Kenny
Stancil
GEO
600
18
October 2013
Methodological review: a critical evaluation of four
studies using interviews
Introduction
Interviews are a common
method for doing qualitative research in geography. Following this short
introduction, I assess four studies that use interviews, often in conjunction
with other methods, as a way to resolve their corresponding research questions.
In so doing, I hope to shed light on what these studies do well, as well as
where there may be methodological weaknesses and/or room for improvement. The
ensuing investigations are
diverse, but what they have in common is that the interviews involve conversing
with and/or about people who are exploited, dispossessed, or otherwise
oppressed. Cases include: a) regimes of controlling the labor of migrant
agricultural workers in Ontario's tobacco industry; b) perceptions of
environmentalism among Hispanics in Toronto; c) activism by residents of a
neighborhood in Leeds facing gentrification; and d) conceptions of ‘the public’
by academics and participants in public space controversies. After critically
evaluating how the researchers go about conducting interviews in their
respective quests to sort out various issues, there is a brief conclusion that
puts the studies side by side and summarizes this methodological review.
Study 1: Bridi
(2013) “Labour Control in the Tobacco Agro-spaces: Migrant Agricultural Workers
in South-Western Ontario”
Robert Bridi describes the increasing
role of international labor migration programs in moving temporary migrant
workers to jobs in various sectors in developed economies, which creates a
“vulnerable reserve army of cheap labour, willing to endure low pay, poor working
conditions, and non-standard employment practices” (1070). His article analyzes
the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), which employs approximately
30,000 temporary migrant workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Guatemala, the
Philippines, and Thailand in the Canadian agricultural sector each year (1070).
More specifically, he focuses on SAWP workers in tobacco farming, investigating
how labor control is established on two small-scale farms in South-Western
Ontario, where more than 90% of the tobacco produced in Canada is grown. In
order to answer this question, he “draws upon select responses from interviews
with three Mexican and nine Jamaican workers, two union representatives, and
two farm owners” (1070).
Bridi explains that the empirical data
in the article is based on select responses from a sample of semi-structured
interviews, which ranged from one to three hours in length. He utilized a
snowballing technique, in which his “initial contacts were researchers, which
led to contacts with union representatives, workers, and farm owners” (1077).
Between May and August 2010, he “conducted interviews with two union
representatives in Rexdale, Ontario; 12 workers in Simcoe, Ontario where the
workers socialized on the weekends; and two farm owners in Delhi, Ontario where
the workers were employed” (1077). I appreciate that Bridi acknowledges where
the interviews took place, since this was actually important to the context of
labor control. However, although I do not know if it is customary or
acceptable, I wish he had explained how he gained access to the farm owners. It
would be nice to know how to approach people who you will later criticize for
repressing workers. Was he honest with the farm owners about the aims of his
research, or did he only mention some of the information, such as that he was
studying the labor process on tobacco farms without mentioning his focus on how
labor is controlled?
Bridi does go on to mention that while “the
interviews focused on various aspects of the labour process (eg working hours,
deskilling, alienation, and coping and resistance), select responses were
gleaned to highlight one aspect of the labour process (ie labour control)”
(1077). In addition, time and funding limitations caused him to concentrate on
two small-scale farms, which resulted in a relatively small sample of SAWP
workers and farm owners. One point of confusion for me is Bridi’s claim that
despite the small sample, “these findings could be applied to other farms in
the region,” which is followed by a claim that “this study does not explore the
variability of the labour control mechanisms on different farms. This will
differ from one farm to another based on, for example, farm size, level of
mechanization, management styles, and so on” (1077-1078). His contradictory
stance that the study is simultaneously generalizable to other farms in the
region and particular to his specific cases studies is never resolved in the
article. Despite this small complaint on my part, Bridi does a great job of
using interview responses to describe how the labor control regime is
constituted.
First, Bridi describes the multi-scalar
factors that control labor before it even reaches the point of production. He argues
that working in Canada is viewed by migrant laborers as a temporary hardship
that eventually leads to improved living conditions, including better
opportunities for their children and extended family, which is followed by
relevant statements from workers 7, 5, and 10 (1078). This is related to the
regime of labor control, since the SAWP selection criteria require that workers
have dependents. That all of the workers interviewed were married with children
minimizes dissent and reduces the likelihood that workers will remain in Canada
once the work term ends (1079). Second, the SAWP’s numerically flexible hiring
practices, dependent on the requirements for a particular season, benefits farm
owners who are able to employ on-demand workers only when it is profitable to
them. Farm Owner 1 explains that “the program allows me to request migrants as
long as I can’t find Canadian workers…depending on the season I hire more of
less workers” (1079).
Third, a SAWP arrangement that assigns
workers to specific farms and requires transfers to be approved by the Human
Resources and Skills Development Canada, the Consulate agent in the home
country of the foreign worker, and the farm owner makes it nearly impossible to
change employers. As Union Representative 2 explains, this means that “the
grower was really pushing the workers who were there” (1079). Fourth, the fact
that the farm owners provide housing on or close to the farm limits the
mobility of workers and makes “them more available for overtime work” (1080).
Fifth, Ontario’s Agricultural Employees Protection Act prevents migrant
agricultural workers from unionizing. This leaves migrant workers’ working
conditions and labor relations to be negotiated by the Consulates of their home
countries. However, as Union Representative 1 explains, “they are not really
interested in the workers…this is big business.” They prioritize protecting the
program, keeping growers happy, and can quickly replace complaining workers
(1080). Last, the ability of the owners to arbitrarily fire workers, resulting
in immediate deportation, means that workers are fearful of resisting. As
Worker 7 said, the “one worker who stood to the boss [was] sent right back to
Mexico…I just keep my mouth shut and do the work” (1080).
Bridi then describes additional forms of
control that exist at the point of production. Simple control is carried in
three ways. First, the direct observation of workers by the owners “gives me a
chance to tell them what to do and see how they are doing, I make sure the work
is getting done right and out on time” (Farm Owner 1, 1081). Second, the use of
automated tobacco planters allows owners or their family members to monitor the
process and increase output. Third, the evaluation of workers by owners and the
submission of this evaluation to the recruiting agency in their home countries
means that workers must earn the approval of their boss or else be relocated or
suspended from the program. Furthermore, the farm owners benefit by being able
to “request the best workers that are already familiar with the job duties and
require no training.” As Worker 11 put it, “The boss picks the best workers, so
even if you work hard it does not guarantee anything; you have to show the boss
you’re better than the others” (1082).
Finally, Bridi describes the indirect
forms of controlling labor on these two tobacco farms. This “may be achieved
when workers are given responsible autonomy,” such as “delegating specific
responsibilities to individual workers or groups of workers” (1082). When
workers played a more independent role in the production process, “they behaved
as though they were participating in a process which reflected their own needs,
abilities, and wills, rather than a process aimed at accumulation and profits”
(1082). This is reflected by Worker 10 who says that “I do my best to show the
boss that Mexican workers work hard and deserve to be in Canada,” and by Farm
Owner 1 who says that “I have to trust them to work hard, they are good
workers” (1083). Second, owners were able to indirectly control workers more
effectively by incorporating lead hands into the teams of workers. The
hierarchical structure makes it possible for owners to divide “more skilled
from less skilled workers and stratify workers according to power differences.”
That the lead hands reported back to the farm owners about the performances of
individual workers is confirmed by Worker 5, who says that “You don’t only have
to worry about the big boss, but also the little boss…he keeps pushing us to
work harder, faster…I guess he wants to keep the big boss happy” (1083).
Bridi’s frequent juxtaposition of
statements from the farm owners, on the one hand, and the workers and union
representatives, on the other, clearly reveals the class conflict present in
the super-exploitation of temporary migrant workers. It also highlights the
ways in which the possibilities for workers to organize and engage in
oppositional politics are limited by a regime of labor control that exists at
the point of production and beyond. Bridi’s methodology is very effective in
answering his research questions, and he presents his findings from interviews
in a very powerful manner. My only complaint is that Bridi twice quotes the
lone Mexican worker on Farm 2 (presumably Worker 10 judging by Bridi’s table).
I worry that his position as the only Mexican worker on the farm might make him
identifiable if someone pieces together the remaining information about the
farm (26 hectares, 8 years participating in the SAWP, 24 years in tobacco
farming, 15 total workers, 12 SAWP workers, 4 Jamaican workers). For the sake
of Worker 10, I hope that there are enough farms with similar characteristics
or that the wrong person does not read this article!
Study 2: Gibson-Wood and Wakefield
(2012) “‘Participation’, White Privilege, and Environmental Justice:
Understanding Environmentalism Among Hispanics in Toronto”
Hilary Gibson-Wood and Sarah Wakefield’s
article explores definitions of and approaches to environmentalism(s) and community
engagement amongst the Hispanic population in Toronto. In order to do so, Gibson-Wood
conducted a total of eight in-depth interviews with a range of actors including
executive directors, managers, program coordinators, activists, and volunteers,
all of whom were chosen because they play an important role in guiding
environmental initiatives within their respective organizations and within the
broader Hispanic community of Toronto. One of Gibson-Wood’s earlier research
projects with members of Toronto’s Hispanic population “identified
community-level organizations as a key source of information and engagement on
environmental issues” (649). In order to learn more about the environmental
activities of these organizations, the authors contacted representatives from
these agencies. In addition to identifying relevant organizations through
existing contacts in the community, the authors also utilized internet searches
and published listings, for example the Hispanic Development Council’s list of
members and partners. Gibson-Wood and Wakefield’s utilization of a
previously-established relationship with community organizations that work with
Hispanic residents in Toronto and the subsequent snowballing technique used to
identify additional agencies that were relevant to their study seems to be a
good methodological approach.
The interviews began by gathering
information about the organization, its programs, and the participant’s role
within the agency before moving on to discuss “how environmental issues are
understood and prioritized in the community, barriers and facilitators to
participation, and finally partnerships with other organizations and municipal
government” (650). The interviewer was a white Canadian woman who is fluent in
Spanish, while seven of the eight interviewees were first-generation immigrants
from Latin America (the remaining participant was of Asian descent).
Gibson-Wood and Wakefield acknowledge that “this research involved working
across a complex landscape of difference, including race, language, culture,
and gender,” adding that “it is important to recognize the limits this [dynamic
of a white “outsider” conducting interviews with a racialized group] imposes on the
information and experiences shared by respondents” (650).
Of the eight interviewees, the
participants came from seven different organizations. The principal author
interviewed two individuals at one of the organizations, while only one person
was interviewed at each of the remaining six organizations. This means that perspectives
were limited to one kind of representative from the community organizations
engaged in environmental issues, whether they were directors, managers,
coordinators, or rank-and-file members. A weakness of the sample, then, is that
different participants in these organizations may have contributed different
perceptions on how their communities define, approach, and act on environmental
issues based on what kind of work they do in the organization. Given that “the
number of community agencies in Toronto that are engaged with the Hispanic
community on environmental issues is quite small,” the authors may be right to
assert that “this sample represents a large proportion of the agencies in
Toronto doing this work” (649). However, the sample is not particularly
representative of the potential diversity of opinions within the relevant
agencies. Rather than relying on one voice from each organization, the study
would have been strengthened had Gibson-Wood and Wakefield sought multiple
participants from each agency, preferably inclusive of various kinds of actors,
from directors to volunteers.
Taking into account the financial and
temporal constraints placed on both the scholars and the activists involved,
perhaps group-based interviews (akin to focus groups), would have been
fruitful. Indeed, conversing simultaneously with various people from each
organization may have yielded interesting insight into possible divergences in
how different actors define, approach, and act on environmental issues, based
on what kind of activities they engage in—managerial paperwork, door-to-door
awareness raising/recruitment, or maybe both? In so doing, there may have been more
potential for the co-production of knowledge that could prove useful to activists.
If the authors preferred to stick with their chosen methodology, then it would
have been useful had they better defined who
was speaking for each organization: a leader or an on-the-ground worker. It is
important to note whether “the executive director of NGO A said…” or “a
volunteer at NGO B said…” On the other hand, the researchers may have been
trying to prevent the respondents from being identified, in which case I
understand their decisions to withhold information about one’s position in an
organization. As Gibson-Wood and Wakefield go on to say later in the article,
“future research interviewing members of the Hispanic population themselves
could provide further insight on the lived experience of that community” (657).
Insofar as methods are the means by
which answers to questions are developed and linked to theory, I find Gibson-Wood
and Wakefield’s methodological approach largely successful. Their use of
interviews sheds light on the research questions they pose (p. 643), which are:
1) How do organizations offering environmental programming in Toronto’s
Hispanic community “view environmental issues, environmentalism(s), and
environmentalists, and what can this tell us about participation (or lack
thereof) in environmental action/decision-making in the population that they
serve”? 2) “What is distinctive about the Hispanic experience in Toronto and in
Canada, and what implications might this have for Hispanic environmental
activism here”?
Through their research, the authors
identify four “mechanisms of exclusion.” First, participation in environmental
activism is limited by the economic marginalization of many Hispanics in Toronto.
One woman who works at a community health center that serves mostly recent
immigrants described the situation faced by her patients with regards to
environmental hazards in the workplace. As she explained, undocumented
immigrants face an especially precarious situation that increases environmental
health risks (such as exposure to chemicals for workers employed in cleaning
and construction) yet renders it dangerous to challenge systemic inequality and
discrimination (650-651). Thus, when considering the broader structural context
and underlying systems of power that produce and reinforce economic
marginalization, it is understandable why concern for environmental issues is
not seen as a priority for those who are struggling to meet more pressing needs.
Second, the dominant avenues of
participation presented by environmental (N)GOs were seen as limiting broader
participation in environmental activism by Hispanics in Toronto. Interviewees
pointed out a lack of attention to economic and educational inequality implicit
in the communication strategies of (N)GOs, for example assumptions made about
computer literacy and internet access (652). Based on a response from an
interviewee, Gibson-Wood and Wakefield write that “formalized approaches to
participation can be disempowering” in that “particular (raced and classed)
views of what participation ‘should’ look like” disregard resources (including
language) required to participate,
limiting the responsiveness of certain (N)GO actions with respect to the
intended population (652).
On the other hand, “participants
identified the environmental activities and approaches to engagement being
promoted by their own organizations as different from those run through other
organizations, sometimes in subtle and sometimes in fundamental ways”
(652-653). For example, representatives from community gardens and cycling
programs stressed that their initiatives go beyond narrowly defined
environmental issues to consider such topics as health and migration, whereas
the government in Toronto and Canada more broadly tended to treat environmental
and social as separate.
This is related to the third factor
limiting the environmental activism of Toronto’s Hispanic population, which is
a narrow definition of ‘environmentalism’ and “what ‘counts’ as environmental
action” (654). The framing of solutions to environmental problems as
technological or altering individual consumption practices tended to render the
environmental knowledge of immigrants as less important (654). Even though more
‘mainstream’ environmental actions “were described as less relevant or
accessible,” they “still had an important place in defining what environmental
action is” (655).
The last “mechanism of exclusion,” is
the perceived whiteness of environmentalism, which is clearly related to
economic marginalization. A woman who found it difficult to promote interest in
environmental programs at her community center said that she thinks “it has a
lot to do with people caring a lot more about raising awareness for non-status,
and women’s rights, and union workers, than about environment…It’s a very
Canadian, white thing to care about, honestly” (656). Other respondents pointed
out the “discussion of ‘whiteness’ and environmentalism within the context of
the Hispanic population itself, and the relationship between ‘whiteness’ and
immigration status” (656). One interviewee referred specifically to what he
sees as Chileans and Argentinians closeness to Europe rather than Latin
America. While his comment is a glaring generalization, Gibson-Wood and
Wakefield do refer to the concept of “environmental racialization” with regard
to environmental injustice in Canada. They argue that it “addresses the fluid,
contextual nature of racial meaning in Canada, highlighted in our case study by
differing levels of perceived inclusion/exclusion from Canadian
environmentalism based on country of origin, immigration status, and
“whiteness” across what might otherwise be considered one racial
group/community” (658).
One general criticism that I have of the
article is that despite sometimes problematizing the tendency to view the
Hispanic population in Toronto as one homogenous group, Gibson-Wood and
Wakefield seem to do it themselves quite frequently, with constant references
to the Hispanic community. Overall, though,
this is a mostly effective study from my perspective, and it provides a good
example of the successful use of interviews to answer research questions.
Study
3: Hodkinson (2010) “Housing
Regeneration and the Private Finance Initiative in England: Unstitching the Neoliberal
Urban Straitjacket”
In
his investigation of the private finance
initiative (PFI), the Labour government’s key public-private partnership
strategy for inner-city regeneration (read: gentrification), Stuart Hodkinson
intervenes in the ongoing debate regarding ideal-type versus contingent
neoliberalism and what Gibson-Graham calls “strong” versus “weak” theory. Based
on a case study of a proposed plan for inner city regeneration through a PFI in
the northern English city of Leeds, Hodkinson argues that through the lens of
“strong theory,” the PFI “fits the role of an ideal-type neoliberal
straitjacket,” but that viewed through the lens of “weak theory,” the
structural contradictions of the PFI scheme make it possible for activists to
unstitch the neoliberal urban straightjacket (360).
Hodkinson
explains that this project—which began in 2005 as part of an initial 2-year
study funded by the British Economic and Social Research Council looking into
self-organized, anti-capitalist activism at the grassroots level in the UK—“was
undertaken in the more collaborative and spontaneous vein of participatory
action research that places people at the active centre of research agendas,
and was specifically influenced by traditions of ‘research militancy’ found in
Argentinian and Italian autonomist struggles” (368). A PFI housing scheme
seeking to open up council housing (the British equivalent to public housing)
to increased private ownership and market forces threatened to demolish existing
council housing to make land available for private residential development. Tenants
opposed these proposals that had the potential to displace hundreds of people.
Hodkinson’s engagement started when a local community worker on the Little
London council housing estate in Leeds requested support for the group. As
Hodkinson puts it in his methodological reflection:
Given the proximity of the neighborhood to the university and the
surrounding ‘studentification’ that was a factor behind regeneration, I felt a
degree of ‘academic responsibility’ to act and defend what Chester Hartman has
called people’s ‘right to stay put’, especially given the enormous human damage
wrought by displacement. The research has thus followed a long lineage of
scholar activism in geography and beyond that values politically engaged
research (368).
His role was to support the official
tenants association, the Little London Tenants and Residents Association
(LLTRA), by “co-producing processes and outputs relevant to formulating and
achieving these local activists’ aims” (368-369). Activities undertaken by
Hodkinson were: facilitating and recording minutes at campaign strategy
meetings; helping tenants challenge the local authority’s misleading
information; co-writing press releases; audio and film recording official
meetings and consultation processes; organizing training and advice sessions;
and more conventional academic research about the use of the PFI in housing
regeneration policy through “interviews with elected councilors, housing
officers, and the two bodies separately employed as the Independent Tenants’
Adviser” (369). A great deal of mutual respect and trust seems to have been
fostered throughout this two-year collaboration between Hodkinson and the
LLTRA, culminating in his formal appointment as their ‘community advisor’.
Hodkinson was asked to write about “the tenants’ experience of the regeneration
scheme and accompanying consultation process as the basis of an official complaint
against Leeds City Council to the local government ombudsman” (369). He relied
on the LLTRA’s archives of minutes and documents, individual interviews, focus
group-style discussions, conversations with local residents, film footage of
public meetings, in-depth analysis of government policy documents and local
authority reports (369). The amount of attention dedicated to explaining the
methodology is highly appreciated, since it does not always seem to happen,
perhaps due to journal requirements, a tendency to take methods for granted, or
maybe both.
Hodkinson skillfully blends
information gleaned from policy documents and interviews with elected
councilors and housing officers to shed light on how the PFI housing
regeneration model adheres to the principles of neoliberal urbanism explained
earlier in the literature review. For instance he portrays how councilors and
officers blame the lack of “market forces in the ‘sprawling mono-tenure council
estates’ that breed a ‘mono-culture’ of crime and welfare dependency,” and seek
solutions in the transformation of public housing into private residential
development via public-private partnerships (370). In addition, he does a great
job of utilizing the insights of the LLTRA. He conveys how intelligent and politically
aware the tenants are when they explain the PFI as “a form of backdoor
privatisation that would raise rents and mean service cuts” (371).
The details that emerge from the
case of the PFI in Leeds and the insights of the affected tenants support the
so-called strong theory of neoliberalism as an anti-democratic ‘roll-back’ and
‘roll-out’ program of restoring capitalist class power through ‘lock-in’
processes of ‘creative destruction’ and ‘accumulation by dispossession.’ This ‘strong’
theorization of the PFI as a “neoliberal straightjacket” is supported by comments
from those interviewed. It almost undermines Hodkinson’s argument that a ‘weak’
theorization of the PFI suggests that its “power to neoliberalise space and
place is inherently precarious due to its highly complex private financing
model” (360). However, through an analysis of how “tenants’ everyday activism
has played a major role in repeatedly forcing back the PFI timetable” (as of
October 2010, the scheme was scheduled to begin in summer 2011, 7 years later
than initially expected), Hodkinson makes a good argument that exposing the
inherent contingency and instability of neoliberalization may be more
empowering than the ‘strong’ explanations, which are characterized as
disempowering. While I am generally sympathetic to Hodkinson’s argument, it
seems that some of the distinctions between “strong” and “weak” theories of
neoliberalism may be overstated. I do not think that describing the PFI as an
anti-democratic attempt to accumulate by dispossession through creative
destruction necessarily reinforces the hegemonic capitalist order, as
Gibson-Graham argue such “strong” versions do. Pointing out its unjust nature
from a “strong” lens can help expose contradictions that create opportunities
for resistance, as the “weak” theory attempts to do. Overall, I found this
well-executed paper’s case study to be a good one with which to engage the aforementioned
debates. The author employed a very interesting methodology that scholar-activists
might try to emulate.
Study 4: Staeheli and Mitchell (2007)
“Locating the public in research and practice”
The objective of Lynn Staeheli and
Don Mitchell’s article is to bring clarity to the increasingly complicated
discussions of the public and public space by “examining where participants in
public space debates ‘locate’ the public—those spheres or realms where
participants believe a public is constituted and where public interest is
found” (792). In order to do so, they conducted interviews with 25 scholars
actively involved in research concerning public space and 63 participants in
public space controversies in five U.S. cities, comparing these conceptualizations
to the geographic literature on the topic.
To begin, the literature review
consisted of a systematic exploration of the Anglophone, geographic literature
published between 1945 and 1998. Staeheli and Mitchell identified 218 articles,
book chapters, and books that focused on public space and that were either
written by a geographer or published in a geographic journal or book.
Definitions of public space, theoretical orientations, empirical foci, and data
and methods were evaluated in each article (794). In the literature, Staeheli
and Mitchell found a variety of definitions of public space, as well as a
variety of reasons describing why public space is important. They determined
both the range and frequency of public space definitions and reasons for
importance, while stating that multiple options were possible since the
potential definitions and reasons for importance are not mutually exclusive.
Public space was defined most frequently by its physical characteristics, as
well as its nature as a place of interaction and/or contestation. It was seen
as important for social function and democratic politics (797-798). This
impression was verified through a K-means cluster analysis, from which two
clusters emerged. 141 articles were included in the first cluster, which
depicted public space as a meeting place characterized by a lack of individual
control, important for socialization and identity formation through recreation
and casual interactions (798). 74 articles were included in the second cluster,
which depicted public space as a meeting place characterized by: negotiation and
conflict; accessibility and surveillance; the sharing of ideas; and public
ownership, important as “a location for democracy, politics, and social
movements” (799).
Next, Staeheli and Mitchell contacted
all of the authors of those pieces who have a PhD and who were working in the
USA during the interview period. They conducted interviews with the “authors
still living, willing, and able to participate,” totaling 25 interviews with
academic geographers (794). Two questions arise for me. First, assuming that
Staeheli and Mitchell were willing to evaluate the writing of non-PhD holding
academics in their review of the literature, why was the possession of a PhD
then used as a discriminatory factor in contacting potential interviewees?
Though this may not have been terribly consequential, it seems like an
unnecessary, self-imposed requirement that may have limited the range of
scholarly opinion on the topic. Second, what prevented Staeheli and Mitchell
from conducting phone interviews with authors not living in the USA? It seems
like this would have resulted in an increased amount of overlap between the
academic literature and the scholarly interviews, though I understand if
funding and time constraints precluded more interviews with geographers from
taking place.
Staeheli and Mitchell asked the
interviewees to define public space and talk about its importance as a way to
understand how they define ‘the public’. They found that there are nuances
“between how geographers write about
public space and how they articulate
their interest in and knowledge of it” (799). In the interviews, there was a
reduction in definitions that emphasized physical space (from 37% in the
literature to 8%) and as a site of contestation (from 23% in the literature to
8%), with the stress then placed on public space as a place for interaction
that lacks individual control (799). Participating in democratic action
remained the most important element of public space, while identity formation
and community building/social cohesion increased in importance during the
interviews. Functions like walking, gathering, and socializing were downplayed
in the interviews (799).
To better “understand both the
nature of public space controversies and specific actors’ roles in them,”
Staeheli and Mitchell also conducted interviews in spring 2001 with “government
officials, activists, business owners or managers, social service providers,
planners, and others” in five U.S. cities: San Diego, California; New York
City; Syracuse, New York; Washington, D.C.; and Santa Fe, New Mexico (794). The
focus in each city was different, from downtown redevelopment and homelessness
in San Diego, to community gardens in NYC, to disputes surrounding public
financing for the reconstruction of a shopping mall in Syracuse, to protests and
parades in D.C., to changes to the Plaza in Santa Fe (794). In all of the
interviews, though, Staeheli and Mitchell “sought to elicit how people framed
or defined public space and whether and why they thought it was important…to
understand how they conceived of ‘the public’” (794).
Staeheli and Mitchell identified the
public space controversy interviewees through newspaper searches and snowball
strategies. They concede that this makes it unlikely that the sample is
representative of “how the public as a whole conceptualizes publicity and
public space,” though that may be a truly representative sample may be a
near-impossibility in this case anyway. However, given the focus on five
different public space struggles, their interviews “included a range of people
from planners to activists, from business leaders to architects, and from
police to interested lay people,” which gives “an idea of the range of
conceptualizations” (801). Staeheli and Mitchell explain that the results
reflect the fact that they were addressing very different kinds of issues in
the five cities and that how people understand publicity is contingent on
historical and geographical context, as alluded to in interviews with
academics. Furthermore, since there were unequal numbers of people interviewed
from each case study, “direct comparisons are rather difficult, although they
do provide a rough indication of the importance of particular definitions and
meanings in each of the controversies” (804). Amongst the public space
interviewees, the most common way to define public space was in terms of
ownership (24%), while 13% referred to public space as “a space made through
the sweat equity of the public, a definition that did not appear at all in the
other two sources,” and zero respondents mentioned a lack of control, though
this was a key among many geographers (804). The site interviewees tended to
discuss the importance of public space more strongly in terms of community,
whereas academics stressed democracy, although both sets of respondents and the
literature emphasized the social nature of public space (804).
Staeheli and Mitchell highlight the significant
differences among the five case studies, which are interesting because they
reveal the importance of context. In New York City and Santa Fe, public space
was considered important to community, and also to politics in NYC. However, in
San Diego and Syracuse, more importance was placed on economic development. The
presence of homeless people was seen by some as threatening to community,
rendering private spaces more conducive to socialization and the formation of a
public because those deemed potentially disruptive could be excluded. In D.C.,
“public space was where democratic freedoms were exercised—and sometimes
tested,” though the emphasis was on individual rights and political economy was
not mentioned (805-806). A potential methodological question mark arose when
Staeheli and Mitchell talked with people from San Diego. Because they “were
interested in whether homeless people were perceived to be, or able to act as,
part of the public,” they “did not ask people about their definitions of public
space, although some people did define it without out asking” (805). At first I
thought it was methodologically suspect to not ask the same questions at each
site in order to make comparisons. However, on second thought, and given that
Staeheli and Mitchell have stressed the importance of historical and
geographical context to the ways in which ‘the public’ is conceived, I think it
was acceptable for them to adjust their emphasis in the interviews. The point
was not to make direct comparisons but to understand how and why different
conceptions of public space matter.
Conclusion
Bridi’s sound methodology of interviewing
class foes allowed him to make convincing arguments. His juxtaposition of
quotations from actors with conflicting economic interests provided insight
into the exploitative nature of capitalist social relations, while revealing
how repression is exacerbated by the vulnerability of migrant workers enrolled
in temporary international labor arrangements such as Canada’s Seasonal
Agricultural Workers Program. The inability of migrant workers in Ontario to
organize and even raise complaints for fear of termination and deportation back
to Mexico or Jamaica benefits tobacco farm owners and sheds light on the
relationship between the global inequality fueling migration and regimes of
labor control.
Gibson-Wood and Wakefield’s interviews
with representatives of organizations working with the Hispanic population in
Toronto on environmental initiatives helped them identify four interrelated
“mechanisms of exclusion” that limit environmental activism in Toronto’s
Hispanic population: economic marginalization; potentially inaccessible forms
of participation; narrow definitions of ‘environmentalism’; and the perceived
whiteness of ‘environmentalists’. If it were possible, speaking with a broader
range of representatives from these organizations could strengthen the
methodology and may even facilitate the co-production of knowledge emphasized
in Hodkinson’s participatory approach, which also included interviews.
Hodkinson’s engagement with the Little
London Tenants and Residents Association permitted him to argue for the
importance of a “weak” theorization of neoliberalism that draws attention to
“the role of human agency in creating delays and thus increasing bargaining
power” with regard to the private finance initiative scheme to regenerate
inner-city housing (377). His quotations of elected officials (both through
interviews and policy document analysis) reveal the pervasiveness of an ideology
that emphasizes the sanctity of market forces and condemns undesirable
individuals, while his quotations of affected tenants shed light on what they
rightly describe as a deliberate attempt to replace the existing population
with more affluent property owners via an undercover privatization scheme. The
dispossession inherent in this ‘revanchist’ form of gentrification matches
“strong” theories of neoliberalism. That the everyday activism of the tenants
has delayed the vicious proposal suggests to me the need to reevaluate the
distinctions between “weak” and “strong” theorizing. It seems that the “strong”
theorists also point out contradictions in order to highlight opportunities for
opposition, thus avoiding the charges of the “weak” theorists that they are
disempowering. Methodologically, this study was very interesting and well-done
in my opinion. That it responds constructively to an ongoing theoretical debate
is an additional strength.
Staeheli and Mitchell employ a
productive mix of qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (categorizing
definitions via a K-means cluster analysis) methods. Their attempt to come to
grips with how academic and non-academic thinking about the public and public
space converge and diverge is welcome. Unlike the other studies, Mitchell and
Staeheli do not directly quote their respondents. This would seem strange if
not for the fact that they frequently cite their other articles related to
public space, which suggests that a more direct engagement with the responses
of interviewees may be found there. I find this completely understandable,
since the point of this article is to categorize a variety of
conceptualizations of the definition and importance of public space in order to
bring clarity to the discussion. It is extremely thorough and very well-done from
my perspective.
These four studies reveal the numerous
purposes for which the method of interviewing can be used, from Hodkinson’s
participatory action research to Staeheli and Mitchell’s taxonomical exercise,
and there are more possibilities, too. Given the diversity of the issues
explored in the articles reviewed here, it may be a stretch to declare what
they share, but I will try: what these methodologies have in common is that
interviews (whether with powerful actors, marginalized ones, or both) reveal inequalities
and power asymmetries. In so doing, the articles attempt to contribute, to
varying degrees, to finding ways to subvert oppressive social relations so as
to make possible to construction of more just, equitable, and democratic
spaces, from Ontario’s tobacco farms, to Toronto’s environmental justice
organizations, to Leeds public housing, to ‘public space’ across the U.S. This
may be too broad a conclusion, since not all of the authors were as explicit as
Hodkinson in articulating from where alternatives might spring. Nevertheless,
normative claims were implicit in the other articles. From these studies, I
found that the method of interviewing in general (and conversing with opposing
actors in particular) seems to be a fruitful way to unravel class struggles and
the role that race and space play in those conflicts.
Works Cited
Bridi, Robert (2013) “Labour Control in
the Tobacco Agro-spaces: Migrant Agricultural
Workers in
South-Western Ontario” Antipode 45.5:
1070-1089
Gibson-Wood,
Hilary and Sarah Wakefield (2012) “‘Participation,’ White Privilege and
Environmental Justice: Understanding
Environmentalism Among Hispanics in Toronto” Antipode 45.3: 641-662
Hodkinson,
Stuart (2010) “Housing Regeneration and the Private Finance Initiative in
England:
Unstitching the Neoliberal Urban Straitjacket” Antipode 43.2: 358-383
Staeheli, Lynn and Don Mitchell (2007) “Locating
the public in research and practice” Progress
in Human Geography 31.6: 792-811
