers for other staff. Students also had the
option of choosing a yellow sticker to show
where they worked with students from other
years, orange for parents and a blue square
for community members.
Post-it notes added by students from
top left clockwise, read: ‘Training school
leaders happened here and it was very
communicative’, ‘Strong relationship with
teachers in english’, ‘My form. I go to Mr […]
if I need help’, ‘For miss […] and […] - form
teacher’.
After the Participatory Mapping activities
were completed, a final focus group was
organised to bring together teachers,
students, parents and community members
to evaluate the maps. Using Participatory
Mapping techniques and sharing the results
in this way led to a discussion about the
unseen experiences and the very different
perceptions of school ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’.
Student responses to the floorplan. Red
stickers show where in the building students
work on engagement activities with other
students from their year, green stickers show
engagement activities with teachers.
Post-it notes, from left to right, read: ‘Feels
like I’m at home’, ‘English. Work well with
students from my year’, ‘Work well with
teachers and help each other too’
It also highlighted what the school could do
to build a sense of familiarity and belonging
for parents and community members, as
well students and teachers. This resulted in
several tangible changes within the school.
The senior leadership team invited parents
and community members on an open access
tour of the school during teaching time to
experience a normal school day. Teachers,
students, parents and community members
identified the need to jointly conduct a
‘welcoming walk through’ audit in school, to
look at the school through the eyes of insiders
and outsiders and to develop a plan to identify
where and how school spaces could be made
more welcoming for parents and community
members.
PAGE 74
Participatory Mapping

Where else could Participatory Top tips

Mapping be used? 1. Think about the map as a space to
Participatory Mapping is particularly useful for explore, to be explored, to ask questions
understanding how different groups experience and enable people to share their
a place, building or service in different ways. One experiences.
example where Participatory Mapping would be 2. It’s important to have an established
well suited is in research aiming to understand and trusted relationship with the group
the perspectives and use of university campus before you start the mapping activity, so
space by local residents. Activities could be that participants feel comfortable to say
carried out to map: the university campus what they really think.
spaces that local residents have visited formally
3. Remember to encourage discussions
such as the museum, gallery, other spaces
while people are interacting with the
where they have attended organised events;
map.
the spaces they feel they are allowed or not
allowed to use; and where they would like to 4. Remember to take photos of your maps
go and why, for example. The researcher might as you go. Blue tac and post it notes can
prompt participants by asking: What’s inside this fall off easily, and your map often won’t
building? Who have you met there? What have look the same by the time you get it
you done in these spaces? What would you like home!
to do? Responses could then be compared with
other groups, such as university students and
staff.
Another example where this approach could
be effective is in research addressing food
sourcing and consumption in low income areas
or ‘food deserts’. Activities could be undertaken
to identify different types of food available on
the map (e.g. fresh fruit and veg, bread, daily
groceries, fast food), where these foods are
located, the time taken to get there and costs
of travel, as well as mapping the different
emotions or experiences that people attach
to different types of food. Responses could be
compared with maps created by residents in
high income areas, with a view to identifying
possible solutions such as planning changes or
new business ideas. Participatory mapping can
be used to explore similar dynamics in many
areas of material resource use (consumption,
production) in institutions, cities and regions:
water, sanitation, waste, energy, transport and
more.

PAGE 75
Participatory Mapping

Further reading
Participatory Mapping web resources:
l Mapping the City
l Mapping for Change: Community Maps

Online articles and blogs about participatory mapping and

digital placemaking:
l M
 apping young lives: what are the spaces and places that young
people use in coastal towns?
l H
 ow Digital Placemaking Supports Young People to Shape their
Neighbourhoods

Academic journal article:

l Mapping the City: participatory mapping with young people

To reference: Ralls, D. and Pottinger, L. (2021).

‘Participatory Mapping’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner,
U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods
for Change: Impactful social science methodologies for 21st
century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The University of
Manchester

PAGE 76
Methods for Change
The Change
Points Toolkit:
A method to design
interventions that unlock
sustainable practices
Dr Claire Hoolohan, Dr Alison L
Browne, Dr Ulrike Ehgartner,
The University of Manchester

Dr Matt Watson,
The University of Sheffield

Corresponding author
Dr Claire Hoolohan
claire.hoolohan@manchester.ac.uk
The Change Points Toolkit: A method to
design interventions that unlock sustainable practices

Change Points is a workshop process that enables

participants without prior social science training to
develop creative sustainability interventions that use
ideas from social practice theories. Rather than focussing
on individual behaviours or technological innovations,
Change Points aids workshop participants to explore forms
of intervention that engage with the social and material
dimensions of everyday life.
The Change Points approach and workshop methodology was
developed with a range of government, NGO and business
stakeholders in order to assist them in bringing social practice
theories to their analysis of sustainability challenges. It aids the
reimagination of complex social and environmental challenges, and
enables the recognition of how diverse everyday practices relate to
wider social, cultural, infrastructural and environmental conditions.
The toolkit was created to offer a new way of thinking through
patterns of consumption, how they emerge, and how they may be
changed.
As a workshop process, Change Points is deliberately provocative.
Participants work through a co-design process that questions
the assumptions that underpin existing strategies to encourage
sustainable consumption. Change Points invokes conversations that
enable participants to extend the breadth of research, strategy and
intervention design. This approach is useful for any organisation
that deals with social and environmental challenges that intersect
with everyday practices and behaviours. The workshops work
best when they include participants from diverse disciplinary
backgrounds and sectors, including government departments,
NGOs, activist groups and the general public.

PAGE 78
The Change Points Toolkit: A method to
design interventions that unlock sustainable practices
How does the Change Points
Toolkit create or contribute to
change?
Change Points workshops impact on
professional practices involved in the design
and planning of initiatives (for example:
policy research; policy design; behavioural
intervention design; changing socio-technical
systems). The workshops are designed to start
different conversations about planning and data
management, helping people in professional
settings to realise the limits and possibilities
of the evidence that they gather. Change can
be observed in the workshops as a direct
consequence of the method taken. Participants
are encouraged to re-think the research that
they use to provide evidence for action, which
will then also help to design more meaningful
interventions.
Change Points also helps participants to think
differently about the ways in which research
contributes to sustainability. The combination of
practice-oriented thinking with design-focussed
ideas shifts the focus from thinking critically
about what has been done to date, towards
thinking about how a sustainable future can be
created (see Hoolohan & Browne, 2020).
What ideas or concepts
influence this approach?
The Change Points Toolkit emerged from
a series of Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC) funded projects conducted
in collaboration with partners in a range of
sectors including government, NGOs and
businesses. The Change Points toolkit takes its
conceptual basis from social practice theory
and ties into a broader network of relational
and design theories and methods. This
approach encourages a focus on socially shared
practices – routine patterns of action – rather
than on individuals and their behaviour. This
gives different insights into how what we do is
shaped by social relationships, the materiality
of the world around us, forms of knowledge,
cultural meanings and more. Research partners
identified that, while they understood the
value of social theory in helping to ‘reframe’
understandings of social and environmental
problems, academic research on these topics
often had less to say about how to bring this
type of social science thinking into policy
research, policy design, interventions, and other
types of professional practice. It is this challenge
that the Change Points Toolkit seeks to address:
to identify a way for non-academic researchers
and practitioners to apply sensitivities that social
scientists working with practice theories take
for granted. Insights from design studies vitally
contributed to the development of the toolkit, to
make concepts from a complex strand of social
theory practicable for intervention planning.
PAGE 79
The Change Points Toolkit: A method to
design interventions that unlock sustainable practices
Why might I want to use the Change Points Toolkit?
Systemic thinking: The workshops encourage
participants to reflect on what has been done
before to tackle a particular issue, in order to
identify approaches that grasp the complexity of
social practices and the complex web of actors
and circumstances that are involved. In this
way, participants can recognise limitations to
interventions made in the past and identify ideas
that have been excluded from intervention so far.
A shift in professional practice: Change
Points aims to enable departure from familiar
education or incentive-oriented forms of
intervention to engage in the cultural, material
and political fabric that holds unsustainable
consumption in place. Questions provided
in the toolkit are carefully and intentionally
worded to stop people from having conventional
conversations and to encourage reflection
on ordinary day-to-day practices such as
eating, hygiene or going to work. For example,
participants are prompted to explore how
factors such as time and infrastructures (rather
than attitudes and desires) shape what people
do on a day-to-day basis. Participants are also
prompted consider who or what influences
peoples’ behaviour, and also whether existing
interventions have unintentional impacts based
on gender or other inequalities.
A Change Points workshop pushes participants
to work outside their professional habits by
going beyond tested approaches to innovate
new approaches to mobilise change. People
who design sustainability initiatives as part of
their profession benefit from Change Points
as habitual ways of using data and developing
intervention are challenged. In this way, Change
Points workshops prompt professionals to
critically reflect on their professional practice
and to strengthen their creative potential to
develop avenues for intervention.
Workshop format: Alongside the facilitator,
who is working committedly with the toolkit, a
functional Change Points workshop has one
or more groups of between five and eight
participants. The group is required to shift into
a different way of working, learning to trust the
process and each other in order to talk openly
about a problem. It is therefore necessary for
(a) the facilitator to have a strong understanding
of the concept of Change Points and its focus
on practices rather than individual action and
(b) the workshop to take at least a full day or a
succession of meetings over more than one day.
Workshop Participants: Whilst Change
Points workshops can meaningfully enhance
conversations in existing workgroups, it can also
be a useful tool to bring together participants
from different industry or work areas, or those
who are not used to routinely working with
each other. It can also be helpful if there are
attendees from groups that are associated
with work in the problem area but are typically
excluded from policy conversations. Participants
are usually chosen by the organisations taking
part in the workshop, rather than by the
facilitator. To develop the ideas discussed in
’developing plans for change’, which is explored
below, it is important to include participants who
know which actions are within the possibilities
and capacity of the organisation(s) involved.
PAGE 80
The Change Points Toolkit: A method to
design interventions that unlock sustainable practices

Overview of the Change Points method (adapted from The Change Points Toolkit)

Before the workshop commences a ‘challenge’ Activity 3. Recognising diversity: Identify

needs to be identified, one where everyday variations in everyday practices related, for
routines contribute to social and environmental example, to working situation, household
crises, and the following process is undertaken. structure, gender, or physical ability, and
consider how and why these variations occur to
I. Visioning Phase
identify possibilities for intervention and also to
Activity 1. Problem Scoping: The first step is to
recognise potentially vulnerable practitioners.
develop shared understanding of the problem
Activity 4. Mapping influences: Participants map
and a vision for the future that all participants
the network of social and material elements
are invested in achieving. The facilitator guides
that enable (un)sustainable practices to
participants to consider the various ways in
persist, and consider the distributed agencies
which their problem is connected to present
and responsibilities involved in maintaining
consumption-production systems and to outline
this network to establish opportunities for
the nature and the extent of change needed.
intervention.
II. Expanding understanding
III. Developing a Plan for Change
Three separate exercises are then used to
Activity 5. Reframing: Here the materials from
explore the diverse and relational qualities of
previous exercises are revisited to identify
the problem at hand. Participants are guided
ambitious new avenues for intervention.
in exploring the connections between personal
Workshop participants identify where priorities
practices and wider cultural, political and
lie and the scope of intervention within their
technological developments.
organisation(s). In this step lots of working ideas
Activity 2. Understand relations: Sequences of are developed and filtered down to identify key
everyday activity which lead to ideas that participants are committed to.
sustainability problems are charted through
Activity 6. Pragmatic planning: Prepare ideas
different spaces and times to reveal the
for implementation by establishing constructive
connections between peoples’ routines, the
and coherent project plans and methods for
actions of others, and wider cultural, political,
actions to be taken.
and technological factors. These are used to
identify potential spaces for intervention, called
Change Points.

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The Change Points Toolkit: A method to
design interventions that unlock sustainable practices

Examples of using the Change Points Toolkit

in social science research 

Unflushables Workshop
Researchers: Cecilia Alda-Vidal, Dr Claire Hoolohan & Dr Alison Browne,
The University of Manchester

The Unflushables workshop was a two-day
design-based workshop with 30 different
multi-sectoral actors – from water and
sewerage companies, government agencies,
consumer goods manufacturers etc – to work
out a 5-year plan on action on the issues
of ‘unflushables’. The aim of this workshop
was to establish an action plan to eradicate
“unflushables” - products such as plastic
waste that often cause problems in sewer
systems after being disposed of via the toilet.
The workshop was sponsored by Anglian
Water and was connected to a wider body of
academic research by the project team.
The Unflushables Change Points workshop
led to development of a far-reaching agenda
of a few big ideas for eradicating unflushables
in the next five years that focussed on
redesigning policy, redesigning bathrooms
and changing social and cultural conceptions.
For example, plans were established on how
to design school bathrooms to accommodate
a different form of waste disposal effectively
at the stage of early practice formation at
schools. Plans on how to break taboos about
incontinence as a problem of not only women
but also men were also made. The workshops
demonstrated to the participants that the
location of ‘change’ is not just with households
or consumer practices; and the responsibility
for change is not only held in the remit of
water and sewerage companies. Throughout
the workshop process participants realised
that the responsibilities for changing the
socio-material systems that lead to products
being flushed down the toilet is distributed
across a wide set of stakeholders and actors;
and that systems change requires the
coordinated efforts and commitments for
change across this set of stakeholders.

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The Change Points Toolkit: A method to
design interventions that unlock sustainable practices

Where else could the Change

Points Toolkit be used?
The Change Points toolkit is useful for anyone
interested in understanding the complexities
and patterns in everyday life or sustainable
consumption, how these practices emerge, and
how they may be changed. It may be particularly
useful in situations where there are ‘attitude
behaviour’ gaps observed in pro-environmental
behaviour, or in situations where the range
of existing interventions does not bring about
the scale of behaviour change expected. It
is also useful for exploring complex systems
such as systems of sustainable consumption
and production, and in contexts where ‘user
behaviour’ is stated as important but not well
understood. The approach has found to be
useful in the following settings, with the best
workshops bring new combinations of these
stakeholders together:
1. Government and government agencies
2. Non-governmental organisations and the
third sector
3. Businesses including SMEs and larger
companies
4. Citizens groups and community organisations
Top tips
1. Trust the toolkit. The questions in the
toolkit have been carefully worked and
selected to encourage practice- and
design-oriented discussions.
2. Bring post-its. Change points is a massive
post-it fest. It generates masses of post-it
notes. While you are at it, think creatively
with coloured pens, flip charts and other
stationary.
3. Invite people with different types of
expertise and backgrounds.
4. Allow at least one full day for the
workshop. Establishing radically different
ways of thinking and discussing takes
time.
5. Revisit different parts of the workshop to
help further refine aspects of your policy
research, policy design, or intervention
approach further.

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The Change Points Toolkit: A method to
design interventions that unlock sustainable practices

Further reading
• Change Points Website
• Hoolohan, C. et al. (2018). Change Points: A toolkit for designing
interventions that unlock unsustainable practices
• Browne, A. et al. (2020). ‘Unflushables 2030? Mapping Change
Points for Intervention for Sewer Blockages’
• 
Watson, M. et al. (2020). Challenges and opportunities for re-
framing resource use policy with practice theories: The Change
Points approach
• Hoolohan, C., & Browne, A.L. (2020). Design thinking for practice-
based intervention: Co-producing the change points toolkit to
unlock (un)sustainable practices

To reference: Hoolohan, C., Watson, M., Browne, A.L. and

Ehgartner, U. (2021). ‘The Change Points Toolkit: A method
to design interventions that unlock sustainable practices’ in
Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger,
L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social
science methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester:
Aspect and The University of Manchester.

Funding Acknowledgement: The Change Point Toolkit was developed by

Dr Claire Hoolohan & Dr Alison Browne (The University of Manchester) in
collaboration with colleagues at The University of Sheffield (Dr Matt Watson, Dr
Liz Sharp, Dr Mike Foden), and University of Bristol (Prof. David Evans), alongside
partners at Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Food
Standards Agency (FSA), Artesia Consulting, Actant Consulting, Waterwise, Waste
and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and WWF-UK. The toolkit was developed
during an ESRC Impact Accelerator Account (ESRA IAA, Browne, Hoolohan) funded
through The University of Manchester, building on two ESRC Nexus Network
funded projects ‘The Nexus at Home’ between the Universities of Sheffield and
Manchester (Watson, Evans, Sharp, Foden, Browne). The research projects on
which this toolkit is based were supported by: Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council funded Twenty65 project [EP/N010124/1] (Browne, Sharp);
SSPIKE (Social Sciences Partnerships, Impact and Knowledge Exchange) at The
University of Sheffield (Watson, Evans, Sharp, Outhwaite); Economic and Social
Research Council NWDTC CASE doctoral scholarship [ES/J500094/1] co-funded
with Thames Water (Hoolohan, Browne); and the ESRC ‘Patterns of Water’ and
EPSRC ‘ARCC-Water’ projects (Browne).

PAGE 84
Methods for Change
Open Interviews
Prof. Jude Robinson,
University of Glasgow

Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger,

The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Prof. Jude Robinson
jude.robinson@glasgow.ac.uk
Open Interviews

Open Interviews are about developing a transparent and

collaborative approach to interviewing that works for your
participants. Power is a critical dimension of the research
encounter in conventional interviews, as even in more
relaxed, semi-structured approaches it is the interviewer
who ‘holds’ the interview schedule and strongly influences
the encounter.
Rather than the interviewer directing the interview by asking
questions, Open Interviews are designed to disrupt the conventional
encounter; while you identify the key topics and questions that
you would like your respondent to discuss these are ultimately
navigated and explored by the participant in the interview.
In advance of the interview, participants are sent, or given, a one-
page topic guide created by the researcher which clearly outlines
the areas of interest to the research study. This summary can be
presented in writing, pictorially or a combination of these depending
on the audience. It is used to ease the participant into the research
by giving them time to reflect how they might want to respond to a
particular question and so make them feel more comfortable and
prepared before the interview. In the interview, it is the participant
who ‘holds’ the interview schedule, and it is up to the participant
where they would like to start the conversation, in what order
they cover the different points and how long they spend talking.
While you can respond to any questions from the participant or
give prompts if you deem that to be essential, your role during the
interview is essentially to listen. It is important for you to explain
the format of this kind of interview in advance and to reassure
participants that there are no right or wrong answers, that they can
choose to talk around the topics and questions and to ignore any
topic areas that they prefer not to cover.
This approach is designed to enable participants to set the
agenda within the broad parameters of the topic guide as they
can foreground issues and talk longer on the topics they deem to
be of interest compared to others listed. While Open Interviews
can be conducted face to face, via email, telephone or on online
platforms, it is important to remember that these mediums produce
qualitatively different material. The point is to be open to what
option works best for the participants and try to be consistent in
your approach (email, phone, face-to-face) throughout your study.

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Open Interviews

How does this method create or What ideas or concepts

contribute to change?  influence this method?
Change happens in the way the interview itself Open Interviews draw inspiration from
unfolds. Indeed, this is a method that is designed feminist approaches in that they are designed
to be flexible and open to change as the prompts to empower participants and to support
are inevitably interpreted by the different them to lead the discussion. Rather than a
participants with new information introduced prescriptive interview in which the researcher is
during the interviews. The topic guide can be in control of the type and order of questioning,
re-worded and developed between interviews if Open Interviews are concerned with the co-
participants find some topics hard to relate to, or construction of knowledge and consciously try to
the phrasing hard to understand, and new topics dilute uneven power relationships between the
can be included in the schedule as your thinking interviewer and interviewee. Open Interviews
and analysis develops throughout the study. As are inspired by ethnographic approaches;
participants are likely to engage with the order of each encounter occurs within a unique social,
topics/ questions in a different way, this is likely to temporal and physical context and accepts that
generate interesting insights into the areas that this affects the way that topics and/or questions
(some) people engage with some topics and ones are interpreted and responded to by each
that they spend less time on, or omit. participant. This method also draws influence
from narrative theory and recognizes that
Open Interviews can produce change in a
people often enjoy telling stories, that they need
variety of ways. They can function as a form of
to tell their story their way, and so start where
intervention into the lives of participants (and
they feel comfortable and extrapolate as they
researchers) as through talking, participants
see fit.
often come to reflect on something to do with
themselves, their community or whatever else
is being discussed. Sometimes the interviewees’
opinions and beliefs about things can change
during the interview process as they reflect on
their experiences and articulate their views
Interviews from commissioned research
are designed to reflect a specific need that
organization has identified, and therefore the
findings will inform the desired change in policy
or practice. The anonymized findings from an
open interview study, for example, would be
shared with partners and circulated to other
organisations, used in advertising campaigns and
used to instrumentalise change on a broader
project goal. The findings may be used to raise
awareness of an issue or to positively influence
behavior change.

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Open Interviews

Why might I want to use Step by step guide to using

Open Interviews? Open Interviews: 

You might want to use Open Interviews if you 1. Ask yourself, who is it I want to talk to
hope to create a collaborative and comfortable and what would I like to know?
interview experience for researchers and
2. Then ask yourself, how can I communicate
participants alike. This method aims to shift
to these participants everything that I would
the position of power away from solely the
like to know in a one-page document, in a way
researcher by granting participants the flexibility
that will not overwhelm or deter them. If you
to decide how and in what order they would
are researching with children, for example,
like to narrate their experiences or thoughts on
perhaps it is more appropriate to explain
a given topic. This helps to cultivate an organic
the purpose of the interview using images,
and conversational flow meaning you are more
photographs or simple diagrams as opposed
likely to cover a wider range of interesting topics
to all text. This can also work well for adults
than a more prescriptive approach would allow.
too as pictures can help to break down power
They can also be used for interviewing people
relations and avoid jargon ridden language
about sensitive topics, or for people who may feel
that often accompanies procedural ethics.
vulnerable, as participants may be apprehensive
about what they will be asked, and how much
they will be expected to disclose. Open Interviews Clearly communicating what the interview
can take the uncertainty out of interviews by might look like in a one-page pictorial
giving participants more time to consider their or written document to participants
responses and complete control over what is beforehand can help to create a ‘road map’
raised and how. for the interview while providing participants
the freedom to decide how to navigate the
While interviewing is a commonly used social
journey. Using pictures, photographs or text
science research method which can be used in
to introduce the project provides the sense
many different sectors, Open Interviews can work
of a menu of things to discuss rather than
particularly well with participants who are time
a set of separate tasks that the participant
pressured and who would like the interview to
must ‘know’ about. This can help to dilute
unfold on their own terms. They are particularly
power relationships, creating a comfortable
good in contexts where you are relying on
atmosphere.
people’s good will to partake in research (i.e.
where there is no reward for participants’ time)
as the interview can unfold as they desire.
Equally, Open Interviews can be a great method 3. Design a topic guide for the interview.
to empower participants, allowing their voices to Create a long list of all the topics and/or
come to the fore. questions you think you might like to ask
participants in a document. Be sure to take
a step away from these initial thoughts and
begin an editing process where you look for
repetitions or where a few areas could be
condensed into one. Try to thematize the

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 Open Interviews
Step by step guide to using Open Interviews: 
questions into different sections or areas that
you would like to cover in your interview. You
can keep this (or the longer version of the
topic guide with more detailed questions) next
to you while you are interviewing in case there
are prompts you would like to introduce but
don’t share this with your participants as a
long and detailed list of questions could risk
overwhelming them.
Ask yourself: do the types of questions
I have allow me to access the type of
information I am interested in finding
out? For example, if you are interested
in understanding someone’s embodied
experience, you might want to ask
questions which encourage reflection on a
particular moment, memory or encounter.
4. Decide how you would like the interviews
to take place for your study (phone, online,
email, face-to-face etc.). Try to use a single
approach that will work for all participants
as different approaches will produce
qualitatively different data. For example,
responses emailed to you are likely to have
been reviewed and edited by your participants
before they send them to you, whereas more
personal and immediate methods (phone,
face to face) do not offer participants this
opportunity.
5. When arranging your interviews, be
sure to share the one-page summary with
an overview of the interview process well in
advance to allow time for participants to ask
any questions about the process and to think
about their responses.
6. Now it’s time to do the interview. Always
take printed copies of the topic guide with you
for face-to-face interviews or have them ready
to email/ send in case your participants have
lost their copy/ files. To get the conversation
started, it is a good idea to briefly introduce
the project and perhaps a ‘context setting’
question for them to introduce themselves.
Starting in this way can help to build rapport
and enable participants lead from this point
onwards. Participants will have the topic
guide in front of them and so they can start
wherever they like. Once the participant
concludes their responses, ask them just to
look down the list of topics/ questions again
in case they have missed any points that they
would like to talk about. However, if they have
decided to omit a topic do not prompt for it
directly. Remember to take fieldnotes and
note any points you would like to clarify with
them, as these can be asked at the end of the
interview. If your interview was face to face
or online with a camera, note if anyone else
was in the space and how did this affect the
dynamic? How did the room look/ feel? How
did you feel? How might you describe the
mood? Remember to consult your field notes
when listening back to audio recordings.
Remember to build flexibility into how the
interview schedule might unfold. Though you
might think it makes sense for the interview
to follow a particular narrative structure,
encourage the participant to decide where
they would like to start, and how long to
spend talking about different themes.
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Open Interviews
Examples of of where Open Interviews
have been used in social science research 
Playing at Home: Researching the In Harmony initiative with the
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (RLP) Orchestra, Liverpool UK.
Researcher: Prof. Jude Robinson, The University of Liverpool
This research was commissioned by the Royal
Liverpool Philharmonic (RLP) in 2013 as part of
a broader programme of research to evaluate
the In Harmony project, which is part of the El
Sistema family of musical initiatives designed
to help children in low income households
learn to play a musical instrument and to
appreciate classical and modern orchestral
repertoires. RLP based its activity in with one
local primary school with a nursery in a low-
income community in Liverpool, West Everton,
later expanding to others in the local area.
Playing at Home was designed to engage with
the families of the children aged 5-11 years,
to explore how learning to play an instrument
at school impacted on their home life and
their families’ and communities’ engagement
with classical music and the RLP. The research
took place over 6 months with repeated visits
to 10 families in their homes and used an
ethnographically informed approach to carry
out Open Interviews, observations, some
mapping tasks, the compilation of a personal
playlist, photography and sound recordings
with the different family members.
The idea for the open interview format here
came from initial meetings to tell families
about the project and encourage them to join
(informed consent). I had created a one-page
Information Sheet for the younger children
using just key words and images to explain the
different elements of the project, and a written
prompt sheet for the older children and adults.
However, the older children and adults tended
to refer to the children’s Information Sheet
rather than their own, and for later meetings,
I relied on this to explain the project, although
the written versions were still given to the adults
for reference. Using this experience, I used
the simplified, one page, children’s interview
schedule for all of the interviews with family
members, which enabled them to cover all of
the different topics, with minimal prompting
from me. The project shows how open
interviewing can be used with a combination
of other methods to support people to identify
and foreground the issues that are important
to them, and to create an interrupted narrative
of their engagement with music, playing
instruments, listening to music, and what music
meant to them.
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Open Interviews
Examples of where Open Interviews
have been used in social science research 
Evaluation of a GP Fellowship Scheme in Public Health, UK
Researcher: Prof. Jude Robinson, The University of Glasgow
I first used open interviews whilst researching
with General Practitioners (GPs) who were
undertaking postgraduate training in public
health. The pilot scheme was funded by the
then Manchester Deanery, now part of the
North West School of Public Health, and they
wanted to understand the value of the course
to the GPs and how it might influence their
medical practice. I designed a project to span
their year of study, involving one initial face-to-
face interview with each participant soon after
the start of the course, to be followed up by
4 interviews that could be face-to-face or by
telephone.
Open interviews were used as the GPs had
already indicated that there was little time in
their working days for any additional tasks, and
we agreed that I would design an interview
schedule that would require no more than 30
minutes for them to complete and send it to
them in advance via email so that they could
reflect on their responses. To use the time
efficiently in the first interviews, I asked them
use the interview schedule as a guide and
to talk about the issues that were the most
important to them in the time they had, and
I just listened and audio-recorded what they
said. The goal was to ensure that the limited
time was spent on their responses, rather than
my asking questions. Despite their concerns
over time, all the GPs became absorbed in
the topics and spoke for nearly one hour.
From this I learned that spending time editing
down the number of topics to allow for a
shorter 30-minute interview meant that each
point was covered in more depth over an
hour, suggesting that a less crowded schedule
was conducive to reflection. I was also aware
that concerns over time could be a way of
expressing concerns around other issues: that
the GPs didn’t want to commit an hour of their
time to talk about things that might not be of
interest to them. By streamlining the encounter
to focus only on directly relevant issues and
allowing them time to speak, they became
committed to their narrative and spent longer
than they had anticipated discussing the issues.
It became increasingly hard to schedule the
follow-up telephone interviews with GPs, and
those telephone interviews that were arranged
were often cancelled at late notice. I didn’t
want to run the risk of doing short interviews
with little depth and meaning or missing
interviews with some respondents, so I decided
to go back to the original design and ethical
approval to work out how I could be more
responsive to their working lives. With their
agreement, I sent an email with the questions
embedded in the text and attached as a
Microsoft Word Document. They were asked to
print the questions with their typed or written
responses and post them back to me using
recorded delivery. However all but one of the
GPs decided to respond directly to the email,
writing their responses under each question,
and emailing it back to me. Only one took part
in a telephone interview at this stage. As the
questions were about their working lives there
was no confidential or personal information
in the emails, and so for the next round of
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Open Interviews

interviews, I offered them the flexibility to
decide whether they would prefer to complete
the next interviews via email, telephone or
face to face. All elected for the email option
and responded within three days of my initial
request. The additional advantages were
that the responses were typed and so did
not require transcribing. The difference was
that all the GPs wrote in complete sentences
and had probably edited and refined their
accounts, perhaps over time, to arrive at the
final, detailed and highly articulate versions
they had sent to me. While these are different
data from naturally occurring speech in real
time, and require careful reporting to ensure
that the readers understand how the account
was produced, it did enable the respondents
to say exactly what they wanted to say, and
reflect on the words and phrases that best
conveyed their meaning, and in this way it was
empowering.

Where else could

Open Interviews be used? Top tips
1. Clearly communicate the purpose of the
Time is a precious commodity for many research
interview to participants. Open interviews
participants and open interviewing can be
are a deceptively simple method but they
used in many different situations with varied
require a lot of thought and planning. It
populations. They have been used successfully
is particularly crucial to make sure you
for interviewing people in professional contexts;
clearly communicate the purpose of the
the disclosure of questions in advance as part of
interview to participants beforehand,
the process of informed consent is believed to
using a one-page summary.
reassure potential participants of the nature and
line of questioning and allays any fears that they
2. Allow for flexibility. Be sure to allow
could be ‘tricked’ into responding to questions
yourself the flexibility to adapt your
that could damage their or their organisations’
approach if it does not seem to be
professional standing.
working. Perhaps you need to change
The topic guide also can be shown to line the medium through which you are
managers or others who may act as gatekeepers conducting your interview, maybe
to others’ participation in organisations to communicating the purpose of the
reassure them of the line of questioning, and researching using photographs and
that the participant will have absolute discretion pictures might be more appropriate than
and control over their responses. The limitation text alone.
of the method is that it does rely on the ability
of the participants to read and understand the
topic guide you produce and so may not be
suitable for people with visual impairments or
people who have difficulties in reading, unless
designed with visual accessibility in mind.

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Open Interviews

Further reading
l  rticle on the In Harmony project: The use of Participatory
A
Methods
l 
The End Is Where We Start From: Communicating the Impact of a
Family Music Project to Wider Audiences
l Understanding pressures in general practice
l Emancipatory Research

To reference: Robinson, J., Barron, A. and Pottinger,

L. (2021). ‘Open Interviews’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L.,
Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J.
(eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social science
methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester:
Aspect and The University of Manchester.

PAGE 93
Methods for Change
Playing Games
as Method
Dr Ralitsa Hiteva,
Sussex University

Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger,

The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Ralitsa Hiteva
R.Hiteva@sussex.ac.uk
Playing Games as Method

Used to both collect and communicate data, games, or

playing games, is becoming an increasingly popular social
science research method.
Games can be used to bring into view often overlooked aspects
of the environment, to bring together different stakeholders, and
to understand complicated concepts and processes, amongst
other things. The informality and playfulness of games can help
to breakdown conventional communication barriers, encouraging
participants to interact freely to discuss what might otherwise be
complicated or sensitive topics. Games, particularly fun ones, can
draw participants in and get them to think about subjects which
might not usually be understood as particularly engaging, such as
infrastructure. They can cultivate a sense of curiosity and wonder
into what might otherwise be overlooked aspects of life and help to
create an emotional connection and response amongst participants
which may have long lasting effects.

PAGE 95
Playing Games as Method
How does Playing Games as
Method create or contribute to
change?  There is a long history of using games as a
Change happens with this method by
encouraging people to think differently about
problems. Change can happen at all stages
of the process of using Game as Method:
design, play and the discussion of findings. The
degree of change will vary depending on the
purpose the game is used for. Change might
occur through the process of bringing together
different stakeholders to talk about a topic or
theme and providing an engaging platform for
sharing different opinions and perspectives.
Playing a game may shape or alter the way a
group of people or an individual thinks about
or relates to a particular thing. Often the playful
nature of games, which can sometimes involve
presenting different and other-worldly scenarios
to participants, can move participants to change
conventional ways of thinking and making sense
of the world, prompting them to see the world
from a different perspective. For example,
playing games might encourage participants
to envisage alternate futures or come up with
creative solutions to everyday challenges. Such
solutions may instigate change in a range of
ways. For example, they may be shared with
interested stakeholders who might use them to
inform the way a product or place is designed.
What ideas or concepts influence
Playing Games as Method?
method in the sciences and this is often referred
to as gamification. Gamification is the application
of game-design elements and game principles
(such as such as scoring, competition with
others, rules of play) in what have traditionally
not been thought of as ‘gaming’ contexts. For
example, serious games, such as games built
from Agent Based Modelling are used to model
and develop different scenarios, and are popular
with policy makers and researchers. Games
can help researchers to ‘tell a story’ or develop
a narrative about an often ‘hidden’ experience
with or aspect of infrastructure. Playing Games
is all about engaging, inspiring, collaborating,
sharing and interacting through participation.
Often, the hands-on approach cultivated
through Playing Games allows people to better
internalise content or to engage on a deeper
level with a scenario, environment or concept.
Games can be predefined, set around particular
questions or scenario cards. Equally, they can
evolve around a loose set of instructions, giving
participants greater freedom to decide how they
interact with a place.
PAGE 96
Playing Games as Method
Why might I want to Play Games as a Method?
l Games can be used to introduce different
playful dynamics into everyday thinking. This
can involve playing games as an icebreaker,
as part of a team building exercise, or in
teaching. They are particularly useful for
groups of multiple stakeholders coming
from very different perspectives such
as policy makers, citizens, business, and
students because they encourage different
perspectives to play out around a particular
theme.
l Games can encourage people to think
and interact in different ways. They do
this by getting participants to step into a
specific narrative or scenario and imagine
or be mindful of particular conditions and
experiences that they could have.
l Games are a fun way to engage a range
of people in decision making processes,
bringing different values to a field or theme of
discussion.
Step by step guide to Playing Games as Method: 
1. Identify potential participants to play
the game. Depending on the purpose of
the game, the pool of participants might be
intentionally similar or diverse. Participants
might include different businesses,
policymakers or organisations who have a
stake in the topic you are discussing. They
might also be the general public, or a group
of people who live in a certain area. The
participants who are involved in the game
will depend on the purpose of the game you
are playing and what you intend to better
understand or find out about.
l Designing a game could present an
opportunity for co-design with a partner or
stakeholder. Co-designing a game in this way
may enhance connections and collaborations
between different stakeholders and improve
understanding of the issues for both the
researcher and the participants. They can
then be used in collaboration with different
organisations as part of a programme of
learning and engagement.
l Games can be a great method to get people to
discuss and understand complex systems and
concepts. They do this by giving an opportunity
to learn through doing and by providing
practical examples and illustrations of complex
and more abstract processes and ideas.
l Games can be good for positive publicity and
can help engage people with environments
and ideas which may conventionally fall
outside the scope of public interest.
Infrastructure is a perfect example of an issue
which becomes visible and enters the public
interest only when it fails.
It can be very hard to navigate a large group
of people playing games so good facilitation
is key. If you are hosting an event involving
a game, make sure you have a partner who
is well versed in the purpose of the game
to help you and keep things on track. Take
time to play the game or ‘walk through’ the
game with any facilitators to make sure that
they fully understand the what, the how and
the why. Take time to clearly explain the
purpose of the game to participants before
you begin.
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 Playing Games as Method
Step by step guide to Playing Games as Method: 
4.  Play the game. How the game unfolds will
It is important to design the game in
an engaging way to make sure even
participants who have no prior or specific
interest in the subject being discussed
will be able to join and stay engaged
throughout the game. It is also best if your
participants are involved in the game by
choice.
2. Identify a suitable space for the game.
This could be a unique single place or
could include multiple locations and asking
participants to walk or run through from one
area to another. The space for the game is
an important dimension to how participants
experience the game and engage with it.
Asking participants to move through familiar
spaces looking for specific things (themes,
places, objects, trees, sculptures) enables
them to change their perceptions and ‘see’
things that are usually hidden in everyday
interactions.
3. Set the purpose of playing the game. This
step is usually negotiated alongside steps 1
and 2. Lack of access to suitable spaces for
playing the game could lead to redefining the
game’s purpose, or the intended participants,
for example. In a game designed to engage
infrastructure policy makers with the specific
experiences of people who are on the
periphery of policy, this method would work
best where participants are taken out of their
comfort zone, which could include offices and
conference venues, and locating the game
somewhere less familiar.
depend on its purpose, available spaces and
the audience for the game. Games can be
played successfully with up to 40 participants,
however, they are most successful where
for at least part of the activity they involve
working in small groups of five to eight
people. Larger groups are harder to engage
with and move through space. For example,
in one game for the Infrastructure Project
discussed below it took 10 people over
30 minutes to climb out of an overflow
underground chamber through a very steep
and narrow set of stairs. Had researchers
known that the exit would take this long they
would have split the group in half. Games
which put people into smaller, separate
groups to focus on specific issues or spaces
and then bring them together to interact with
each other and debrief are well accepted by
participants, even if they tend to take longer.
Each group needs at least one facilitator
who understands all aspects of the game
and its purpose. If relying on facilitators
to work with multiple groups it is
important to have a formal script with
key details such as timings for reference.
Games can take multiple forms, with
varying degrees of input from facilitators:
from guided group walks and tours to
virtual guides completed in participants’
own time, with thoughts and experiences
recorded on mobile phones and notes
then uploaded on a shared platform.
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Playing Games as Method

Step by step guide to Playing Games as Method: 

5. Identify break-out groups. Remember
to be sensitive to the different needs of
participants. This might involve considering
what different participants might want to get
out of their time spent playing the game, or
more practically considering the different
physiological abilities of participants. If your
game involves walking around outside for
a long period of time, remember to ask
participants to wear appropriate clothing. Be
sure to make clear whether or not the game
is suitable for those with impaired mobility,
sight or hearing. Are there ways you could
diversify the game to make it more inclusive?
This consideration might involve working with
industry and organisations who can help you
to set boundaries for health and safety.
6. Allow participants to capture different
aspects in ways which are meaningful to
them. This can be easily achieved through
incorporating active ways of capturing
and engaging different parts of the game,
such as taking photos, short videos, voice
messages, drawings or collecting objects and
artefacts such as leaves, stones or brochures.
Participants can be asked to photograph
something on their phones based around a
theme they are following as they are moving
through a place.
8. End the game, until next time. Games
can be a useful means of engaging people
on a specific topic and specific objects,
which might otherwise be considered hard
to engage. They can also be powerful ways
of collecting important data about people’s
opinions, interests, and drivers for change. As
such, they can lead to meaningful change by
generating impact that continues beyond the
game itself. It is important, as a researcher,
to share with participants what you and your
team have learned from the experience and
how you intend to use it.
It is useful to allow people different ways
of leaving feedback. These could include
asking people to drop the pens/maps/
badges in one of two buckets (one for
feeling overall positive about taking part
and another for people left with negative
impression), to tweet their feedback or
to draw or write what they would change
on the back of maps or sheets of paper
stuck to the door through which they are
leaving.

7. Provide an opportunity for the game

participants to debrief. Reflecting on and
sharing experiences are important parts of
the process of learning and engagement
within the game, and sufficient time should be
allocated to these elements. This can be done
by bringing the participants back together into
one group and facilitating a discussion around
a theme or set of questions (e.g. ask them to
convince other groups of a particular point
of view). Allow people to come to their own
conclusions and opinions.

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Playing Games as Method
An example of Playing Games as Method
in social science research 
The ‘Infrastructure game’
Researcher: Dr Ralitsa Hiteva, Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex
Poster of Brighton for the Infrastructure
Game, September 2017. Image credit:
Charlotte Humma
The infrastructure game was designed for,
and played, as part of the British Science
Festival in Brighton. The purpose of this
game was to help the general public to
understand the complexity of infrastructure
interdependencies. The game was used
to convey an understanding of complex
processes and systems that underpin the way
we live, but which are often overlooked and
invisible in everyday life, unless something
breaks or goes wrong.
The participants included 36 people from the
general public who were living in or visiting
Brighton during the festival weekend, between
the ages of 19 and 76. Participants were
put into three equal groups based on the
maximum number of people that were allowed
to be in the underground overflow chamber
operated by Southern Water which is one
of the key spaces for interacting with water
infrastructure in Brighton. Game participants
were asked to express preference for one of
three types of infrastructure: water, energy or
digital and based mostly on their preferences
were allocated into three groups, which were
given three separate sets of instructions and
starting points for the game.
Each group followed a route which involved
learning about the history and future of one
specific type of infrastructure. The water
group went through an underground overflow
chamber, the energy group walked through
the Brighton seafront learning about gas
and electricity lighting, and the digital group
visited a 5G test area. The game was set up
to engage and appeal to people’s emotions.
The scene was set in a post-apocalyptic
environment where resources were scarce
and survivors had to make decisions about
what infrastructure they should develop.
Connecting to the game on an emotional
level draws participants into the narrative
and enhances their involvement and
connectedness with the game.
After starting at three different points and
covering three very different routes the groups
were then brought together in a large room
where they were asked to prepare convincing
arguments and win votes from other groups to
invest in their chosen infrastructure. The group
which converted the largest number of players
was to be the winner. The groups attempted to
convince each other in the merits of investing
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Playing Games as Method
in either water, energy or digital infrastructure.
Asking different groups to negotiate and
decide between them resulted in them
debating and negotiating which infrastructure
was integral. One group came out on top.
At this point I introduced the groups to the
concept of infrastructure interdependence and
explained that we do not need to invest only in
energy infrastructure in order to solve energy
problems. The groups understood that the
right answer was not one type of infrastructure
or another and that thinking across
interdependencies can have a significant impact
on the environment and resilience. At that point
the participants took over the discussion of
how this might work in practice and started to
imagine what investment in infrastructure could
look like in the future.
Although participants in the game were guided
throughout every step by the facilitators
and the lead researcher, they were given an
opportunity to express their vision of the
An example of Playing Games as Method
in social science research 
Using games to explore healthy ageing in urban spaces
Researcher: Dr Ralitsa Hiteva, Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex
This game was designed for an infrastructure
workshop involving academics and utility
companies, and was held in the city of
Leeuwarden which at the time was a culture
capital of Europe. In designing the game, I was
asked to showcase and make use of as much
of the city’s built environment as possible.
The first part of the workshop was dedicated
to presentations about healthy aging and
concept of interdependent infrastructure
and how it could be applied to the
infrastructure they had just learned about.
The whole game took two and a half hours
and did not involve any breaks. Participants
walked through different spaces in the first
hour and spent the rest of the game in a
large room. The facilitators for each of the
infrastructure groups were representatives
of local utility companies which managed
the said infrastructure and could provide
significant detailed information about it. At
the end of the game the lay participants
were able to provide their own examples
of infrastructure interdependencies that
they had observed and/or experienced and
were able to discuss the complexities of
decision-making about infrastructure, such
as what type of infrastructure to prioritise
in protecting the environment and why it
was important for the general public to be
engaged with infrastructure decision-making.
urban space from an academic and planning
perspective.
The participants in this game were not
older people, but utility providers who were
interested in seeing the world from the
perspective of an older person. The game
involved splitting people into two groups and
giving each group a map with places, locations
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Playing Games as Method

and objects that they had to find walking Playing the game allowed participants to
through a specific route. Most of the workshop understand and experience for themselves
participants had never been to this city before how different urban spaces had evolved or
but they took the maps and walked the routes failed to evolve to suit the needs of an ageing
for two hours. population. The game was useful for me as
a researcher as it provided valuable insight
The routes prompted people to experience
into the difference between providing access
the built environment from the perspective
to a space for elderly people and thinking
of an older person. A few were given special
through how to remake urban spaces to make
assignments, and were told that they had to
them suitable for healthy aging. Participants
rest every 10 minutes for five minutes or that
reported that the game was useful to them
they couldn’t climb stairs. Others were given a
in better understanding how even mundane
walking stick that they had to carry with them
aspects of their work might create barriers
everywhere. Playing the game in character
to elderly people in their daily lives, and that
allowed us and the participants to see how
elderly infrastructure services users should be
some of the everyday assumptions that they
considered throughout the entire supply chain
use in their work and everyday life were
of urban infrastructure, rather than just at the
restrictive and exclusionary for elderly people.
point of consumption.
Participants were then asked to come back to
the workshop venue and tell the group how
their character spent the two hours and what
they found difficult and useful about the urban
spaces that they experienced and saw. During
the discussion the game shifted beyond the
city in question as people started to draw on
examples and anecdotes from their own lives,
work, friends, family and neighbours.

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Playing Games as Method
Where else could Playing Games
as Method be used?
Playing Games as Method could be used in many
different contexts across a range of different
sectors. For example, it could be useful for
industrial organisations involved in a variety of
infrastructures including transportation systems,
sewage and water systems, communication
networks or power plants who are interested in
generating increased understanding about the
work they do amongst the general public, or to
understand how different groups relate to, use
or experience these infrastructures.
Playing games is also used in disaster planning
by the emergency services. For example,
representatives from different emergency
services would play a game to imagine the
different ways they might respond to an
earthquake. They would respond to different
scenarios and events thrown in by the
facilitators. Similarly to the Follow The Thing
method in which Stephanie Sodero talks about
following blood donations to expose the blood
infrastructure, Playing Games can be useful for
shedding light on processes that are typically
unseen, perceived as mundane or even boring.
In this sense, this method could be useful to
a range of different organisations or groups
involved in providing services such as in
healthcare. It could shed light on the use of
Green Spaces amongst different groups, the
engagement with different environments or the
functioning and use of different food networks.
As discussed in the guide on Digitised
Ethnography by Andrea Pia. Games are useful
for encouraging diverse groups of people to
understand the lived experiences of others
that they might not otherwise consider, such as
migration processes.
Top tips
1. Remember to adapt your game to
suit the audience and the context you
are working in. Different audiences
have varying capacities to engage with
particular topics and technologies.
Playing games which unfold within
physical space (or multiple spaces) can
be restrictive for some participants,
such as people with disabilities, mobility
difficulties and those with small children.
The best way to ensure that the games
are as inclusive as possible, is to try
them during a dry run using as diverse
group of participants as possible. If
these are impossible to secure, you can
assign certain characteristics to some
of the pilot participants (for example,
a restriction in height) and ask them
to report what they found difficult,
impossible and what could work for them
instead. Then change the game!
2. Be clear on what the purpose of your
game is and communicate this to
participants. Ask yourself, is the purpose
of this game to shed light on complex
problems? Is it to bring different groups
of people together to discuss a common
theme?
3. Try to work with diverse groups of
people. Often, working with people who
have different identities (age, gender,
ethnicity, sexuality, disability and the like)
can elicit interesting discussions.
4. Try not to prescribe too much how the
game should unfold or to pre-empt
the conclusions the participants might
come to. The purpose of this method is
discovery.
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Playing Games as Method

Further reading
l Changing
 methods and pathways for engagement with
infrastructure services
l Playfuel
l Hastings is on a journey to net zero

To reference: : Hiteva, R. Barron, A., and Pottinger, L.

(2021). ‘Playing Games as Method’ in Barron, A., Browne,
A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.)
Methods for Change: Impactful social science methodologies for
21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The University
of Manchester.

PAGE 104
Methods for Change
Geographical
Biography
Dr Cheryl McGeachan,
University of Glasgow

Dr Amy Barron and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner,

The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Cheryl McGeachan
cheryl.mcgeachan@glasgow.ac.uk
Geographical Biography

Geographical Biography involves using the techniques

from different forms of biography and archival research
to uncover lives with a geographical sensitivity. While
the aim of traditional biography is to understand the life
of someone or something, the aim of a Geographical
Biography is to uncover the sites, spaces, and places of
their worlds, paying attention to the objects and materials
that become enmeshed with their everyday existence.
A Geographical Biographer is less concerned with producing a
sequential narrative of a life (as might be the case with traditional
Biography or Life History) but more with foregrounding the
messiness and complexity of a life through its geographies.
Attention to the spaces of a life leads to the excavation of different
kinds of archives, from buildings to people, from objects to artefacts.
Human and non-human worlds collide in the reconstruction of lives
lived and lost. Engaging with such a worldly archive approach has
the potential to resurrect in new forms past lives and narratives,
reintroducing them into the present. Geographical Biography
therefore works in the margins of places and is particularly attuned
to the voices and experiences of individuals lost and forgotten in
other forms of historical writing.

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Geographical Biography
How do Geographical Biographies
create or contribute to change?  from the notion of a unified life, to understand
Geographical Biography is a process that
encourages collaboration between people,
objects, and place. Meaningful collaboration
involves an exchange of ideas and this method
enables opportunities for sharing to take place.
Stories can be told in varying different contexts
and formats, from prisons to museum tours,
enabling a wide range of voices to be included.
The method’s ability to promote understanding
of individuals’ worlds through the sharing of life
stories becomes a strategy of empowerment.
Through sharing stories that have been
overlooked or forgotten, it is possible to cultivate
understanding about people, their lives, and their
experiences and encourage others to share their
stories too. This method can be used in a variety of ways.
Geographical Biography is an accessible way
to develop skills. There are multiple ways to
tell the story of a life and encouraging the
development of these narratives in collaboration
is a fun and inclusive way of turning people
into researchers. In this way, this method can
encourage confidence in individuals and groups
and inspire new ways of working in partnership,
such as putting on exhibitions or creating artwork
inspired by the lives investigated.
What ideas or concepts influence
Geographical Biography?
In the social sciences, there is a tradition of
using biography to rehearse how a life has
been lived. This often involves recounting an
individual-centric narrative which follows a
chronological arc. More recently, biographies
have been paired with geography to understand
how lives interrelate over different times and
spaces, calling to attention the importance of
life-paths. Pairing biography with geography in
various guises has helped to shift the focus away
instead the multifarious nature of lives lived and
worlds encountered. In doing so there has been
a shift in the narration and presentation of such
lives, sparking an array of creative approaches.
There has been a tendency in social scientific
research to focus on what is present, what
can be found or easily visited. However, in
line with increased attention to more creative
ways of researching and (re)presenting lives,
Geographical Biography tends to work within
the realms of absence, thinking about the gaps,
shards, and fragments of what remains. In
doing so, Geographical Biography can allow us
to understand unseen (historical) subjects that
might have been forgotten, overlooked, or be
less obvious.
Geographical Biography is an adaptable and
creative method, reaching from traditional
archival practice of working with documents,
objects and photography, to working with
landscape. Often it can include using objects to
facilitate discussions about a life. Objects, such
as artworks, can be used as tools for following
the geographies of a life through the different
sites, spaces, and places of their own existence.
From homes to hospital gardens, objects can
help to illuminate new biographical stories
that tell us often unheard stories about where
people go, what people do in certain spaces,
and what places really matter to them. Objects
and their geographies can also enable new lives
to come into view. Through sharing the objects
and their stories with others, conversations that
transcend space and time can be found with
individuals finding connections between their
lives and others through object biographies.
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Geographical Biography

Why might I want to use Geographical Biographies?

l Geographical Biographies can be used
to research a range of phenomena,
from individual experiences to collective
understandings of people, places, and
encounters.
l They provide people with the opportunity to
create, share, and tell their own stories. They
can be good for encouraging people to see
value in their own lives. Through the process of
sharing, people can understand that their story
matters in the world and that it has agency and
vibrancy.
l By paying attention to the everyday
geographies of a life, Geographical Biographies
can help to unearth hidden or often overlooked
stories.
l This method can be used to reveal stories
which might help to break down assumptions
or stereotypes about certain groups of
people or places. For example, in relation
to the experiences of mental ill-health,
institutionalisation, and incarceration.
l Geographical Biographies can be great at
uncovering different kinds of worlds that
are present and absent, all at the same
time. While the focus of conversation may
be around one individual life or the life of
an individual object, this method facilitates
an understanding into how individual lives
intersect with other lives and places.
l Creating Geographical Biographies enables
stories to be collectively shared with others in
different and collaborative ways. They can be
used to bring a group of people together to
talk about a common object, person, or place.
Such stories have the ability to spark new
conversations and to enrich understandings of
complex experiences.
l Geographical Biographies can be political
tools to enable the voices and experiences
of marginalised groups and individuals to be
heard and valued.

Working collaboratively with the Art Extraordinary collection.

Image credit: Glasgow Museums

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Geographical Biography

Step by step guide to using Geographical Biographies:

1. Creating Geographical Biographies l Think about how you can use these sources
to find out what you do not know about the
l Have a clear aim and identify who and what
object or person and start to ask questions
you need to engage with to achieve this aim.
about that.
This could include the types of themes you
would like to explore, such as mental ill-health,
2. Sharing Geographical Biographies
and/or the communities connected to this
that you would like to talk with. l The stories you have shed light on could
then be shared as an exhibit and shared with
l Source the people you would like to talk with
interested stakeholders.
and get them together to talk about the object
or person you are interested in. l Think about where you might like to share
your stories and be creative with this. This
l In these conversations, begin to map out what
could be in a community centre, a walking
you know and what you do not know about
tour, a museum, a prison, or a graveyard –
the object or person. It is though this mapping
anywhere that connects you to people that
exercise that you will begin to realise how the
might be interested.
geography of an object really matters to the
conversations that unfold about life. l Consider how to share these stories in
relation to your audience. These could
l Bring in archive sources to build up a
be written, sung, or performed. Working
richer understanding. These might include
with others could help to develop your
photocopied resources that relate to the
sharing potential, such as collaborating with
object or individual, such as diaries, letters
storytellers.
photographs, journals, committee minutes,
films or objects.

Working collaboratively with the Art Extraordinary collection.

Image credit: Glasgow Museums

PAGE 109
Geographical Biography

Examples of using Geographical Biography

in social science research 
Creating Geographical Biographies: Adam Christie
Researcher: Dr Cheryl McGeachan, University of Glasgow

It starts with a stone sculpture of a head
located in a collection called Art Extraordinary
housed by Glasgow Museums. The sculpture
is part of a collection of Scottish outsider art,
compiled by one of the first art therapists in
Scotland, Joyce Laing. Many of the items in
the collection were salvaged from the wards,
gardens, and rubbish bins of old asylums
and psychiatric facilities in the North-East
of Scotland during the 1970s. Many of the
unnamed artists were patients of these places
yet their stories and experiences remain
unknown, the only remaining remnants
of them to me is the pieces of artwork
held carefully in museum storage. These
pieces speak to marginalised histories of
mental ill-health and institutionalisation and
therefore become ripe for Geo-Biographical
investigation.
I started with the stone head. What clues
could the sculpture tell me about its maker
and where it was made? I spent time looking,
feeling, and pondering over the stone in the
museum storeroom. The closeness to the
object was important, it helped me to think
about its making. I began to compile questions
about the object: who made it? Where was
it made? How was the face created? Where
was it found? Were there other stones and
are they the same? Why was it made? Initial
inquiries within the museum archive led to me
to find out the artist’s name: Adam Christie.
The catalogue told me there were other
stone heads in the collection and so I went
to see them all. Further archival research led
me to uncover that he had been a patient at
Montrose Asylum in the early-twentieth century
and that the heads had been found there long
after his death. Adam’s life was largely unknown
and uncovering his experiences had the
potential to shed light into asylum worlds.
I decided to follow the stories of the stone. I
visited Montrose Asylum, now an abandoned
hospital facility, in the North-East of Scotland.
I wanted to put the stone back in its place to
see what new stories about Adam and asylum
care would emerge. I walked through the
gardens and passageways of the old hospital
site and saw evidence of Adam’s existence. On
crumbling walls carefully carved words and
faces emerged, left by Adam over seventy years
ago. I walked through the local town and talked
to its inhabitants. I was invited into homes and
pubs to see some of Adam’s sculptures that
had been found over the years and told stories
of their discovery. I was taken to his grave site
in the hospital grounds and met members of
his family. I visited local archives and accessed
hospital records and files. I found a photograph
of Adam on his first day at Montrose, after an
overnight journey from his home in Shetland.
I stood on the hospital carpark where Adam’s
stones had been made into concrete and
destroyed.
The process of working with the stones to
trace Adam’s life led me to create a number
of geographical biographies about his asylum
worlds and beyond. While these are too
multiple to note here, key stories emerged

PAGE 110
Geographical Biography
about his unusual art making practice. Adam
began to sculpt with stone twenty-two years
after arriving at Montrose asylum. He used
discarded materials from the asylum grounds
to make his pieces, including a nail and a piece
of glass to slowly carve the face into the stone.
Once complete he would place the stone
back where he found it – in a wall or on the
ground – and begin carving something new.
By following the stone heads we follow Adam’s
Examples of using Geographical Biography
in social science research 
Sharing Geographical Biographies: Exhibiting Mental Ill-Health
Researcher: Dr Cheryl McGeachan, University of Glasgow
Creating Geographical Biographies is one
element of the process, but the method can
be further utilised through the sharing of these
stories in different contexts. Collaborating and
working with these Geographical Biographies
promotes the understanding that these are
not static and complete portraits of individuals,
but living and adaptable stories that are open
to re-interpretation and change.
The Art Extraordinary collection is held by
Glasgow Museums and therefore I wished
to make the museum a key partner in the
research process. Archivists and curators
make great collaborators. Working in
partnership with the collection we sought ways
in which we could share the Geographical
Biographies with different communities. Due
to our shared interest in mental ill-health we
saw this collection as a way to further the
museum’s engagement with mental health
and creativity and sought out potential
partners that connected with this theme.
One long-standing partner with the museum
life through the asylum, from the hospital
gardens to various community spaces. We
trace the stones back to his familial home in
Shetland and to the intimate spaces of grief for
his mother. We gain insights into the unusual
spaces of asylum, such as a storeroom used
as a workshop for creating art. Although we
find no trace of Adam’s own reflections on his
experience, we still manage to hear something
of him through the stones he left behind.
was Leverndale Hospital, a psychiatric facility
on the edges of Glasgow, and they agreed to
collaborate with us using the collection.
To highlight our shared interests in the
collection we invited staff and patients from
Leverndale Recreational Therapy to join us
in the museum storeroom to look at the
collection. As everyone looked, touched,
and talked through the collection we shared
aspects of the Geographical Biographies for
each object and shared our experiences of
them. After the session we collaboratively
compiled a project plan based on the
collection, noting that we would work together
over a period of a year to create an exhibition
on Art Extraordinary. During this project objects
from the collection were taken to Leverndale
to be handled and seen, stories were shared
and written, and new artworks produced.
Participants from the project selected the
objects they wanted in the exhibition and wrote
accompanying texts for them: they started to
create their own Geographical Biographies
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Geographical Biography
about the objects. Individuals shared their own
experiences of mental ill-health, writing these
into the stories of the objects and artists from
the collection. An exhibition was produced
and displayed in a local community space, and
a one-year programme of community events
accompanied this, using the geographical
biographies as a foundation to encourage
further conversation about mental ill-health
and creativity.
Sharing the stories enabled a space to discuss
mental ill-health in its multiple formations.
Throughout the process we all learned new
Where else could Geographical
Biography be used?
Geographical Biographies are useful in any
setting where understanding individual lives
(of objects or people) is desirable. They have
successfully been used in prison settings,
psychiatric facilities, community groups, school
classrooms, care homes, and many other places
that involve human interaction. Their adaptable
quality makes them a malleable resource and
the approach can be easily adjusted to suit the
nuances of the group and setting.
Top tips
1. Creating Geographical Biographies
takes time and patience. Lives are often
dispersed through places, and so are
the stories about them. It is therefore
important to take some time to consider
where you want to start looking and try
not to go everywhere at once.
2. Try to focus on one life, object, or place
at a time and follow this through multiple
terrains. Always take note of where
skills, heard different voices, and gained
insight into the worlds of others. The process
itself was transformative. Participants noted
that they gained in confidence, felt included
and empowered, and enjoyed hearing learning
about the lives of others. The collection too
was changed by the process. New information
and insights into the collection and its
meaning was generated and for the first time
the collection went on display in a museum
setting. The collection became more known
and the artist’s stories for the first time were
starting to be heard.
you encounter things, be this archival
materials, marks in the landscape, or
stories heard.
3. Creating different versions of the
Geographical Biographies that can be
shared in different contexts is useful.
For example, creating materials for a
museum tour has different requirements
to a workshop setting so try to think
about the varying ways in which you can
produce these stories to be shared.
4. Never try to know everything and always
remain open to the possibilities of finding
out new and exciting things about the
lives under investigation.
5. Importantly, always remember that these
are human lives and their stories that are
being re-created and re-told. The ethics
of telling is crucial to the enterprise of
Geographical Biography and respecting
the humanness of experience must
always be considered.
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Geographical Biography

Further reading
l The Head Carver’: Art Extraordinary and the small spaces of the asylum.
l Researching art extraordinary: a fieldwork photo-collage essay.

To reference: McGeachan, C. Barron, A. Ehgartner, U.

(2021). ‘Geographical Biography’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L.,
Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.)
Methods for Change: Impactful social science methodologies
for 21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The
University of Manchester.

PAGE 113
Methods for Change
Systems Origami
Dr Kersty Hobson,
Cardiff University

Dr Ulrike Ehgartner and Dr Amy Barron,

The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Kersty Hobson
hobsonk@cardiff.ac.uk
Systems Origami

Systems Origami has its origins in ‘Business Origami’,

used by designers to rethink how goods and services are
created and delivered. It is a playful, hands-on, intuitive
participatory method and design tool, to explore how
objects and infrastructures shape what we do in our day-
to-day life, and how we might do things differently.
The aim is to explore our social lives through particular goods and
services, with the goal of redesigning and rethinking why and in
what ways we make use of them, to enable change. In collaborative
workshop settings, participants physically map out the material
and social ‘lives’ of the goods and service under investigation, using
hand-made drawing or pre-printed pictures to represent different
parts of the life cycle in question, drawing lines and arrows to
visualise their relationships, to both understand existing systems
and to develop a vision of an alternative. This method is particularly
useful in settings where different stakeholders are brought together
to envision alternatives to complex problems. It is different from
some other sociological participatory approaches as it focuses less
on understanding, sharing and shifting peoples’ values, and more
on how the material world shapes how we put desired change into
practice. The discussion in these workshops is thus not about how
we can engage with goods differently, but what these goods are,
where they come from, and what they do to/with us.

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Systems Origami
How does Systems Origami create
or contribute to change?  Systems Origami relate to?
This approach focuses on the institutions,
purposes and boundaries goods and services
are set within. It aims to develop strategies
for feasible interventions that facilitate
transformations of our day to day lives. The
discussion focuses on ordinary goods and
services, and the complex social, cultural and
economic relationships they form. In this way, it
aims to avoid the recycling of past interventions
that have been tried unsuccessfully around
complex environmental issues such as public
information campaigns, instead acknowledging
the ways in which materials, cultures and
shared practices are key to understanding
the worlds we inhabit. As well as workshop
outcomes, the process itself is affective as it
encourages participants to focus on and further
understand the wider social context goods and
services are embedded in. In this way, a mutual
understanding of the system is established in the
process.
What ideas and concepts does
This method combines corporate design and
human-centred perspectives from human
geography. Business Origami is a recognised
method within sustainable design research. It
was developed by the Hitachi Design Centre
to improve products and services by mapping
and examining the system they are embedded
in. When products are redesigned, the goal
is not only to make them more efficient in
their materials and/or energy use but also to
meet users’ needs in ways that are appealing
to them, for example being easy to use and
durable. The pairing of the product design and
human-centred perspectives invites members
of the public into these conversations, taking
the original Business Origami method out of
the design studio and into a public space. This
adaptation allows researchers and participants
to explore enablers and barriers for changes
to shared practices around services and
goods, which are often problematic from an
environmental or social equality perspective.
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Systems Origami

Why might I want to use Systems Origami?

l It is playful. The method allows for a thorough be quite simple and available to many, but are
exploration of our socially and environmentally currently not considered feasible, desirable
problematic material culture, facilitating deeper and/or acceptable. Applying this method in
understanding of the complexity of different workshops with a wide range of non-specialist
value and physical systems. Following a playful participants allows researchers to bring
approach, it offers a way to investigate complex discussions on existing and simple things back
research problems. Through drawing, mapping, into focus.
discussing and redrawing, participants l It can be flexibly applied to different types
collaboratively develop a physical output,
of research objects and issues in a variety of
engaging with serious questions through a
ways. The workshop could focus on a specific
creative and lively process. As such, it takes
object, such as a pen, with the understanding
participants slightly out of their comfort zone.
of the object’s physical and social life cycle
It is therefore key to prepare, introduce and
being explored by the participants. It can
direct the session in a well-considered and
also be used to examine concepts currently
clear manner. If the facilitator achieves that, this
brought to life via complex systems with many
method allows for rich debates and detailed
connections and challenges such as mobility
insights.
or thermal comfort, asking how these are
l It interrogates objects, rather than people. currently achieved, and how we might do
Rather than asking participants to report on things differently.
their values and attitudes, this method allows l Its organisation is also flexible. The workshops
us to understand our practices by focusing on
could be conducted in as little as two
our day-to-day engagements with objects. This
hours, with the mapped system becoming a
approach enables researchers to understand
framework around which further conversations
what participants value and why, in the context
can take place about creating specific policies
of the complex ways our material and social
and interventions. Alternatively, ongoing
environments intertwine. It avoids interrogating
workshop sessions can be spread out over
workshop participants, which often poses a
successive days or weeks, particularly when
challenge in other research methods such as
exploring highly complex issues such as
interviews, where interviewees might feel they
mobility. Whilst the method is not suitable
are exposing part of their psyche’ or are being
for use with large groups of participants, the
morally ‘tested’.
workshops can vary in size, from one-to-one
l It values existing knowledge. This approach sessions to a larger group of 50 that is then
helps to uncover possible alternatives to subdivided.
practices by starting with the current norms,
needs and concerns of participants, and
working through their visions of how things
might be done differently. This does not
automatically imply radical change or ‘disruptive
innovation’. Indeed, solutions that arise may

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 Systems Origami
Step by step guide to using Systems Origami: 
1. Prepare the materials that you need:
once you have decided that Systems Origami
is the right method to explore your chosen
topic, get the practicalities organised. How
much time do you have? How much room?
What resources do you have and do you
need? If you do not want to draw the symbols
by hand, you can print out icons from the
internet and then cut out the shapes yourself.
2.Introduce the method to the participants
and agree on boundaries of the exercise:
what you are looking at, and why. It is also
good to talk a bit about group dynamics
and roles. For example, while some people
are happy to draw in front of colleagues or
strangers others may not be, so it is okay if
groups want to differentiate roles amongst
themselves, or for groups to proceed at
different paces.
This is a gradual process of developing
an understanding of the physical
representation of the system to explore
the values created and the relationships
involved. As such, it is not a pure a mapping
process, but an unpacking process!
3. Map out the system: Start the activity
by focusing on a particular point in the life
cycle of the good or service in question.
For example, if you are thinking about
how to create more sustainable systems
around food delivery services to the elderly
(‘meals on wheels’) you could start with
the householder receiving the food, and
consider: what did they receive; why did they
receive it; how did it get there; and what is
the experience like? You can draw or use
pre-printed pictures or symbols to represent
any of these aspects, and write key points
down on post-it notes. You can then think
about the next link in the chain e.g. who
delivered the food; and from where, again
using pictures, notes and connecting arrows
to build up a map of needs, experiences,
values and context as you go. Over time, this
will turn into a large, messy piece of work
that may take up a lot of space. After some
time of engaging with the system mapping
exercise, the facilitator will guide a discussion
about what has been produced. After the
discussion, participants go back to the map
and continue the process. This process is
iterated for a number of times.
Allow for assumptions, but question
them. At some point in the process,
assumptions about “simple fixes” such as
information campaigns may come up. It
is the role of the facilitator to pick up on
such assumptions and invite participants
to question and reconsider them. This is
about slowing down the process to explore
different elements and to invite some
fresh thinking about how to do things a bit
differently.
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Systems Origami
4. Look at the map and express thoughts
and reactions: does it look similar to
how they had imagined it? Are there any
surprises? It there anything missing? What
was their experience of doing this exercise?
5. C
 losing discussion: this may include
conversations on what will happen next, or
how the findings could be taken forward for
intervention, including how work on this can
be divided between different individuals and
organisations, and next steps to be taken.
CLEVER Research Project Team’s initial ‘brainstorm’
product service system. Image credit: Dr Ben Bridgens, Newcastle University
Encourage messiness! The collaboratively
produced map may look like a bunch of five-
year-olds have gone crazy with the pens:
this is not only okay, but actually desirable.
When there is a mess, everyone feels a bit
more empowered to contribute rather than
thinking “Okay, I couldn’t, I’m not touching
that, it is too pristine!” Also, not everyone is
comfortable making drawings or convinced
that they are capable of doing it. While drawing
is encouraged to awaken creativity and
work with visualisations rather than words,
participants should also know that it is okay to
just write down keywords, to foster an inclusive
environment where all can contribute.
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Systems Origami

Example of where Systems Origami

has been used by social scientists 
The Closed Loop Emotionally Valuable E-Waste Recover (CLEVER) project
Researcher: Prof. Janet Scott (University of Bath), Dr Kersty Hobson (Cardiff University),
Dr Ben Bridgens (Newcastle University), Dr Debra Lilley (Loughborough University), Dr
Jacquetta Lee (University of Surrey)

This research project was funded by the UK
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research
Council (EPSRC) and aimed to rethink the
fundamentals of the product service system
for mobile phones. It asked questions such
as: Can we recover metals for recycling
more efficiently? Can we design the phone
differently? How can we change users’
unwillingness to change their practices around
mobile phones?
To help address the last question, the method
explored users’ social meaning around
mobile phones as well as their experiences
of having the phone as a key material object
in their everyday life. The research found the
phones were carriers of complex sociological
and personal relationships and expectations
around connectedness and convenience, as
well as evoking concerns about distant others
through, for example, ‘sweat shop’ labour used
in making the phones.
Applying a different method, research
participants could have also been asked
directly about their knowledge and attitudes
around, for example, the working conditions of
people in the Global South, possibly creating
defensive reactions, or making them feel
they had to maintain a certain ethical stance.
However, coming at it through the object of the
phone, as the way in which we become linked
to these concerns, participants were able to
raise these issues themselves, and to explore
their often-uncomfortable ambivalence e.g. ‘It
is terrible how workers are treated, but I have
to have a smart phone for my job, so what
can we all do about this’? This focus on the
complexity of the economic, social and physical
relationships mobile phones are embedded in
thus enabled conversations with participants
about how potential changes such as different
business models, would both impact on them
and others involved in these relationships.

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Systems Origami

Example of where Systems Origami

has been used by social scientists 
Exploring local food systems through Systems Origami as a teaching method
Researcher: Dr Kersty Hobson, Cardiff University

Here Systems Origami was used in a higher
education classroom setting, to explore a
complex service system. Students taking a
module on sustainable consumption and
production were asked to consider the local
food system, with a view to making it more
environmentally and socially sustainable.
Over a period of several weeks, small groups
came back together during class to consider
the drawing they had created collaboratively,
continuously adding in things and taking
things away, as issues around sustainable
consumption and production were discussed
in the module. The aim was to enable students
to explore in detail the challenges and
opportunities of creating social change, in a
manner that departed from usual classroom-
based discussions and that enabled them to
more deeply grasp the complexities of social
change

Sample of CLEVER research participant’s product service system.

Image credit: Dr Ben Bridgens, Newcastle University

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Systems Origami

Where else could Systems Origami

be used? Top tips
1. Know why you are doing it.
Systems Origami offers an inclusive and creative
way of thinking through how goods and services 2. Know what you want to achieve.
can be created and offered in different ways.
3. Think carefully about who is in the room.
This is not just useful for designers but anyone
involved in forms of social enterprise service 4. Give yourself time.
delivery, as well as those developing policies 5. Know that all voices matter.
and interventions in connection with local
6. Have fun!
governance institutions. In a research context,
this approach has mostly been applied with
members of the public and students, to think
about interventions for system change. Here,
solutions emerged that would require the
involvement of a range of applicable institutions
to put ideas into practice. Involvement of diverse
stakeholders from a range of disciplinary and
professional backgrounds relevant to the
problem under investigation would facilitate buy-
in to new interventions, and potentially create
change within the institutions themselves, due
to fresh perspectives and discussions around
key issues.

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Systems Origami

Further reading
l Business Origami: Learning, Empathizing, and Building with Users
l 
Systems of practice and the circular economy: transforming
mobile phone product service systems
l 
Using the business origami technique to understand complex
ecosystems

To reference: Hobson, K., Ehgartner, U. and Barron,

A. (2021). ‘Systems Origami’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L.,
Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.)
Methods for Change: Impactful social science methodologies
for 21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The
University of Manchester

PAGE 123
Methods for Change
Social Practice Art
as Research
Dr Jenna C. Ashton,
Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Jenna C. Ashton
jenna.ashton@manchester.ac.uk
Social Practice Art as Research

Social Practice Art as Research is a multi-disciplinary

and political practice which places people at the centre.
This method can be used with individuals and large
groups. It aims to foster social or political change
through collaboration with individuals, communities and
institutions through the creation of art, together.
Social practice encompasses a number of art mediums and
methods, languages and forms of art. Social Practice Art as
Research often culminates in public-facing installations or
performance, with a parallel emphasis placed on the process of
creating and doing, as much as an end work. It is precisely the
uncertainty, unpredictability and spontaneity that comes from
interacting and co-creating together with participants that makes
this method an exciting approach. The social interaction component
inspires, drives, or in some instances, completes the project (there is
not always a final art ‘object’). With an agenda for social change at its
heart, this method has been used to engage and empower a wide
range of individuals and groups including local activists, charities,
various residents’ groups, NGOs, government representatives and
healthcare providers.

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Social Practice Art as Research
How does Social Practice Art as
Research create or contribute to
change?  Socially-engaged models of practice - community
Social Practice Art as Research produces
incremental change at all points in the research
process. While the end output (an exhibit,
film or a performance, for instance) might
feed up to facilitate organisational change
by bringing different stakeholders together,
this approach is primarily concerned with the
change that happens for individuals and groups
in the process of creating. This change is often
emotional because this approach provides a
space for expression that enables participants
to feel that their voices and stories matter.
While such emotional change often occurs at an
individual or group level, the platform and space
that is provided to participants in this approach
can lead to more transformative change across
societies and be fed into policies. Emotional
change can also occur for the researcher
through the different stories, perspectives
and experiences encountered. Moreover, the
relationships developed with participants need
to be nurtured and often become part of the
reflexive practice of the researcher long after the
project has ended in that it feeds back into future
practice.
What ideas or concepts
influence this method?
arts, environmental arts and ‘artivism’ -
make up a rich field, led since the 1970s by
Indigenous, feminist and socialist practitioners.
Engaged artists collaborate with scientists,
planners, politicians and communities to
creatively facilitate social change. Feminist
driven arts practice specifically focuses on
spatial inequalities and oppression, and how
those most marginalised and excluded from
policy making are impacted. Resonant of other
participatory approaches, Social Practice Art
as Research is not a means to an end, but
an end within itself. It is the experience of
experimentation and creation that matters,
undertaken through the forms and languages of
the arts. Participants are not research subjects
but rather engaged practitioners.
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Social Practice Art as Research

Why might I want to use Social Practice Art as Research?

l Social Practice Art as Research is useful when l Social Practice Art as Research can
researching with marginalised groups to enable participants to explore emotional,
foreground their experiences, in order to drive psychological and sensory experiences.
action. The different ways of creatively engaging
(conversation, installation, performance,
l It is particularly good at interrogating very
photography, painting, curating, or film-
specific research questions that matter to
making, for instance) can open diverse
those it is engaging with. Because participants
modes of storytelling and provide space
are engaged from the very beginning, the
for participants to express themselves in
process of researching can be crafted around
many different ways. Social Practice Art as
the needs of a group or individuals.
Research, then, provides a means to release
l This approach can open unexpected and and discover and share knowledge and
contested dialogues. The process of creating experiences.
together often takes individuals’ thoughts
down lesser-trodden paths, encouraging
them to open up about topics they may not
otherwise have thought to discuss.

“Telling Tales” collage, used for exhibition booklet and banners

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Social Practice Art as Research
Step by step guide to using Social Practice Art as Research:
Though each project will be unique, there
are several elements of this process that are
important to consider in any Social Practice Art
as Research project:
1. Understand what your key issue or topic
is: You may have specific formulated research
questions or an idea of a broader topic that
you wish to investigate with participants.
2. Decide how location and time will be
used in the context of the research:
Will the project be site specific, with activity
happening in a particular place, or will it be
spread across a wider geography? What
timescale does the project have, and how
will this impact its structure and the type,
frequency and duration of activities you are
able to undertake?
3. Research the socio-political context of
the work: This initial desk research into
the background of the topic and location
forms a crucial base of knowledge for the
evolving participation and co-production with
participants. It also enables an understanding
of both the barriers and opportunities that
might arise in the course of the project.
4. Commit to ethical practice: It is important
for researchers to have an in-depth
understanding of, and commitment to working
collaboratively and sensitively with participants
to ensure that co-production is meaningful
and genuine across the project.
5. Identify participants: This stage involves
asking who needs to be part of this project in
terms of stakeholders and participants, and
how will they be invited to join. Consider the
inequity within the project, with regards to
diversity and inclusion, and map how these
issues will be mitigated or addressed.
 
6. Map strengths and roles in the research
team: When planning research activity, it is
important to have a clear idea of who will lead
which aspects of the project, how different
elements of the work interconnect, and if
there are any skills gaps in your team. As an
arts researcher, you will likely have a particular
interest or strength in your own creative
practice. Ensure you are flexible in thinking
through appropriate art forms for the specific
project and allow new approaches to enter
into the process, drawing on complementary
expertise where appropriate.
Ensure you build in time within the project
for reflecting on the process and for
moments of meaningful exchange between
the lead researchers. Enable this to inform
and shape the work along the way.
7. Plan creative outputs: Social Practice Art
as Research always has creative outputs, but
these can evolve in multiple ways. Think about
what types of outputs will be most relevant for
your project. What spatial access restrictions
or opportunities will you have; and how will
your outputs be in dialogue with your desired
audience? Who is your desired audience?
Consider the budgets you have for creative
productions, materials, and expenses.
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Social Practice Art as Research
Examples of Social Practice Art as Research
in the social sciences 
Telling Tales (2014-2015)
Researcher: Dr Jenna C. Ashton, The University of Manchester
This project sought to bring the perspectives
of five young people who had speech and
language difficulties into dialogue with speech
and language therapy professional practice
and research. The project also involved
speech and language therapy researchers
and professional therapists, teachers, and
wider family members. The project aimed to
explore how visual creative practice opened
up storytelling opportunities for these young
people, and what could be learnt from that
process.
The researcher worked with a group of young
people over a series of months and engaged
them in various creative exchanges including
workshops, conversations, or the sharing of
artefacts, writing, and imagery, between each
other, with herself, and also in the broader
context of their families, speech therapists, or
teachers. These young people had identified
themselves as already interested in creativity.
The final output for this research was an
exhibition held at Manchester Central Library.
Each young person who was working on the
project had one glass cabinet dedicated to
them as part of the exhibition. The researcher
worked with them to create an installation
within each of the cabinets. The exhibit was
driven by what the young people wanted
to show, explore and display. The cabinets
featured an assemblage of things including
photographs, paintings and objects, each
chosen by the young people to represent
methods of communicating beyond speech,
and what they wished to share with an
audience. Each cabinet offered a unique visual
‘tale’ crafted between the young person and
the researcher.
These tales, driven by issues relating to speech
and communication challenges, focused on
moments of experience, certain behaviours,
aspects of imagination, or an obsessive
interest.
The exhibition served to open conversation
more broadly around speech and language
therapy, the potential of visual arts, and it
challenged perceptions of education and
communication ability. The project provided
further opportunities for the young people,
in terms of self-development, and sharing
their experiences beyond the project. Their
participation contributed to official cognitive
assessments.
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Social Practice Art as Research
Examples of using Social Practice Art as Research
in social science research 
Green Infrastructure and the Health and Wellbeing Influences
on an Ageing Population (GHIA) (2016-2020)
Researcher: Dr Jenna C. Ashton, The University of Manchester
Social Practice Art as Research formed the
key method of inquiry in one element of a
large research project. The researcher was in
consistent dialogue with researchers leading
the other strands of this work, across health,
geography, ageing, and psychology. The
research led by Jenna (alongside a design
activist and archaeologist, and later also
involving students) sought to identify the
barriers to engaging with green space and
urban nature amongst older people. It aimed
to better understand people’s motivations
for when they do engage with green space.
Time was spent with older people in areas
of high health deprivation who were already
expressing actions of care and activism
around urban nature. Participants showed
the researchers what they were doing with
the land, on their allotments, in their gardens,
backyards or parks, and explored the
motivations behind their activities, with a focus
on who cares, and how they care.
Social Arts Practice as Research was used in
this project to get beyond the spoken word
and the rigidity of a traditional interview. This
evolved across informal discussions at sites,
group meetings, exchanges of photography
and documentation, writings, objects, knitting,
exhibition making, and public conversations.
Conventional interviews would not show what
participants were doing, their practices, or
processes. The project was in-residence in the
Manchester Museum, as part of the Heritage
Futures Studio. This was an experiment to
consider how active, contemporary ‘living’
urban cultures could utilise the Museum
as a public space for creative and activist
exchanges. It enabled the participating
groups and their creative artefacts to come
into contact with each other, and with
other audiences. This project led to policy
partnerships that supported the formation of
new research, ‘Community Climate Resilience
through Folk Pageantry’: AHRC, Met Office, UK
Climate Resilience Programme. 2020 – 2022.
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Social Practice Art as Research
Where else could Social Practice
Art as Research be used?
This method could be particularly useful in
contexts where there are concerns regarding
sensitive subjects, or an interest to work with
diverse participants in a range of community,
institutional, and organisational environments.
As an example, other projects carried out by the
researcher were undertaken in collaboration
with women from diaspora and refugee
backgrounds. Another very different example
involved supporting research into the training
needs of young dentists to respond to domestic
violence cases.
Top tips
1. Social Practice Art as Research is highly
interdisciplinary. If you are not an
arts researcher, but want to explore
a research issue via Social Practice
Art as Research, then partner with an
arts researcher who is located within
a field of creative forms, language, and
research. Social Practice Art as Research
is not the same as using arts methods as
an isolated form within an overarching
social science methodology.
2. Do not underestimate the creativity that
already exists within people, in their
everyday contexts.
3. Learn to sit with uncertainty and be
comfortable in ‘mess’ that is generated
by the creative process, and is inherent
in collaboration with people.
4. Keep focused on the social or ecological
issue in hand; the arts practice is in
service to that issue.
5. Make sure love, care and sharing
underpin your practice.
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Social Practice Art as Research

Further reading
l Jenna C. Ashton’s website
l Suzanne Lacy’s website
l The Pablo Helguera archive
l Common Ground website
l The Social Art Library website
l Art Util archive
l Actipedia: creative tactics that help bring about change
l FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism

To reference: Ashton, J. Barron, A., Pottinger, L. (2021).

‘Social Practice Art as Research’ in Barron, A., Browne,
A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson,
J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social science
methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester:
Aspect and The University of Manchester.

PAGE 132
Methods for Change
Follow the Thing
Dr Stephanie Sodero,
Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Stephanie Sodero
stephanie.sodero@manchester.ac.uk
Follow the Thing

Follow the Thing is a social science method that traces

the journey of a given product, from donated blood to
fair trade coffee. It involves thinking with, and through, a
specific good and its supply chain. The method surfaces
often-overlooked processes, dynamics, and connections
between people, services, and infrastructures. In doing so,
Follow the Thing is used to understand interconnections
and to explore and expose complexities, vulnerabilities,
and injustices.
It can offer insight into the journeys of goods upon which we rely,
but that are often invisible until there is failure, disruption, or crisis,
such as shortages of personal protective equipment during COVID.
It makes visible these unseen journeys, cultivating an appreciation
for their surprising geographic extent and complexity. By shedding
light on the journeys that different products take, Follow the Thing
can expose unjust working conditions and environmental harms,
encouraging more ethical consumer and corporate behaviour.
Follow the Thing draws on a range of methods that can broadly
be thought of being on a spectrum from direct to indirect ways of
following. Direct following requires greater access to the field and
might include barcodes and tracking tags. For example, a barcode
can be used to trace the journey of a box of trainers or a tracking
tag can be attached to a fish to understand its movements. Indirect
following includes participant observations, facility tours, interviews,
and document analysis.

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Follow the Thing
How does Follow the Thing create
or contribute to change?  supply chains, it now covers a wide variety of
Follow the Thing, for the researcher and reader,
transforms understanding of how the world
works. In social science, this is referred to as
opening a black box. When something functions
well it is taken for granted or ‘black boxed.’
When there is a disruption, that black box is
opened and its inner workings, good and bad,
are revealed. For example, we turn on lights
without thinking. But when there is a storm and
the power goes out, it prompts some people to
think about how the electricity grid works, in what
ways it is vulnerable, and how it can be made
more resilient. However, for research purposes,
the thing in question does not need to be broken.
Follow the Thing researchers can choose any
‘thing’ that piques their interest. Descriptive
accounts, created by following things, shed light
on larger dynamics and processes, illuminating
what works well and what can work better.
What ideas or concepts
influence this method?
During the last two decades, ‘following’ emerged
as a popular method in human geography.
Geographer Ian Cook and colleagues helped
pioneer the Follow the Thing method. Driven by
the aim of promoting geographically informed
and ethically aware consumption, Cook traced
the geographies of everyday things, looking at
who made them, where they were produced
and under what conditions. For example, Cook
and colleagues researched the supply chain of a
papaya, which ranges from Jamaica to the UK, to
understand the globalisation of food.
While early work traced consumer goods along
socio-political concerns including researching
activist networks, energy, animals, chemicals,
finance, policies, waste, and data. For example,
Follow the Thing is used by commodity activists
aiming to create a more socially just and
environmentally sustainable fashion industry
(e.g. Fashion Revolution).
The Follow the Thing approach is complemented
by the mobilities paradigm, which emerged
out of a recognition of the prevalence and
importance of movement in contemporary
society. These movements range from how
children get to school to interplanetary tourism,
as well as movements of objects, data, ecologies,
and more.
Follow the Thing takes a ‘more than human’
approach. It goes beyond a human-centred
perspective and instead, directly and indirectly,
traces the complex journey of an object. The
object, and the diverse networks of people,
goods, regulations, and more, entailed in the
journey of that object, are the focus. Moving
beyond the human allows alternate perspectives
to emerge that reveal connections, complexities,
and contradictions that can inspire action on
social and environmental issues.
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Follow the Thing
Why might I want to use Follow
the Thing?
l Follow the Thing exposes power structures
that operate behind the scenes, revealing
complexities, vulnerabilities, injustices, and
even violence. The method does this by
directing attention to areas that otherwise
receive little media, policy, and academic
attention because they are taken for granted,
difficult to access, or hard to trace.
l The method sheds light on taken for granted
processes and supply chains upon which
people rely. It reveals diverse communities
and environments working in often unseen
and unappreciated ways, as well as how such
overlooked processes are vulnerable to global
environmental change, lack of labour rights,
and more.
l Follow the Thing highlights unapparent
connections between different people and
infrastructures, such as a papaya farmer in
Jamaica and a papaya consumer in the UK,
as well as how connections are vulnerable to
injustices and disruption, such as caused by
the global climate emergency.
l It offers a flexible approach that captures
dynamic timeframes, geographies, and
rhythms.
l Depending on the target audience, Follow the
Thing findings can be shared in diverse ways,
ranging from news articles to fictionalised
vignettes to graphic novels.
l This method allows the researcher to tell the
story of a general or complex process through
one specific journey. In this way, it takes a
topic that is complex or mundane and weaves
it into a compelling story that gives the reader
an appreciation for a process about which
they may have never given any thought.
Step by step guide to using
Follow the Thing?
1. Identify what you want to follow. Why
this thing? What will following it allow? What
are the start and end points of the journey?
For example, in the case of blood donation,
one possible journey is from the point of
donation to the point of care. Remember
that some things are more accessible than
others - tracing a tomato from a local farm
and following a bag of donated blood are very
different projects.
2. Brainstorm potential ways of following
this thing. What kind of journeys does it
involve? How might you trace such a journey?
What access do you require to engage
with your research themes? For example,
researching technical aspects of logistics
versus labour rights are different, though not
unrelated, entry points requiring different
research approaches.
3. Identify a starting point. It is likely you will
not fully appreciate the complexity of the full
journey, as that is why you are undertaking
this research. Therefore, identify a place
to begin, such as a conversation with a key
contact or a useful document, from which
you can find out about different points in the
journey, as well as if and how you might gain
access.
4. Pursue available leads to keep following
the thing. Opportunities to Follow the
Thing might include conducting interviews
with managers who can give an overview
of decisions and processes, conducting
interviews with workers who can provide
details on working with and transporting
the thing, touring facilities, observing people
and processes, reading documents, and/or
partnering with organisations to Follow the
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 Follow the Thing
Step by step guide to using Follow the Thing:
Thing physically or virtually through video
surveillance, tagging or barcodes. Identifying
what to follow and how is an ongoing puzzle.
It may take time to foster relationships with
gatekeepers and there may be dead ends.
Identify potential partners who can facilitate
the research process.
If the thing you are following is difficult to
trace, you could use more sophisticated
technologies, like barcodes and tracking
tags. Barcodes are used to track product
journeys from origin to end creating
valuable data on ‘out of sight’ warehouses
and shipping activity, for example.
Alternately, for more local supply chains,
you might ask the person who is handling
the thing to take photographs at each
stage of the process. By capturing images
that they feel are illustrative and notable, a
photo diary is created in the field providing
access and insights that are not directly
available to the researcher.
The starting point for the Bloodscape scavenger hunt featuring a Blood Bikes volunteer.
5. Think about what kind of story you want
to tell. When you have gathered enough
data to trace a journey, think how best
to tell the story given your research lens,
data, and target audience. Different themes
that researchers highlight include carbon
footprints and other environmental impacts,
consumerism and waste, fair trade, human
rights, labour rights, supply chain resilience,
and more.
6. Work with your collected data to create
a story, choosing a medium that will
be accessible and compelling for your
target audience. For example, do you
aim to educate the public or do you aim to
change national policy? Look at everything
you have gathered and take some time away
to let the salient points rise and use those
to anchor the story. Ground all points of the
story in large and small details you gathered
during research to create a picture that is
representative of the dataset.
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 Follow the Thing

Fictionalised vignettes can be used to tell this One option is to create a game that tells a
story by drawing out specific elements of the story of following the thing. This interactive
general information gathered about the journey experience may appeal to a different and
of the thing; emphasizing specific dynamics and wider audience than written material. An
overlooked movements and processes. There is example is a scavenger hunt. Bloodscape
a risk when people hear ‘fictionalised’ that they was a self-guided adventure that let
think that the story is made up. These vignettes participants experience Edinburgh, Scotland
are grounded in research but with the added through the lens of blood. Bloodscape
flare of telling a broader story through an provided diverse experiences of blood
engaging, specific example. through space and time, including changing
trends, global campaigns, and Harry
Potter (written in Edinburgh). The goal of
7. When you have drafted the story, share it
Bloodscape was to broaden participants’
with key informants. This will ensure that it
understandings of blood as a vital good.
is accurate and reflects their experience and
understanding. Based on participant feedback,
refine the story as needed. Keep in mind
that some stories are sensitive in nature and
participants may not be keen for challenging
issues to be shared. As a researcher, use your
judgement to represent your dataset while
being conscious of power imbalances.

Another scavenger hunt stop exploring the links between travel, disease, and blood transfusion.

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Follow the Thing

Examples of using Follow the Thing in social science research 

Blood mobilities
Researcher: Dr Stephanie Sodero, The University of Manchester

This project used the Follow the Thing method In the narrative, four vials of blood are flown to
to research vital mobilities, specifically how a different part of Canada for testing to ensure
blood gets from the point of donation to the the blood is safe. Once the blood is approved,
point of care. it is processed into three components:
plasma, platelets, and red blood cells. Each
As blood is a sensitive medical product,
component goes to a different location,
Stephanie could not physically follow it due
travelling surprising distances.
to privacy issues. Instead, she traced the
journey of an imaginary bag of donated blood There are countless different routes blood
in Canada by conducting interviews, touring can take, but Stephanie wanted to tell a
facilities, and reading policy documents. specific story. A dramatic flair made the
Through these methods, Stephanie pieced story more compelling. The narrative arc
together a picture of how donated blood involves a car crash, an all too relatable event,
travels from the point of donation to the point with the vignettes showing the donated
of care. red blood cells being transported by an air
ambulance and the patient waking in hospital
While blood donation is lifesaving, the behind-
to see donated blood being transfused.
the-scenes details do not necessarily make
Fictionalisation of Follow the Thing permits
for a compelling story. It is possible to tell
researchers, stakeholders and readers
a boring story about blood that focuses on
to gain understanding of processes that
technical details that are not of interest to a
are unapparent, as well as to explore and
non-specialised audience. Instead of a dry
emphasize novel themes, such as climate
report, Stephanie wanted to tell a specific,
mitigation and adaptation, lending a unique
compelling story about a bag of blood drawing
perspective that draws connections with
on the general information she had gathered.
broader societal issues.
This story is not made up but grounded in
research.
Based on her fieldwork, Stephanie developed
nine fictionalised vignettes. The first started
with the act of donating blood. The narrative
used a fictionalised version of Stephanie and
was based on her memory of donating blood.
The narrative then follows the journey of the
bag of donated blood.

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Follow the Thing

Where else could Follow the Thing be used?

The Follow the Thing approach is useful for l Fairtrade How does your breakfast get to

organisations, such as businesses, charities, your table? Tracing the origins and supply
activist organisations and government chains of a meal can expose unseen carbon
departments that are interested in thinking footprints, environmental impacts, and social
through unseen dynamics in provisioning, the injustices.
environmental impacts of everyday products, l  aste: What happens to an object, such
W
and how these processes link to social and
as your smart phone, when it is no longer
material inequalities. As the example above
used? Just as the process of creating a good is
shows, organisations might also be interested in
complex and surprising, so too are processes
the lives of ‘things’ that are recognised as difficult
of breaking down and disposing of waste.
to follow due to ethical, safety, and privacy
issues. In such contexts the Follow the Thing
method can be adopted using creative research
approaches to reconstruct journeys. Here are
some examples of where else this approach
could be used:
Top tips
1. Consider your target audience and the
l Disaster scenario planning: What happens

elements of the journey, such as time,
when a disaster, such as an ash cloud,
speed, and location that you want to
pandemic, or hurricane, causes disruption in
highlight. Develop a creative output
a supply chain? From face masks to vaccines
tailored to these elements.
to everyday household items, a Follow the
Thing approach can help health professionals 2. Ground all points in empirical evidence.
and government officials think through While the specific journey may be
provisioning and contingency planning. fictional, it represents actual processes.
It should be realistic, as well as being
l Climate change: Severe weather events

presented in a creative way.
impact global supply chains. For example,
Puerto Rico is a major producer of 3. Check in with your research participants
pharmaceutical supplies. When it was hit to confirm that your depiction reflects
by Hurricane Maria in 2017, there were their understanding of the ‘things’
widespread impacts on local healthcare journey.
provision as well as pharmaceutical exports.

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Follow the Thing

Further reading
l  lood: Vital mobilities: Circulating blood via fictionalized vignettes
B
(academic article)
l Cotton t-shirt: My cotton t-shirt:
From field to wardrobe (video)
l Fish Traceable Seafood Supply Chains (video)
l Mardi
 Gras beads Beads, Bodies, and Trash: Public Sex, Global
Labor, & the Disposability of Madi Gras (book)
l Papaya Follow the thing: papaya (academic article)
l Pharmaceuticals Cradle to Grave (art installation)
l Refugee Rights What They Took with Them (spoken word poem)
l Dr Stephanie Sodero website

To reference: Sodero, S., Barron, A., and Pottinger,

L. (2021). ‘Follow the Thing’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L.,
Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.)
Methods for Change: Impactful social science methodologies
for 21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The
University of Manchester.

PAGE 141
Methods for Change
Life Mapping
Dr Elisabeth Garratt,
The University of Sheffield

Dr Jan Flaherty,
Kings College London

Dr Amy Barron,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Elisabeth Garratt
elisabeth.garratt@sheffield.ac.uk
Life Mapping

Life Mapping is a qualitative narrative visual method that

involves following a person’s life over a specified time
period, from a point in the past through to the present
day. The researcher asks the participant open-ended
questions about their life history while the participant uses
pens and paper to draw or ‘map’ significant moments in
their life in relation to the topic being explored.
For example, if homelessness were to be explored, participants
who had experienced homelessness might be asked to draw the
first place they remember living in, up until the present day. The
researcher would then use the participants’ drawings as a prompt
for further questions, developing a rich personal account of an
individual’s life. Life Mapping therefore encourages the participant
to draw their memories, with the participant’s own drawings
assisting the participant and researcher to talk together about
these moments in space and time. The visualisation within the
Life Mapping method is about the participant’s own drawing as
a process that aids in the exploration of emotions and memory
about certain places and times across a life-course. The flexible
and interpretive nature of the visual component means a range
of different life maps can be created. While some participants
may draw a line, which rises and falls at different moments to
depict their life events or emotional journey; others may create
detailed sketches of buildings or places. While some may present
something akin to a flow diagram; others might draw abstract
shapes to represent different places. These unique interpretations
can shed light on different experiences, provide insight into how
specific services might be improved, and highlight what matters
to individuals. This versatile method can be used to understand a
person’s entire life, or a particular period in their life, in relation to
a particular topic or issue. While Life Mapping is most often used to
explore the past through to the present, future oriented reflections
can also be incorporated.

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Life Mapping
How does Life Mapping create or
contribute to change?  Life Mapping?
Change is a central component of Life Mapping;
the method is often used to understand points
of change and transition in individual life-courses.
This method allows researchers and participants
alike to better understand the circumstances
that might have led an individual’s life to unfold
in a particular way. Comprehending these often-
overlooked processes might then shed light on
various opportunities and challenges in relation
to particular services or wider prospects. The
tensions and conflicts that Life Mapping reveals
can then influence the allocation of resources.
For example, in the homelessness project that
is introduced in greater detail later in this guide,
leaving home as a teenager indicated a risk of
homelessness throughout the lifetime. Policy and
interventions could focus on increasing resources
for individuals or families via mediation in the
mid-teenage years or financially supporting the
young person to leave in a managed way if home
life is not possible.
Participating in a Life Mapping exercise could
also instigate ongoing reflection for participants
as they continuously and retroactively construct
a narrative around their lives. The memories
awakened by the Life Mapping exercise might
then encourage participants to reframe old social
connections or situations. In the case of family-
finding work, in which mapping is used directly
to re-find social networks, this may bring about
reunification with family members which in turn
provides support opportunities.
What ideas or concepts influence
The development of Life Mapping as a social
science research method is influenced by the
work of sociologist Robert Atkinson who is a
major proponent of Life Story Interviewing. Like
other social science research methods including
Oral and Life Histories, Life Story Interviewing
and Life Mapping are concerned with the
narrative study of the life-course. Outside
of academic practice, adaptions of the Life
Mapping method have been used in social work
practice and post-conflict family reunification
(see De Lay, 2003). It is the participatory and
visual component that defines the Life Mapping
method, and this is influenced by a shift toward
visual and participatory methods across the
social sciences more generally. Life Mapping
is also part of the narrative tradition, in that
participants are invited to construct and share
a story of their lives with the researcher. By
listening to how participants narrate their story,
researchers can understand how meaning
is continuously constructed. Like any kind
of narrative method, the stories participants
share are selectively crafted, oriented toward
what they understand to be significant in that
particular moment. This makes Life Mapping a
reflexive method in which participants are likely
to revisit parts of the map they had already
drawn at a later point in the interview as they
iteratively recraft their narrative.
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Life Mapping

Why might I want to use Life Mapping?

l Life Mapping can help researchers to better l Paying attention to what participants choose
understand issues in the context of an to draw and how much time they spend on
individuals’ entire life. This broad perspective different sections of their life map can provide
can shed light on nuances and dynamics insight into what matters to individuals. In
that might otherwise be overlooked by the homelessness project, for example,
more traditional research methods, such as participants would often detail their personal
interviewing. achievements, such as sporting prowess or
owning a business or property. This nuanced
l Through participating in a Life Mapping
understanding might help to disrupt dominant
activity, participants may come to realise
representations or stereotypes surrounding
certain burdens, validate personal experiences
particular societal groups by highlighting the
and obtain greater self-knowledge and
differences therein.
awareness.
l The act of drawing and writing might help
l The flexibility afforded by Life Mapping means
participants to reflect in greater depth than
this method can be as simple or complex as
in a conventional interview setting, and in
the researcher and participant desire. Some
this way gives participants the opportunity to
participants may talk for hours and provide
move beyond an often stereotypical ‘usual’
detailed drawings, whereas others may wish
story. This is because drawing helps to divert
to talk for a shorter amount of time, creating
attention away from a question-and-answer
simple or schematic drawings, or drawing
structure toward a more reflective practice
abstract shapes and arrows.
as participants decide what to draw and
l The visual timeline that is produced through the researcher can respond as the life map
the Life Mapping method can help participants progresses.
and researchers to understand the ambiguity
and complexity of life by cataloguing and
reflecting on significant events, either those
oriented to by participants or structured
around a particular research topic.

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 Life Mapping
Step by step guide to using Life Mapping: 
1. Evaluate your aims. Life Mapping offers a
flexible way of creating narratives of people’s
life histories and enables a visual depiction
of an individual’s story. This creative method
will produce rich detail of the participant’s
understanding of their experiences and can
be structured around a particular topic or
experience.
2. Select an appropriate environment to
conduct Life Mapping. This environment
will preferably be somewhere that the
participants are familiar with to ensure
they feel comfortable. For example, if you
are researching with drug users, it might
make sense to conduct the Life Mapping
in a support service location that they have
visited before.
3. Set the scene and create the right
atmosphere. It is a good idea to bring some
biscuits and drinks with you and place these
on a table before participants arrive. You
might also want to arrange pens and paper
on the table to foreshadow the mapping
activity. Preparing the space in this way can
help to put participants at ease by providing
a sociable focal point and reinstating the
nature of the mapping exercise.
Before you begin the interview, be sure to
get the participant’s permission to audio
record the conversation that will unfold as
the map is drawn. You can then listen back
to this audio alongside observing the visual
life map to help you make sense of the
material once the activity has ended.
4. Ask participants your first question.
Remember, Life Mapping often follows
a chronological structure, so you may
want to start with the earliest point in the
participant’s life you are interested in hearing
about. This might be from their earliest
memory, or you may have selected a specific
timeframe in their life. Try to not be too rigid
with this and let the participant lead.
Think carefully about the types of
questions you are asking and how to
word them. For example, if you are
researching a sensitive topic such
as homelessness, try to avoid asking
participants to draw their first home
as this has complex connotations of
family, love, and security. A better
way of framing this might be to ask
participants to reflect on the first
place they remember living in.
5. Participants will begin to story their
lives. It is your job to continue asking
thoughtful questions that move the Life
Mapping exercise in a useful direction.
This can be both forwards and backwards.
Remember that the Life Mapping exercises
are interpreted differently by people, so
adapt your approach if necessary.
!Pop box!
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 Life Mapping

Step by step guide to using Life Mapping: 

7. Point participants to extra help and

Remember to pay attention to what
the participant is drawing as well as to
what they are saying. If the participant is
spending a long time on a specific moment
and drawing in detail, try not to rush them
and instead ask about the drawing; it may
be a significant moment for them.
services. Life Mapping exercises can
sometimes evoke unpleasant memories.
Even if you think the exercise has gone
smoothly, it is your responsibility to signpost
participants to any relevant further help and
support on the day so offer an information
sheet of useful phone numbers.

8. Follow up with participants. It might be

a good idea to phone your participants to
6. Think of a way to end the interview.
check they are feeling okay a few days after
If you have reached the present day the
the Life Mapping exercise.
interview will find a natural ending, while
ending the interview at another stage will
9. Creatively use the maps. This can be done
require more consideration. You can end
in a range of ways, from life maps forming
the interview by thanking the participant for
the central analytical focus to being used to
sharing their story with you, switching off the
supplement the interview transcripts. Life
audio recorder and changing the feel of the
maps can also be used effectively within
conversation to be more general to help the
reports and presentations and may illustrate
participant return to the present.
the story of people’s lives in a more impactful
way than a written account.

Ryan’s life map showing his housing history in a series of houses, flats, and a tent.

PAGE 147
Life Mapping

Examples of Life Mapping in social science research 

Homelessness in Oxford: Risks and opportunities across housing
and homeless transitions
Researchers: Dr Elisabeth Garratt, The University of Sheffield,
and Dr Jan Flaherty, Kings College London

In this project, Life Mapping was used to
explore people’s life histories around the
topic of housing and homelessness. The
research focused on risks in the transitions
between housing and homelessness
to better understand different types of
homelessness such as sofa surfing, street
homelessness and statutory homelessness,
people’s movements between these, and the
reasons for such movements. It highlighted
the frequent – sometimes constant –
transitioning between unstable housing and
homeless experiences. For many participants
this instability was rooted in their early
lives and often took several forms, and
began a trajectory of insecure housing and
homelessness. Many participants had left
home to live independently as teenagers,
first became homeless during the teen years
or had experienced traumatic events.
Noting that many participants had complex
and unstable lives, the visual cues provided
by Life Maps acted as an aide-mémoire while
providing the opportunity for participants
to reveal and revisit their practical and
emotional understandings of their earlier
life and life events. Jason, one participant in
this research, used his Life Map as a tangible
framework when reviewing his history,
offering a summary both to himself and the
researcher when indicating how: ‘So, I’d gone
from prison, to the bail hostel house, to here,
to here, to here’. Sam, another participant,
similarly contextualised the relationship
difficulties and mental health issues that
led him to experience homelessness in his
40s as stemming from trauma induced by
childhood domestic violence.
Some participants produced detailed
drawings. For example, Angavu grew up in an
African country before seeking asylum in the
UK as a young adult. She drew her boarding
school surrounded by a fence to illustrate
the rural area, and explained how elephants
and other animals would approach the
school grounds. When later describing her
experiences in the UK, Angavu drew several
rows of windows to depict the scale of the
tower block where she lived when awaiting
her asylum assessment.

PAGE 148
Life Mapping
Where else could Life Mapping
be used?
Life Mapping can be used in a range of different
settings to numerous ends. This method is
particularly useful when researching anything
with a temporal theme; that has a sense of
emotional interpretation; topics which might
have high and low points; or sensitive subjects.
It is adaptable in that it can be used to look in an
open way across the life-course or be structured
around a particular theme, such as political
engagement, people’s interaction with services,
or their experience of technology.
Life Mapping can be used with an identifiable
group – such as people who use particular
services – and could be used to explore their
relationships with those services. For example,
using Life Mapping with young people in care
or those using drug services may help to
understand how services have featured in an
individual’s life, what works or does not work
within services, and their emotional experiences
of this. As Life Mapping is a creative approach
it can help to get past the usual ‘service stories’
people may offer in an attempt to access
relevant support. Asking people to tell their
service story may further reveal a very different
experience than outcomes may indicate,
such as a child staying in the family home or
an individual successfully engaging with drug
or mental health services. Life maps could
then help inform service practice or even the
environments they are operating in.
To give an example, a form of Life Mapping has
been used to show highs and lows of weight
loss journeys throughout participants’ lives. Life
Mapping is especially valuable to explore topics
that contain a sense of scale, such as weight
loss (Sheridan et al., 2011), as participants’
weight can be plotted visually to provide both
an overarching trajectory and more detailed
variation over time. In this example, one
participant identified a period of fluctuating
weight she had not previously noticed, which
represented challenges to maintaining her
weight and served to reinforce her ongoing
motivation to ‘keep that nice steady line’. In this
example, photographs were incorporated within
participants’ timelines to ground and illustrate
their weight over time.
Top tips
1. Remember to be sensitive. Even if you
are exploring a particular theme, when
discussing someone’s life, you can never
be too sure what will be disclosed.
2. Patience is key. Remember you are
talking with participants about long
periods – sometimes their entire lives –
and that this is likely to take longer than
a standard interview.
3. To avoid confusion, provide a clear
explanation of what Life Mapping
involves before you begin researching.
4. Be flexible. Different participants will be
more, or less, willing to talk and draw
than others.
PAGE 149
Life Mapping

Further reading
l 
Mobility Mapping and Flow Diagrams: Tools for Family Tracing
and Social Reintegration Work 
l 
Timelining: Visualizing experience
l H
 omelessness in Oxford: Risks and opportunities across housing
and homeless transitions.
l How to make a mobility map

To reference: Garratt, E., Flaherty, J., Barron, A. (2021).

‘Life Mapping’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U.,
Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for
Change: Impactful social science methodologies for 21st
century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The University of
Manchester.

PAGE 150
Methods for Change
Graphic
Interviews:
Graphic Elicitation and
Sketch Reportage

Prof. Nik Brown, Dr Christina Buse,

University of York

Dr Laura Pottinger
and Dr Amy Barron,
University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Prof. Nik Brown
nik.brown@york.ac.uk
Graphic Interviews:
Graphic Elicitation and Sketch Reportage

Graphic Interviews involve a combination of talking and

engaging with visual materials. This guide considers
two Graphic Interview techniques: Graphic Elicitation
using architectural plans, and Sketch Reportage. These
two techniques can be used independently, or can be
brought together in a single research project to provide
multi-layered insight into the world of the respondent by
combining different visual registers.
Graphic Elicitation entails the use of drawing methods in the context
of an interview, with drawings either produced by the participant or
researcher. Architectural drawings and layout plans, for example,
can be introduced, with participants then invited to draw on and
engage with the plans in response to prompts or questions. This
can enable researchers to understand how participants experience,
navigate, inhabit or work within a space.
Sketch Reportage involves a skilled artist joining the research team
and visually documenting the content of interview discussions
in situ, capturing and representing aspects of life disclosed
by respondents. This method can result in the production of
visually compelling drawings or paintings which may be valued by
participants, and can also be useful for communicating research
findings. Both of these approaches provide ways of concretising
what has been said and give the described experiences a material
form.

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How do Graphic Interviews create
or contribute to change?
Graphic Interview methods can encourage self-
reflection on aspects of daily life such as the
way people move through and use buildings.
Viewing and handling architectural plans – which
are rarely accessible to building users – can
be empowering and insightful for participants.
The experience of being sketched, and then
immediately presented with a beautifully crafted
representation of oneself can be moving, and
participants may feel that their experiences have
been recognised and validated.
By disrupting assumptions about what people
do day-to-day, these methods ‘make the familiar
strange’ , and can therefore enable researchers
and participants to access experiences that are
not easily expressed in words.
Feeding back findings generated through
Graphic Elicitation methods can lead to tangible
changes in the building or space in question
such as reconfiguring rooms or routes in
response to participants’ concerns. Such findings
can also highlight organisational practices that
could be reworked. When shared with architects
and planners, this type of research can in the
longer term also inform the redesign of existing
spaces and the design of new spaces. Visual
materials produced through this approach can
be particularly useful for communicating the
experiences of a particular group to the wider
public or policy makers.
The method of Sketch Reportage can itself
also be used as part of a strategy for sharing
research findings. For example, inviting an artist
or visual minuter to document a professional
or academic conference where findings are
presented could create a memorable experience
and visual record for those involved.
What ideas or concepts are
connected with this approach?
Like other creative and elicitation methods
that use visual or material stimuli to encourage
participants to talk about their ideas, Graphic
Interviews bring a participatory and embodied
dimension to more traditional interviewing
techniques. Visual participatory approaches
often aim to disrupt power dynamics by giving
participants the opportunity to lead aspects of
the research through drawing, pointing, handling
materials, or engaging with maps, for example.
Research encounters aim to be interactive and
meaningful for participants, including those who
may struggle with verbal communication.
Sketch Reportage is particularly useful for
communicating non-verbal and embodied
observations which can be lost in a standard
interview transcript, such as gestures, expressions,
postures, coughs, or moments where participants
pause or need to refresh themselves. While
Sketch Reportage involves an artist rather than the
participant leading the creation of a visual artwork,
it can also work to shift the power dynamics of an
interview. The artist introduces creative materials
into the setting, and produces something that can
be given back to participants as a recognition of
their involvement.
Bringing Graphic Elicitation and Sketch Reportage
together can be thought of as a form of
‘triangulation’, in that it allows researchers to
consider the complexity of a particular research
problem by studying it from various angles,
using different forms of visual representation.
Architectural layout drawings are abstract, flat
representations of space, which can be quite
unfamiliar to participants. Sketch Reportage
methods, in contrast, are narrative, biographical
and can capture the person as well as the
space. Integrating these two very different visual
registers can therefore be a powerful tool for
understanding the world of the respondent.
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Why might I want to use Graphic Interviews?
l Graphic Interviews offer a tactile, visually
compelling form of engagement in which
participants have the opportunity to share
their experiences, perspectives and day-to-
day practices in creative ways that go beyond
verbal communication.
l Graphic Elicitation using architectural plans
can be particularly useful for understanding
how building users experience a place. They
can show routines, pathways and movements
through a space, as well as identifying
participants’ perspectives or feelings about
particular areas of a building or location.
l After plans or maps have been drawn on,
coloured in or annotated, they can be
compared to show how different groups
use or perceive a space in contrasting ways.
In a hospital setting, for example, this could
highlight how wellness or occupational
hierarchy can influence routes through
the building, as well as showing embodied
repetitions and routines, or areas that are
perceived as safe or risky.
l Sketch Reportage methods can provide a
record of not only what is said in an interview,
but also how it is said and other contextual
details. They bring narrative and a sense of
the person and place into conversation with
the more abstract journeys and movements
Sketch reportage of interview with ‘Mike’ (cystic fibrosis patient),
by artist Lynne Chapman www.lynnechapman.net
represented on an architectural plan. At the
end of the interview, participants may value
the opportunity to see their experiences
reflected in a beautifully crafted work of art.
l Sketch Reportage introduces an artist and
a creative practice into the setting of the
interview, which may work to disrupt power
dynamics and diffuse potential anxiety on
the part of participants. It is important to
be aware, however, that participants may
find the process of being studied and drawn
whilst talking unsettling. The researcher has
an ethical responsibility to ensure participants
understand and feel comfortable taking
part, are aware of how the visual materials
generated will be anonymised and used, and
to make accommodations or adaptations
where needed.
l Producing something visual during the
interview encounter provides an opportunity
for participants to reflect on the data and
the experience of taking part in the research.
Conventional interviews usually do not
produce immediate outputs that show
or feedback what has been discussed. In
contrast, by the end of an interview using
Graphic Elicitation methods, the participant
can see their journeys and observations
scribbled onto a layout plan as well as an
aesthetically creative reflection of themselves.
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Graphic Elicitation and Sketch Reportage

Step by step guide to using Graphic Interviews

Graphic Elicitation with architectural
drawings and layout plans Different interviewers will have different
ways of resolving the reticence of
1. Prepare the plans or drawings: Layout
interviewees to draw. It can be tempting
plans for public buildings are usually readily
for the interviewer to take over and do it
available and can often be sourced through
for them. It is important to be aware and
the estates department or equivalent of
sensitive to the fact that drawing and writing
the organisation in question. Detailed
in an interview is also a subtle and delicate
drawings need to be large enough (i.e. at
question of confidence, control, delegation
least A3) to be seen easily and made sense
and even power.
of by participants. Architectural plans can
be confusing, so the researcher will need
to be prepared to talk through the plans
and explain what different areas are to help 3. Prompts and questions: Participants are
orient the respondent. guided through the process of annotating
and drawing on the plans through a series
of prompts from the researcher. Initially,
It helps to initially visit the site and ideally
participants could be asked to describe
be given a tour by a member of staff, or
their usual routes through the building, for
to get someone to help identify areas of
example, by asking:
the plan by email. Before printing the
plans, they may need some modification, Could you walk me through what you did

such as cutting out and enlarging some today? What do you normally do when you
aspects of the building or editing room arrive at the building? Where would you go
labels to make them clearer. next? How long does it take?
Different coloured pens can be used for
different types of prompts. For example,
2. Explain the method: The reasons for participants could be asked to use a red
using layout plans need to be clearly pen to highlight areas they see as risky, and
communicated to participants. It is important a green pen to show things that they would
that they understand the purpose of the like to change. Participants may need to
research, what they are being asked to be reminded to keep drawing as they talk
do, and what will happen to the drawings through their answers.
subsequently. Some participants may need
some encouragement to ‘go for it’ and to
pick up a pen and begin drawing, or, in some
cases it may work better if the researcher
draws with instructions from the participant.

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Step by step guide to using Graphic Interviews

Sketch Reportage
Care and consideration needs to be given
1. Identify and recruit the artist: The
to the fact that layout plans can be a
specific artistic and research skills required
‘give away’ in identifying buildings and
will vary depending on the research
facilities that might be recognised beyond
context and focus. Some styles of artwork
a specific site. In publications, reports
– e.g. cartoons – may be appropriate in
and feedback to stakeholders there is
some contexts but not in others. If Sketch
always the possibility that a site could be
Reportage is to be a key component of a
identified, and respondents within the
research project, the artist will be playing
same site might well be able to identify
a significant role within the interviews. It is
one another. Removing text that names
therefore important that they have a clear
hospitals or departments and cropping
understanding of the method, the purpose
areas of plans in publications can mean
of the research, and are able to work
they are less identifiable, but does not
sensitively around the needs of participants.
remove the possibility of spaces being
recognised. It is however, important 2. Plan the interviews together with the
to be aware of this possibility, and the artist: It can be helpful to involve the artist
sensitivities that may be involved. in planning meetings, and ideally they will
be part of the research team from the
start of the project, with involvement in
designing the research. Discuss beforehand
4. Draw on the plans: Multiple copies of
if there are particular things you would
the plans can be printed and then drawn
like them to document, such as gestures,
on or marked with stickers or post it
expressions, written quotes, or elements
notes, for example. Another option is to
of the environment. Sketching and writing
use transparent acetate sheets which are
down what people say at the same time can
overlaid on top of the plan or drawing, and
be challenging – it may be useful for the
attached with masking tape. Participants can
researcher to send selected quotes from
then use permanent markers to write and
the interview transcript to be added to the
draw on the acetate sheet. Multiple acetates
artwork afterwards. The artist may also wish
from different interviews can later be placed
to leave space to draw things or places that
on top of each other to compare one set
were mentioned in the interview later on.
of responses against another. Graphic
Elicitation interviews could also be carried
out online using the annotation option in the
‘shared screen’ or ‘whiteboard’ function of
your preferred online platform.

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Step by step guide to using Graphic Interviews

3. Think about space and positioning:
The space in which interviews take place
needs to be private and big enough
to accommodate the researcher(s),
participant(s), artist and their equipment.
The artist will need to position themselves
somewhere they can see the participant,
and it is important the researcher does not
obstruct their view! Sketch Reportage can
also produce interesting results when used
during walking interviews, though this can
require the artist to sketch at a very quick
rate and to be able to multi-task.
5. Use the visual data to share findings: It
is important to have a plan in place for how
the artworks will eventually be used. The
drawings or images produced using these
methods can be used to illustrate reports or
websites, and can be a powerful method for
communicating research findings, such as
featuring in a display stand at professional or
academic events. The original artworks could
also be displayed in an exhibition or in the
settings in which they were produced - the
‘art in hospitals’ movement is one example.

4. Introduce the artist and the method

and carry out the interview: It is crucial
that participants feel comfortable, and
understand why the artist is sitting in on
the interview, what they will be doing and
how the artwork will be used, including
whether participants will receive a copy.
The researcher can then carry out a semi-
structured interview, following a series of
questions or prompts, which may also be
audio recorded. The artist will sketch or
paint as the interview unfolds, and they
may be involved in the conversation or
add questions at certain points where
appropriate.

Graphic map of Outpatients Department by

‘Rachel’, a physiotherapist.

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Graphic Elicitation and Sketch Reportage

An example of using Graphic Interviews

in social science research 
Pathways, Practices and Architectures: Containing Antimicrobial Resistance
in the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic (PARC)
Researchers: Prof. Nik Brown, Dr Christina Buse, Prof. Sarah Nettleton
and Dr Daryl Martin, University of York; Dr Alan Lewis, The University of Manchester
Wider project team: Prof. Mike Brockhurst, The University of Manchester;
Lynne Chapman, artist; Prof. Craig Winstanley, University of Liverpool
Exhibition design: Hamza Oza and Jonathan West, Royal College of Art

The PARC project compares different
approaches to managing antimicrobial
resistance in the design, practices and
architectural layout of three cystic fibrosis
clinics. Cystic fibrosis is one of many
life-threatening respiratory conditions
characterised by frequent infections and
antibiotic treatment, giving rise to resistant
cross infection between people with cystic
fibrosis. Prevention increasingly depends
on building containment and segregation
of people and pathogens into practices and
material design. And yet, there are significant
variations in the way lung infection clinics
perform segregation within transitional spaces
of healthcare environments. Clinics have
much to learn from each other, and much to
offer the wider clinical community in limiting
antimicrobial resistance.
The PARC Project used a range of qualitative
research methods, including ethnographic
and innovative visual approaches. Fieldwork
took place across three cystic fibrosis clinics
between September 2018 and August 2019.
It included the development of a physical
and virtual exhibition and the dissemination
of findings in bespoke co-design workshops
across fieldwork sites.
In the PARC project researchers used layout
plans and architectural drawings of hospital
environments, including respiratory outpatient
clinics but also long-stay wards, as well as
the wider hospital estate in which they are
located. These are generally the routine
everyday environments in which clinical staff
work and in which patients are treated, and
sometimes the environments in which patients
will spend weeks in semi-isolation. This
Graphic Elicitation method enabled clinicians
and patients to describe and document how
they move around a building, their routes and
pathways, their spatial routines and habits,
to document things that they liked or things
they were worried about. Some areas might
be perceived to be potential hot spots of
infection, cross-infection and contamination,
such as toilets, lifts, sinks and basins, waiting
areas, or canteens, and retail pharmacies. In
this particular research, pens were a concern
in terms of cross infection. The research team
disinfected pens after use, and if interviewing
patients on the same day or within a short
period of time would always use new pens.

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Graphic Elicitation and Sketch Reportage

As part of this project, the team also
employed the graphic artist, Lynne Chapman,
a specialist in creating drawn and painted
illustrations produced in situ during fieldwork
and interviews. The aim was to document
the journeys, both biographical and spatial,
discussed by participants. Given this focus
on journeys and pathways, Lynne used long
narrow strips of water colour paper resulting
in ‘time-lines’ that tell the interviewee’s story
of navigating clinical space and negotiating the
practical aspects of cross-infection avoidance.
Each painting is a colourfully vibrant and
detailed medley of interview quotes, figurative
portraiture detailing embodied gestures, and
sketches of spaces and objects that feature
in the interviewee’s account. By the end of
the project several dozen visually compelling
Sketch Reportage drawings were produced.
The drawing-based methods were useful
in capturing the embodied aspects of the
interview which are often missed, including
participants’ gestures, or the fact that they
were drinking water during the interview.
Although the drawings were anonymised (e.g.
changing hair colour, adding glasses), when
drawings were shown at clinics some people
still thought they could identify participants.
While some participants may be happy to
be identified, it is worth considering whether
anonymity is possible or desirable, and
communicating this clearly to participants at
the outset.
The final phase of the project included
detailed feedback to each clinic through
clinic-specific workshops designed to create
critical reflection on our findings, and to
identify both modest and ambitious design
interventions. Each of the workshops
involved a combination of clinical, ancillary,
estates and sanitary staff, and a patient
representative. Each of these workshops led
to a bespoke schedule of potential design
changes, and a rationale for achieving them.
A final stakeholder workshop brought a wider
range of stakeholders including healthcare
architects and microbiologists together to
discuss the project’s findings and strategies
for embedding impact.
Our findings highlight how hospital buildings
can constrain or enable practices of
segregation and distancing – lifts, narrow
corridors, busy waiting rooms and tight
spaces make keeping a safe distance more
challenging. Participants emphasise the
importance of regular air change for the quick
dispersal of ‘bugs’, but window opening in
hospitals can be limited by window restrictors,
or by issues such as people smoking outside
of windows. Specialist mechanical ventilation
is costly and difficult to retrofit into buildings.
Findings also illustrate how flexibility is
important when designing new hospital
buildings, so that designs can be adapted
to the changing requirements of infection
prevention. Our findings are relevant for
cystic fibrosis clinics, but also for infection
prevention and antimicrobial resistance more
widely, as has become apparent during the
COVID pandemic.

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Graphic Interviews:
Graphic Elicitation and Sketch Reportage
Where else could Graphic
Interviews be used?
Graphic Interviews lend themselves to many
kinds of questions and contexts. However,
they are particularly useful in understanding
experiences of the built environment, and in
generating a sense of ownership for those
who use, live and work in different kinds of
buildings. In the research described above,
this was particularly valuable for empowering
both patients and clinicians. But this could so
easily extend into other therapeutic settings
including mental health settings, cancer
care, and palliative care. Wider application of
Graphic Interviews could include exploring the
experiences of different groups in relation to
public spaces, transport infrastructure, parks,
shopping centres, libraries, schools, universities
and other institutional settings.
The involvement of a Sketch Reportage artist
has gained increasing popularity both within
and beyond social science and humanities
research, including their input into workshops,
conferences and other events. This element of
the research can be important in validating the
experiences of interviewees, and has been used
in a variety of settings, including in research
by members of the PARC project team. This
includes research on the work of architects and
building contractors, who are involved in the
design of buildings for later life care. Sketch
Reportage methods were used when shadowing
architects and building contractors on site,
and also documenting project meetings and
conferences, and Graphic Elicitation was used
in interviews with architects. Sketch Reportage
has also been used in research on the daily
lived experiences of people with dementia.
This method has also been used to capture the
everyday practices of academics, in research by
the University of Manchester.
Top tips
1. When you initially access the plans and
develop them for Graphic Elicitation
interviews, if possible, ask for a tour of
the building, or ask someone to talk you
through the plans. Participants might
need you to explain what they are seeing,
and it can be difficult to do this if you are
unfamiliar with the space.
2. Some architectural plans might be more
workable for this method if they are
slightly simplified or modified. This can
be done with picture editing software. Or
alternatively use health and safety layout
plans if available instead of architectural
plans.
3. Be flexible. Some people are less
comfortable drawing in interviews, so
it is important to think about how you
will address this, and whether you could
instead draw for participants if required.
4. When using Sketch Reportage methods,
agree in advance of the project who will
own the artwork and how it may be used
in future. Most illustrators and graphic
artists tend to provide high quality scans
to clients, whilst retaining rights over
the original, physical artwork. In most
cases, scans are fine for dissemination,
publishing and display, but if an art
exhibition is part of the dissemination
plan then an agreement will need to be
in place to exhibit the work temporarily
or to purchase the art as part of the
contract. Make sure that the hourly and
day rates of the artists and creatives
involved are costed in the initial plans for
the project.
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Graphic Elicitation and Sketch Reportage

Further reading
l Reports from the PARC project
l Lynne Chapman, artist

Academic articles:
l 
Air care: an ‘aerography’ of breath, buildings and bugs in the
cystic fibrosis clinic.
l 
The coughing body: etiquettes, techniques, sonographies and
spaces.
l 
Pathways, practices and architectures: Containing antimicrobial
resistance in the cystic fibrosis clinic.

To reference: Brown, N., Buse, C., Pottinger, L. and Barron,

A. (2021). ‘Graphic Interviews’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L.,
Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.)
Methods for Change: Impactful social science methodologies
for 21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The
University of Manchester.

Funding Acknowledgement: The research project ‘Pathways, practices and

architectures: containing AMR in the CF clinic’ was funded by the UK Arts and
Humanities Research Council (AH/R002037/1). The related project ‘Pre-antibiotic,
antibiotic and post-antibiotic: the co-design of an exhibition’ was funded by the
University of York and Wellcome Trust Centre for Future Health.

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Methods for Change
A Place-based Case
Study Approach
Dr Jessica Paddock,
University of Bristol

Dr Laura Pottinger
and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner,

Corresponding author
Dr Jessica Paddock
jessica.paddock@bristol.ac.uk
A Place-based Case Study Approach

In Place-based Case Study Approaches, research is framed

around a particular place, which can take various forms: a
ward, an island, a region or the geographical reach of an
organisation.
One aspect of Place-based Case Study research that is different
from many traditional approaches is that research questions are
not determined at the beginning of a project, but are developed in
the process of carrying out research in a place. Researchers start
with a broad view of a problem or topic and generate the important
questions over time, as they become more informed. A Place-
based Case Study Approach borrows largely from ethnographic
research methods, studying ‘doings’ and ‘sayings’ of people within
a defined geographical boundary. It thereby draws from a rich
toolbox of methods, including informal, in-situ conversations,
participant observation, archival research, and formal interviewing
which can take different shapes – from structured interviews with
local government representatives in their offices, to spending
an afternoon partaking in conversations with a family in their
living room. This approach often involves the collection of stories
which complement systematically gathered data by illuminating
the socio-economic and political complexities behind social and
environmental challenges.

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How does a Place-based Case What ideas or concepts

Study Approach create or influence this method?
contribute to change?  Taking the approach of “starting research
By entering the field in an exploratory in order to generate research questions”,
way and avoiding the use of pre-defined Place-based Case Studies are associated with
research questions, this approach can the wider field of interpretative-qualitative
reveal misrepresentations that lead to approaches, which involve a degree of
misunderstandings about problems or immersion and are inspired by grounded theory
phenomena as experienced by those living with (an inductive approach where theory and
such concerns. While research that follows this concepts are developed during and after data
approach does not necessarily set out to create collection). The approach is also underpinned
change, change is inherent in a Place-based by practice theory; focusing on observing
Case Study Approach because it generates patterns, actions, doings and sayings, which is
data which can lead to problems being framed different from approaches in which people are
differently. Case studies look at structures, rather asked directly to share their experiences. While
than individual motivations. Research into food conversations about individual experiences
consumption provides one example of how may take place, in Place-based Case Study
reframing a problem can lead to a change in research they are contextualised within wider
perspective: it is often consumers, and women socio-economic and political structures, which
in particular who are blamed for bad nutrition, are understood to shape experiences. The
and many research approaches and research focus is therefore not on individual intentions
questions can as a result be framed around and actions, but attention is instead paid to the
seeking to re-educate and nudge consumers, interconnections between social structures, geo-
and especially women, towards better choices. political systems, and patterns of experiences, as
Taking a case study approach, larger political and embedded within a particular place.
economic circumstances and changes that lead
to poor nutrition can be explored, reminding us
that there are forces at work outside of the sole
control of an individual consumer. Unearthing
alternative perspectives can open fresh
avenues for intervention that avoid well-trodden
pathways towards the same tired and ineffectual
outcomes. Such pathways are usually familiar to
the recipients of such interventions, and thus,
focused conversations with research participants
which become situated within discussion of the
emerging findings, make for a holistic, iterative
interaction that can prove therapeutic for
participants. Connections can be made between
the social structures shaping their experiences
and their roots in that place.

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A Place-based Case Study Approach
Why might I want to use a Place-based Case Study Approach
and what do I need to consider?
l Place-based Case Study Approaches
are useful for understanding social and
environmental challenges and require the
researcher to enter a wider social field with
an open mind. Over time and after various
unstructured forms of exploration - such as:
informal conversations with locals; site visits;
attending local events; diving into archives
- it becomes possible to establish what
constitutes the ‘case’ with regards to its spatial
and thematic boundaries.
l Place-based Case Studies allow researchers
to explore several avenues at once, and to
look at an issue through the lens of multiple
research methods. The areas of exploration
will expand and contract throughout the
research process, as connections with other
fields come to the foreground, and at times,
retreat into the background.
l Researchers might gather insights from
short in-situ conversations as well as formal
interviews, and then represent these as
stories or narratives. These more informal,
unstructured findings may be overlooked
or regarded as invalid in other research
methodologies, but they can provide rich
detail and can work to shift perspectives on an
issue or problem.
l Case studies are well suited to exploring
under-researched areas or topics, or where
problems appear to be stuck. By allowing the
researcher to explore connections in-situ in a
way that other methods may not, this method
is useful for studying areas and places where
misunderstandings of problems are prevalent,
and for enabling counter-narratives to be
identified and developed.
l Taking a Place-based Case Study Approach
is time consuming! The researcher will be in
a place for a sustained duration; spending
time with people, getting to know them,
the community, and become known to that
community, too. Participant observation of
related activities is at the heart of the research
process, and involvement in these aspects
can take a lot of time. Although these activities
may not be directly linked to the research
focus, they are vital to understanding the
landscape in which the case is situated, and to
the success of the project.
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 A Place-based Case Study Approach
Step-by-step guide to using a Place-based Case Study Approach:
1. Explore. Do whatever you can to immerse
yourself in the field. Go into the field first, ask
questions and observe what happens around
you. Only then will you begin to identify the
research questions which help to identify and
shape the parameters of the case.
2. Map Connections. You might start with
a large piece of paper, and think about all
the different sites or spaces involved and
connected with the problem and map them
out. Ask: what individuals and groups are
involved, and how do I access them?
3. Set parameters and draw a boundary
around the case. Once you have taken
the steps outlined above, and have an
understanding of the research problem at
hand, you can build a “fence” or draw a circle
around a particular place or space that you
will focus on. Make sure these boundaries of
the research setting, whether you research
a community, a ward, or an organisation, are
only developed once you have immersed
yourself in a place.
Just because it is a case study of a particular
place, you don’t have to study everything
going on in that place. At the same time, the
boundaries that you draw as a researcher
are permeable: connections and relations
run in and out of your case study location.
While interesting threads may be followed
and investigated to a certain extent, creating
the boundary helps to define the case, to
retain a focus, and it stops the case from
becoming too large and unwieldy! However,
connections with larger processes outside
of the fence of your case study will be part
of the story. They may add flavour to the
study or provide an undercurrent that sends
ripples through the research, but without
being fundamental to the analysis.
 
4. Build a methods toolkit. Once the case
is established, make a list of the methods in
your toolkit and think of the tools that you
need, such as a notebook, camera and/or
dictaphone.
5. Start applying the tools. Figure out what
you are comfortable with. You first need to
build a picture of your case, so you might
want to start with archives, oral history ‘go-
alongs’, or informal conversations before
you move on to interviews. Based on the
background research, these informal
encounters then progress into more formal
one-on-one interviews, or group interviews.
At this point, you might draw on the wealth
of methods the social sciences has in its
repertoire – both qualitative and quantitative
– in order to develop a rich response to the
research questions developed from the initial
stages of case study research.
Make sure you do your own preliminary
research on the place in question. Look
through archives, news and books before you
start interviewing participants. This will not
only help you to prepare the ‘right’ questions,
but it shows some respect to the participants.
It is your responsibility to build a picture
before you ask for peoples’ time, so that they
are not presented with the task of doing this
work for you!
6. Pull out one thread and follow it. Follow
material things and connections. It is normal
for things to become bigger - if you are
doing it right, things will grow! Place-based
Case Study research is a constant process
of reflecting on what you want to do and
whether you are still doing what you want to
do.
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A Place-based Case Study Approach

Step-by-step guide to using a Place-based Case Study Approach: 

7. Collate and analyse. Pulling on a thread
and following it using such mixed methods
will leave you with multiple forms of data
that must all be processed, arranged,
managed, and analysed. Interviews will
need to be transcribed, fieldnotes written
up in full, photographs stored – perhaps in
connection with a fieldnote – and notes taken
in reference to archival material referenced.
CAQDAS (Computer Aided Qualitative Data
Analysis Software) packages such as NVivo
and AtlasTi work well as tools for data storage
and management. They enable the coding of
multiple forms of data, and allow you to keep
a record of the connections between themes
emerging across data. You can also file data
in multiple places according to their relevance
to the themes that arise. This marks an initial
stage of thematic analysis that begins the
process of getting to know your data. How
you go on to analyse the data depends on
how you collected it: did you elicit narratives
through formal interviews? In which case,
subjecting the data to narrative analysis
would be appropriate. If naturally occurring
talk was recorded in the field, a conversation
analysis would better suit this data, and so
on.

An example of a Place-based Case Study Approach

in social science research  
Understanding Food Insecurity Across a Small-Island Archipelago:
A Place-based Case Study
Researchers: Dr Jessica Paddock with colleagues at the Sustainable Places Research
Institute, Cardiff University, in collaboration with partner organisations including
Department for Environment and Maritime Affairs (DEMA), TCI Red Cross, and the
Department for Agriculture.

This study began as part of an their contribution to food security, yet,

interdisciplinary project ‘Biodiversity for food
security: seagrass meadows in the Turks and
Caicos Islands (TCI)’ but has evolved through
relatively small injections of funding over
several years into a case study informed
primarily by a social scientific approach. The
aim of the project, originally, was to explore
the link between healthy seagrass meadows
and food security at a local level.
Context
Through their provision of ecosystem
services that support the development
of a healthy fish community, seagrass
meadows are thought to be valuable for
their status and role in such matters
was not well known outside the scientific
community. This project, in part, sought to
change that. First of all, an understanding
of the processes and institutions that were
at work in the governance of the marine
and coastal environment was established.
Through elite interviews with key actors in
this arena – from the heads of departments
to local enforcement officers – a picture of
the challenges faced in protecting the health
of these biodiverse islands in the context
of rapid coastal development for tourism
was built. At the crux of the matter - from a

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A Place-based Case Study Approach
social scientific point of view - was the need
to understand the dynamics of the food
system as pertaining to that particular place,
and to understand how these systems of
provision worked for different communities
in different ways. Only once such dynamics
were understood, could the role of seagrass
conservation in addressing problems of food
insecurity be understood in ways that could
inform or inspire change for the better, or
indeed to preserve favourable conditions for
current and future generations.
Methods used
The social scientific methods employed across
the duration of this case study (9 years so
far!) include the analysis of archival materials
such as photographs, maps and newspaper
articles. They also include elite interviews,
interviews with islanders while out in the field
as participant observer - sometimes while
volunteering in Red Cross Thrift Stores across
the islands. These in-situ conversations, as
opposed to semi-structured interviews, were
essential in understanding the challenges
faced by islanders as embedded in other
routines central to daily life. Oral history
interviews were employed later on in the
research process, in order to get to grips with
how social and environmental change was
understood by elders across the islands, as
were group interviews where appropriate. For
example, where a community group of women
regularly meet, it made sense to join them,
and to allow the interview schedule to be
subservient to the flow of naturally occurring
talk, and the sharing of stories and memories
were left to emerge through their own talk,
propelled by their own concerns and interests.
How findings were shared
Findings were shared through multiple
media. Academic articles were written,
however, contributions were made also to
local magazines and newspapers so as to
contribute to the discussions abounding
across the islands about the need to diversify
sources of food in order to boost their
resilience to environmental harms and food
insecurity. The research conducted allowed
the voices of several communities across the
islands to be collated. This lent some weight
to public discussions and policy developments
that have since sought to reconfigure the food
system in order to increase local production,
and diversify their regional trade relationships.
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A Place-based Case Study Approach

Where else could a Place-based

Case Study Approach be used?
 his approach is useful in every context where
T
community development work is happening.
Many practitioners might apply versions of
Place-based Case Studies to their ongoing work
already, without framing it as a research method.
Long-term and ongoing engagement with
and knowledge of a particular case may mean
that case study research has been happening
without it ever having been intentionally framed
as such. By following the steps outlined in this
guide, various practitioners and organisations
might fruitfully reframe the work they are
already doing as an ongoing process of research
and to develop a more systematic process for
collating various forms of community data as
evidence within these programmes of work.
Top tips
1. Just start – get out into the field and
immerse yourself!
2. Find focus, but be flexible: It’s important
to map the field, and to draw a boundary,
but don’t be afraid of reframing or
changing it again.
3. Don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of
information you encounter. Just because
it is a case study of a particular place, you
don’t have to study everything going on
in that place.

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A Place-based Case Study Approach

Further reading
l 
What role for trade in food sovereignty? Insights from a small
island archipelago*
l 
Changing consumption, changing tastes? Exploring consumer
narratives for food secure, sustainable and healthy diets*
*If you are unable to access the full version of this article, please email the
author to request a copy

To reference: Paddock, J., Pottinger, L. and Ehgartner,

U. (2021) A Place-based Case Study Approach in Barron,
A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and
Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social science
methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect
and The University of Manchester.

PAGE 170
Methods for Change
Mobile Visual
Methods
Dr Jennie Middleton,
University of Oxford
Dr Laura Pottinger
and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Jennie Middleton
jennie.middleton@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Mobile Visual Methods

In this approach, participants visually record their journeys

or document significant elements of the landscape as they
travel or move around a place. As such, Mobile Visual
Methods are particularly useful for understanding lived,
everyday experience. Mobile Visual Methods often involve
research participants creating visual data themselves,
through photography, film, drawing or map making.
They can also involve the researcher accompanying participants
with a camera or other technologies as they move in or through a
particular space, such as a city, a transport network, or institutional
setting. The data produced is then used as a prompt for subsequent
discussion. This approach can therefore be a powerful tool for
highlighting elements of everyday mobility that may be difficult to
access in a static interview, including ‘embodied’ dimensions - the
ways that individuals experience and relate to places through the
body. Visual data generated through this approach can also be
used to collaboratively produce a creative output such as a film or
exhibition, and therefore to create something tangible that gives
participants a sense of ownership and achievement.

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Mobile Visual Methods
How do Mobile Visual Methods
create or contribute to change?  connected with Mobile Visual
By foregrounding participants’ individual
perspectives, this approach can expose the
variety of ways in which people engage in, and
move around public or private spaces. They
can therefore help to challenge assumptions
that we all move and experience places and
infrastructures in the same way – assumptions
which often underpin urban and transport
policy, for example. For research participants,
involvement in such creative methods can
be transformative, particularly in projects
where visual data is used to develop a co-
produced output. As well as recognising and
validating under-represented experiences of
place and mobility, working collaboratively on
a film or exhibition can provide participants
with opportunities to gain valuable vocational
skills. Collaborating to edit film footage or
curate images, for example, can also provide
opportunities for participants to be involved more
deeply in the research process and to actively
contribute to the analysis and sharing of findings.
The outputs created can be used to raise public
awareness around an issue, and they have the
potential to highlight different experiences and
reframe dominant opinions or perspectives.
Research conceived collaboratively with a
charity, public sector organisation or community
group can also contribute to shaping policy
and priorities by drawing attention to under-
represented or under-explored experiences.
Research using Mobile Visual Methods with
visually impaired young people, for example,
has shown how organisational policies aimed
at ‘independent mobility’ for this group can be
unhelpful. By illuminating the interdependent
relationships and social interactions that often
shape experiences of moving around a place, in
this research Mobile Visual Methods highlighted
that conversations about ‘assistance’ could be
much more effective than aims to establish
independence.
What ideas or concepts are
Methods?
Mobile Visual Methods combine elements
of visual, ethnographic and participatory
research. They can be understood as a form
of ‘go-along’ in which the researcher takes part
in and observes the everyday experiences
and practices of participants, while they are
on the move. Go-along methods have been
applied by social scientists for decades. While
accompanying participants as they engage
in an activity is often an integrated element
of participant observation in ethnographic
approaches, mobile methods have been
systematically applied since the mid-2000’s,
when the study of ‘mobilities’ became popular in
Geography and related disciplines.
As a participatory method, participants are
viewed as partners in the research who
play an important role in the co-creation
of knowledge. In addition to emphasising
collaborative relationships between researcher
and researched, Mobile Visual Methods
also integrate a form of technology into the
research. This could be anything from a
smartphone app to a disposable camera or
handwritten diary. Mobile Visual Methods often
involve the participant producing audio-visual
data themselves, by wearing film cameras
on their body (e.g. chest or headcams), or
taking photographs on their phone as they
travel around a place. The creative and visual
materials that are produced can be useful for
examining non-verbal, emotional and sensory
experiences of a place. Like other ‘elicitation’
methods, in which photographs, maps or objects
are introduced into the research encounter
to stimulate discussion and reflection, the
researcher and participant then explore these
audio-visual materials together to generate
interview data.
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Mobile Visual Methods
Why might I want to use Mobile Visual Methods?
l As a creative method, this approach can
provide an enjoyable and meaningful way
for participants to be involved in research.
The rich, audio-visual data created are
particularly useful for prompting discussions
about practices, phenomena or social issues
that would be less easy to access in a static
interview.
l With a focus on experience in motion,
Mobile Visual Methods can help to expose
and challenge assumptions that we all move
through and navigate space in the same way.
By exploring mobilities from the perspectives
of participants, Mobile Visual Methods can
be particularly useful for understanding
differentiated experiences – how different
individuals or groups experience movement
through a place in contrasting ways.
l Mobile Visual Methods are useful for
understanding pace, tempo and rhythm.
Wearable video technology, such as GoPro
cameras, can generate data related to
external rhythms and movements in the
environment as well as internal rhythms such
as breathing, with changes in pace indicating,
Step by step guide to using Mobile Visual Methods:
1. Start with collaboration: The research
should begin with a dialogue between
research partners and participants to
ensure that the process is collaborative from
the start, and that the methods used are
appropriate for the group(s) involved and
the topic under investigation. Think carefully
about who will be asked to create visual
data and in what settings, and consider what
level of commitment this will require from
participants. Discuss whether this is the right
approach for this research.
for example, moments in which the wearer
experiences heightened states of anxiety.
l This approach can allow researchers and
participants to get a sense of the micro-
level and sensory details of moving through
space (e.g. surfaces, textures, soundscapes)
and can provide opportunities to notice and
talk about elements of day-to-day lives and
embodied experience. Videos created from
cameras worn on the chest, for example,
can reveal much about the tactile nature of
surfaces such as pavements in the city. They
can also highlight moments of connection and
interdependency with other people moving
around the same place, which may otherwise
be overlooked.
l Mobile Visual Methods can generate
compelling visual data, but the process is
time and labour intensive for participants
and researchers. Facilitation and guidance
from the researcher is critical throughout
the process, and time should be allowed
for additional support, follow-ups, and
contingencies.
2. Decide on methods and technologies: The
initial planning and dialogue stage will also
include decisions about the technologies used
to record or document. These might include:
wearable GoPro cameras, disposable cameras,
mobile phone cameras or apps, notepads or
diaries. Think about the types of data that could
potentially be produced (e.g. photos, drawings,
film footage, maps, written or photo journals),
and how they will be used. You may want to
offer participants a choice of different methods
and technologies. People’s backgrounds, skills
and experiences vary, and not everyone will feel
comfortable using the same kinds of devices.
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 Mobile Visual Methods

Step by step guide to using Mobile Visual Methods:

may prompt the discussion with questions

Using new technologies may prompt some about which elements of the footage
level of anxiety. Anyone drawing upon these or images are significant and why, how
methods should have an awareness of, and participants made decisions about where to
support in place, for the demands that such go and what to record, or how they felt when
intensive methods can place on participants. they were in different places depicted in their
In other words, do not underestimate the recordings.
labour of participants required for these
5. Produce a collaborative output:
methods to work effectively. Think about
Depending on the types of data that have
strategies for mitigating any potential
been produced in the project, an exhibition,
distress, such as giving a range of different
film or online resource could be produced
options for participants to choose from, and
using photos or filmed material. Participants
scheduling regular opportunities for support
can play an important role in analysing and
and guidance.
editing materials to produce a tangible
output, and can gain valuable skills in the
process. Think about how tasks will be
3. Give clear instructions: Ensure that
shared, how you can draw on and develop
participants understand the purpose of the
the different skills that already exist within the
research, and what they are being asked to
group, and whether you will need to bring in
do, document or record. This could take the
any additional expertise such as film making
form of written instructions, an initial group
or curating.
meeting or regular check-ins. It is important
to be clear about the role of the researcher 6. Share the findings: A co-produced
in this process, e.g. will the researcher creative output can be a powerful tool for
accompany the participant as they take sharing participants’ stories with diverse
photos or film footage in a particular location? audiences, and raising awareness about their
When will they be available to offer support experiences or perspectives. Think about
and guidance? where a film or exhibition could be located,
and consider holding a launch event, which
4. Use the data in follow-up interviews:
could invite the local community, stakeholders
Mobile Visual Methods are likely to produce a
from different sectors, participants and their
large volume of interesting, audio-visual data.
families. An online resource or social media
There may be some ‘top-down’ analysis of
account documenting images or films from
footage, images, or writing that will be carried
the project could also extend findings from
out by the researcher, but the main purpose
the research further.
of this data is to elicit further discussion
which can be recorded and analysed. In
these discussions, the researcher invites the
participant to talk through the materials, and

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Mobile Visual Methods

Examples of Mobile Visual Methods in social science research 

VI Everyday Mobilities
Researcher: Dr Jennie Middleton, University of Oxford;
Hari Byles, Independent Researcher

The VI Everyday Mobilities project examined
the relationship between urban transport
and the everyday lives of visually impaired
(VI) young people in London. The project
was carried out between 2014 and 2018 by
researchers in the Transport Studies Unit at
the University of Oxford in partnership with
the Royal Society for Blind Children (RSBC), a
London based charity working with visually
impaired young people up to the age of 26.
Drawing on Visual Mobile Methods in the form
of participatory film making, the project was
developed with young people from the charity
to explore independent mobility, using footage
that they recorded with GoPro cameras.
The project responded to a lack of qualitative
research about how visually impaired young
people negotiate their journeys between
different transport modes. This research
examined how these experiences relate to
other aspects of visually impaired young
people’s everyday lives, for instance; moving
towards adulthood, achieving ‘independence’,
speed/ time, access to services and
employment, family relationships, mental
health, and much more.
During the project, visually impaired
Londoners (aged 18 – 26) used GoPro
cameras to film their everyday journeys
through the city, recording over 20 hours of
footage. They then edited and narrated their
videos making a series of short films, which
show both good and bad experiences of
travelling around London. The videos share
moments of in/accessibility, interdependence,
care, connection, frustration, support, and
pride.

VIMobilities panel discussion at the film launch event

PAGE 176
Mobile Visual Methods
VIMobilities films were screened at a launch event at the Rio Cinema in Dalston, London
The video content was captured between
2014 and 2016, and forms part of a wider
video database which contains key moments
from visually impaired young people’s
everyday journeys. To produce these films
researchers ran three workshops with
participants, in which video content was
reviewed, discussed, edited, and narrated
to tell six different stories. The film making
and research team then worked together to
weave these elements into six short films,
with regular input from participants along the
way. The music that accompanies the films
was composed and selected by the project
participants and stories are told in their own
words.
The six short films were premiered at Rio
cinema in Hackney, inviting a range of
stakeholders and community members, and
Transport for London (TFL) have used some of
these films in their accessibility training. The
VI Mobilities website aims to provide a forum
for young visually impaired people to continue
sharing and talking about their experiences, as
well as raising awareness of these experiences
amongst transport planners, practitioners,
travel assistants, and the public.
PAGE 177
Mobile Visual Methods

Where else could Mobile Visual

Methods be used? Top tips
1. Be patient. This approach can take time
Mobile Visual Methods have the potential to
and it requires significant commitment
be used in a wide range of contexts. They are
from participants and researchers.
particularly useful for community organisations,
public sector bodies and businesses that
2. Do not underestimate the ‘demands
are interested in understanding how places,
of the method’. The expectations
environments and infrastructures are
that are placed on participants when
experienced by different groups and individuals.
using creative, innovative approaches
Photo or film methods could be drawn on in
are significant, since they are very
research aiming to understand residents’ day-
time consuming and require ongoing
to-day experiences of active travel or public
commitment, rather than a one-off-
transport networks in different neighbourhoods,
meeting. It is important that participants
for example, or seeking to explore how parks
are well prepared and guided, and
and green spaces are used and valued in cities,
that they get something out of their
with findings feeding into future planning
involvement as well.
decisions or campaigns.
Mobile Visual Methods are also well suited 3. Be available and approachable.
to charities or service providers interested in As a researcher, it is important to
developing meaningful and creative research provide clear instructions and to be
and outputs alongside service users, community available throughout the process.
stakeholders and other beneficiaries. Projects The relationships developed between
based around the collaborative production researchers and participants in this
of a film or photo exhibition can provide an research are key to its success.
engaging focus for children and young people
to document their unique perspectives within
educational or cultural institutions, for example,
or with patient groups to understand how
clinical settings are navigated and experienced.
They could also be used by commercial
organisations interested in understanding the
emotional or sensory dimensions of different
consumption spaces such as pop up markets
and shopping centres, or at public events and
gatherings.

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Mobile Visual Methods

Further reading

Research project wepage:

l VI Mobilities

Journal articles:
l 
Pluralising the walking interview: researching (im)mobilities with
Muslim women
Interdependent temporalities and the everyday mobilities of
l

visually impaired young people*

*If you are unable to access the full version of this article, please email the
author to request a copy

To reference: Middleton, J., Pottinger, L. and Ehgartner, U.

(2021). ‘Mobile Visual Methods’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L.,
Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.)
Methods for Change: Impactful social science methodologies
for 21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The
University of Manchester.

PAGE 179
Methods for Change

Walk-along
Interviews
Dr Rashida Bibi,
and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Rashida Bibi
rashida.bibi@manchester.ac.uk
Walk-along Interviews

In walk-along, or go-along interviews, the researcher-

participant interaction is taken out of the more
traditional sit-down context into a more active and
conversational setting. The concept is based on the idea
that the movement across different spaces, for example
a neighbourhood or town centre, exposes both the
participant and the researcher to changing infrastructures,
meanings and relations which can stimulate conversations
in varying ways.
Doing Walk-along Interviews means that the researcher gets
immersed in the participants’ world and in their ‘journey’. In
the process, the researcher-participant dynamic of asking and
answering questions fades into the background in favour of a
rather conversational encounter between two people. Walk-along
Interviews are inexpensive and, in many ways, easier to set up
than many other methods, including sit-down interviews. They are
particularly useful to establish a holistic, in-depth understanding of
how people relate or do not relate to the spaces that they inhabit
and what their day-to-day experiences of inhabiting this place are
like. Walk-along Interviews can be used alongside traditional sit-
down interviews and meaningfully combined with other methods
such as photograph elicitation and diary writing.

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Walk-along Interviews
How do Walk-along Interviews
create or contribute to change?  Walk-along Interviews?
On an individual level, Walk-along Interviews
impact research participants differently, as they
involve the participant a lot more than traditional
sit-down interviews. Rather than the interviewer
asking questions along a pre-set guide, Walk-
along Interviews are conversational, with the
participant taking the lead in terms of the walking
route, as well as the topic of conversation. At the
same time, the knowledge about the research
topic and conversation with the researcher can
trigger processes of reflection in participants.
Through the research process, the participant
becomes more aware of their surroundings,
they might be triggered by what is happening
around them, looking out for things and making
connections between the research topic and their
day-to-day life.
On a wider, societal level, this method brings
out the voices of those who inhabit a space, and
provides a platform to talk about their space in
a way that is meaningful for them. By shedding a
light on these individual experiences, this method
can be helpful to shift fixed views and perceptions
on what a certain neighbourhood or town is like.
Participants’ voices help to look at places from a
different lens, through the things that participants
point out, rather than the things the researcher
considers significant. Walk-along Interviews with
people who grew up locally can even challenge
established ideas of the history of a place.
What ideas or concepts influence
This approach sits within an intersectional
approach towards research problems related
to the everyday lives of marginalised groups:
the idea that aspects of gender, race, religion,
ethnicity, etc. intersect and that different
intersections of those identities impact how
people interrelate with different spaces. It is
further inspired by Jennifer Mason’s (2011)
facet methodology, which is based on an
overall bigger question, but paying attention to
the over- and under-arching themes that run
through it. Mason uses the visual metaphor
of the gemstone as the overall research
enquiry, turned one way or another, the
gemstone reveals many facets, or different
methodological planes which illuminate the
overall research project in various ways. Some
of the criticisms regarding intersectionality
concern the fact that researchers often end up
using a specific method and focusing on one
or two intersections only, which could be race
and gender, for example, but without focusing
on other identities that people have as well.
Since Walk-along Interviews are more open and
experimental, they are perfectly suited to reveal
complex, but often less obvious intersections in
people’s day-to-day lives.
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Walk-along Interviews

Why might I want to use Walk-along Interviews?

l Walk-along Interviews are well suited for
the researcher to get a situated, and bigger
Be aware of the environment in
picture, understanding of a place. While
which the interview takes place
there are pre-existing views on what a certain
and how this environment impacts
region, town or neighbourhood is like, each
the research process. Entering a
local area has its own specific sort of story as
participants’ home as a researcher
well as its own needs. Walking around a place,
can cause power shifts in terms
guided by the participants’ individual views on
of the researchers’ position in
and experience within that place provides the
relation to the participant. On the
researcher with grounding, in-depth insights
flip side, interviews in public places
which help to build nuanced insights about
such library cafes, can be limiting
the ‘bigger picture’ of a place.
as well, as people might feel
l Walk-along Interviews give both participants uncomfortable sharing personal
and researchers time to reflect. While it is stories. This is where the Walk-
normal in day-to-day conversations that along interview can help. Walk-
people take moments to pause and reflect, along Interviews create a dynamic
doing this in sit-down research interviews in the relationship between
can feel uncomfortable or inappropriate. researcher and participant that
The dynamic, conversational, and thus is wholly different from sit-down
perhaps less pressured context of Walk-along research interviews in public
Interviews allows people more space to think spaces or in people’s homes.
and reflect in different, more open ways. You will likely use Walk-along
l On Walk-along Interviews, you never know Interviews alongside other forms of
where research participants will take you. data collection, which all provide
Walk-along Interviews reveal aspects of different sets of opportunities and
people’s lives that researchers might not challenges.
be looking for. People might take a route
that is comfortable to them, or attached to
a historical meaning; they might take sightly
unusual routes to go from A to B, in order to
avoid or pass a certain area. This can prompt
personal and biographical revelations which
often significantly enrich the research, but can
also be emotionally challenging.

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 Walk-along Interviews

Step-by-step guide to using Walk-along Interviews:  

1. Participants are generally most familiar
with the format of a traditional sit-
While it is important to make the
down interview. Organising a sit-down
research participant familiar with the
discussion in a setting where participants
research process, make sure you are
feel comfortable can be a good way to begin
not pushing the participant into one
the research, and to establish whether
direction – instead allow them to take
participants are willing to engage in a Walk-
over the process and guide you.
along Interview. In this initial face-to-face
contact, as a researcher, you may guide the
participant through the steps and explain
the different parts of the research. The 3. Meet for the Walk-along Interview at
participant then decides what aspects they the place chosen by the participant. This
are comfortable with. Some may, for different may be their home, a place of significance,
reasons, only engage through the sit-down or a central meeting place in town.
interview and talk the researcher through
a place, but generally people feel more 4. O
 nce the walk has come to an end,
comfortable doing a walk than a sit-down make sure you debrief. Let them know
interview. that the research part has come to an end,
and ask for any last or common thoughts
that they want to share at the end. This part
Be prepared to go at the pace your is crucial, not only to show appreciation,
participant wants to go and for the walk but this is also often the moment when
to take as long as the participant is keen participants add really interesting
on walking. You can prepare for this by reflections which can add further detail to
making sure you charge your dictaphone the conversation you have had. At this point
batteries etc. participants will have shared many thoughts
and made lots of different connections, but
asking this specifically at the end can trigger
more reflections on the overall process.
2. Allow the participant to choose the day
and time of the Walk-along Interview.
Some people might prefer to have some
time between the initial contact and the
Walk-along Interview. There might be
repeated walks as well. It is important to give
participants the space to think about it and
to choose what and how they are willing to
share.

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Walk-along Interviews

An example of Walk-along Interviews

in social science research 
Challenging discourses on BSA Muslim women through an intersectional analysis of
everyday experiences across spaces of home, work and public space
Researcher: Dr Rashida Bibi, The University of Manchester

Walk-along Interviews were applied to and move through. There are inherent
challenge dominant discourses of British complexities of space and place that British
South Asian (BSA) Muslim women through an Muslim women are embedded in.
intersectional analysis of everyday experiences
In an active process, Walk-along Interviews
in Oldham, a large town in Greater
involved listening, observing and participating
Manchester, across spaces of home, work and
through asking questions. Applied in the
public spaces.
context of this research, Walk-along Interviews
A feminist methodology was employed, helped negate some of the awkwardness that
to specifically highlight the ways in which can be present in sit-down interviews, whilst
research could forefront marginalised voices requiring the researcher to be continually
by recognising and valuing narratives which engaged with not only the conversation but
had been subsumed within dominant or also the dynamic environment of the streets
pathologised discourses of Muslim women. in which the conversation takes place. The
Because of the vastness of the ‘everyday’, such dynamic and almost unscripted nature of the
a concept could not be researched through Walk-along Interview has the potential to elicit
just one research method. In particular, the
aim was to focus on the embodied aspect
of everyday lives, and the idea of fluidity
and movement, to understand how a body
is interpreted or looked at or seen, from
different perspectives, or within different
spaces. The same body within an ethnic
minority community would be seen very
differently from a wider public space context
(the tram, a café, the local park) with a wider
group of people.
Therefore, a number of methods including
traditional sit-down interviews with
photography and diaries were employed.
Walk-along Interviews constituted one of these
A picture of the derelict mills of Oldham
methods, as they proved helpful to explore the
complexities of BSA Muslim women’s lives, and taken from the photo album of a research
the everyday spaces they would encounter participant who grew up in the town.

PAGE 185
Walk-along Interviews

rich material, as it can illuminate not only how

British Muslim woman negotiate and contend
with their everyday spaces in Oldham, but
also how these spaces are re/made through
everyday interactions in their wider social
environment.
One key finding established through Walk-
along Interviews in Oldham was the sense of
disconnection BSA Muslim women felt from
the history of Oldham, despite the fact that
they have been living there all their lives, as
many of their parents or grandparents would
have migrated to Oldham to work in the cotton
mills. Through Oldham’s history as a mill town
and its historical colonial links to Empire and
migration, ethnic minority communities have
a long, historical connection to specifically
Oldham, and the wider UK. However, the Walk-
along Interviews that took place in Oldham
revealed that this history is not reflected in
BSA Muslim women’s sense of connection
to this town. As such, it became apparent A sweets machine in the streets of Oldham.
that this history of migration to Oldham from Just like the derelict mills, the sweets machine
the former Commonwealth needs to be represents a wider narrative of Oldham’s
unearthed, preserved and shared with future industrial past, but also the sense of personal
generations.
memory which affects how/why people
The Walk-along Interviews inspired a range feel a sense of belonging in/to Oldham. A
of further activities. The findings from these combination of research methods which
interviews led to a conversation with the
combines Walk-along Interviews with photo-
curator of Oldham’s local archives and history
elicitation and other methods can unearth
centre, and the idea of building a resource
for younger generations of Muslims living in these stories in holistic and meaningful ways.’
Oldham so that they have something that
connects their history to the history of the
town. Through oral history workshops it and the wider population learn of migration
is hoped that ethnic minority residents of and create connections between the past and
Oldham are empowered to make themselves present, and the growth of the South Asian
and their place in the history of the town community in Oldham. It will help BSA Muslim
visible. Conducting oral history interviews with women cement their own sense of belonging
older members of their family and within the to the town and make this belonging visible to
wider community will help the minority group society as a whole.

PAGE 186
Walk-along Interviews
Where else could Walk-along
Interviews be used?
Walk-along interviews are well suited to gain
insights into a local area from the perspective
of people who inhabit it. Through this method,
we can learn more about the participants’ daily
life encounters and experiences, but also about
the social life of a place itself. This method could
be applied by many different institutions, such
as councils, charities or businesses who want
to learn more about people’s habits and needs,
the services that they use and the places that
they frequent. Follow up activities from this
form of data collection can help institutions
such as councils to be more in touch with the
communities that they are trying to work with
and people in the communities can be aided to
establish a sense of connection and belonging.
Top tips
1. Make Walk-along Interviews as
conversational as possible. People are
always wary of research settings and the
presence of the dictaphone. Even if they
know the purpose of the meeting and
that you are not deceiving them in any
way, it makes a huge difference when
you put the dictaphone away and just
have a conversation.
2. Be flexible. You are not going to have
the question sheet with you. You might
have your questions in mind, but you will
be guided by the conversation, and the
walking!
3. Be open and willing to explore. People
will take you where they want to take
you and you’re getting a really privileged
insight into people’s lives.
4. Be excited about the process. You will
get a lot out of it, if you let yourself
be guided by what people do and by
how they do it. It will provide you with
different views and almost certainly with
some surprises.
5. Walk-along Interviews (and go-along
methods in general) can be challenging
for people with disability and mobility
restrictions. Pick the mode and pace
of ‘walking through’ space that suits
your participant. If walking really is not
possible for your participants, you can
explore alternatives, such as (a) asking
people to draw/map their community
and/or the routes they take, (b) use
digital maps (eg., google maps, open
maps) or (c) virtual environments (eg.,
virtual reality) to explore places and
experiences within them.
PAGE 187
Walk-along Interviews

Further reading
l P
 luralising the walking interview: Researching (im)mobilities with
Muslim women.
l 
Forgotten Women: The impact of Islamophobia on Muslim
women.
l 
Ethnic minority ‘ghettos’ to be investigated’.

To reference: Bibi, R. and Ehgartner, U. (2021). ‘Walk-

along interviews’, in Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner,
U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods
for Change: Impactful social science methodologies for 21st
century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The University of
Manchester.

PAGE 188
Methods for Change
Digitised
Ethnography:
Creating Interactive Stories
Dr Andrea Pia,
London School of Economics

Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger,

The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Andrea Pia
A.E.Pia@lse.ac.uk
Digitised Ethnography:
Creating Interactive Stories

This guide looks at how to translate material generated through

traditional ethnography into digital forms.
Digital Ethnography is usually used to describe research that is
conducted solely online - through social platforms, websites and in
chat forums - with people who we might not otherwise be able to meet
in person. A traditional ethnographer might have to travel to another
part of the world to carry out their research. Digital Ethnographers
travel through the internet to their field site or to explore and immerse
themselves within particular communities. Instead of relying on video
cameras, tape recorders and their notepad, Digital Ethnographers rely
on a virtual set of methods such as web archives, blogs and servers.
To learn more about Digital Ethnography as it is traditionally used in
the social sciences, the following may be of use: The Drax Files: World
Makers [Episode 31: Tom Boellstorff] and Digital Anthropology. Digital
Ethnography is used in this guide to describe something slightly different
to the above.
Digitised Ethnography describes the transformation of a piece of
ethnographic research into a digital output. For example, instead of, or
as well as, writing a book or article to share the findings of a traditional
ethnographic study, a video game or interactive story might be created
instead. While video games allow you to win, or to play against them
or an opponent, interactive stories, which are the focus of this guide,
are primarily about discovering. In Digitised Ethnography, the player is
put in someone else’s shoes. This person is usually a key interlocutor,
and could be someone known by the author of the ethnography, or the
ethnographer themselves.
Digitised Ethnographies are usually based on a multiple-choice
mechanism, which transforms the traditional ethnographic narrative into
an interactive text. By interacting with other characters through multiple-
choice dialogue, the player experiences the challenges and contradictions
of lives they have never lived or may never even have imagined to exist.
The player makes choices throughout the game that will determine the
places, people and ethnographic themes they will eventually encounter.
Digitised Ethnographies can therefore be used to educate people
about the experiences of marginalised groups, or to allow people
to understand the world from the perspective of others through an
interactive and immersive experience. Moving away from the written
word by creating an interactive story means that the research conducted
can be translated into different settings and will be able to reach a much
wider audience. Digitised Ethnography is therefore motivated to engage
different publics, such as students, scholars, civil society practitioners and
concerned individuals who may be moved by hearing about the people
ethnographers work with.

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Digitised Ethnography:
Creating Interactive Stories
How does Digitised Ethnography
create or contribute to change?  Digitised Ethnography?
The outputs created by Digitising Ethnographies
such as Bury Me, My Love or Finding Home
can create change by exposing people to the
perspectives of others. For example, if an
interactive storyline is created (through open
access software such as Twine, Quest or Google
Forms), people who engage with it have the
opportunity to navigate the lives of people who
they might otherwise never encounter. For
instance, Bury Me, My Love is a Text Messaging
Adventure about Nour, a Syrian migrant trying
to find her way to Europe. Putting the user in
somebody else’s shoes through the creation of a
game or interactive story might cultivate feelings
of empathy and sympathy, encouraging people
to grapple with what it means to see the world
from a different perspective. It exposes people
to seeing the world in ways that they otherwise
would not, letting them experience a different
point of view, rather than just being told that this
point of view exists. With Digitised Ethnography,
change happens right in front of you as players
vocalise their perspectives through the unfolding
of their experience. This method can also be
an effective teaching resource, used to educate
people about different social experiences or
about the ethnographic method itself.
What ideas or concepts influence
Digitising Ethnography is motivated by the desire
to engage different publics. This is shaped by
a wider shift in the social sciences toward an
extended definition of impact, which includes
a reflection on how best to communicate
one’s finding to the general public and other
stakeholders. It does this by creating research
outputs that are meaningful to a range of
different audiences, such as journalists, policy
makers, civil society activists and students. This
is shaped by a recognition that academic journal
articles are often inaccessible to many and
that there are better ways of communicating
research which will resonate with different
individuals and groups. Digitised Ethnography
brings people closer to the experiences of
others by fostering empathy and awareness of
the realities of lived experience, rather than a
more distanced theoretical understanding of
social processes, phenomena, and experiences.
The underlying ethos of Digitised Ethnographies
is also influenced by game theory which
suggests that interactivity, iteration, role-playing,
risks and rewards are all good methods to
retain attention from your audience. Engaging
with a game often translates into the ability
to challenge one’s own default assumptions
and enhances a more flexible and unorthodox
appreciation of complex social phenomena.
Games such as Papers Please, Phone Stories
or Everything demonstrate how these tools can
successfully be used to teach people about a
strange and unfamiliar experience. They could
also be used to cultivate empathy by putting
people in somebody else’s shoes, rather than
simply telling them about someone else’s
experience.
PAGE 191
Digitised Ethnography:
Creating Interactive Stories
Why might I want to use Digitised Ethnography?
l Digitising Ethnography can be useful to
visualise spaces, lives and experiences
that might be unfamiliar by asking other
people to experience them first-hand.
Digitised Ethnographies can be played
individually or in groups, and incorporated
into different settings, from class teaching
to seminars, workshops and in workforce
training protocols. In group settings, Digitised
Ethnographies can prompt critical discussions
and help to change preconceptions and
address cultural biases.
l Immersing people into the worlds and
experiences of others can be a powerful
method to teach people about lives they
may not have otherwise encountered or
considered. Digitised Ethnographies place
players in a so called ‘ethical gym’ where
seemingly ethical or un-ethical choices can
be experienced as separated from their
consequences. This might then influence
the ways those who have played the game
or interacted with the storyline think about
a particular topic, such as migration. This is
because role-playing reinscribes one’s own
default understanding and interpretation of
other peoples’ motives with the first-person
perspective of those very others.
l Games and interactive storylines created
by Digitising Ethnography can be a useful
teaching resource as they enable students
to actively participate in the lived realities of
others. They also provide students with an
alternative virtual experience that is rich in
learning cues, which stimulates the curiosity
of an active learner. Digitised Ethnography can
function as an alternative way to tell a story by
foregrounding the lives of marginalised and
underrepresented groups, such as migrants,
factory workers, prison inmates, and miners
to quote a few characters included in recent
interactive stories. Doing so puts the voices of
marginalised groups at the centre as opposed
to understanding their lives through the lens
of policy makers or activists.
l Digitised Ethnography can be used to teach
people about the principles of traditional
ethnography by immersing those engaging
with the output in a context that closely
approximates the experience of in-depth
participant observation. This might be
particularly useful where travel is limited
or where it might be difficult to conduct a
traditional ethnography for political reasons.
PAGE 192
 Digitised Ethnography:
Creating Interactive Stories
Step by step guide to Digitising Ethnography:
1. Conduct a traditional ethnography
to generate material. A traditional
ethnographic study involves spending a
prolonged amount of time in a place to
understand how it is lived and experienced
by those who live there. The aim of
ethnographic research is to produce rich
and descriptive material from the ground
up. Time spent in a place may involve taking
photographs, keeping reflective diaries, and
talking with people. The aim is to do these
activities in an open and exploratory way
and to use a combination of these different
methods as a way to immerse yourself within
the place, rather than to find out anything
specific.
You could also digitise a pre-existing piece
of ethnographic research, by identifying
the main protagonists and reorganising
the main narrative around a choice-rich
reading structure. This has been done in
the following three examples: Pine Point ,
Journey at the End of Coal and iOtok.
2. Work with someone who is good at
taking photographs or creating film
footage. This is important because this
material will be used to create the resulting
game or interactive storyline. If you do not
have the skills, you might want to recruit an
artist. Another option could be to generate
your own visual material through drawing.
Drawn to See is a useful guide in this respect.
3. Make sure you have access to basic
open-access software on the internet.
Examples of open-access software’s include
Twine, Quest and Google Forms. Google
Slides for instance, requires very little training
to make interactive hypertext narratives.
To create an interactive story you need to
write stories that follow multiple paths using
hyperlinks, create variables to track your
player’s actions, add scripting like ‘if’ and
‘else’ to decide when discrete events should
appear in your game, and use hooks to add
fancy touches like text effects, pictures, and
sound. Basic interactive mechanics that are
easily implemented into an open-access
software such as Twine include: an inventory
for items collection, a wallet for money
or a glossary for keywords. These articles
can be indexed so that their possession
will automatically unlock further content in
the game as well as provide more detailed
analysis of the ethnographic material.
Alternative endings are also an option: they
help players to retain interest and investment
in the story.
You can find useful open-access how to
guides at Inklewriter and DirectorNotes.
PAGE 193
Digitised Ethnography:
Creating Interactive Stories
4. M
 ake sure the output is right for your
intended audience. A game might be
more suitable when a win-lose mechanic can
reinforce the acquisition of insights believed
to be important for players. For example,
the game Balance of the Planet focuses on
environmental sustainability and the player
wins when a steady-state extraction of
natural resources is achieved by the player.
An interactive storyline might be more
suitable if the intended outcomes include
raising awareness and the introduction of
unfamiliar social settings.
Customers take a rest in the main plaza of Beijing SOHO mall. Image credit: Andrea Pia
and Marco de Mutiis.
Digitised ethnographies work at their best
when played in groups and facilitated
by someone directly involved in their
production. Games and interactive storylines
are still strongly associated with a particular
cohort of people (young, male, middle
class) and you may encounter resistance
when introduced as learning tools with
underrepresented cohorts. It is advised
that producers and players first familiarise
themselves with emerging progressive voices
in the digital industries, whose work revolves
around changing the cultural demands for
what can be consumed through gaming. See
for instance the work of Anna Anne Anthropy
or Momo Pixel.
PAGE 194
Digitised Ethnography:
Creating Interactive Stories
Examples of Digitised Ethnography in social science research
The Long Day of Young Peng
Researcher: Dr Andrea Pia, London School of Economics
The Long Day of Young Peng is an interactive
story that uses original ethnographic material
including fieldnotes, excerpts from interviews,
pictures and videos to chronicle one day in
the life of Peng, a young Chinese migrant. In
this Digitised Ethnography, the player is put
in Peng’s shoes on his journey from his native
village to Beijing in search of employment. The
game is based on a multiple-choice mechanic.
Through interacting with other characters,
the player relives Peng’s first day in Beijing as
well as familiarising themselves with topics in
the study of contemporary Chinese society.
The game has been developed using Twine - a
free, open source software which allows you
to write interactive fiction in the form of web
pages without requiring knowledge of any
programming language.
The player makes choices throughout the
game that will determine the places, people
and ethnographic themes Peng will eventually
encounter. Throughout the game, the player
collects items, money, and keywords that
could be used to unlock further content in the
game. The game also includes a bibliography,
as some of the topics the game touches upon
are revealed through ethnographic examples
taken from the anthropological literature on
China and scripted into the storyline. The
game can end in different ways – none of
which reflects what really happened to the real
person named Peng, but which nonetheless
reproduce some of the most likely outcomes
of second-generation migratory projects in
China – depending on the cumulative effects
of the choices made throughout it.
The development of the Peng Game was supported by a 2016-17 LSE IGNITE! Grant
 
The Long Day of Young Peng Logo
The Peng game has been used as a teaching
activity within LSE’s MSc Programme ‘China
in Comparative Perspective’. Peng was
played during seminars in groups of three
to four students on iPad devices during
five consecutive weekly seminars. The
implementation of the game during seminars
enabled students to pattern their growing
understanding of migration as a social
phenomenon with their own sensibility and
attentiveness. By making choices for Peng,
the player is made to reflect on the analytical
opportunity to study migration outside the
usual economistic framing of push and pull
factors, and within the ethnographically more
accurate register of instability, incompleteness
and serendipity - qualities that ordinarily
beset any migratory choice in real life. The
Peng game interrogates not just players’
comprehension but their very own ethical
agency and interpretative capacities. How
would a Chinese male migrant behave in this
situation? Should I send remittances home
or keep them to myself? In so doing, the
game enables sympathy and a more intimate
understanding of the challenges involved in
migrant lives.
PAGE 195
Digitised Ethnography:
Creating Interactive Stories
Where else could Digitised
Ethnography be used?
Migration
Digitised Ethnography could be used to tell
the story of migration from the perspective
of migrants themselves. It can be produced
collaboratively, as with the game Survival, which
was produced by refugee activists and migrants
in Gibraltar. It can be used to help diverse
audiences to better understand the reasons
behind migratory projects as well as their
unintended outcomes.
Education
Digitised Ethnography could be used to create
educational games on a variety of different
topics. A multimodal ethnographic teaching
session can be structured around a collective
gaming session as a class activity. Material for a
digitised ethnography can help put more flesh
on the bones of an abstract theoretical piece.
This can help students familiarise with unfamiliar
contexts and help overcome stereotypes and
biases.
Welfare
Digitised Ethnography can be used in training
for people who work in welfare support or other
services. A game could be created to highlight
the lives of benefit recipients, for example. This
method could help welfare offices garner a
better sense of their clients’ motivations, needs,
and struggles.
Top tips
1. People learn more if they are having
fun. Participating in an interactive story
or game is one way of encouraging
interaction and enjoyment.
2. The traditional ethnography component
of this method can be a large time
investment, but remember that you can
easily turn existing ethnographies and
investigative reportages into interactive
stories.
3. Digitising Ethnographies can be labour
intensive. It requires a sense of multiple
connections, as well as the use of
either/or logic functions to achieve pre-
identified outcomes. For stories involving
the use of multiple media, including
videos and sound, it may require the
input of a creative coder. Please see the
further reading below for suggestions
on how you can learn these skills
independently or for who you could work
with collaboratively.
PAGE 196
Digitised Ethnography:
Creating Interactive Stories

Further reading
l 
Writing Hypertext
l 
A quick dive into immigration themed video games
l Persuasive Games
l Mollenindustria
l Edutopia: Interactive fiction in the classroom
l Twine 2.0 – Introduction

List of people who you might be able to approach to work with:

l Random quark
l Marco de Mutiis

To reference: Pia, A., Barron, A., and Pottinger, L. (2021).

‘Digitised Ethnography’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner,
U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods
for Change: Impactful social science methodologies for 21st
century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The University of
Manchester.

PAGE 197
Methods for Change
Participant Packs:
A Flexible, Inclusive and
Accessible Method
Dr Amy Barron,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Amy Barron
amy.barron@manchester.ac.uk
Participant Packs

The Participant Pack is a flexible and open-ended

research method which includes non-prescriptive prompts
for engagement. A Participant Pack might include
photographs of a place from some point in the past or
present to encourage reflection; a notebook in which
participants may write ideas or sketch; coloured pens;
news articles; a disposable camera; a Dictaphone (voice
recorder); leaflets; worksheets; or crafting materials.
The pack may be created with a specific intention (left with the
participant with a specific set of tasks and activities in mind), or it
could be used in a more exploratory and open-ended way (left with
the participant with prompts to engage with the materials in the
pack at their own behest). It is down to the researcher to decide
how focused or open the Participant Pack is.
I developed the idea of using a Participant Pack whilst researching
with older people in Greater Manchester. I used it alongside
other participatory methods to better understand the changing
relationships between older people and the places in which they
live. Creating a Participant Pack was intended to make researching
older people’s experiences of place more accessible and inclusive
for those who may be unable or prefer not to walk. Indeed, some
participants preferred to not walk for reasons including a dislike
for cold and rainy weather, other time pressures, the need to use
a walking aid, bodily pain, or health conditions. Moreover, although
walking is often the ‘go-to’ method when researching place, I was
conscious that walking may not be the ideal or easy choice for older
participants and that those who were less mobile were likely to call
into play very different associations with place. The Participant Pack
was therefore developed as an alternative and inclusive method
to walking, to allow participants to communicate their experiences
of place without necessarily being physically in the place itself. In
this way, Participants Packs are a useful method to increase the
inclusivity of other methods that might require physical mobility and
moving around place. Within this collection Participant Packs could
be used as a supplementary method to Photo go-alongs, Walk-along
Interviews and Mobile Visual Methods with people from a range of
ages, abilities, genders and cultural backgrounds who might not be
able, or not feel safe to, engage in public space

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Participant Packs
How do Participant Packs create
or contribute to change?  this method?
In academic research, impact or change is
often expected to occur once research has
finished or at the point of dissemination,
where research is explicitly and purposefully
brought into conversation with a range of non-
academic stakeholders. With the Participant
Pack, change also happens during the process
of researching through capacity building. Indeed,
participants might act as gatekeepers, distributing
Participant Packs to their family, friends, and
local community, thereby forging new social
connections and enabling people to talk about
their lives and interests. In this sense, the pack
can become a reason for participants to engage
with people they might otherwise never have
spoken with. These new connections often
enhance participant’s relationships with other
people and places, though the opposite may also
occur.
When used in combination with other
ethnographic and participatory methods, the
Participant Pack can contribute toward creating a
rich collage of knowledge about the experiences
of an individual or group in relation to a theme.
These findings can help policy communities or
researchers to understand how people’s lives are
lived on the ground. The experiences and findings
generated may also be of interest to local history
or culture groups, such as libraries and museums
because of their reference to local places and
histories. The flexibility, inclusivity and accessibility
of the Participant Pack method itself may also be
of interest to policy communities who work with
those for whom walking may not be a preferred
choice, or for those who cannot commit to
meeting at a set time.
What ideas or concepts influence
A lot of participatory research across the social
sciences has used and developed Participant
Packs but has perhaps not discussed them as a
discrete method before or named them as such.
Participant Packs might also be referred to as
toolkits or equipment boxes, for instance. I used
Participant Packs as an alternative to walking
methods. Despite it being well documented that
talking whilst walking can generate collages of
collaborative knowledge, it is inevitable that certain
people, particularly those who are less mobile,
will always be excluded. Moreover, the debate
about mobile methods in the social sciences
risks privileging methods whereby the participant
physically moves with the researcher as opposed
to a focus on the diverse array of methods which
can get at movement in various ways.
The challenge therefore was to develop a
method which can get at those fleeting qualities
evoked by the unfolding everyday but without
necessarily being in the place of focus. To put it
differently, I wanted to emphasise how you do
not need to be physically mobile to be sensitive
to movement.. I wanted to show how experiences
and understandings of place are not dependent
upon the movement of the body alone. But rather,
the movement of other things, people, sounds and
smells have the capacity to blur places into one
another.
This attention to movement and to those aspects
of life which are difficult to represent is influenced
by a recent turn to ‘more-than-representational
theories’ in Geography. For example, for those
older people who spend a large amount of time in
the home, the stories visitors tell, a source of local
news, the memories of a lifetime, continuously
shape their senses of place. As such, just because
a person may be more or less ‘static’ in a physical
sense does not mean they are immobile in a
cognitive, sensory, and emotional sense.
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Participant Packs
Why might I want to use Participant Packs?
l The flexible and open nature of this method
makes it inclusive and accessible. Having the
freedom to engage with the different elements
of the pack (which might include photographs,
notepads, cameras, dictaphones, and
craft materials) as little or as much as the
participants please, means that this method is
led by their unfolding needs. For instance:
l While some participants may be unwilling
or uncomfortable writing about their
experiences, they may wish to draw or
sketch as an alternative.
l While some may not have the time to
go out and take photographs of a place
themselves, they may be happy to engage
with photographs they already have or
those you have provide in the pack to offer
reflections.
l While some participants may view taking
the pack home as homework to complete,
others may embrace the freedom,
preferring to engage with the pack
independently.
l The Participant Pack is not restrictive. It is this
sense of openness that makes the Participant
Pack suited to more grounded forms of theory
making, whereby knowledge comes from the
participants.
l Participant Packs can be used when face
to face research is not possible. The pack
can be posted to participants and received
back through the post. If the researcher
and participants are digitally literate, there
may also be ways that this approach could
be mimicked in an online environment or
combined with digital methods.
l This method moves academic research
away from text-based methods, granting
participants the freedom to creatively engage
with the pack as they wish. Some participants
may create a collage, others might choose to
write stories and memories in the note pad,
while others may simply use it as a reason to
engage with others.
l The Participant Pack challenges ableist
tendencies in academic research by offering
a flexible, open, and inclusive method for
researching with those for whom walking may
not be an ideal or easy choice. The flexibility
of the Participant Pack means that those who
are perhaps housebound, have mental ill
health, or who may be unable to read or write
are able to partake in research in a way which
suits them. It also means that participants do
not have to travel or talk at length, which other
methods demand.
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 Participant Packs
Step by step guide to using Participant Packs: 
1. Source participants. Pick a research topic
or theme you are interested in and identify
who you would like to work with. Reach out to
them and recruit participants.
2. Assemble the Participant Packs. Decide
what to include in your packs. This needs to
be shaped by what you are hoping to find out
and the nature of the material you are trying to
gather. Items you might like to include are pens,
a notepad, a disposable camera, a dictaphone
and photographs both old and new.
It is a good idea to include an
information sheet in your Participant
Pack which explains to the participant
what they can find in the pack and what
you hope to get out of it. Be careful to not
present this in a restrictive way, leaving it
open to interpretation.
If you want to include photographs in
your Participant Pack, there is scope
to make this more participatory. Why
not work with a local history group and
ask them to source the photographs,
for instance. Again, the point here is
to use the pack in a way which suits
the research and which allows you to
speak to those who might otherwise be
overlooked. Think about what might
make these groups more likely to engage.
3. Distribute the Participant Packs. The
Participant Packs can be distributed in a
number of different ways, and this will depend
on your participants. Perhaps some participants
have volunteered to be gatekeepers and have
offered to distribute packs amongst their
networks. This is a particularly good route to
take as it means the packs are likely to reach
those who you might not be able to reach
alone, allowing the research to snowball.
Alternatively, you might want to distribute them
at a community event or meeting. You might
also send them out by post.
Be aware that you might face rejection
or resistance to the Participant Pack
and remember that this is okay. Some
participants may interpret the pack as
homework and not want to participate.
If this is the case, maybe the participant
would prefer to talk around photographs in
the pack, or maybe a different method all
together is more appropriate. It is important
to emphasise that participants can use the
pack flexibly, in the manner they want to.
4. Retrieve the Participant Packs from your
participants. Again, this can be done in
several ways and will depend on the nature of
your relationship with participants. You could
ask for participants to post their packs to you
(with the researcher covering postage costs);
perhaps arrange for them to be dropped off
at a mutually convenient community facility;
maybe the gatekeepers will collect them for
you; or, if you are meeting the participant for
another reason, maybe collect it then. There
might be ways that the information collected in
the pack could be shared digitally (eg., photos
taken of the outputs) to reduce costs of
postage. The point again is to be flexible and
responsive to what works for the participant.
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Participant Packs
Examples of using Participant Packs
in social science research 
More-than older age: making sense of place
Researcher: Dr Amy Barron, The University of Manchester
This research used the Participant Pack
alongside several other participatory and
ethnographic methods whilst researching
with thirty-two older people from Prestwich,
Greater Manchester. One aim of this research
was to foreground the lived dimensions of
older age against the policy backdrop of
creating what the World Health Organisation
call ‘age-friendly cities’. I was, in part,
concerned with understanding older people’s
lived experiences of place, but I did not want
to restrict who could and who could not take
part on the basis of whether they would be
comfortable walking around a place.
A Participant Pack
The initial idea was that participants would
be given a pack containing a notepad, a
selection of local photographs, and a pen to
take home for them to consider and reflect on
themselves or discuss with friends and family.
The photographs included in the pack were of
Prestwich from various points in the 20th and
21st centuries. The most recent photographs
included were taken by myself whilst
exploring Prestwich as a potential site for my
research, whilst the older photographs were
sourced online from Google Image searches.
Photographs of varying ages were included
to avoid assuming nostalgia and placing older
people in the past. Moreover, I did not use the
photographs to guide discussion as in photo-
elicitation. Rather, they served as prompts for
participants to engage with should they wish.
Although the pack was initially intended
to be for participants who were unable or
unwilling to walk and as a means to engage
without my presence being overly imposing,
the pack developed a life of its own with its
uses becoming more diverse than initially
anticipated. For example, the photographs in
the packs were used by participants to prompt
group discussion, while others explained how
they took some packs to various classes and
groups they were involved in and used them
as an excuse to speak with people they would
not usually converse with. Comparatively,
other participants took the pack for it never to
be seen again, some cautioned that they could
not comfortably read or write, while others
stressed that they ‘did not have time to do
homework’, despite it being made clear that
there was no obligation to engage with the
pack at all.
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Participant Packs

Although I encountered older individuals who

were unwilling or unable to walk for various
reasons, the flexible approach meant that this
was never an obstacle as I simply arranged
with participants to do something with
which they were comfortable. For example,
whilst speaking with James on the phone,
he explained how he spends a lot of time
in Prestwich Clough (a local wooded green
valley) and so I asked whether he would like to
walk around there with me. James explained
how, because of a heart condition and the
cold weather, he would prefer to not walk
and to meet somewhere indoors. James and I
arranged to meet at the Church Inn Pub which
is a protected building located on the edge of
Prestwich Clough. Because this was the first
time that I was meeting James in person, I took
the Participant Pack as a conversation prompt
as it included several photographs of the
Clough. As it happened, James also brought
Photographs collected by his own collection of books, photographs and
a research participant maps and we used these resources to talk
around.

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Participant Packs

Where else could Participant

Packs be used? Top tips
1. Include a range of different materials and
Participant Packs might be useful where
provocations in the Participant Pack. This
face to face research is not possible, such as
will be more likely to engage the widest
when participants are unable to commit to
group of people - but be careful not to
meeting in person. The pack could be sent out
overwhelm.
and returned back to you by post (with the
researcher covering any costs), perhaps followed 2. Remember that flexibility can reap
up with a telephone or video call if needed. benefits. Rather than predefining how
This method might be particularly useful when you think the pack should be used, why
researching with those for whom walking is not not let the participants take a lead.
an ideal or easy choice, this could therefore
3. It might be a good idea to include a list
include researching with those who have mental
of things that can be found in the pack,
or physical ill health. It might also be used to
along with a summary of your intentions
include people who are socially and physically
for providing the pack. This can serve
isolated or housebound, or to expand the
as a useful reminder for participants,
geographical reach of a project and to minimise
especially when researching over a
costs. One context in which it may be particularly
longer timeframe.
useful is when researching with older people
who are socially isolated or lonely. It might also
be useful in care homes, for instance.

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Participant Packs

Further reading
l More-than-representational approaches to the life-course
l Creative care kit: keeping well with creativity
l The methodological potential of scrapbooking

To reference: Barron, A. (2021). ‘Participant Packs: A

Flexible, Inclusive and Accessible Method’ in Barron, A.,
Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and
Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social science
methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect
and The University of Manchester.

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Methods for Change
Participatory
Film Making
Prof. Andrew Irving,
The University of Manchester,
Robyn Swannack and Nenio Mbazima,
University of the Witwatersrand
Dr Amy Barron, and Dr Laura Pottinger,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Prof. Andrew Irving
andrew.irving@manchester.ac.uk
Participatory Film Making

Participatory Film Making involves working collaboratively

with people using photography and film making to
generate new knowledge and understandings about the
perspectives and experiences of a particular group or
community.
This method involves training participants to become film makers
and co-researchers through guided learning and by teaching
techniques such as composition and editing. The collaborative
nature of this method means it is effective in displacing power
relationships and can make participating in research and the
creation of knowledge more inclusive and rewarding. Participatory
Film Making involves identifying relevant themes and areas of
interest and concern with those you are working with; investigating
key themes and issues through photography and film; developing
and discussing these areas through making creative outputs, which
then feed into peer learning and follow-on exercises. This method
is therefore cyclical and is driven by practice, whereby each process
informs the next.
In this method, photography and film making are seen as both life
enhancing skills to be taught to participants, and an appropriate
and effective pedagogical mechanism for exploring issues, topics
and questions, including difficult or sensitive areas that other
approaches might struggle to address. The skills participants
acquire through their involvement in Participatory Film Making can
then be used long after the research has ended. Participatory Film
Making is concerned with both the process of learning and the
end result. Developing film and photography skills together allows
participants to feel included and involved in the research process
and has additional benefits in terms of establishing social relations
and group dynamics. Having co-researchers who are already
embedded in the communities and contexts you are interested
in can also be particularly valuable when researching sensitive
topics or when working in different cultural contexts. Indeed, this
method can be used to ask and address a range of questions and
issues that may not lend themselves to other approaches, such as
conventional interviews, questionnaires or textual methods. For
example, when working in informal contexts, with vulnerable groups
or children, they can facilitate a better understanding of people’s
lived experiences.

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Participatory Film Making
How does Participatory Film
Making create or contribute
to change? 
Participatory Film Making is in part concerned
with the processes of change that happen
as participants acquire the skills to become
film makers. Because this method employs
iteration and collaborative learning, it is not
always desirable or possible to determine in
advance what will be changed as a result of
the skills gained. The question of change is
therefore defined by what emerges through the
participative process. For example, incidental
learning (outcomes that are as unanticipated as
they are valuable and new areas of knowledge)
often emerge through the participatory process.
Participatory Film Making can be particularly
useful in understanding and communicating the
lives and experiences of marginalised or excluded
groups. To give an example, which is discussed
in more detail later, it has been used in research
with deaf communities who are commonly
excluded from mainstream learning contexts
and the broadcast medium. The films created
can facilitate a change in public knowledge and
awareness about that community. Film presents
a way of documenting society and culture that
is accessible, inclusive and easily digestible to a
wide range of people, meaning it is more likely
to have far reaching influences. Change can also
occur in a more fundamental way for participants,
by changing the way somebody understands
themselves and their capacities. For instance,
in terms of understanding their personal and
collective identity, communicative abilities, self-
reflexivity and problem solving abilities.
Participatory Film Making can also be used with
a specific agenda in mind, such as making a film
about the devastating effects of the destruction
of the rainforest, opening up discussion and
debate on a local issue, raising public awareness
about health or influencing policy. The purpose
of this film would then be to change people’s
perceptions or to make an intervention into
government debates about that topic.
What ideas or concepts influence
Participatory Film Making?
The use of film and photography is commonplace
in the discipline of anthropology. Visual
anthropology uses ethnographic methods - which
are concerned with developing in-depth, intimate
and ongoing relationships with people - with a
medium that can communicate in ways that are
different from writing, such as film.
This method is also influenced by a move toward
more inclusive and participatory methods in
the social sciences which emphasise working
with or alongside participants, but it pushes
participation a step further. Participatory Film
Making begins from the premise that all visual
methods are participatory and collaborative,
because participants are always involved, and
permission is needed to engage with them. It is
driven by a desire for inclusivity and often starts
with asking: ‘who can participate?’. This question
is not only of concern to those people who are
being taught film making skills, but also to those
who are delivering the teaching of those skills.
This method recognises that the people that
researchers work with have the capacity to be
their own theorists about their social life and their
ways of being. Training someone who is part of the
group or context you are researching is important
because they are likely to be more aware of the
needs, enthusiasms, sensitivities, languages and
experiences of the participants. The people who
are trained to use the method can then act as
mediators between those delivering the skills and
techniques, and those learning them.
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Participatory Film Making
Why might I want to use Participatory Film Making?
l Participatory Film Making can be used to
investigate, share or tell a story. For example,
it might be used by an activist to make an
intervention into public discourse; to share
knowledge and information that is relevant
across a given community for educational
purposes; or to give a voice to under-
represented and marginalised groups.
l Participatory Film Making has the potential
to educate those who engage with produced
films about the challenges of being part
of that marginalised group by highlighting
the different practices and processes that
comprise their lived experiences.
l Being involved in Participatory Film Making
is often educational and fun, equipping
participants with new skills in media
production that can be used long after the
research project has ended.
Nenio Mbazima Teaching Framing Techniques
l The introduction to and use of the video
camera by participants often involves a
process of attunement and attention that
establishes a new awareness and relationship
between people, their bodies and their
surroundings.
l Participatory Film Making can offer insight
into how participants view their world in the
processes of planning compositions and
working together with other participants, as
well as through the choices about how to
portray their experience to others, whether
implicitly or explicitly.
l The process of playing with a camera can
provide opportunities for participants to
respond creatively and imaginatively to the
world around them and to engage with new
technologies.
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Participatory Film Making
Step by step guide to using Participatory Film Making 
Before using Participatory Film Making, it is
important to build an effective team that has the
technical expertise and cultural knowledge for
the research to be effective. If you are looking to
work with someone who has experience of film
making, please see the list of further reading.
1. Listening. Start by asking: what are the
main issues faced by the group involved in
the research? A key part of Participatory Film
Making is ensuring the people you work with
feel confident and supported to generate
ideas. It is important to identify people in the
community who can act as cultural brokers
or translators, and to train those people to
deliver these skills themselves. Listening is
crucial, especially initially because you are
trying to identify issues and topics that are
important to that community. It is vital to
establish a mutually defined set of aims and
objectives between the team and the group.
2. Method. The next stage involves setting a
series of different exercises through which
participants can learn a particular skill. These
skills might include how to effectively frame or
compose a picture around a theme you are
exploring. Set an exercise that is open enough
to go in different directions. Make sure you
include time for exploration and expression
where the participants are free to do what they
like with cameras and to photograph what they
please. It is important for learners to feel they
can take control over this process and run with
it. This often generates interesting insights and
allows you to understand what is significant
to the participants. Examples of different
exercises are outlined below, and examples of
where Participatory Video has been used can
be found via Insight Share :
l You might want to do an exercise that is
about getting people to represent their
emotions through film using everyday
objects and scenes around them. This
exercise aims to provide a structure to
open a discussion about the emotions
that are important for the people you
are working with. The participants define
the content and character of the visual
materials for themselves.
l A different exercise could involve getting
participants to create a portrait around a
particular theme. For example, if you were
researching ‘social isolation with older
people’, participants may be instructed to
create a portrait to represent ‘friendship’
as an antidote to isolation. This step is
about teaching participants to create an
effective portrait that will reveal something
about their character. Participants might
be taught how to effectively juxtapose a
person with an object, for example, or
how to put different elements into a frame
through effective balance and composition.
l Another activity might involve telling a story
in 24 images. This begins the process of
translating photography into film making.
3. Showing, discussion and peer-learning.
The next step involves bringing the group
of participants together to discuss the
photographs and films that have been created.
The point here is to engage in peer-learning,
as participants talk constructively through their
ideas and images together. The group should
consider the aesthetics of the image, discussing
what does and does not work in relation to the
theme being conveyed. Through this discussion,
participants are developing new skills and will
use these discussions to inform the creation
and composition of their next image.
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 Participatory Film Making

Step by step guide to using Participatory Film Making 

4. Sharing. The outputs you have created
As facilitators, it is important to give
participants the space to discuss things
among themselves and identify what
works and what does not. Listen to what
the participants are saying and what they
are identifying as important. For example,
some participants may be discussing
the barriers they experience to forming
friendships. Barriers to forming friends
could then become the subject for the next
photograph exercise.
can then be shared widely with the public as
well as directly interested stakeholders. How
the film is shared will depend on the goal
of the research. It might be used to open
discussion and debate on a local issue; to
raise public awareness; to influence policy; to
change people’s perceptions; or to make an
intervention into government debates about
a topic.

Participatory Film Making in Action

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Participatory Film Making
An example of Participatory Film Making
in social science research
Enhancing resilient deaf youth in South Africa
Researchers: Prof. Andrew Irving, Prof. Alys Young, Dr Lorenzo Ferrarini,
Dr Katherine Rogers; The University of Manchester, and Prof. Claudine Storbeck,
University of the Witwatersrand.
Trigger warning: understanding child abuse
and safeguarding
The project worked alongside two non-
governmental organisations based in South
Africa offering early intervention and parent
support services, HI HOPES and THRIVE, and
six schools for the deaf, four in KwaZulu-
Natal and two in Gauteng. Through a creative
interdisciplinary collaboration between
visual anthropology, social science and
deaf studies, the project set out to enhance
resilience among deaf youth in South Africa
through the medium of film and photography
using a series of interactive workshops with
deaf young people. The project was built
around specific objectives for promoting
positive aspirations, well-being and to work
with Participatory Flm Making and other
methods in order to establish child-led
interventions to support emotional literacy
and youth safeguarding (for example, as
ways of understanding how to assist young,
deaf people from becoming victims of sexual
violence). In doing so, photography and film
were used to open up a creative space of
learning to think about, explore and better
understand a range of critical issues that can
be difficult for pupils to engage with in other
learning contexts. It also gave pupils the
opportunity to identify and actively work on
topics they themselves considered important
in their own lives, families and communities.
The project objectives were:
l Through a child and community authored
method, to involve deaf youth in the making
and production of a series of ‘this is me -
this is my future’ films;
l To support the development of parent-child
social and emotional interactions;
l To develop a series of ‘growing up and
keeping safe’ films aimed specifically at deaf
young people.
In this project, young people were not
understood as research subjects from whom
information should be elicited. Instead, a
pedagogical approach based on practice-
based participation, guided learning, play and
improvisation were combined to create a
learning context to reveal, as well as generate,
understandings that may otherwise have
remained unarticulated. Film was a particularly
suitable method to use when researching
with deaf children because a strong visual
orientation to the world is often considered
central to deaf cultural identity.
The young people were initially taught visual
methods, including photography, film making
and editing by the researchers. Once they
had carried out the training, they were then
able to teach these methods to their peers.
The young participants had a greater cultural
awareness and understanding of the lives of
other deaf children in this context than the
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Participatory Film Making

academic researchers, and were therefore to destabilise existing power structures which
particularly successful in teaching these skills may have been reproduced had participants
sensitively and appropriately. instead been asked to write about their
experiences, for example. Beginning with
One aspect of the project involved
the existing visual lifeworlds and everyday
understanding safeguarding and child sexual
knowledge of participants, (in this case the
exploitation, and learning more about the
visual orientations and understandings
different situations in which children and
of deaf young people) Participatory Film
young people might be groomed by adults
Making practice offers an inclusive means
(in order to build upon this knowledge to
for researching and representing subjects
establish approaches for safeguarding for
and themes of mutually defined interest and
the deaf community). One Participatory Film
concern.
Making activity involved the participants
scripting a story. The young people were The films and photographs created in the
asked to come up with a set of scenarios wider project were then exhibited in different
around this theme and then to enact that public contexts - such as the KwaZulu Natal
story in front of the camera. Society of the Arts Gallery, Durban and the
Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York
In this context, the use of film and visual
- taking the outputs beyond an academic
methods offers an educational resource and
audience and encouraging members of the
effective pedagogical means for delivering
public to learn more about deaf culture.
content to young people by capitalising on
Participants valued the opportunity to share
their interest in the social and creative use
their work in this way, and seeing their stories
of images. Photography and filmmaking
made meaningful and relevant to wider
allow for individual learning but are also
audiences.
shared and participatory processes that
create opportunities for social and peer
learning, for facilitating personal and collective
understandings about how to negotiate
challenging life experiences that can be
carried throughout life. Through a series of
visual exercises, the young people were also
learning a set of skills around film making
and photography which they then could use
in other ways. Importantly, this method was
also enjoyable, and provided an opportunity

PAGE 214
Participatory Film Making

Where else could Participatory

Film Making be used? Top tips
1. Collaborate with people who already
Researching social isolation
have the skills to make this happen, or
with older people
train yourself on how to make films.
Participatory Film Making can be used to better
2. Remember that this method is an
understand what matters to, or what issues
ongoing process of listening, peer
are being faced by, particular communities
feedback and discussion.
and individuals. As discussed above, this
approach is particularly useful for giving voice 3. Think ethically and adopt process ethics
to underrepresented groups, for understanding – an ethical approach to Participatory
complex or taboo social phenomenon, and for Film Making is not just about the
improving understandings of an issue from process of making the films, but also
the perspective of the community facing said thinking with the community about
challenge. For instance, social isolation is a how these films are to be released and
big issue that faces many older people. In this distributed. These issues of who owns
scenario, a Participatory Film Making exercise the films and rights to use the films
might begin with understanding the significance are ethical considerations that needs
of friendship in the lives of older people, as to be discussed/determined with the
a way to counter narratives of isolation. The community.
exercise would be developed in a way which
enables the people you are working with to
think through a set of questions for themselves
about how they may enhance their social lives.
The approach could also be adopted for young
people involved in particular subcultures or
sports or for inviting young people to determine
the areas they would like to explore; residents
in a particular area experiencing environmental
change (drought, fire, flood, climate change);
eco and alternative communities. While there
are often specific social, political, economic or
environmental challenges facing these groups
you may wish to explore, the questions asked do
not need to be predetermined – Participatory
Film Making can be used to ‘give voice’ to issues
defined by a community/sub-group.

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Participatory Film Making

Further reading
l Insight Share
l Steps for the future
l 
Liparu Lyetu – our life: Participatory ethnographic filmmaking
in applied contexts
l Participatory ethnographic filmmaking:
Transcultural collaboration in research and filmmaking

To reference: BIrving, A., Swannack, R., Mbazima, N.,

Barron, A. and Pottinger, L. (2021). ‘Participatory Film Making’
in Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger,
L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social
science methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester:
Aspect and The University of Manchester.

Funding acknowledgement: The ‘Enhancing Resilient Deaf Youth in South

Africa’ project was produced as a result of an AHRC/MRC grant Ref: AH/R00580X/1
through the Global Challenges Research Fund. The Principal Investigators were
Prof. Andrew Irving; Prof. Alys Young; Dr Lorenzo Ferrarini; and Dr Katherine
Rogers (The University of Manchester); and Prof. Claudine Storbeck, (University
of the Watwatersrand). Project assistants were Nenio Mbazima; Alex Tomkins;
Robyn Swannack, Alex Nyawo; Shirley Wilson; Sibusiso Mangele, Bianca Birdsey,
Debra Clelland. Interpreters were Carol Gaisford, Andiswa Gebashe, Khethukuthula
Makoatsane, Mpho Teme, Perunah Pillay, Daniel Sengakana, Tsholofelo Segatswi
and Odette Swift.

PAGE 216
Methods for Change
Participatory
Qualitative
Interviews
Dr Lucy Jackson,
The University of Sheffield
Dr Laura Pottinger
and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Lucy Jackson
lucy.jackson@sheffield.ac.uk
Participatory Qualitative Interviews

This method offers a creative alternative to qualitative

interviews - often understood as a ‘conversation with
a purpose’- by asking participants to take part in an
activity whilst engaged in conversation. Introducing a fun,
interactive, participatory dimension can make interviews
feel less intimidating for both the interviewer and
respondent, and can disrupt established power relations.
Participatory Qualitative Interviews are less formulaic than
standard semi-structured interviews, and can be carried
out with individuals or groups.

Rather than following a predetermined interview schedule,

conversations unfold in a more fluid way. The researcher may have
a list of prompts or themes, but it is the activity that structures
the research encounter. As participants become immersed in
the activity, they may feel more comfortable and open to talking
about topics that might be sensitive or less easy to discuss in a
formal interview. This approach could involve, for example, asking
participants to produce or comment on something such as an
artwork, a piece of music, or a video. Or, it might involve taking part
in a shared activity such as dancing, knitting, singing, or storytelling,
which may be related to the research topic. This method can
therefore produce interesting data drawn from the conversations
that take place around activities, as well as valuable alternative data
and outputs in the form of images, film, song or collage.

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Participatory Qualitative Interviews
How do Participatory Qualitative
Interviews create or contribute to
change?  Participatory Qualitative Interviews are
The method emphasises flexibility and allows
participants to shape and change the research
as it is carried out. Different possibilities are
explored together with participants, and as
such, the intentions, questions and direction
of the research can shift and evolve. By giving
participants the power to explore what they
find interesting, it can increase confidence, and
can create a shift in perspectives for individuals
involved in the research as well as for researchers
themselves. Power dynamics and relationships
within a group can also change where research
activities are carried out over an extended
time period. Research drawing on Participatory
Qualitative Interviews does not necessarily set
out to produce change, which is understood here
as something that is unpredictable that cannot
be controlled by the researcher. However, in a
modest way it is a method that aims to make
research more humane and down to earth.
What ideas or concepts are
connected with this approach?
informed by feminist and activist approaches
in geography and the wider social sciences that
centre understandings of the lived experiences
of social difference and spaces of resistance.
To be carried out successfully, this method
asks the researcher to be open, and to share
themselves in the process of conducting the
research. Reflexivity is therefore an important
dimension of this approach, and it requires
the researcher to examine their own practices,
beliefs and judgements and how these impact
on the research. It may also involve elements
of ethnography (observing of social interactions
and phenomena in a time/place) and auto
ethnography (self-reflection about experiences
at certain times/places), given that in addition
to organising activities to be carried out with
participants, the researcher may spend time
going along with the day-to-day activities
of groups or individuals in various different
environments.
Participatory Qualitative Interviews introduce
creativity and playfulness into traditional
interview methods, which can lead to new
opportunities and possibilities that the
researcher may not have previously considered.
Research drawing on this approach is not
viewed as a linear process, but is understood as
constantly evolving and dynamic. Rather than
imposing a rigid structure on data collection,
researchers are encouraged to embrace the
messiness and often chaotic nature of research
encounters.
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Participatory Qualitative Interviews
Why might I want to use Participatory Qualitative Interviews?
l Participatory Qualitative Interviews enable
the researcher to develop rich insights by
‘talking whilst doing’ with participants, as well
as generating a range of creative, alternative
data that can give a different dimension to the
research and can provide more depth than
the written or spoken word alone.
l Both researcher and participants are learning
new things as they work through the activities
together, which can disrupt the power
dynamics of more formal research methods.
This approach can therefore be useful in
researching sensitive topics, or in research
with children, for example.
l It can be used in one-to-one research
encounters with individuals, as well as
with larger groups, where it can help build
networks and relationships between group
members taking part in an activity together.
l This method can be quite chaotic and
unpredictable, but this is what makes it
interesting! Avoiding predetermined ideas
about what the research will discover, and
being prepared to go with the flow can
result in exciting new findings that had not
previously been imagined. It requires the
researcher to be flexible, open to trying
different methods and tools, and to react as
the research activity unfolds.
l You have to be ready to make yourself
vulnerable as a researcher, and to be honest
about what you are doing in order to create a
space where people feel involved and open.
You cannot be opposed to doing things
yourself that you want participants to do – if
the activity involves singing, you will have to
sing too!
The image depicts a ‘show
of hands’ in support for
the organisation HOME
(Humanitarian Organisation
for Migration Economics). The
picture was created on an open
house day to celebrate the
organisation’s activities and the
identities of the women it helped.
The handprint tree symbolises
growth and beauty in nature
with the handprints acting in
place of leaves to build the tree.
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 Participatory Qualitative Interviews
Step by step guide to using Participatory Qualitative Interviews:
1. Start with the research questions.
Identify what are you interested in
understanding, and then think about
how you can make your research more
explorative before thinking about specific
activities. It is important to embrace
openness from the start. Be prepared for
research questions to shift as the research
evolves.
2. Plan an activity to do together. There
is no one specific way of approaching this,
the key thing is to find an activity that works
for the research topic and participants,
and it may involve some trial and error to
get this right. Think about the issues you
are interested in, and how they could lend
themselves to a participatory, collaborative
element. Discuss ideas together with
participants before you begin.
For inspiration in designing activities, think
across the visual arts (drawing, painting,
collage, video), performative arts (theatre,
dance, music, song), written arts (poetry,
prose), storytelling (oral traditions), sports
(walking, cycling) or a combination of these.
This choice depends on what you are trying
to find out, but ultimately the aim is to
design activities that participants can get
immersed in without feeling self-conscious.
3. Go out into the field. Find a place where
participants feel comfortable – a neutral
space or somewhere the researcher has
less power. A community centre would be
more appropriate than a university seminar
room, for example. It can be useful to have
someone to come along to help facilitate.
 
It is important to leave space for
reflection when using creative
methods. Keep a written record either
in the form of an online diary or blog,
or a hand written notebook, and do
not be tempted to only review and
reflect on an ad hoc basis. Designate
time for reflection after events, and
record your reactions and emerging
thoughts at specified review points.
Build it in to your timetable.
4. Use icebreakers. It might take a while
for participants to warm up. Start with a
brief introduction to the research, and
an icebreaker activity. This should be
something easy and fun - it does not have
to be connected to the research questions
directly, but it should give participants the
space and time to engage their ‘voice’ in
different ways before starting with the main
activity.
5. Start the activity. Keep it simple – people
can be quite put off if they feel that what
you are asking them to do requires a
great deal of skill. Try to keep it light, fun
and participatory, and get a conversation
going. Instead of an interview schedule,
the researcher can introduce prompts,
themes or questions as the activity unfolds.
The point of this is for people to get so
immersed in something that they almost
forget that they are being interviewed and it
becomes a more dynamic interaction.
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 Participatory Qualitative Interviews
Step by step guide to using Participatory Qualitative Interviews:
7. Think about what to do with the data.
Participatory Qualitative Interviews are not
for the faint hearted. This method takes
guts and it takes time - it is not something
that you can do in a half-hour interview. It
can be incredibly tiring because you need
to simultaneously organise the activities,
listen, interact, record and support
participants. This is an approach to
interviewing that is really ramped up!
!Pop box!
6. Record the conversation and the
activity. How you do this will depend on
the activity and the participants, and could
include video recording, audio recording or
asking an assistant to take notes. Participants
themselves can contribute, by taking photos,
for example.
 
This method will generate interesting
and varied data in the form of diagrams,
photographs, collages, artefacts, or audio
and film recordings that can help you tell a
story with more than just words. Thematic
analysis can be used to connect these varied
outputs with the original research aims and
questions, and analysis can be seen as a
process of cutting and sticking, collaging and
building a picture through the data. Creating
an exhibition is one way of sharing outputs
from the research with participants and the
wider public. Kate Reed’s Remembering Baby
exhibition is a powerful example of how
findings from research into sensitive topics
can be communicated creatively.
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Participatory Qualitative Interviews
Examples of using Participatory Qualitative Interviews
in social science research 
Doctoral research on citizenship, community and belonging in South Wales
and Singapore
Researcher: Dr Lucy Jackson,The University of Sheffield
This research, undertaken between 2009 and
2012, aimed to explore how those without
formal citizenship rights practised, performed
and experienced citizenship and citizenship
type practices in the place in which they lived.
This research demonstrated that citizenship is
not only a political status but is also a way of
being. It is emotional, experienced, performed
and practiced in and through everyday lives,
through communities, networks, a sense of
belonging and in negotiations of people’s
identities. The research was conducted with
community organisations and groups who
represented predominantly migrant women.
Some were collective groups of likeminded
individuals, very flexible and informal in nature,
whilst other groups were selected by formal
organisations supporting particular migrant
identities in the different case study locations.
What the organisations had in common was
that they provided a sense of belonging for
the individuals involved, whether formally or
informally.
The research used a mix of qualitative
research methods including interviews, focus
groups, ethnography, archival material, auto
ethnography, oral histories and storytelling.
What became apparent early on in the
research was the emotional depth associated
with stories of belonging and community
which were often quite difficult to put into
words. Alongside this, I was working with
communities of women where English was
often not their first language which made
conversations around politicised terms, such
as citizenship, quite difficult. The research
methods were therefore adapted to become
much more playful and interactive in nature. I
worked to incorporate arts-based approaches
into participatory interviewing; this involved
drawing and painting, singing and dancing, as
well as large scale art projects led by myself
and the organisations. The participants and I
also embarked on a series of informal letter
writing and journal keeping, reflecting on
their experiences ‘in country’. This meant
that participants had a choice of how to get
involved and how to express themselves.
Instead of having formal interviews or focus
groups, the sessions became much more fluid
in nature, based upon conversations around
the ‘thing’ being created, which itself was
linked to the research.
Giving participants the freedom to choose
how to express themselves meant that I was
able to access those emotional and often
quite raw experiences, digging into what it
meant to live as a migrant woman in different
contexts. The auto ethnographic element
(that is, my own participation in the writing
and drawing) also gave participants more
trust in me - I demonstrated my own (terrible)
artistic skills as well as getting involved in
physical activities. The Participatory Qualitative
Interview approach therefore opens you
up as a researcher to those potentialities
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Participatory Qualitative Interviews

and possibilities that you may not have
imagined. You become part of the research
and you therefore gain depth and experience.
Furthermore, the interactive nature of the
research meant that I gained participants’ trust
in a way I had not experienced before which
led to some wonderful insights. Included in
this guide are just a couple of sketches which
participants created and further examples
of the creative products can be seen in my
published research on this topic.

Draw and write: What do you do in your community and with other people? Please draw the activities that you are
involved in on a day to day basis - think about what you do in your local community, and with different people.

e
r e o f my hom
ca
working for Women Taking
connect first o f m yself
car e
Taking d
Going for shop
ping r e o f m y husban
Taking c a

friends
Partying over th Socialising with
e
weekend and family

The image is a hand drawn depiction of the
participant in a sort of spider diagram with
links to the things that she sees as important to
her and her community.
The image shows how a participant sees
herself as connected to the local community;
she sees herself in the context of the women’s
organisation and what she does there, as well
as what she does in her personal life associated
with her family and friends and as a mother.

PAGE 224
Participatory Qualitative Interviews

Examples of using Participatory Qualitative Interviews

in social science research 
Using creative methods when working with youth organisations
Researchers: Dr Lucy Jackson, Dr Catherine Harris, Dr Lucy Mayblin, Dr Aneta Piekut
(Project principal investigator Prof. Gill Valentine, The University of Sheffield).

This research was conducted for the project
LIVEDIFFERENCE, a European Research
Council (ERC) funded project led by Prof. Gill
Valentine. This research programme involved
five inter-linked projects which explored the
extent and nature of everyday encounters
with ‘difference’. The example used here is
from research that was conducted with a
youth organisation which operated in a diverse
area of a large UK city. The participants in the
research were teenagers.
Due to the sensitive nature of the research
topic and the use of some highly emotive and
politicised terms around diversity, inclusion
and belonging, the research team took a
creative approach. The research team worked
with the organising group to set up an activity
space and to arrange time where we could
work with the young people. By using a
community space in this way, multiple forms
of engagement with the participants were
possible. This included a space for informal
discussion alongside the playing of video
games, a table with art materials to create
images, pictures and sketches around the
key themes of the research whilst talking to
participants, and a ‘Big Brother’ diary room,
where the participants interacted with ‘Big
Brother’, answered questions and undertook
participatory activities.
This approach made the research more
dynamic and interesting for the participants,
but it also made the research much more
informal in nature. In research that covers
sensitive topics such as diversity and
belonging, participants might seem shy or
lack confidence when discussing their own
experiences. Providing multiple different ways
to engage with the key themes meant that
participants had considerable agency over
how they told their stories and got involved.

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Participatory Qualitative Interviews
Where else could Participatory
Qualitative Interviews be used?
Participatory Qualitative Interviews can be used
in a wide range of different sectors that deal
with peoples’ lived experiences (that you may or
may not have yourself as a professional), and/or
with people whose voices are not often heard in
certain contexts or institutional processes. This
method is particularly well suited to researching
sensitive topics, and could be valuable, for
example, in healthcare settings, with youth
groups or with dementia patients. People
working in these settings could think about the
ways they could use Participatory Qualitative
Interviews alongside other activities that are
already occurring in these spaces, such as
crafting (knitting, quilting, drawing) performance
(dance, theatre, singing) or even sport (running,
swimming, cycling). With an emphasis on
encouraging participants to feel comfortable and
to express themselves, Participatory Qualitative
Interviews can be useful to organisations
working with communities whose voices are less
often heard, including non-native speakers, shy
people, or those who are new to a place.
The possibility of tailoring the method and
activities around the needs of different
individuals and groups means that this approach
could be used by charities, businesses or
service providers working in a range of different
contexts. In addition to generating valuable,
creative data and fresh insight, Participatory
Qualitative Interviews could be useful for
increasing sensitivity and empathy to issues
within these contexts, and for establishing better
rapport with participants. Using this approach
– possibly alongside activities that are already
happening, or by enacting new activities - can
lead to a deeper, reflexive analysis of people’s
experiences in these spaces. By engaging with
creativity, and increasing self-awareness, it might
also assist various organisations or groups
to gain a better understanding of the people
that they are working with, and to proactively
adapt to issues that they had not previously
considered or focused on.
Top tips
1. Be brave and bold, and do not be put off
by people saying ‘this is silly’. Be clear on
what you want to do, and why.
2. Flexibility is key - be prepared for
anything! It can help to have a big bag
of tools (pens, pencils, cameras, jigsaw
puzzles, craft materials, post-it notes…)
that you can pull out if you need to try a
fresh approach.
3. Keep a notebook with you at all times
to record any observations, events or
reflections during the process.
4. Because this approach is unpredictable,
you are never quite sure what will come
out in conversation with participants.
Given that developing trusted
relationships is integral to this research
approach, it is inevitable that there
will be some emotionally draining and
upsetting situations.
5. Find a way to decompress. The activities
should be fun, but you don’t know what
will come out and you might hear stories
that you were not prepared to hear,
which can be challenging.
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Participatory Qualitative Interviews

Further reading
l ‘Big Brother welcomes you’: exploring innovative methods for
research with children and young people outside of the home
and school environments. 
l 
Mixed methodologies in emotive research: negotiating multiple
methods and creating narratives in feminist embodied work on
citizenship.
l 
A conversation between Kip Jones and Patricia Leavy: Arts-
based research, performative social science and working on the
margins.

The following are examples of research dissemination using

creative and participatory approaches:
l 
The Virtual Patchwork Quilt: A Qualitative Feminist Research
method
l 
Geraldine Pratt: Research on Filipino domestic workers’
experience of living in Canada. Dissemination through Theatre in
the play ‘Nanay’
l 
The Remembering Baby exhibition is based on a research study
about experiences of early-life loss and the impact of medical
imaging on paediatric post-mortem. The project is funded by the
ESRC and it is being carried out by a research team (led by Dr
Kate Reed) at the University of Sheffield.

To reference: Jackson, L., Pottinger, L. and Ehgartner,

U. (2021). ‘Participatory Qualitative Interviews’ in Barron,
A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and
Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social science
methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect
and The University of Manchester.

PAGE 227
Methods for Change
Visual
Organisational
Ethnography
Prof. Stephen Linstead,
University of York
and Dr Laura Pottinger,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Prof. Stephen Linstead
stephen.linstead@york.ac.uk
Visual Organisational Ethnography

Visual Organisational Ethnography is a transdisciplinary

approach that brings together artistic interpretation
and theories from the social sciences used to study
management and organisational culture. Researchers
using this approach aim to generate a rich site-specific
understanding of organisations, institutions, industries or
interest groups, and work closely with those communities
to produce a creative representation of their culture that
can galvanise change.
As an ethnographic approach, it often entails long-term and
immersive processes of observing, collecting and recording while
participating in the communities or organisations that are the focus
of the research. Gathered materials are then brought together
and edited in order to release and develop the narratives within
them, telling the stories of these places or communities in a way
that moves and energises the people involved and provides a
springboard for their future action. The researcher is not viewed
as an expert, but rather as someone with the desire and skills to
comprehend and help to articulate the worlds in which participants
are the real experts.
Visual Organisational Ethnography frequently involves the use
of several different methods that aim to open up suppressed
or neglected dimensions of a culture. Specific tools, such as
photography, film, poetry or theatre are selected in response to the
context of the community or organisation that is being researched.
Similar approaches are sometimes termed sensual ethnography,
and while visual forms of data such as photographs and film are
important, researchers should aim to draw on the full range of
senses in order to understand and communicate participants’
experiences and stories. Whether the research culminates in a film,
an exhibition or performance art, the aim is to create an immersive
experience that has an emotional impact on those encountering
it. The principle is that you might not remember what the research
makes you see, but you will remember how it makes you feel.

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Visual Organisational Ethnography
How does Visual Organisational Ethnography create
or contribute to change? 
Much work in the social sciences is shaped by
an implicit assumption that the world is relatively
stable, with change being a temporally bounded
process that needs to be introduced or promoted
in some way to get us from A to B. In contrast,
Visual Organisational Ethnography is informed by
the view that the relative stability we may perceive
is something that we create out of a basic state of
flux. Things are not static, but are changing, even
if subtly, all the time. This suggests that rather
than seeking to develop methods that promote
change as an external initiative, there is a need
for methods that galvanise the unacknowledged
changes that are already in motion and have their
own momentum, and which empower people to
recognise their role in enabling these changes to
take place.
Visual Organisational Ethnography can be
understood as a portfolio approach, which
draws on many different methods with the aim
of ‘broadening the bandwidth’ of people who are
involved in change in organisations, communities
or industries, so that they become more aware
of these processes and able to see things they
otherwise would not see. It does this by creating
cultural representations that have an emotional
impact on those involved, that move people
and inspire further action. By inviting people to
participate in this process in a way that is organic,
rather than attempting to impose an intervention
onto a community from the outside, any
resulting changes or actions are likely to be more
meaningful and longer lasting.
PAGE 230
Visual Organisational Ethnography

What ideas or concepts influence Visual Organisational Ethnography?

This approach has its roots in social anthropology, A culture is a learned and shared way of life
which has a long history of using visual data, of a group of people or similar collective - the
and traditionally involved researchers observing behaviours, beliefs, skills, knowledge, attitudes, and
cultures perceived to be very different from values that they accept, generally without thinking
their own. Throughout the 20th century, about them. These are passed along and learned
anthropologists became more interested in by symbolic communication, including stories,
studying cultures that were less ‘remote’ and heroes, written and oral histories, songs and art
closer to their own experiences and communities, objects; and pattern repetition, such as imitation,
often from an inside position. Following this line of rituals, common experience, practices, artefacts
thinking, Visual Organisational Ethnography draws and products. For example, the National Coal
on broadly ethnographic methodologies built Mining Museum for England acts as a repository
around participant observation, that involve both for many of these things for the industry and is a
observing the activities of a group or organisation, place where people can go to celebrate the beliefs,
as well as taking part as an active participant within behaviours and collective values that shaped them
those communities and practices. and their communities. The exhibits of such a
place don’t reflect to people what they think about
Visual Organisational Ethnography is an
their culture – they remind them how they feel
interdisciplinary approach to studying
about it by prompting them to re-experience it,
management and organisation as cultural
which can spur them to new directions of action.
practices, bringing together artistic interpretation
and theories from the social sciences and
humanities. Importantly, it foregrounds the
significance of emotions in organisational
behaviour and culture, and the ‘art’ of
management, which is often overlooked in more
‘scientific’ management theories. Images, in the
form of photographs, film, or artworks, are not
drawn upon to supplement existing data, added
in later to communicate findings, or incorporated
to make research appear richer in detail and more
interesting. Rather, the generation and curation
of visual material is integral to this approach both
in terms of understanding and representing the
cultures that are studied.

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 Visual Organisational Ethnography
Why might I want to use Visual Organisational Ethnography?
l Visual Organisational Ethnography provides a
tool for interrogating and revitalising culture.
It can be particularly useful for drawing
people’s attention to aspects that are already
embedded within their own cultures, but
which may be overlooked, such as those
mentioned above.
l While there is much research that looks at
culture at a national level, or at the level of
an organisation, this method is well suited
to understanding the culture or folklore of
an industry – the stories, fables, practices
and rituals through which cultural values are
communicated.
Visual Organisational Ethnography has
been particularly useful in understanding
the values embedded over many years
or even centuries within ‘smokestack’
industries, such as railway or mining
industries. It has highlighted the ways
in which they continue to exist in what
remains of these industries, but also in
the descendant communities and the
landscapes of which they were part and
which they shaped. Such insights are
significant because studies of cultural
change since the 1970s have confirmed the
importance of respecting, honouring and
celebrating the past in ways that allow its
positive elements to be carried forward
in continuity. Where regional economies
have been successfully regenerated, it
has often been because this has formed
a springboard for change that built on
and maintained existing values, skills and
capabilities.
l Visual Organisational Ethnography can take
a variety of forms, depending on the culture
that is being studied, and can involve varying
levels of involvement from participants. While
the format can vary, the aim is to produce
a critically affective performative text. This
means:
l The work produced should be critical in
that it ask questions where they would not
ordinarily be asked, and interrogates what
may otherwise be taken for granted.
l It is affective in that it takes emotion and
the impacts of emotion seriously, and
examines how people respond emotionally
to the situations that they are in – literally
how they are affected.
l It is performative because the goal is for
people to do things as a result of viewing
or experiencing the piece that is produced.
The aim of the research is not to tell people
what to do, but they should come away
from that experience wanting to take some
kind of action.
l The term text refers to any piece of
representation. This does not refer only
to written text, although the piece that is
produced could involve the written word.
It could be a painting, a film, an exhibition,
a drawing, a theatre production, or it could
take any variety of visual, multi-sensory or
written formats.
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 Visual Organisational Ethnography
Step by step guide to Visual Organisational Ethnography:
1. Get access: When you have identified
a community that you are interested in
researching, which could be an organisation,
a subculture, a group of people living in a
place or working on a specific project or
campaign, you need to think about how
you can gain access or invitation. A good
way to approach this is to find some action
or service that you can offer them as a gift
or a token of respect, which demonstrates
that you are willing to contribute to their
causes and concerns and to make yourself
useful. This could mean offering to take
some photographs, to produce some filmed
material, getting them information they need,
or to write about an event. This offer should
not be conditional on you being allowed
greater access – you will do it anyway, and
participants can then decide if they want to
continue working with you in other ways.
Basically, they often will want to keep working
with you, if they like you and trust you.
The process of gaining access may take
a considerable amount of time. The aim
is to make yourself available, and while
there may not be an immediate payoff,
this will help to establish your credibility
as well as developing your understanding
of the culture you are interested in. As you
build relationships and become embedded
within the community, other opportunities
may arise. For example, you may be able
to support with developing funding bids
for future work that they were unaware
that they could access.
2. Gather as much material as you
can: When you have developed strong
relationships and agreed with participants to
work towards an output, the early stages of
the research involve a process of gathering
elements that may help to tell the story of
that culture. This means the researcher must
spend time in the community or organisation
registering and collecting a vast amount of
images, phrases, situations, stories, poems,
events, and key informants, and looking for
the connections between them, which then
become the building blocks of a narrative. As
you go through this process of collecting, stay
open to possibilities and unanticipated lines
of inquiry. Depending on the type of output
you plan to produce, identify what additional
skills you may need to draw on and identify
partners who can help you deliver the project
successfully.
3. Planning and pre-production: You may
now want to make a storyboard, or to create
some kind of structure that allows you to plan
the practicalities of producing your output.
This approach requires effective multi-tasking.
If you are making an independent film, you
will often need to perform many different
roles, from writer, producer, director, to
cameraperson, as well as thinking about
sound, lighting, and recruiting interviewees or
actors. You will need to identify locations, plan
what scenes you wish to shoot and when,
taking into account your budget and the
number of days you have available, as well as
any other technical expertise you may need
to draw upon.
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 Visual Organisational Ethnography
Step by step guide to Visual Organisational Ethnography:
It is important to identify the key skills
that you don’t have at the right quality
level, and find ways of getting people who
have these skills on board. For example,
if you plan to show a film as part of an
exhibition, or embed it in a performance,
or extract stills to make an article or
book, design expertise will be essential.
If you are creating a performance, what
needs to be added is a sense of stagecraft
in three dimensions rather than the
film producer’s two, an understanding
of audience dynamics, and a different
understanding of lighting. Whatever
media you introduce to communicate,
you should identify its key contribution
and its specific demands. Get some input
from someone who really understands
the medium to make sure your work is of
the appropriate quality.
4. Production: In this phase, you are making
sure that you have all the materials in place
to create your planned output, which could
be a theatre performance, an exhibition,
or a film, for example – even a ballet, an
opera or a poetry slam. This might involve
filming in various locations with actors or
with members of the community who will be
interviewed; taking photographs of specific
locations, people, or artefacts; creating
sound recordings or sound effects; or if
using existing images or sound recordings,
getting permissions to use them. The aim is
to generate everything that you might need
so you can then move on to the process of
editing, structuring, scripting or curating,
without having to go back and do something
again.
Serendipity is important – whilst
attempting to be as complete as possible,
you need to be open enough to take
advantage of what opportunities emerge
as you go along. During the production of
Black Snow, discussed below, we had no
plan to use virtual reality or computer-
generated imagery elements when we
began. As a result of a technical failure
of a drone, we discovered the drone pilot
was also a computer design artist. On
discovering this I rewrote the screenplay,
and his work for the film won awards in its
own right as well as making a substantial
contribution to the films’ overall success.
5. Edit and curate: Once all the raw materials
have been collected and recorded, the next
stage is to decide what will be included, and
how it will be stitched or staged together. This
is when the potential narratives crystallise
and interweave. You decide what emphasis
will be placed on certain elements, and you
discover which ones work and what needs
rethinking. For a film production, this may
involve editing film footage, perhaps adding
sound effects, animation, virtual reality special
effects or a musical score. This requires
attention to detail and often making very
tiny adjustments which will refine and lift the
quality of the finished piece and therefore the
experience of the viewer. Whatever form the
final output takes, it needs to be conveyed
in a way that is accessible and meaningful
to your particular audience, so that they can
take something away from it. It can work well
to leave some ambiguity in the way that the
narrative is constructed, so that the possibility
is left open for viewers to write the next
chapter of their story.
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 Visual Organisational Ethnography

Step by step guide to Visual Organisational Ethnography:

feedback that be used in a final round of

Editing can be a long and drawn-out
edits. This can be useful in understanding
process, because it often means leaving
how the piece is received and if changes
out material to which you have become
are needed. It also enables participants to
attached. Creating a coherent and
feel more fully involved in the process, and
impactful narrative involves making
holding an event can help to bring together
difficult choices, because there will be
the community and energise a campaign.
more stories than you can tell within the
material you have gathered.

Remember that you are not the expert.

6. Share your creative output with people:
It is a good idea to plan in advance where
you will show or exhibit your final output.
Are there any competitions you can enter,
or other methods of widening its reach?
Depending on your budget and how much
time you have available, you may wish to
arrange a première or preview that invites
participants to view the film, exhibition,
or production rehearsal, and to provide
As a researcher who is also a director
or curator, your purpose is to help
participants to release their energies and
their capabilities. Your role is not to take
their information, repackage it and tell
them ‘this is who you are’. You are helping
your participants to realise their stories.

Examples of Visual Organisational Ethnography

in social science research
Film: Black Snow
Researchers: Prof. Stephen Linstead, University of York
and Dr. Andrew Lawrence, University of Manchester.

Black Snow is a 23 minute documentary film The project involved a combination of

which was created as part of an ongoing
appeal to raise money for a bronze memorial
to England’s worst mining disaster, as its
150th anniversary was approaching. Visual
Organisational Ethnography was used here to
create a visual part of an educational package
for the general public and schools as the
disaster was almost forgotten and was largely
unwritten about.
historical archive research, and participant
ethnographic research and interviewing,
underpinning the full range of filmmaking
skills. The main partner was the National
Union of Mineworkers, who collaborated with
a charity, People in Mining with support from
the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Barnsley
Metropolitan Borough Council, the National
Coal-Mining Museum for England, AHRC

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Visual Organisational Ethnography
Black Snow Film Poster
(Image credit: Bryan Ledgard).
(Arts and Humanities Research Council) and
ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council)
were also important collaborators along with
volunteer groups.
After the making of Black Snow and its public
showing, the volunteers who had been
involved with the raising of the Oaks Disaster
Memorial, that features in the film, began
to realise that they could do other things to
promote campaigns for industry memorials
elsewhere in the country than they had
hitherto thought possible. As with the film,
in these new activities they wanted to get
across the social dimensions and values that
the industry had fostered or provoked in its
communities. They wanted to emphasise how
it felt to be part of such a community and
why those values – cooperation, pragmatism,
care for others, respect, precision, resilience,
reliability, ingenuity, ‘getting the job done’,
endurance, kindness, sociability, friendship,
generosity, connectedness - live on today.
They used the film to highlight their work
and help other volunteer groups, and they
were also inspired to collaborate on different
projects and attempt new things. This
culminated in them working with Temple
Newsam House in Leeds to create an
installation and presentations that formed
the ‘Blot on the Landscape’ exhibition. This
won both regional and overall national Marsh
Christian Trust Volunteers for Museum
Learning Awards from the British Museum
in 2019, both illuminating the general public
and inspiring even more heritage groups.
What was particularly useful about Visual
Organisational Ethnography in this project
was that film was able to pull out of the
archive stories that needed to be brought
alive to create a living history – a history not
of an event but a community discovering
itself. The impact of the film on audiences
has been global. Press, broadcast, online
and other reads/views have reached
around 9 million. It has also had an impact
on curricula, and on other communities
now attempting to memorialise their own
histories. Most importantly for an event that
was forgotten, the anniversary of the disaster
is now the UK’s National Workplace Day of
Remembrance, commemorating all those
who died at work.
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Visual Organisational Ethnography

Photographic/Multimedia Exhibition: Rhythm of the Martyrs

Researcher: Prof. Stephen Linstead, University of York
and Dr. Garance Maréchal, University of Liverpool

In Rhythm of the Martyrs, a Visual This immersive experience gets audiences

Organisational Ethnography approach was closer to the kind of embodied experience
taken to the problem of familiarising people that is only possible in the streets of Belfast,
on the UK mainland with the experiences of but it simultaneously embeds that in the
those in Northern Ireland as the anniversary experiences of others through sound, and
of 50 years of The Troubles approached in history through the accompanying text.
2019. It aimed to bring together work towards Unfortunately the exhibition had to be
peace and reconciliation that had been cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic,
undertaken by artists and musicians in order but those who have seen it enthuse about
to communicate more effectively with people its power, and the way it is able to convey
outside Northern Ireland, and deliver deeper conflicting feelings and subtleties, horror and
messages than were possible through tourist hope in a powerful new form. It is hoped it will
bodies. be staged at Easter 2022 in York, and August
2022 in Liverpool.
In this project, Visual Organisational
Ethnography involved a range of methods,
including archive analysis of written, oral,
visual and newsreel materials, photography
and photographic editing, sound and music
editing and mixing, exhibition design. One
professional photographer joined two
academics to photograph and write about
the so-called ‘peace walls’ and murals in
the province, mainly in Belfast. This work
considered their changing history and involved
discussions and consultations with different
bodies alongside some musical initiatives.
These were all incorporated into an academic
paper on peace-led arts interventions in
conflict situations, and a publicly accessible
exhibition in two parts.
The first part was a single room installation of
72 photographs, taken at a five year interval
– 2014 and 2019. The second part of the
exhibition was a 360° visual display of full
wall versions of a further 72 photographs, Rhythm of the Martyrs Exhibition Poster
accompanied by music and interview data. (Image credit: Bryan Ledgard,
Terrence Letiche).

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Visual Organisational Ethnography
The peace walls and murals in Belfast have
been the subject of documentary film work,
but they are complex and demand a degree
of time in contemplation that is not possible
in the film medium. The availability of 360°
immersive technology enabled us to produce
a unique experience to convey even greater
richness for those for whom a visit to Belfast
was unlikely to be possible. In the complex
situation of Northern Ireland and Brexit
our contribution is likely to be very small
Where else could
Visual Organisational
Ethnography be used?
This approach could be used to gain deeper
understanding of many different organisations,
industries and communities across a range
of sectors and settings. It has been used with
heritage industries like museums, and public
memory installations, industries undergoing
change such as the railway industry in the
Netherlands, and service industries such
as health care and occupational health. It is
particularly useful in contexts where there
is a hidden history that needs resurfacing or
an underemphasised human dimension, in
contexts where organisations are merging,
especially across cultural boundaries, or where
cooperation needs to be developed. Given that
this approach aims to galvanise changes that
are already happening, and can enable people
to recognise their role in mobilising change,
Visual Organisational Ethnography could be
particularly useful for understanding the work of
organisations whose work itself aims to create
social or environmental transformation, such as
activist groups or charities, for example.
indeed – but nevertheless the spirit of the
arts interventions into reconciliation in the
province demonstrates the power of many
small intensive actions can sometimes have
more lasting benefit than high-level political
manoeuvres. We hope that when we are able
to show the work it will be a contribution
to understanding for those who have no
direct experience of Northern Ireland and its
problems as it comes back into the spotlight
yet again.
Top tips
Always carry a camera. You may come
l 
across an opportunity for photography
when you least expect it that could play
an important part in the narrative of a film
or exhibition, for example, and once you
miss it, it’s gone! The best camera is the
one that you’ve got on you, and that might
mean the mobile phone in your pocket. It
is far better to have a photograph, even if
it is poor quality, than no image.
Listen, and do not underestimate the
l 
importance of sound. In film making
particularly, it is a natural tendency to
prioritise the visual, but a film should be
360 degree experience. Remember to
listen, and you may notice sounds that
can convey an emotion that you see in
your film. If you watch a film that has the
wrong sounds with it you know instantly.
Remember whose story you are telling.
l 
The story does not belong to you – you
have the privilege of being able to tell it,
and that is a great responsibility.
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Visual Organisational Ethnography

A note on ethics
VOE can be understood as an ethical practice in itself, in that it
reflexively monitors and embodies its own process. It seeks, as an
art form, to build on the principle of ‘informed consent’ as embodied
in signed declarations and contracts and to operate according to
a code that protects the well-being of all involved - film subjects,
film makers, film partners, and film viewers - as situations evolve.
Filming and photographing in public places does not always require
the express consent of every individual featured, but may require
permissions from authorities (e.g. local government, businesses) if
public activities might be disrupted. Unless you know you won’t see
someone you film intensively again, you may not need them to sign
consent on the shoot. Ideally, let them think and reflect and meet
again to discuss any issues and sign – that you are willing to give
them time shows a level of trust that they will appreciate. However,
please check this with your institutional ethics guidance. The
University of Manchester Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology
Filmmaking for Fieldwork programme are a good source of advice.
Helpful material can also be found at the InVisio researcher support
pages with example permissions forms here (account required).

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Visual Organisational Ethnography

Further reading
l 
Filmmaking for Fieldwork, Manchester Methods Fair, University of
Manchester
l Black Snow: The Past Lives On
l 
Feeling the Reel of the ‘Real’: Framing the Play of Critically
Affective Organizational Research between Art and the Everyday
l 
The Rhythm of the Martyrs: Boundaries, Barricades and in
Communities with a History of Violence.
l What to Do About Documentary Distortion?
Toward a Code of Ethics

To reference: Linstead, S. and Pottinger, L. (2021). ‘Visual

Organisational Ethnography’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L.,
Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.)
Methods for Change: Impactful social science methodologies for
21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The University
of Manchester.

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Methods for Change
Life Histories
Dr Divya Sharma,
University of Sussex

Dr Amy Barron,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Divya Sharma
divya.sharma@sussex.ac.uk
Life Histories

Life Histories involve talking to people to understand the

changes in their lives and how these changes link with
broader social and political processes. They aim to get a
sense of how participants understand or evaluate these
changes in relation to what is happening in the present.
Life Histories are used to understand people’s subjective
experiences of change and how the past is interpreted to
intervene in and make decisions about the present.
In doing so, this method offers a means to understand how the
present has been shaped historically, both through participants’
histories and collective memory. Life Histories often involve
spending several months in a place, engaging in observation and
informal conversations. Spending time with participants allows
the researcher to situate individual life histories in a place and to
form relationships with a community. Building a rapport over time
enables the researcher to foster a more embedded and sensitive
approach to researching. Life Histories are not used to unearth a
comprehensive or accurate picture of an individual’s life but are
rather there to highlight related webs of themes and events that are
important to an individual from the vantage point of the present.
Because of their subjective nature, each Life History will only ever
present a partial picture of something, but a multiplicity of partial
pictures can give a better sense of the processes of change in any
given context.

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Life Histories
How do Life Histories create or
contribute to change?  Life Histories?
Life Histories are primarily concerned with
understanding change, how it happens, how it
affects peoples’ lives and how it is made sense
of in the present. With Life Histories, change
happens throughout the process of researching.
Participating in a Life History might involve
participants actively making connections between
their own lives and the structural contexts
(economic, political, cultural, material etc) and
places in which they live, that might then be
a catalyst for transforming relationships and
feelings. The presence of a researcher might help
to break down hierarchies within communities,
helping to bring different people together who
may not otherwise converse. Life Histories
provide space for participants to understand
their lives in situ, connecting their histories to
a broader set of contexts and issues which
might change perceptions of the self. Often, Life
Histories allow participants to see that their story
matters and participants can derive a sense of
worth by understanding their perspective as a
form of knowledge. Change also happens to the
researcher. Often, it is necessary and fair for
the researcher to share something about their
own lives as the participants will share personal
reflections to build a dialogue. This can help
the research process to feel less extractive. Life
History narratives can show how the same policy
can affect individual lives differently depending
on multiple intersecting factors and their
cumulative effect over time. An understanding of
such intersections that become visible through
individual life stories can inform contextual
adaptation of policies to meet the needs of
particular groups and to map how different
policies interact with each other in people’s lives.
What ideas or concepts influence
Life Histories are used across the social
sciences and are concerned with trying to
understand social, political and environmental
processes of change over time. History is not
understood as just context but is an active and
present force which actually shapes change in
people’s lives. Life Histories are aligned with
the Oral History tradition and both often use
interviewing techniques to record, document
and preserve marginalised experiences. While
Oral Histories often unfold around specific
themes to foreground overlooked voices
and experiences, Life Histories can be more
focused on the narratives of an individual life
including their understandings of relationships
with society and the meanings they attribute to
social and political processes. The emphasis is
not on uncovering particular themes that are
important from the point of view of the research,
but the events that individuals consider to be
the most significant in shaping their life and
their surroundings. Life Histories are part of
broader family of ethnographic approaches,
often involving immersive research over a long
time period. Embeddedness means the research
unfolds iteratively and the researcher can
respond to what the participants deem to be
important as the research unfolds, rather than
staying with a set of predetermined questions. It
also means the researcher can understand the
lives of participants in situ and build the rapport
necessary for participants to feel comfortable
sharing in-depth reflections on their lives.
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Life Histories
Why might I want to use Life Histories?
l Life Histories move beyond providing a
snapshot understanding into a life or place
and allow the researcher to really understand
how that life or place came to be. That is
how individual lives were shaped by their
relations and interactions with others in their
environment. These include relations with
institutions, material landscapes and other
human and non-human elements.
l This method is particularly good at providing
insight on how people understand how
change occurs in their lives. They provide
a space for participants to reflect on their
past and the important determining factors
in shaping outcomes that include their own
actions, events, processes and relations in their
environment.
l Life Histories do not just produce data but are
a way of understanding how agency is enacted
and constrained as people recall and process
their own experiences as memories.
l This method allows for narratives to unfold
organically. Participants often narrate their
Step by step guide to using Life Histories: 
1. Begin with background research. This
background research might involve using
archival sources or reading secondary
literature. Better understanding the situation
or community you have chosen to research
will allow you to develop an understanding of
the context you are entering, of what stories
and voices are already documented, and of
what is missing.
lives in a non-linear and chaotic way, jumping
from one point in life to another. This enables
the researcher to get a sense of what matters
to that particular participant by listening to
what they choose to talk about first and how
long they spend discussing different themes.
Through multiple accounts it can also direct
attention to the structural processes that are
deemed important by different actors and
groups.
l Life Histories are often understood to be
a political method and can be used to
foreground marginalised perspectives. The
word perspective is used in a considered way
here, because Life Histories are not a means
of collecting data about people’s experiences
and practices but emphasise the meanings
participants attribute to what has happened
and how they evaluate change. The political
element comes in thinking about whose
perspective on change gets captured and
informs the making of the present and the
future.
2. Take time to familiarise yourself with
the context you are working in. During
this stage, it would be useful to have a series
of very open conversations with a range of
different people you might be interested in
talking with in greater depth at a later date.
These conversations are not to probe or
understand individual lives in any depth, but
rather to get a sense of the shared memories
of a place from multiple standpoints, and the
social, political, and economic context. You can
use this understanding to shape the questions
you ask in the more in-depth interviews.
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 Life Histories
Step by step guide to using Life Histories: 
3. Approach individuals to ask if they are
interested in having a more in-depth
conversation. Use the initial open-ended
conversations to decide who you would
ideally like to get to know a little deeper.
It can be useful to begin these interviews
in the present and use this as a vantage
point to explore pasts. This will allow you to
get a sense of what people, institutions or
events are important to participants. You
can then use this information to get a sense
of the broader story these events fit in and
use them to structure your next interview
with the same participants. Remember
to ask participants if it is okay for your
conversation to be audio recorded. You can
then transcribe the conversation and revisit it
later.
Remember, the in-depth nature of Life
Histories might make it difficult to recruit
participants. Be honest about the level
of commitment and openness that this
method requires. Think also about who you
are asking to take part and how the project
could be framed differently to appeal to
different participants – could they get
anything out of taking part, for example?
4. Ask the same participants whether
they would be willing to speak with you
again. Life Histories are about building up
a rich understanding of someone’s life and
of what is important to them. Talking with
the same individuals on different occasions
can therefore be useful in building this
understanding. In this conversation, try to
dig a little deeper into the topics and events
that were identified as significant in the
first interview to develop a more detailed
understanding.
It can be useful to try to have these
interviews in different spaces or while
walking with participants. It is often
through movement that participants
remember things and the researcher
can get a sense of how memory works.
Changing the space can provoke
remembering of different kinds of events.
5. End your interviews appropriately.
Once you are happy with the amount of
material you have gathered, try to broaden
the conversation again to move away from
the specifics of a participant’s life to be more
general by talking about everyday life. This will
signal to the participant that the interview is
coming to a close.
6. Transcribe your interviews. Use your
audio recorded material to transcribe the
interviews. When reading the transcript,
try to identify any gaps in understanding or
contradictions that might be interesting to
explore further. If you can identify topics
you would like to explore further, ask the
participant if they would be happy to have a
further conversation.
7. Revisit participants to discuss their
narratives. Work through the transcript
with the participant so they can decide
which aspects of their narrative they are
happy to be shared further. This can be an
important part of assembling life histories as
participants often reveal intimate material
about their lives in the moment that they
later decide they wish to keep private.
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Life Histories

An example of using Life Histories in social science research 

Techno-politics, Agrarian Work and Resistance in
post-Green Revolution Indian Punjab
Researcher: Dr Divya Sharma, University of Sussex

This research was trying to understand the
social, ecological and political changes brought
about by the Green Revolution, a project of
agricultural modernisation initiated in the
1960s, in Punjab, India. There are extensive
scholarly studies of the Green Revolution with
diverging and contested narratives. On the
one hand there are narratives celebrating
the Green Revolution as a success story of
increased agricultural productivity in the
region that transformed it into a breadbasket
for the country. In contrast, a parallel narrative
talks about the present-day ecological
crisis in the region with depleted soils and
groundwater. Furthermore, high levels of toxic
contamination and excessive use of synthetic
agro-chemicals have led to deteriorating
health outcomes as well as debt and an
economic crisis amongst rural households.
Life Histories in this context were used to
understand these narratives through farmers’
and farm workers’ perceptions and evaluation
of these long-term changes and their present
consequences in shaping their lives.
Divya spoke with mostly farmers and farm
workers aged between 60 and 80. Life
Histories were centred on understanding
changes in labouring practices that occurred
with the use of synthetic agro-chemicals,
hybrid seed varieties and mechanisation.
They drew attention to practices that existed
prior to the onset of Green Revolution as
well as trees, animals and ways of being that
have now disappeared. A survey of previous

A cultivator explaining the shift from manual to mechanised

postharvest processing of grain and how it impacted women’s lives.

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Life Histories
A farm worker explaining how his ancestors from a nomadic
community migrated to south-west Punjab.
research showed that landowning farmers
and agricultural scientists were seen as
main actors in the story, whereas women’s
voices and those of farm workers who
played a significant role in some of these
transformations were absent. Overall, the
scholarly literature primarily was about the
impacts of these processes on these groups,
but without a sense of how they actually
saw these processes and their own role in
the making the so-called Green Revolution
happen.
This research wanted to understand
the relationship between the people’s
understanding of how these processes
shaped their own lives and outcomes for their
households and communities. Understanding
their perspectives of long-term changes
also provided insights on why some farmers
participated in political and social movements
that sought to resist or redefine agricultural
and rural development policies associated
with the Green Revolution while others could
not or did not do so or their participation
was intermittent. Life History narratives of
people who lived through the period therefore
disrupted the narratives of progress attributed
to the Green Revolution. They also illustrated
the agency of farmers and farm workers that
often is erased in narratives of decline and
crisis.
PAGE 247
Life Histories

Where else could Life Histories

be used? Top tips when using
Life Histories
Life Histories are useful if you would like to
understand and explore perspectives on 1. Value the time participants share
change in any context. They might be useful for  with you.
researching:
2. Be upfront with participants about the
l Shifts in work trajectories particularly among time commitment involved in research
those who are in precarious employment or with Life Histories.
where people move between various forms of
work through their lives. 3. Be clear about how collaborative the
l Charities or public policy institutions who are process of assembling the narratives
working on food policy could use Life Histories could be in the final stages of research.
to map shifts in diets and their various drivers
that are not just limited to access, incomes
and tastes but are driven by interaction with
other factors such as changing household
circumstances or other changes.
l Mapping and understanding the effect of land
use changes on individual lives through the
lens of long-term inhabitants of a place.
l Movement in and out of poverty.
l Intergenerational mobility in households.

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Life Histories

Further reading
l Contextualising Life Histories in Tamil Nadu
l Oral History Narmada
l What is Revolutionary about the Green Revolution?

To reference: Sharma, D. and Barron, A. (2021). ‘Life

Histories’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M.,
Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful
social science methodologies for 21st century problems.
Manchester: Aspect and The University of Manchester.

PAGE 249
Methods for Change
Hands-on
engagement and
learning with Ketso
Dr Joanne Tippett,
The University of Manchester

Fraser How,
Ketso trainer and facilitator

Dr Amy Barron and Dr Laura Pottinger,

The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Joanne Tippett
joanne.tippett@manchester.ac.uk
Life Histories

Ketso is a physical tool for creative engagement and

learning that promotes effective participation. This hands-
on kit is designed to make it easier for anyone to run an
effective and engaging workshop.
The word ’ketso’ means ‘action’ in Lesotho, where Joanne Tippett
invented the toolkit in the mid-1990s. Built around a metaphor of
growth, the physical kit is based on the imagery of a tree, consisting
of a trunk, branches and colourful leaves, which participants write
on, then add to the felt workspace. This physical kit is animated
with a series of questions and processes to share ideas. Ketso is a
catalyst for discussion, enabling people to learn from each other
and see different perspectives. Using the kit makes sure everyone’s
voice is heard and helps to structure effective thinking.
Ketso can be used in a range of settings, from one-to-one and small
group discussions, to large workshops with hundreds of people.
This participatory toolkit has been used to engage stakeholders
in contexts as diverse as the environment, health and wellbeing,
community development, education and business. During the
COVID-19 pandemic, this face to face toolkit has been adapted for
use in in remote and hybrid settings. Each person has their own
individual kit and develops ideas before discussing them in digital
breakout rooms. Pictures of the completed Ketso felts can be
shared via tools such as Padlet. Ketso Connect is also being used as
a method to encourage student engagement and structure work on
assignments in higher education.

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Life Histories
How does Ketso create or
contribute to change?  ability to create a synopsis of findings, coupled
Ketso can be used, and can facilitate change, at
any stage in a project. In the beginning, Ketso
can be used to get a better sense of different
stakeholders’ views, priorities and resources,
laying the foundations for change. Change
continues to unfold because of the mutual
learning emerging from the dialogue that Ketso
encourages. As a tool for social learning, Ketso
facilitates understanding of the bigger picture
and opportunities for change. A frequent
comment is that using Ketso uncovers a clearer
sense of existing assets and resources. It helps
people see new ways to make more effective use
of what they already have, such as by working in
partnership.
Encouraging people to understand different
perspectives can lead to change, because it
helps to build bridges across heterogeneous
groups. This can lead to synergistic benefits,
sometimes with links forged in addition to the
main focus of the workshop. Ketso Connect has
already enabled people from over 25 countries
to work together in a hands-on and visual way,
sharing ideas online. This has great potential for
facilitating learning across national boundaries,
without the climate change impacts of flights to
bring people together in a workshop space.
The sense of empowerment created through
active involvement in the research means action
is more likely to be taken. The process of using
Ketso builds capacity amongst participants, as
the act of using the kit develops skills in creative
thinking, effective communication, group work,
and action planning. The physical artefact of
Ketso, with its coloured leaves for different
kinds of questions, branches to cluster ideas
around themes, and icons for participants to
highlight priorities, means that key issues and
opportunities become more apparent. This
with the skill and capacity-building amongst
participants, can facilitate organisational and
strategic change.
What ideas or concepts
influence Ketso?
As a method, Ketso sits within a participatory
and action-orientated data gathering framework,
which is about building ideas together for
change. Inspired by Robert Chamber’s work on
Participatory Appraisal, Ketso is designed to
ensure everybody’s voice is heard. Participatory
data gathering involves the researcher working
with participants to explore issues that are
of interest to them. The action orientation
is inspired by Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the
Oppressed and Asset Based Community
Development, which seeks to recognise and
build on existing resources and assets in the
community in any change process. Feedback
from users in over 80 countries shows that
the Ketso toolkit helps participants to clarify
priorities and develop ideas for action.
Ketso is built on three pillars of effective
coproduction (developing ideas and taking
action together, coupled with shared
responsibility & decision-making) which were
synthesised from this theoretical grounding and
decades of experience running workshops. See
the Top Tips below, and the creative output for
this guide at aspect.ac.uk/m4c to learn more
about the pillars. As the discussion is facilitated
with a hands-on kit, the participants develop
their thinking both as individuals and as a group,
move ideas around and are able to find patterns
amongst them. The process, in and of itself,
gathers and structures data.
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Why might I want to use Ketso?
l Designed to make running an effective
workshop easier, the physical pieces of Ketso
guide the facilitator and participants through
the process. All of the pieces rinse clean
in water and can be used again, in many
different ways.
l Ketso Connect is designed to be used in
remote workshops. This innovation enables
people to use the tactile and visual toolkit to
gather their thoughts before sharing them via
video link, which encourages deeper thinking
and reflection. The fact that everyone is using
the same physical toolkits in their own spaces
helps create a sense of cohesion, despite
physical distance. It can also be used in hybrid
meetings, where some people are in the same
room or space, and some are joining by video
link.
l Ketso is an innovative way of making
sure everybody has their voice heard in a
discussion. The interactive and participatory
nature of the kit means participants who
would not normally speak up, those with
different languages, or who experience
learning differently, can actively participate.
l Using Ketso can lead to unexpected insights.
Ketso structures the thinking process so
participants are able to gain clarity in their
thinking. As the kit is highly visual, it is possible
to see how ideas cluster around particular
themes or ‘branches’, and links between ideas
can be identified.
l Ketso can be used as a prompt to ask
deeper questions and foster collaborative
analysis. The tactile nature of the kit means
that participants and researcher can do the
analysis together. The visual representations
created during the workshop can in turn
be analysed further, used to ask additional
questions and engage with participants about
the findings.
l Ketso helps to foster genuinely ethical
research by being of use to the participants
as well as the researcher. The collaborative
discussions facilitated by Ketso help the
participants learn from each other. They gain
something from this process, because it often
sparks ideas for action and collaboration.
l The data created by using Ketso can be
turned into a structured synopsis of findings
for an organisation, revealing key ideas such
as: what is going well (and should be kept in
any change process), challenges and ways to
overcome them. Participants use coloured
icons to highlight priorities, so it is easy to
identify key points for sharing.
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Step by step guide to using Ketso: 
The Ketso kit includes:
Leaves – for each participant to write or
draw their ideas on. There are different
colours for different kinds of questions, with
an underlying metaphor of growth, which can
be adapted to suit different purposes. The
leaves rinse clean and are reusable.
Felt workspace - a tree, with a centre piece
like a tree trunk that is the focus, a reminder
of what the workshop is about.
Branches – that spread out from the central
focus. The branches represent different
themes, or aspects you want to consider and
help to structure your thinking. Participants
can cluster their ideas on leaves around the
branches, where they best fit.
Exploring a dementia-friendly society, with
people living with dementia, their carers
and service providers
1. Preparation: purpose and framing of
the workshop. To get the most out of the
workshop, it is important to be clear about
why you are doing it. Think through the
following questions to develop a good plan:
What do you and your organisation hope
to get out of the workshop/s? What kinds
of people are you thinking of inviting? What
do you think they would like to get out of
the workshop? Ideally you would include
potential partners and stakeholders in this
early scoping stage – What are we trying to do
together and why?
2. Work out the practicalities. The ideal
length for a Ketso workshop is 1.5 - 2 hours.
This length of session allows you to go through
several different stages of developing ideas,
plus a warm-up, table swap, break and
feedback at the end. The general rule of thumb
is to allow 10 - 15 minutes per stage (e.g.
green leaves – creative thinking). In an online
workshop with Ketso Connect, we suggest
allowing 2 - 3 minutes for people to write ideas
down for each stage, then breakout rooms of
10 - 15 minutes to share them, preferably then
with a few minutes to share ideas back in the
plenary digital space.
The ideal number of participants per
Ketso felt at a table, or in a digital
breakout room, is 5 – 6 (maximum 8).
You can have as many tables or breakout
rooms as you need for the group size,
and it is possible to run very large
workshops, with hundreds of participants
at once, as the kit itself provides the
structure and guides participants
through the process.
3. Plan how the elements of Ketso be
used in the workshop. Envisage Ketso as
a bit of hardware that lets you run different
applications, or ways of running workshops.
This encompasses the centrepiece on the
felt as a main focus, a sequence of questions
and activities using different coloured leaves
in sequence, and themes relating to the main
focus represented by branches spreading out
from the central trunk.
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4. In the workshop itself, give a clear
introduction of both the aims and the
process at the beginning. Be clear what the
purpose of the workshop is, what will happen
with the outcomes, and how participants will
receive feedback. Introduce each piece of
Ketso and its associated process one step
at a time. For instance, introduce the idea
of writing on leaves with a simple warm-up
exercise, shared on one of the small plain
felts (or with a top idea or two shared verbally
in a digital breakout room if running an online
session). In the second stage of leaf writing,
introduce the idea of using the colours to ask
different kinds of questions, leaving the felt
and branches covered with the small felt used
for the warm-up exercise until participants
have developed leaves ready to share.
Developing a vision for nature recovery in the Carbon Landscape
with community members
5. As you go through the workshop, give
people time on their own to develop
their ideas before they share them,
and repeat this process for each stage.
Once people have written some ideas, you
can uncover the main felt and introduce the
branches, and ask participants to share their
ideas. One person shares one idea, then
goes around to the next person to share an
idea, placing the leaves on the felt as they are
shared, pointing at whichever branch where
they best fit. Leaves can be moved around
to create clusters and show connections
between the ideas.
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An example of Ketso in social science research 
The Carbon Landscape
Dr Joanne Tippett, The University of Manchester
and Fraser How, Ketso trainer and facilitator
Ketso was used to build a partnership
and engage with communities to inform a
successful bid to the National Lottery Heritage
Fund in 2017 for the £3.2 million Carbon
Landscape Project. The different coloured
leaves were used to find out what was already
working and what mattered to people in their
landscape, as well as to develop creative ideas
for how to make the area better for nature
and people (using the metaphor of growth).
The branches were used to help structure this
questioning process, stretching the thinking
to include landscape issues, community
concerns and different ways to bring diverse
groups along with the process. Keeping
the colour coding for questions consistent
across workshops over time, and for different
workshops and stakeholders, made it possible
to synthesise the ideas and find key patterns.
Ketso has subsequently been embedded in
the community engagement of the Carbon
Landscape Project to engage new audiences
(e.g. 35 workshops with schools, community
and youth groups, and local authorities and
other public sector bodies). Significant land
improvement projects have been delivered
on 18 key sites, underpinned by a programme
of stakeholder and community engagement
using Ketso.
Ketso has played an important role in allowing
extensive stakeholder engagement in the
challenging context of the Covid-19 pandemic,
as a Partnership Manager at Natural England
explains: “We are using Ketso to explore national
community engagement standards for Nature
Recovery Networks. We have been able to carry
on with this engagement despite the pandemic,
engaging with 150+ people online, using the new
Ketso Connect to develop our understanding of
the potential reserve in more depth than would
have been possible with digital tools only... Using
the toolkit builds capacity in project officers and
participants to really engage with community
members in meaningful dialogue. It helps all
participants to think beyond their local patch.”
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Where else could Ketso be used?
Partnership working
and coproduction of change
Using Ketso allows for more inclusive
engagement across a diverse range of
participants, and it can be used in a range of
ways, from patient and public involvement,
to engagement between service providers
and people with lived experience, to involving
community members in developing plans for
their local area. It can be used in contexts such
as climate change planning, as in the city of
Alameda, California, a low-lying city threatened by
rising sea levels, where “Ketso created an engaging
and inclusive process for community members,
which resulted in hundreds of community-sourced
ideas generated in a relatively short amount of time”
(Climate Change Co-ordinator, City of Alameda) .
Ketso facilitates participation with marginalised
groups and enables a deeper understanding
of their lived experience and needs, leading to
improved plans and processes. For instance,
SeeMe Scotland adopted Ketso in 2014 to
engage 200 mental health service users, carers
and providers to develop a national strategy to
tackle mental health stigma. Engagement using
Ketso has now been extended to hundreds of
additional participants. “The most useful aspect
of Ketso is giving people without power a voice”
(SeeMe’s Programme Manager).
Organisational effectiveness and learning
Ketso can help improve the working
arrangements of a range of organisations. It
has been used in project planning, change
management and organisational learning. For
example, Trafford Housing Trust uses Ketso
to improve its services based on customer
feedback: “Our Anti-Social Behaviour service’s
key performance indicators have been redesigned
based on customer feedback gathered [using
Ketso], and our development arm is using customer
feedback to refine the houses it builds…In the past
we’ve just used post-it notes and pens, but Ketso
made it much easier to structure the focus group
and to record and analyse the discussions.” (Head
of Business Intelligence, Trafford Housing Trust).
Ketso can bring a range of voices into guiding
organisations’ activities. Wageningen University’s
Centre for Development Innovation use Ketso in
project work in Africa and Asia to develop new
ways to teach landscape management: “A key
aspect of Ketso that is different to other tools is its
ability to consolidate ideas into something that can
turn into a finished product that actually has an
impact…it’s like a translation tool” (Senior Advisor,
Global Landscape Forum).
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Top tips
1. Hear everyone’s voice. Make sure
everyone has a way to make an input via
a pen and leaves. Give people time on
their own to develop their own thinking
before sharing their ideas, and repeat
the pattern of ‘think, then share, then
discuss’ for each new stage of developing
ideas in the workshop.
2. Structure effective thinking and
creativity. Think about the questions
you are going to ask, and the sequence
to ask them in. A key way to encourage
productive dialogue is to start with the
positive. Encourage participants to reflect
on what is going well, what resources
they already have (brown leaves). Then
go on to think of future possibilities,
including how to make more effective
use of these resources (green leaves).
3. Link information across time and
place. Take time to think about what
you are trying to achieve and gain clarity
about the purpose and focus. Consider
what you already know about the topic,
and how you will use and share the
new information that will be developed.
During a workshop, clarify priorities and
actions to be taken.
Image credit:
Anna White @SneakyRaccoon

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Further reading
l Ketso ‘How To’ Resources
l 
Ketso used to gather young people’s views on employment
support
l 
Using Ketso in research with students who identify as learning
differently
l 
Returning Knowledge to the Community: An Innovative Approach
to Sharing Knowledge about Drinking Water Practices in a Peri-
Urban Community
l 
Creativity and Learning – Participatory Planning and the Co-
Production of Local Knowledge
l 
Where to lean the ladder of participation: a normative heuristic
for effective coproduction process
l Hands on Engagement with Ketso

To reference: : Tippett, J. Barron, A. Pottinger, L. How, F.

(2021). ‘Hands-on engagement and learning with Ketso’ in
Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger,
L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social
science methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester:
Aspect and The University of Manchester.

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Methods for Change
A Comprehensive,
Qualitative Approach
to Evaluation
Dr Mayra Morales Tirado,
The University of Manchester

Dr Ulrike Ehgartner,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Mayra Morales Tirado
mayra.moralestirado@manchester.ac.uk
A Comprehensive,
Qualitative Approach to Evaluation

Taking a Comprehensive, Qualitative Approach to

Evaluation means that quantitative approaches for
evaluation complement qualitative research elements.
This can include various forms of interviewing, observation and
documentary analysis, and different combinations of methods
and materials depending on the nature of the research problem
at hand. While quantitative approaches, such as those found in
surveys and experimental studies, often allow researchers to
produce and analyse large amounts of data, they tend to frame
the problem rather narrowly. Conversely, qualitative approaches
(e.g. interviews, observations) do not reduce problems to numeric
values, instead providing a detailed picture of what is happening.
Integrating qualitative elements challenges standard ways of doing
evaluation, illuminating avenues for unexpected, fresh insights. The
flexible perspective of such approaches enables researchers to
consider significant institutionalised and systemic circumstances
that shape the problem and its implications. This approach
is instrumental in complex settings where interventions have
repeatedly followed established dynamics in the past, but their
impact remains unclear.

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A Comprehensive,
Qualitative Approach to Evaluation

How does a Comprehensive, A Comprehensive, Qualitative Approach to

Qualitative Approach to Evaluation considers ‘target groups’ as part of the
process of change. A Comprehensive, Qualitative
Evaluation create or contribute to
Approach to Evaluation can thus allow for those
change? seeking to promote change (e.g. policymakers,
A Comprehensive, Qualitative Approach to
organisations, intervention instrument designers)
Evaluation aims to ascertain the conditions that
to regard beneficiaries’, users’, or target groups’
produce change by identifying and understanding
own interests and circumstances in the design
the realities of the relevant actors. Also, it
process. Giving a more active role to beneficiaries
requires being adaptable and open to exploring
when designing and planning interventions could
unexpected routes, leading to defining problems
generate new interpretations of the problem and,
through new lenses. Evaluation often focuses
consequently, new solutions and ways to address
on the impact of implementations on one
it.
specific group and therefore offers one side of
the story, asking questions such as: How is an
organisation implementing solutions, and how
What ideas and concepts are
do these tackle the problem? What benefits is an related to a Comprehensive,
instrument delivering? Taking a Comprehensive, Qualitative Approach to
Qualitative Approach to Evaluation, on the other Evaluation?
hand, explores different sides of the story,
This approach draws from science, technology
gaining insights as to how and why impact is
and innovation studies, which aim to
happening for a diversity of target actors, by
understand what creates technological change
asking questions such as: What are the structures
and innovation, what conditions can prompt
and circumstances that contribute to the
innovation, and what are the effects innovation
identified problem? How do these structures
produces in terms of productivity, economic
and circumstances affect the success of an
development, technological and scientific change
instrument? The research problem is looked at
and entrepreneurship. This approach is further
from new angles and in a non-predefined way.
influenced by some contributions of evaluation
This allows researchers to look not only at the
theory that call for a more comprehensive
motivations, expectations and experiences of
understanding of the nature of change (impact)
users. Instead, they can recognise the responses
and the context in which this happens.
and experiences of the beneficiaries concerning
the implementations of instruments within
broader societal and personal contexts that
lead them to respond to, and perceive the
impact of the instrument in a particular way. In
doing this, this approach relies on traditional
methods but expands its application beyond
normative evaluation methods that look only
at the expected change, while ignoring other
effects or changes occurring as direct or indirect
consequence of an intervention or policy.

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A Comprehensive,
Qualitative Approach to Evaluation

Why might I want to use a Comprehensive,

Qualitative Approach to Evaluation?
l A Comprehensive, Qualitative Approach to
Evaluation supports ongoing communication
with end users or beneficiaries. Social
problems cannot be solely understood
through numbers. Taking a qualitative
approach to evaluation allows us to go and
speak to people, to hear and see their stories.
Working closely with the target group helps
build trust, which is likely to increase response
rate, access to new sources of information,
and openness. This can lead to detailed
responses about the process that underpins
their understanding of the implementation
and its impact.
l A Comprehensive Qualitative Approach
to Evaluation helps to challenge pre-
l Qualitative research is not about just
existing judgement and bias towards policy
beneficiaries. Rather than quantifying effects
and variables that could explain such effects,
zooming in to the context of peoples’ lives,
observing and interacting with people in
real-time allows researchers to comprehend
their attitudes and behaviours amidst the
complexities of their lives. This can enable
researchers to find the roots of the problem.
l Bringing in a Comprehensive, Qualitative
Approach to Evaluation means asking
questions in a slightly different way. Be
prepared that this might change how
the problem is approached. A Qualitative
Approach to Evaluation requires being open
to unexpected findings or findings that open
further questions rather than answering pre-
existing questions. Evaluation exercises taking
this approach might, for example, reveal that
an intervention is not alleviating the problem
as expected, or even tackling the problem
at all, or that can it can be more impactful if
paired with other forms of interventions.
The power of qualitative research is
not always evident for some, leading
to misconceptions of what this type of
research entails. Also, because quantitative
evaluations tend to be more well-received
by people in policy-led research, there is
often little awareness of what qualitative
research offers to design and implement
better policies. Once qualitative evaluation
methodologies are conscientiously
introduced, people involved are often
positively surprised and their assumptions
challenged.
listening to people and producing stories. It
is a reflective research process that involves
re-thinking and questioning elements of a
problem or a social phenomenon that have
been ignored, and stepping aside from
what is commonly believed and assumed.
Qualitative research is not only about
reporting the stories of beneficiaries; it
follows a strict process of research design,
collection and organisation of data, and logical
analysis, which can lead to more significant
interventions.
There is often a complicated tension
between predefined ideas of what is needed
and introducing a new approach. It may
be important to bring in slightly different
elements, whilst maintaining focus on the
kind of evidence that is needed.

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A Comprehensive,
Qualitative Approach to Evaluation

Step by step guide to using a Comprehensive,

Qualitative Approach to Evaluation

1. Start with the question you have at
hand. Find any information already available
that may help you to answer your question,
even partially. From there, you will assess the
extent to which the existing data is relevant
5. Understand restrictions and work within
to your question and whether you need to
collect additional data.
2. Design the instruments to collect the
data you need. Consider what instruments
you want and can use. There are many
different ways in which qualitative approaches
can complement quantitative evaluation data.
All come with advantages and limitations,
which not only concern the data in itself
but also the framing of the questions to be
explored, resources needed and results.
3. Discuss and ask for advice. Speaking to
colleagues about what you are doing can
help immensely. They can bring compelling
ideas about how to go about your research
question, how to access data and key
informants. Communicating your problem is
always a good idea to find meaningful and
creative ways to tackle it.
4. Communicate the scope of qualitative
research to your team and partners.
Sometimes, you will work with partners
and team members with different skills and
academic backgrounds, and they might have
very different ideas about how qualitative
research instruments work and what they
are meant to achieve. They might not see the
value in conducting interviews or may not
know how to design an interview protocol and
conduct an interview. In order to familiarise
everyone involved with the requirements,
benefits and drawbacks of qualitative
research and to get everyone on board, it
is crucial to communicate what is relevant
pertaining to the use of qualitative methods
and to establish measures to prevent
drawbacks from impairing your research
process and findings.
these boundaries. Restrictions should
be considered when framing questions
and designing the research process. The
more you plan at the early stages, the more
options you will have if limitations arise. It can
happen that some restrictions may not affect
the deployment of the project as initially
foreseen.
Depending on the field and the programme
or instrument under evaluation, you may
encounter limitations as the research
unfolds, which may negatively affect your
endeavours. In these cases, it is important
to reassess all decisions made and planned,
questions asked, and contemplate changes
in the study’s design and implementation.
For example, data restrictions might be in
place, which will prevent you from speaking
with service/programme users/beneficiaries
directly. In this case, you won’t be able to
use ethnographic approaches to conduct in-
depth interviews, but you can still re-design
the survey to offer more open questions
and encourage participants to respond
openly and in creative ways, for example to
write, sing or draw their stories. Pre-defined
questions can be reformulated to further
respondents’ engagement and reflections.

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Qualitative Approach to Evaluation
Step by step guide to using a Comprehensive,
Qualitative Approach to Evaluation
6. Make an inventory of what you have
gathered. You might explore widely, and you
will keep a record of all the information you
gather and process. Be systematic and strict
when creating an information system that
suits the project aims and resources. A good
system will save a lot of time when looking for
a particular piece of information, its status in
the project and future tasks depending on it.
A good system will be of great support when
selecting the sources of information that are
relevant to your questions. It is important to
record everything that is searched, collected
and produced, even if this is not directly
incorporated in the final outcome.
7. Define the contribution that additional
research instruments deliver. Qualitative
approaches to evaluation might be
implemented alongside existing instruments
and become a secondary instrument
corroborating the quantitative data that is
already in place. Qualitative and quantitative
instruments should be integrated into
coherent instruments that work, within their
own boundaries, towards a common goal.
8. Adapt the research instrument to
the target group. If you want to get
meaningful feedback from beneficiaries,
you need to design and communicate your
research instrument accordingly. Who is
the target group you will evaluate? What
are their characteristics? Are they young
people, marginalised groups, households
or customers of a company? Adapt your
communication to their realities, and you will
receive richer responses.
9. Communicate to your stakeholders.
There are decisions that will need to be
made considering the interests of your
stakeholders or your own interests in terms
of the questions you want to explore and
the findings you want to highlight. Regularly
update stakeholders on your decisions and
progress and ensure everyone involved is
happy with what you are doing. This is also
important to reduce the risk of leaving them
with unmet expectations – make sure you
stress what the data supports and what it
does not support.
Be ready to be challenged about the validity
of your study. You may be questioned
about your approach and the credibility
of your findings. Draw on your research
process design, documentation and data
supporting your findings and be clear about
the additional benefits conferred by taking a
qualitative approach. Communicate clearly
the scope of your study and the paths
and measures followed to guarantee its
reliability.
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A Comprehensive,
Qualitative Approach to Evaluation
Examples of a Comprehensive, Qualitative Approach to
Evaluation in social science research 
Service Evaluation of a Career Service Provider
Researcher1: Dr Mayra Morales Tirado, The University of Manchester
The project aimed to investigate the
factors that enable young people to
successfully transition from Not in Education,
Employment or Training (NEET) to Education,
Employment and Training (EET) via a Career
Service Provider. The evaluation, led by a
multidisciplinary team, shed light on the
impact, challenges and lessons from a career
service provider’s support approach.
The service provider that commissioned the
evaluation work had produced a large set
of data on the type of services provided to
young people searching for opportunities to
develop employability skills, gain knowledge of
workplace culture and appropriate behaviour.
There were some pre-defined ideas as to what
the research team should do with that existing
data. The service provider’s main interest was
for the research team to quantify how many
users had accessed their services and quantify
the amount of work their staff had put in when
helping those young people. For instance, the
research team would look at workloads to
estimate hours worked, the number of staff
working those hours, and the time spent and
outputs of each activity performed by staff.
The research team proposed to the service
provider an evaluation approach that
included the use of quantitative methods
and qualitative methods. The mixed-method
approach would offer a more complete
picture of the problem that the service
provider wanted to understand, as it would
look into the landscape in which the young
people accessing their services lived, their
The evaluation team consisted of three members, all from the University of Manchester.
1
family situation, personal expectations and
ambitions. The research team was convinced
that by understanding the young people’s
side of the story, alongside analysis of the
service provision approach and organisation
of work, the evaluation would offer findings
and recommendations closer to the needs
and realities of the young people in NEET. This
would, in consequence, enable the service
provider to design and deliver more impactful
support.
As the research team could not approach
directly the young people using the services of
the provider, the team conducted interviews
with the staff that had been working closely
with young people that had been in the
category of NEET, or in and out NEET, for
more than a year. The team also designed
an online survey for the service users that
was implemented with the assistance of staff
working in NEET cases. After service users had
contacted a staff member, this staff member
asked the users to fill the survey. The research
team designed the survey to be completed
easily and quickly, and encouraged users to
be as open as possible in their responses.
In addition to the survey information, the
research team identified in the service
provider’s data set a sub-set of crucial
qualitative information that could validate
the primary dataset’s quantitative results
and interview results. The team transformed
that data into a format that would facilitate
its analysis and comparison against other
empirical results.
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A Comprehensive,
Qualitative Approach to Evaluation

This evaluation’s different methodologies the support they gave to young people and
yielded results that were not expected flagged the areas that need improvement in
by either the research team or the the organisation to continue changing the lives
service provider. Results challenged initial of young people for good.
assumptions as to why some young people
For the research team, this evaluation work
were not coming out of NEET —some of these
was transformative, as some members with
young people did not understand why they
quantitative background experienced for the
were in such a situation and why things did not
first time the richness of qualitative research
seem to get better for them. This allowed the
and it changed their preconceptions about
research team to identify recommendations
the rigour and validity of this type of research.
including that the service provider needed to
Moreover, this evaluation made the team
work closely with education providers, family
aware of how a narrow understanding of
members and employers.
social problems can lead to policies, initiatives
The research team developed a report that or programmes that offer temporary solutions
presented the quantitative results first, but do not tackle the real problem.
followed by the qualitative results, and
included a section of analysis that brought
together all the results. This way, the service
provider could see that the time a member of
staff puts into supporting a service user can
make a difference in how this user responds
to the advice and support offered. The service
provider was happy with the evaluation
results, as this made evident the value of

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A Comprehensive,
Qualitative Approach to Evaluation
Where else could a
Comprehensive,
Qualitative Approach to
Evaluation approach be used?
A Comprehensive, Qualitative Approach to
Evaluation offers an inclusive and creative way
of thinking about policies in the more general
sense, and is useful for governments, funders
and service providers in various sectors, such
as social benefits, public health initiatives and
professional, employment and training services
in schools, the community and in prisons. In
a research context, this approach has been
applied by sociologists in education studies,
migration studies and studies of science.
Top tips
1. Create a good system to keep and record
all the information you gather. This will
save you time and help you identify key
pieces of information.
2. Develop a robust research design.
Consider all the necessary measures that
will make your data and results reliable.
3. Trust your findings. If you have sound
design and sound decisions backing
them up, you can trust your results.
4. Be ready to be challenged. Remember
that a solid research design will speak for
itself, but you will still need to do some
convincing.
PAGE 268
A Comprehensive,
Qualitative Approach to Evaluation

Further reading
l 
Understanding NEET users to provide a better service
l 
Changing research on research evaluation: A critical literature
review to revisit the agenda.

To reference: Tirado, M.M., and Ehgartner, U. (2021).

‘A Comprehensive, Qualitative Approach to Evaluation’ in
Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger,
L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social
science methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester:
Aspect and The University of Manchester.

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Methods for Change
Elliptical
Methodologies
Prof. Stephen Walker,
Dr Laura Pottinger
and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Prof. Stephen Walker
s.j.walker@manchester.ac.uk
Elliptical Methodologies

An Elliptical Methodology can provide a creative and

provocative framing for exploratory research studies. This
approach works by taking two very different focal points,
which could be based on observations or be theoretical
in nature, and using them as a way of shaping a research
project. The idea is that these two foci or poles work as
opposing centres of gravity, forming an ellipse or path
which then acts as a structure for open-ended inquiry.

This approach is particularly useful for studying things that are

often left out or overlooked - social issues, subcultures, practices
or things that tend to be excluded from existing research. It has
been applied to explore phenomena such as mediaeval Breton
burial practices, early computer simulation, forensic accident
reconstruction, twentieth century ring-roads, failed architectural
projects, tablecloths and working surfaces. By encouraging the
researcher to look at a topic from a range of different and perhaps
unexpected angles, Elliptical Methodologies can provide new insight
into things that may otherwise be unseen or disregarded, as well as
offering fresh perspectives on more established research topics.
Researchers working with an Elliptical Methodology may draw
on many different types of methods and sources (e.g. archives,
architectural records, participant observation, photography, film,
oral histories) depending on the research context and on the two
poles chosen to form the ellipse. This is not an approach that
can be easily generalised to provide a road-map for application
in different contexts. Rather, Elliptical Methodologies provide a
device for framing experimental studies, and for thinking about how
theories – sets of ideas or principles used to explain something -
relate to the phenomena that are studied through research.

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 Elliptical Methodologies
How do Elliptical Methodologies
create or contribute to change?  this approach?
Elliptical Methodologies can galvanise change in
several ways. By generating novel and unusual
configurations, this approach can generate new
conversations and shift attention towards things
that are usually overlooked. They can help to
highlight areas and topics that have not yet been
researched, including things that may currently
be viewed as frivolous, irreverent or unimportant
within a particular discipline, sector or field of
study, as well as those that would benefit from
a fresh perspective. As such, they can begin
to expand accepted discourse and practice,
by posing a challenge to what is perceived as
worthy of study, as well as the types of tools
or theories that are seen as appropriate for
understanding certain issues. When Elliptical
Methodologies are used in research with
marginalised communities, groups or practices,
they can bring to light and validate aspects of
daily life and experience that may otherwise
be disregarded or undervalued by academics,
policy makers or the general public. In this
way, Elliptical Methodologies can raise public
awareness of overlooked social problems and
perspectives.
Since research informed by this approach
tends to be open-ended and evolving, it is
not always possible for the researcher to
control processes of change that might take
place, and which may not be desirable. For
example, research may bring marginalised
subcultures or aesthetics to the attention of
new audiences. There is potential that this
new awareness may then be appropriated or
misused in a way that further disempowers
disadvantaged groups or trivialises social
issues.
What ideas or concepts influence
This approach originates in architectural theory,
and was initially conceived as an attempt to
challenge ideas about the types of things that
were acceptable to consider within this discipline.
However, Elliptical Methodologies are not
defined by a specific academic tradition, and
instead are characterised by a commitment to
interdisciplinary ways of thinking and working.
This approach encourages diverse, reactive,
exploratory methods of inquiry and processes of
trial and error. An Elliptical Methodology provides
a guiding structure or framing for a flexible and
experimental approach.
Elliptical Methodologies aim to move beyond
disciplinary boundaries and established ways
of looking at research problems or theories.
This is achieved by exploring new combinations
- pairing things that have not been brought
together before, or that do not seem to fit with
one another. An Elliptical Methodology could
involve taking two very different theoretical
approaches, and combining them to generate
a new theoretical understanding. Equally, one
theoretical approach could also be paired with
an unlikely real world area of study. Research
drawing on Elliptical Methodologies has,
for example, used a combination of critical
theory and architectural theory to shed light
on overlooked and undervalued phenomena,
including mediaeval Breton burial sites, ring
roads, and travelling street fairs. In the example
of ring roads, an Elliptical Methodology brought
together eighteenth century theories of sublime
experience and contemporary experiences of
journeying around ring-roads, and has shown
how closely these relate. Pursing this relationship
in more depth revealed surprising similarities in
the explanatory techniques of geometry used by
sublime theorists, and the geometries deployed
by modern highway engineers.
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Elliptical Methodologies

Why might I want to use an Elliptical Methodology?

l Research using this approach is fun, playful
and creative. An Elliptical Methodology can
provide a coherent framing for research that
seeks to use many different methods to look
at a problem or topic from multiple angles.
l This approach is flexible and malleable, and it
can be constantly adapted to fit the research
problem that is being studied. It enables
the researcher to work opportunistically, by
building in different methods and activities
in response to new ideas, theories, or
possibilities that arise across the duration of a
research project.
l Elliptical Methodologies can be particularly
useful for researching under-explored
topics that do not have an available body of
methods attached to them. By shedding light
on overlooked phenomena, they can help to
persuade varied audiences that a place, topic,
community or practice is interesting, valid, and
worthy of study.
l They offer multiple possibilities for seeing
things differently, by establishing new
viewpoints or frames of reference through
the structure created by setting up the two
opposing poles. As such, this approach can
provide novel angles for looking at things that
are under-appreciated, that do not seem to fit,
or for reinvigorating discussion in academia or
professional and public debates.
l This is an approach that can be hard to
communicate, however, and it may not always
be taken seriously. It involves an element of
risk-taking, in that it often draws on ways of
working that are as yet untried and untested.
But this is often what makes it valuable and
enables the researcher to yield surprising
results.

Sublime experience: Frances Reynolds’s Diagrammatic Representation of the Topology of

the Sublime (1785) redrawn by the author; Photograph of Derby Ring Road (A52>A6>A601
>A5250>A601>A516>A52) by author, 2001; Highway Geometry diagram (anon, 1965).

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 Elliptical Methodologies
Step by step guide to Elliptical Methodologies: 
1. Identify two key ingredients. Elliptical
Methodologies require two contrasting poles
to structure the research inquiry. These two
foci could be abstract or tangible, real world
or theoretical. This approach works best with
things that do not fall neatly into a category,
or things that have not been given serious
academic attention. Think about unusual
practices, subcultures, activities or places.
Some potential starting points could include
railway journeys, guerrilla knitting, overspill
car parks, ad-hoc signage, institutional DIY,
how-to-guides, second-hand postcards,
professional accreditation criteria, grounded
boats, or old rulers. These could then be
paired with theories or frameworks that
have not yet been used to explore these
phenomena. The researcher can then begin
to explore the space between these two poles.
2. Start in the middle. This type of research
focussing on previously unexplored or
underexplored topics does not have an
obvious starting point or a set of ordered
stages that should be followed. Instead, it is
important for the researcher to simply get
stuck in - find a starting point that seems
interesting, and work outwards from there.
Keep an open mind and look out for new
opportunities and avenues to explore as the
project progresses.
This approach to research can be compared
to a ‘cabinet of curiosities’ - a display case
containing a collection of unusual and
interesting objects. The researcher’s task
is to shuffle things around (phenomena,
ideas, theories, materials or narratives),
experimenting with different configurations to
see how they resonate with one another and
what new stories may unfold in this process.
3. Try a range of methods. Think about data
collection methods that will enable you
to look at the research topic from various
different angles. This could involve combining
participant observation with archival
research, photography and interviews with
key stakeholders, for example, or any number
of creative methods or approaches that could
offer an interesting viewpoint. The idea is to
generate data that allows you to put things
together that you find interesting on their
own terms, and see if there is a way that you
can arrange them that is more than the sum
of its parts.
One way of generating multiple viewpoints
on a topic is by working at a range
of different scales, simultaneously. A
longer-term, broad interest may be
revisited over many years with material
continually collected, and could also be
broken down into smaller projects with
a specific focus in response to emerging
ideas or opportunities. This can take the
research in a number of different, perhaps
unanticipated directions. It could also
be useful to think about different time
scales – combining historical archives with
time-lapse photography and participant
observation ‘in the moment’ can generate
rich data on long-, medium- and short-
term phenomena and experience.
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Elliptical Methodologies

Step by step guide to using Elliptical Methodologies: 

4. Do not overly worry about the outcome.
It is the process of exploration that is
important in this approach, so avoid starting
the research with predetermined ideas about
what you will discover or what will be created.
Projects that use this approach are best
thought about as involving a process of trying
things out and starting new conversations,
rather than identifying what will work straight
away. Some experiments will be durable and
complex and will grow into something bigger,
while others will not. Try not to worry about
the ideas that do not work – sometimes
thinking about why something hasn’t worked
can be insightful in itself - and don’t be afraid
to move onto something new.
5. Communicate your findings. In using
an Elliptical Methodology, you will not only
have identified an overlooked topic or taken
an unprecedented perspective, but you will
also have explored it in depth. Think about
the organisations and communities that can
benefit from insights into this phenomenon,
how you can raise awareness about it in
wider society, and the tools you might use in
order to do this. Communicate your findings
to policy makers and the broader research
community to demonstrate that this area is
worthy of study.

Examples of Elliptical Methodologies

in social science research 
Fairground Architectures
Researcher: Prof. Stephen Walker, The University of Manchester

Fairground Architectures is an ongoing project are understood in order to communicate

that is considering various aspects of travelling the complexity and sophistication of these
street fairs in the UK. Fairground architecture environments, and to position them within
does not normally form part of the canon longer histories of social, cultural, economic,
of architectural history or contemporary urban and material practices.
practice. With this background, Fairground
In contrast to previous studies, which have
Architectures sets up a number of elliptical
focused on individual rides and attractions,
connections around fairground practices
their technologies and decoration, and the
and objects, with the broad project aims
overall arrangement of these objects in the
being to expand how the architectures of the
fair, Fairground Architectures pays more
travelling street fair can be understood and
attention to the invisible architectures of the
valued. Objectives range from: establishing
fairground. Invisible architectures refers to
an appropriate framework for studying
hard and soft legislation - laws and established
and interpreting fairground architecture;
behaviours - and practices that determine
developing a generous catalogue or guidebook
how the fairground is laid out and when it
of fairground objects, practices, people
takes place, but also how visitors to the fair
and ingredients; and presenting a range of
behave. It also refers to larger scale networks
focused studies that expand how fairgrounds
that exist between different fairgrounds,

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Elliptical Methodologies
and the long histories and traditions of
fairgrounds and showpeople. The project
combines archival study; durational fieldwork
(repeated visits year after year), large scale
and detailed participant observations,
drawing and photographic surveys, time-lapse
photography, interviews with showpeople,
Local Authority officers, and historians, and
collaborative work with local museums,
amongst other methods.
Two examples from across this wide range
provide more detail. One focused study of
the ‘Opening Ceremony’ set up a simple
Elliptical Methodology that combined this
short, official event seen at most fairs with
Louis Althusser’s philosophical reflection on
Ideology. Within this structure, the methods
listed in the previous paragraph were
used. In combination, this established an
uncomfortable counter-reading of the pomp
and tradition of the ceremony, and established
a framework through which the relationships
between the fair and the host town can be
understood in much more of their complexity.
Using this approach revealed more and
different aspects to the interdependencies
between fairs, fairgrounds and everyday
architectures.
Ilkeston Fair: Opening Ceremony adjacent to
Ilkeston Town Hall, 2012 (image by author).
A second example has explored the fairground
crowd. This study deliberately set up a study
of fairground crowd behaviour and dynamics
with accepted Crowd Theory. Although the
origin of Crowd Theory can be linked to
broad socio-economic concerns about bad
behaviour witnessed at fairs and festivals, and
although much legislation to control, close
or displace fairs from the eighteenth century
onwards makes reference to crowd behaviour,
neither Crowd Theory nor legislation can
be applied to explain the behaviour of the
fairground crowd. Again working with the
broad palette of methods listed above, this
study borrowed detailed terminology from
the work of sociologist Erving Goffman,
particularly his study of Behaviour in Public
Places, to structure a series of drawn accounts
that demonstrate the diversity of fairground
crowd behaviours. Different points of view and
different time-frames were brought together
to reveal the wide variety of individual, group
and crowd interactions that are lost by simple
references to ‘the crowd’. This was achieved
by deliberately identifying different viewing
positions and modes, including time-lapse
photography shot from above, from church
towers or top-storey windows, street-level
views from within the crowd, and the views
enjoyed from on or within fairground rides.
While the work from these various examples
is relevant to existing academic debate, the
findings are also of interest to the organisers
of fairs, and to the fair-going and general
public. Work on the Opening Ceremony drew
out some of the complex interrelationships
that exist between the host town, its
ceremonial and functional officials and
members of the Showmen’s Guild. It helped to
reveal the differences that exist between the
ways that these roles and interrelationships
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Elliptical Methodologies

are believed to operate by those concerned,
compared to what actually happens in their
negotiations. Similarly, work on fairground
crowds revealed the gulf that exists between
how these are currently theorised, legislated
for and controlled, compared to how large
numbers of fair-goers actually behave and
interact.

Where else could Elliptical conversations may be generated as a result.

Methodologies be used? This could be useful in teambuilding, agenda
setting, and encouraging conversation
l This
 approach is particularly useful for between diverse individuals, particularly
researching topics, subcultures, practices, groups interested in generating new ideas
and material forms that have been or revisiting familiar problems and looking at
overlooked. Collaborating with a researcher them through different lenses.
using this approach could therefore be useful
to organisations and charities working with
marginalised social groups or communities, Top tips
or those interested in minority practices,
such as sports, hobbies, or crafts that have 1. Start in the middle. Get stuck in, do
yet to receive serious academic attention something, and work from there.
and societal recognition. Research could 2. Be greedy and be open minded. Don’t
feed in to the production of a film, artwork or be afraid to try multiple different
podcast, for example, that communicates the approaches.
stories and priorities of those involved.
3. Fail quickly. Try not to be precious about
l This
 approach could also be useful to an idea if it doesn’t seem to be working.
organisations, groups, or communities that If it is not a good fit, you will know quite
have been over researched, or where studies quickly - instead of persevering, shuffle
tend to follow the same path, and would the pack and try a different approach!
benefit from fresh thinking.
l A
 simplified version of this approach could
take the form of a game, in which different
pairings are randomly generated and then
used as a conversation starter or prompt.
This could also be used as an icebreaker,
a tool for workshops or within design and
planning processes. Participants in the game
would be asked to suspend disbelief long
enough to bring some things together that
don’t seem to fit, and to see what ideas or

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Elliptical Methodologies

Further reading
l  nna Tsing et al.’s Feral Atlas is an interactive website that enacts
A
aspects of elliptical methodology by encouraging visitors to select
and gradually combine entries from the ‘more than human’
Anthropocene. Through playful navigation, new and deeper
understandings emerge.
l Invisible City is both a book and a web-based installation that
adopts a horizontal structure to tell various stories about invisible
networks and infrastructures within and below Paris, building up
a more complex picture of the city than is usually presented.
l  heatrum Mundi describes itself as ‘a centre for research and
T
experimentation in the public culture of cities… developing
imaginative responses to shared questions about the staging
of urban public life’. Their website hosts a wide range of their
projects, sounds, performances and other bits and pieces.
l  obinson in Space (1997) and Robinson in Ruins (2010), along
R
with London (1994), form part of an ongoing cinematic and
research project directed by Patrick Keiller, which combines
wide-ranging research topics across a psycho-geographic filmic
narrative. Robinson in Space is also reimagined as a book
(Reaktion Books, 1999). This is not just a book-of-the-film, but
uses the different media to play with the same core ideas in an
alternate format.
l º Dirty Theory: Troubling Architecture is a book by Hélène Frichot.
A taster is available here.

To reference: Walker, S., Pottinger, L. and Ehgartner, U.

(2021). ‘Elliptical Methodologies’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L.,
Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.)
Methods for Change: Impactful social science methodologies
for 21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The
University of Manchester.

PAGE 278
Methods for Change
Biographical
Mapping
Prof. Penny Tinkler, Dr Laura Fenton
and Dr Amy Barron,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Prof. Penny Tinkler
penny.tinkler@manchester.ac.uk
Biographical Mapping

Biographical Mapping involves using a combination

of pictures and texts to represent past experiences and
functions as a tool for reflection and talk. It involves the
creation of a visual map of places, journeys, trips and a
few words about why they are meaningful. The map can
include drawings, diagrams, personal photographs or
downloaded ones, routes and maps.
The result is a collage which richly represents parts of an individual’s
life. Biographical Mapping aims to foreground meaningful places
and mobilities rather than chronology and the tracing of change.
This method helps people tell stories about their lives, building on
their memories of places and travel. Whether completed on one’s
own or with others, those who engage with Biographical Mapping
are encouraged to look closely at the photographs they have
selected, especially personal ones, and to dwell on the details that
might otherwise be overlooked. These reflections are then used as a
way of opening discussion, reflection and memory.
Biographical Mapping is different to Life Mapping partly because of
the materials used to invoke a discussion of memories of places,
spaces and time. Biographical Mapping relies on existing visual
materials (photos, maps) and other material artefacts to map out
an individual’s history. It is the use of these already existing things,
alongside talk based methods such as interviews, that enables
participants to map out connections to place, space, and their
associated memories and how they have changed in space and
over time. An online Biographical Mapping kit has been created
for use in non-academic as well as academic contexts. This kit
includes guidelines and a list of prompts to help people remember
important places, everyday movements, and travel. Those who use
Biographical Mapping need not be good at art - the kit provides
useful links and downloadable resources that people can use.

We use a homing pigeon

to represent this technique
because of its affinity to place
(Image Credit: Claire Stringer/
More Than Minutes)

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Biographical Mapping
How does Biographical Mapping
create or contribute to change?  Biographical Mapping?
Change occurs at a personal level in the sense
that people move through different recollections
and memories in the process of creating their
map. Creating a Biographical Map may improve
memory function and quality of life and might
therefore be of interest to organisations and
groups who work with those who have declining
memory function. Biographical Mapping can
also change interpersonal relationships by
building and strengthening rapport or by
creating connections between people. It might
also change local communities by encouraging
interaction between people thereby enhancing
the pleasure felt in a space through the sharing
of memories and experiences. Biographical
Mapping can be used to bring about change
in community contexts because people are
collectively pooling their resources and working
together. It can generate insights and knowledge
about place, communities, movements and
personal histories and thereby lead to change
around specific issues. Biographical Mapping can
also be used to inform discussions of change
in localities by exploring people’s investments
in local places and helping people bring about
change and adjust to it.
What ideas or concepts influence
Biographical Mapping was developed in the
context of research that involved talking to older
women about their youth in the 1950s-70s. Its
intellectual origins can be traced to: elicitation
methods; literature on the significance of place
for memory; a response to the limitations of
current dominant approaches that prioritise
chronology; and recognition in geography,
sociology and related disciplines of how
important movement between and around
spaces and places can be to people’s lives.
Biographical approaches that have influenced
Biographical Mapping include: oral history;
photo, object and graphic elicitation approaches;
mapping approaches; participatory approaches;
arts-based research and engagement methods.
Biographical Mapping functions primarily as an
elicitation tool. It works to open-up the spatial,
place and memories. This method is different
from conventional elicitation techniques
in that it encourages participants to reflect
in ways that move beyond and away from
rehearsed accounts of the past. Participants
are encouraged to reflect on the small details in
personal photographs and other images as this
can awaken memories that have not been set in
concrete or embedded in rehearsed stories of
the past. Mapping is used as a way of describing
and representing an individual’s life and the
interconnections between different elements
that are meaningful. The organic and dynamic
process of creating a map helps to move away
from linear accounts of a life.
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Biographical Mapping
Why might I want to use Biographical Mapping?
l Biographical Mapping is based on participants
sharing memories and experiences of places
which can be a pleasurable activity. Everybody
has somewhere or some journey that they
find pleasurable to talk about.
l Biographical Mapping gets people talking.
Participants usually embrace the opportunity
to talk about the places they have lived or
visited at various points in their lives. The
enthusiasm for discussion that this method
cultivates can be useful to ‘break the ice’ in
group settings.
 A Biographical Map created as part of the ‘Girlhood & Later Life’ study.
l This method is accessible. Interacting with
meaningful photographs and other images,
sketching, drawing and adding post-it notes to
a sheet of paper to build a story of a life while
talking often makes it easier for participants to
find a starting point for their story.
l Biographical Mapping is untethering in that it
tends not to feel overly personal or intrusive
because it is not structured around pointed
personal questions. Rather the participant is
given creative control over the assembling of
the map and the accompanying discussion.
l Biographical Mapping is flexible in that it can
be done on one’s own or with others, such as
family, friends, carers or community groups.
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Biographical Mapping
Step by step guide to using Biographical Mapping: 
The steps outlined below are for individuals and
people working with Biographical Mapping in
non-academic and academic contexts. However,
the guidance is written so that it addresses the
person who is doing the remembering. If you are
assisting someone in doing this, you can adjust
the questions so that they become prompts.
If you are leading a biographical mapping
session in a non-academic or academic context,
the preparatory questions (Part 1) will often be
decided by you rather than the participant. But
keep in mind that participants need to know
why they are being invited to create a map –
where feasible, discuss with them the purpose,
objectives, and likely audiences.
Academic researchers are advised to be
particularly clear about the purpose of using
the method, also to consider carefully how it fits
within their research design and enables them
to address their research questions. It can be a
self-contained activity to explore memories of
place and mobilities, or a means to explore in
detail experiences touched on in an interview or
survey.
Part 1: Preparation
(a) To get started, decide on your purpose and
objective. What do you want to achieve? You
might want to:
l Reflect on a place or journey that is special
or remembered clearly. This could be a
home once lived in, the route to school, a
memorable trip.
l Focus on a particular period in life. This could
include being a teenager, becoming a parent,
or retirement.
l Create a life story through places and
journeys.
l Explore a theme in your life, such as
experiences of mobility in different stages of
life.
l Work with community groups who may
choose to focus on people’s shared and
unique experiences of particular local places.
This might include a park, community centre
or town centre.
(b) Clarify who you are doing this for. Is it for
yourself, a community initiative, family and
friends (children or grandchildren, your
partner), or a professional setting? It is
important to reflect on who your audiences
are, including their priorities and interests.
(c) Who do you want to do this with? Remember,
you can change this at any time. Do you want
to do this on your own or with someone
else, such as a friend, family member, carer,
colleague, community members?
(d) Get a large piece of sturdy paper, ideally A1
size, something to stick things on with and
a selection of coloured pens and pencils. It
might be a good idea to have some personal
photos to hand. Have the Biographical
Mapping kit to hand.
This exercise works best if you have
access to a digital device, such as a
smart phone, tablet, laptop or PC, so
that there is the option to search and
download images of locations or objects
that may remind you or the participant
of places or a given time in life.
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 Biographical Mapping
Step by step guide to using Biographical Mapping: 
Part 2: Creating the Biographical Map
Academic researchers are advised that their
research questions and objectives will determine
how much they direct the participant in
deciding how to start (Part 2). You may simply
ask the participant to start by remembering a
meaningful place or trip, perhaps relating to
a particular period in their life. Alternatively,
you may have some guiding questions that
encourage the participant to focus on, and
explore, a particular set of experiences, perhaps
about commuting to work when they were
younger, or their relationship over time to the
local town centre, or the significance of being
able to drive.
(a) What place or journey do you want to
start with? Identify a place or trip that is
particularly fresh in your mind, or that is
thought back to on a regular basis. How
do you want to represent this on the
Biographical Map? This could be represented
(c) At this point, it is important to remember
with a personal photograph, a downloaded
image, a sketch by you or, if appropriate, the
person you are working with.
The Biographical Mapping kit has helpful
tips about where to find images. If you
are helping someone create a map,
remember to be mindful that holidays
and international travel may need to be
de-prioritised and asked about sensitively
when participants are from poorer
backgrounds.
(b) Why is this place important to you, and what
do you recall about it? Small details are as
important as big ones, so if you are using
a photograph, try looking closely and then
standing back from it. If it is a digital image,
you can zoom in and out. Your reflections
can be audio-recorded. Think of a few words
that sum up this place, journey or trip for you
and write them on to your Biographical Map.
You might like to also write down the years, if
that is relevant to your purpose for creating
the Biographical Map.
If you are leading a Biographical Mapping
session with others, remember to use
different kinds of questions to encourage
reflection and talk e.g. focusing on small
details, drawing attention to objects in
photos. Use questions such as ‘what best
captures what it looked like to you?’ You
can also choose to record your reflections
on the images used and what the
participant is recounting.
your aims in creating the Biographical Map.
If you are tracing the places and journeys
that have been important to you across
time (e.g. your childhood, or your entire life
to this point), your map might be organised
chronologically, for example, with images
and text clusters signifying important places
corresponding to different points in your
life going forward in time from left to right.
The next place you choose might be forward
or backward in time. Again, ask yourself:
what images and words best capture your
memories of this place? Alternatively, if you
want to focus on the places and journeys
that mattered to you, the next move might
be to think about what other places were
important during this point in life. What
images and words come to mind when you
or the participant thinks of them?
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Biographical Mapping

Step by step guide to using Biographical Mapping: 

Part 3: Bringing the session to a close sure it is dated and given a name that links it to
Don’t forget to label your Biographical Map and your map. The map, or photo of it, along with the
include the date. You can also take a photograph audio record if available, can be revisited and
of it. If you have created an audio record, make discussed further at another time.

An example of a Place-based Case Study Approach

in social science research  
Transitions and Mobilities: Girls growing up in Britain 1954-76 and the implications for
later-life experience and identity
Researchers: Prof. Penny Tinkler, The University of Manchester; Prof. Anne McMunn,
University College London; Dr Laura Fenton, The University of Manchester; Dr Resto Cruz,
The University of Edinburgh; Dr Baowen Xue, University College London.
Communications & Public Engagement Officer: Hazel Burke, The University of Manchester

Penny, Laura and Resto worked together
in this project to develop the Biographical
Mapping method. The way in which the
method evolved was partly a rejection of
how mobilities are typically researched.
In longitudinal mobilities research that
employs graphic elicitation techniques, it
is striking that a linear representation of
time dominates the representation of space
and mobilities. An outcome of this is that
everyday movements, trips and other types
of travel are represented as fixed points and
this most likely influences how mobilities are
remembered and discussed: stasis rather
than movement is emphasised; destinations
rather than journeys; place rather than
mobilities. Movement is rendered barely
visible in this linear framework.
Biographical Mapping was designed to
not prioritise the temporal and the linear.
The researchers focused on important
places and aspects of girlhood as well as
on turning points, rather than using time
as the organising principle. Age remained a
reference point, but it was not foregrounded.
Biographical Mapping was one of several
methods used to research women’s accounts
of their girlhood and later life.
l Biographical Mapping was a self-contained
activity with the aim of exploring memories
of place and movement during youth.
Participants often elaborated on details
mentioned in the preceding biographical
interview on youth, drawing out their
significance, but the mapping process also
introduced new topics and perspectives.
l Biographical Mapping was typically
undertaken between two semi-structured
biographical interviews – one on youth,
the other on later life - that all our
participants chose to do on the same day.
It was surprising how much this method
lightened what could have felt intensive
and kept the interviewees engaged. This
affirmed the value of Biographical Mapping
as an elicitation device.

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Biographical Mapping
l Most people enjoyed Biographical Mapping,
but not everyone. Some interviewees were
initially concerned that they would need
to be able to draw well. The researchers
decided that interviewees could do the
artwork, but that Laura and Resto would
otherwise do it under their direction. The
researchers made use of the participants’
photographs, down-loaded images, also
Laura and Resto’s own sketches which
included stick people as well as more
elaborate drawings.
l The researchers photographed the
Biographical Maps at the end and gave
interviewees a copy of the image when this
was requested.
l Biographical Mapping enabled detailed
exploration of mobility histories and
the feelings associated with them. It
also proved useful for checking details
mentioned in the first interview.
l Biographical Mapping allowed us to explore
experiences from a different angle than was
possible in the interviews in that we side-
stepped conventional, including rehearsed,
narratives of girlhood and growing up. For
example, the exercise brought to light the
experience of one participant, Megan, who
when she was in her early twenties walked
everywhere with her young sons, as she
had no other means of transport while
her husband was at work. She pointed out
flowers and plants, naming them for the
boys. Remembering these walks become a
poignant moment in the exercise, as later
on in her life Megan had become estranged
from her sons. Moreover, the mundane
and routine nature of the walks means that
they are not the kind of memory likely to be
shared in the life history interviews.
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Biographical Mapping
Where else could Biographical
Mapping be used?
Community-building initiatives
Biographical Mapping is well suited as an ice
breaking exercise when people are getting to
know one another. For example, volunteers in
a community group or a befriender and the
person they are befriending. People often enjoy
reminiscing about places they have known,
and trips they have taken. Unlike some other
topics, talking about memories of places and
travel tends not to feel overly personal, and so
people are more likely to share experiences.
They can be particularly useful in community
group development, especially where locality is a
common feature. Biographical Mapping can also
be used as a tool for cross-cultural and inter-
generational initiatives by youth workers, school
teachers, and community development workers.
Education and community-research
initiatives, public consultations
Biographical Mapping could be used as part of
community history initiatives, perhaps linked
to local museums or residential homes, for
instance. It might also be used in youth work and
education contexts by youth workers, teachers,
or museum and gallery outreach teams.
Biographical Mapping could be used as part
of public research consultations and publicity
development initiatives where the aim is to find
out about people’s relationships to, and feelings
about, places and mobilities. This may be useful
for the public transport sector and could be
used to explore people’s memories of, and
feelings about, travel, or local authorities and
public responses to, and ideas about, change.
It could also be used to explore perceptions of
safety in various places at different times, within
police public-liaison activities, youth work, and
schools.
Wellbeing
Biographical Mapping could be used by
organisations supporting those with failing
memories, such as Age UK as well as
Dementia and Alzheimer support groups and
organisations.
Research by Andrea Capstick & Katherine
Ludwin (2015) suggests that place is a key
and hitherto rather overlooked feature of the
memories of older people with dementia. In
foregrounding place and spatial mobilities,
Biographical Mapping can serve the needs of
older people whose memories are functioning
normally but also help them to develop
materials that might assist them and service
providers in managing any future memory loss.
Top tips
1. Keep in mind that Biographical Mapping
is about the places that are meaningful,
memorable and interesting for the
participants. It is not a test of memory
and there is no right answer.
2. Small can be beautiful, so let participants
explore the small details that they
remember, such as the flowers on a
favourite walk.
3. It is helpful to think of a few words that
sum up the importance of each place or
trip.
4. Note that there is a huge stock of images
available online to download for free to
help participants in addition to adding
their own.
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Biographical Mapping

Further reading
l The Biographical Mapping kit and an animated guide to using
it are available from the ‘Girlhood & Later Life Project’ website
www.manchester.ac.uk/biographical-mapping
l Girlhood and later life project

To reference: Tinkler, P., Fenton, L., and Barron, A. (2021).

‘Biographical Mapping’ in Barron, A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner,
U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods
for Change: Impactful social science methodologies for 21st
century problems. Manchester: Aspect and The University of
Manchester.

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Methods for Change
Engaged Capacity-
building Workshops
Dr Megan Blake,
The University of Sheffield
Dr Laura Pottinger
and Dr Ulrike Ehgartner,
The University of Manchester

Corresponding author
Dr Megan Blake
m.blake@sheffield.ac.uk
Elliptical Methodologies

This is a method that draws on repeated, interlinked

workshop activities as a way to bring people together to
work on shared issues. Workshops are not one-off events
aimed at extracting data from participants, but rather
are embedded in long-term engaged forms of knowledge
exchange and research, which may draw on multiple
methodological tools such as interviews and ethnography,
with communities as project partners.
Using this approach can help to build networks of groups and
individuals. This could include those who play different roles in
relation to a particular service, resource, community or product,
within food systems, social care, health or planning, for example.
Engaged Capacity-building Workshops can be applied to understand
the materials, values, norms and relationships that shape the issue
or system in question, and how power relationships and inequalities
are reproduced, to establish avenues for changing and redesigning
these relationships. Using this approach can help to build networks
of groups and individuals, for example those who play different
roles in relation to a particular service, resource, community or
product, for example within the food system, social care and
health or planning. It involves the researcher working closely with
participants, often in experimental ways, to explore problems and
questions and to identify solutions. By strengthening relationships
between the different stakeholders, this approach can increase
resilience and build the capacity of organisations and individuals,
leading to improved practices, ways of working and outcomes for
those involved

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Elliptical Methodologies
How do Engaged Capacity-building What ideas or concepts influence
Workshops create or contribute this approach?
to change?  This is a qualitative approach aimed at
Engaged Capacity-building Workshop
methodologies aim to create significant changes
in the systems in which they work by enhancing
the learning of all who participate, including
the researcher. By bringing together diverse
groups to work through problems collectively,
and identifying solutions based on varied,
lived experience, this approach can have a
meaningful impact on the lives and practices
of individuals, as well as informing changes
in policy or funding regimes. Working closely
with participants over a significant period of
time can create change by supporting the
formation of trusted relationships between the
researcher and organisations or communities,
which often extend beyond the duration of
an individual research project. Further, by
reimagining the relationship between researcher
and researched, Engaged Capacity-building
Workshops can shift understandings of what
research can be, and the power dynamics that
are involved. They can therefore improve the
image of research in communities that may be
over-researched and sceptical about the value of
further intervention, because the aim is positive
and meaningful change for those communities.
understanding power dynamics and processes,
involving elements of coproduction. During
organised, facilitated workshop activities,
the researcher spends extended time with
stakeholders and often contributes to the
production of outcomes which can help
develop and strengthen participants’ capacities
to self-organise and self-determine. Similar
to other participatory approaches, Engaged
Capacity-building Workshops involve the
researcher participating in the setting that they
are researching. This may involve exploring
the activities, experiences, perspectives and
values of the different groups that make up
that system, then experimenting with different
framings to break down barriers between
various groups. It is research that is done with
participants, rather than to, for or about them.
The researcher’s aim is not to extract knowledge
from participants, but instead to be a resource
that the individuals and groups involved in
research can draw upon to achieve a shared
goal. This approach is influenced by grounded
theory, with themes, questions and theories
generated iteratively from qualitative data that
is produced in collaboration with participants
through workshop activities. It can also be
used in mixed methodological approaches,
where questions and themes generated with
participants form the basis of quantitative
surveys.
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Elliptical Methodologies
Why might I want to use Engaged Capacity-building Workshops?
l Working together with participants as partners
or co-researchers, this approach supports
individuals, organisations and groups to self-
organise. It can be used to help communities
to create the interventions that they need to
overcome problems and to thrive. Instead of
feeling like they are ‘under the microscope’,
participants can become more invested in the
research.
l Engaged Capacity-building Workshops
emphasise learning by doing, reflecting,
observing and listening to those who
experience and engage with the topic or
problem under investigation.
l They are well suited to understanding complex
issues or systems that involve a diverse range
of different stakeholders with competing
agendas. This approach can be useful for
overcoming tensions, misunderstandings
or conflicts between various groups or
individuals, by encouraging participants to
work together on shared problems and to
understand one another’s viewpoints.
l By listening to participants, understanding
their stories, perspectives and priorities,
researchers using this method can develop
research questions which have the potential
to yield further meaningful data and
insight. Questions and themes generated
collaboratively can also be used to inform the
design of nuanced quantitative surveys.
l Engaged Capacity-building Workshops often
draw on experimental, creative and playful
ways of working to encourage problem
solving, critical thinking and networking
between diverse participants. They can
support curiosity-driven, rather than expert-
driven, theory-driven, or data-driven research.
l This approach is interested in understanding
the big picture by investigating small details.
Facilitated workshops can be used to identify
and map the elements that are connected
together to make up a complex system,
as well as building a picture of the wider
landscape in which these elements are
embedded. They can be used to develop a
framework to explain and communicate the
workings of a system or community, so that
ideas and solutions can be shared with others
working on similar issues.
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Elliptical Methodologies
Step by step guide to Engaged Capacity-building Workshops: 
1. Understand the wider landscape.
The first step is to build a picture of the
landscape that shapes the system or
problem that is of interest in the research,
and involves:
l Connecting with key stakeholders: speak
to as many people working on or impacted
by the issue, including community groups,
local authorities, charities, national
organisations or companies and members
of the public. Listen carefully to their
stories and try to understand the variety
of perspectives that frame the topic under
investigation.
3. Continue engaging beyond organised
l Mapping stakeholder values and priorities:
identify what the values are for each
stakeholder group and where these
might intersect. What are the core issues
that need to be addressed or better
understood?
l SWOT activity to identify strengths (assets),
weaknesses (barriers), opportunities,
and threats (constraints) to solving the
problem: What do stakeholders see as
the current barriers and limitations, and
how do they frame them? What needs to
change, and what resources are needed to
build capacity? What does transformation
look like for those involved?
2. Organise and facilitate workshops.
Facilitated workshops are an effective tool
for bringing together diverse stakeholders,
enabling safe opportunities to experiment
and learn from failure. They can take place at
all stages of the research and can be carried
out as part of organised events, which might
also include a programme of speakers.
Ideally, they should involve practical activities
that encourage participants to work together
on a shared problem.
Workshop activities could include collectively
deciding on shared research questions or
priorities, or a SWOT activity. They could also
include creative prompts, such as building
with Lego, clay modelling, drawing tasks
and post-it note mapping exercises. These
types of activities can encourage people to
problem solve and discuss ideas in creative
ways, and can generate rich data for further
analysis.
events. Spending time with, listening
and talking to key stakeholders is an
ongoing process, before, in-between and
after facilitated workshops, in informal
conversations as well as structured
interviews. The researcher may also go
along with practical tasks and activities
taking place within the wider stakeholder
landscape, which might involve volunteering
or observing the day-to-day work of an
organisation or charity.
Analysis takes place throughout the entire
research process. Themes, questions
and theories are developed iteratively by
moving between the big picture and the
detailed specifics. The researcher’s role is to
understand where there are contradictions,
pressure points and frictions, and to identify
ways of moving beyond these tensions. As
analysis progresses it can be useful to go
back and ‘sense check’ – testing out theories
or interpretations that the researcher has
developed with participants.
PAGE 293
Elliptical Methodologies
4. Make sure it’s collaboration: share
outputs with stakeholders and seek
their feedback. Any written outputs
that the researcher produces should be
shared with participants to give them the
opportunity to make comments and offer
alternative perspectives, although they
are not required to do so. Where opinions
differ, the text is altered to reflect that there
are multiple viewpoints or interpretations.
While Engaged Capacity-building Workshops
leave the researcher with clear data to take
away and disseminate, research participants
should get something in return as well.
Depending on the social values and aims of
organisations involved, researchers may also
provide advice on how to practically meet
the needs of their community. Community
Workshop activity in the FareShare Academic in Residence project
members who took part in workshops may
appreciate a voucher or other forms of help
to access goods or services.
There are specific approaches for addressing
the ethical issues involved in doing this form
of research. With regard to using the data
derived from Engaged Capacity-building
Workshops, a negotiated ethics approach
can work well. This involves being clear
about how you would like to use the data,
discussing anonymity with groups and
participants in advance and how they would
like you to handle this, and offering a right
of reply to written reports and papers before
they are made public.
PAGE 294
Elliptical Methodologies
Example of Engaged Capacity-building Workshops
in social science research 
FareShare Academic in Residence
Researcher: Dr Megan Blake, The University of Sheffield
Over several years I have been working with
a range of organisations, local authorities
and communities to consider how to address
the ‘wicked’ problem – a problem that is
difficult to solve, and where there is no single
solution - of household food insecurity. For
example, in 2018 I secured an Impact Award
funded through the ESRC (Economic and
Social Research Council) to be the Academic
in Residence with FareShare UK, a national
network of charitable food redistributors,
who supply good quality surplus food to
frontline charities and community groups. This
collaboration emerged from a SWOT workshop
that I organised. FareShare were involved
in this workshop as part of a collaborative
project with Doncaster Council that sought to
understand how healthy foodscapes can be
enhanced in low-income areas by community
and council partnerships.
Given that they are a charity organisation,
a key motivator for FareShare was to
understand what social value there is in
distributing surplus food and how they might
capture this impact. Over the year that I was
embedded within their organisation I ran a
number of workshops with them as well as
with their commercial partners to understand
what they saw social value as meaning and to
consider what they as an organisation could
do to enhance that. In one workshop, groups
drew pictures to illustrate the social value
of food, which included creating community
connections between people, exposing people
to unusual foods, reducing stress around
food access, and increasing the presence of
healthier food options in the local foodscape.
In another workshop we used Lego and
playdough to consider how bringing these
elements together can facilitate community
resilience. One of the key things to emerge
was an awareness of the diversity of food
support that is offered by the organisations
that they serve and that FareShare employees
can help these organisations to learn from the
good practice of each other.
Engaged Capacity-building Workshops
also helped FareShare to understand that
different organisations have different food
needs depending on how they use the food.
This shifted FareShare’s focus from simply
providing food in a manner that is safe to
also considering how food support can help
tackle loneliness, for example. As a result
of this workshop process FareShare has
developed collaborations with other national
charities that it would not have considered
as relevant to its mission previously. This
increased understanding led FareShare to
identify new ways of identifying and measuring
their impact, which involved redesigning
the way that they capture data about those
organisations who access food through their
distribution channels.
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Elliptical Methodologies
While the initial period of intensive
engagement lasted a year, I remain involved
with the work that FareShare is doing around
the social impact of surplus food. Recently,
for example, I collaborated with members
of their impact and data teams in a series of
weekly workshops that they designed and
organised using virtual white boards and post-
it notes. Together we reviewed and updated
how they understand their data needs with
regard to reporting the social impact of food
distribution.
Workshop activity in the FareShare Academic in Residence project
Engaged Capacity-building Workshops are
an important part of the research process
from question identification through to
project completion. Through carrying out
these workshops my research network
has expanded, which has also meant that
a number of other collaborative projects
have emerged from this work with an ever-
increasing circle of academic and non-
academic partners. Working in this way also is
very rewarding because I can see real change
happening as a result of my involvement which
makes a difference to the lives of some of the
most vulnerable people in our communities.
PAGE 296
Elliptical Methodologies

Where else could Engaged

Capacity-building Workshops Top tips
be used? 1. Remember that you are not the expert.
See yourself as a partner in the research
This approach is useful for conducting research
who is there to learn. Be aware of
on difficult social challenges, particularly those
your own assumptions, and constantly
that involve multiple stakeholders and complex
question them.
systems. Engaged Capacity-building Workshops
can be useful in building trust and developing 2. Listen actively, let participants guide
stronger connections between groups and you, and be flexible. If something is not
individuals, such as those who play different working, be open to trying something
roles in relation to a particular service, resource, different.
community or product. This could include the 3. It is normal to feel a little out of control
range of community, charities, public sector or afraid of places that are unfamiliar.
groups and businesses involved in the food When you can engage with people and
system, as in the example above, but equally listen, those places become quite safe.
it could also apply to other complex systems
such as those related to health, social care, 4. Pay attention to things that feel a little
or planning. Using workshops as a research uncomfortable or odd, as these are often
method works well with diverse groups as well important moments.
as within a single organisation to help tease out
what the motivations, shared values, processes
and power dynamics might be that are linked
to the problem under consideration. While the
workshops can be conducted with very large
groups, dividing them into smaller groups of
8-12 people gives participants the opportunity
to think deeply and creatively.

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Elliptical Methodologies

Further reading
l Feeding Affordances and Decent Helpings: Working Together to
Reduce Food Poverty and Improve Public Health.

l 
Formality and friendship: Research ethics review and
participatory action research.

l Workshops - collaborative arena for generative research.

To reference: Blake, M., Pottinger, L. and Ehgartner, U.

(2021). ‘Engaged Capacity-building Workshops’ in Barron,
A., Browne, A.L., Ehgartner, U., Hall, S.M., Pottinger, L. and
Ritson, J. (eds.) Methods for Change: Impactful social science
methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester: Aspect
and The University of Manchester.

PAGE 298