METHODOLOGY

Research Design

The research layout consisted of two focus group sessions with eight participants, all of whom live and study in Newcastle. The sessions were conducted using three phases to support the structure of the discussions. Phase 1: Participants were asked to offer generalised comments on public urban spaces and discuss feelings of comfort or discomfort, personal behavioural habits and the different experiences in the day and at night. Phase 2: Images were presented one by one and participants were prompted to comment on initial thoughts and ideas about the image and

the space in which it was showing.

Figure 12: New Clark City

Phase 3: During this phase, the participants were encouraged to remember their feminine viewpoint and re-consider and offer any further comments on the three images.

Figure 13: Bosch Driverless Cars

Figure 14:Toronto Waterways Development

An Ethnographic Research

The act of researching as a woman and with women, is described by Joyce Nielsen as “contextual, inclusive, … involved, socially relevant,… open to the environment and inclusive of emotions and events as experience” (Nielsen, 1990, p. 6). It was important for this research with women that an inclusive and honest approach was taken in order to gain detailed and holistic responses from a demographic previously under-researched. Using an ethnographic approach enabled me, as the researcher “to start from one’s own experience” (Reinharz, 1992, p. 259) as personal understanding and experience has led to this research exploration and will continue to lead this thesis. In recognising a reflexive positioning within the research, it then became apparent that using friendship as method offered a way to research allowing for more in-depth discussions and “emotional involvement and emotional reflexivity …[to provide] a rich resource” (Owton & Allen-Collinson, 2013). Selecting friends to research with aided in determining the methodologies. Focus groups using a semi-structured interviewing style, “enables a researcher to understand how individuals think or act in social settings” (Cyr, 2019, p. 18). Research needs “to be disconnected from the researcher” (Owton & Allen-Collinson, 2013) in order to avoid the bias of personal involvement. Ethnographic research, however, allows for a change from studying “them” to studying “us” (Tillman-Healy, 2003, p. 729). For this research placing myself among the researched helped to facilitate focus group discussions without sculpting opinions. Previously, research has been dominated by thinking that “separates the scientist from the phenomenon under study” (Reinharz, 1992, p. 46). Some of the former social research of the female perspective in society has been completed by men, who are often influenced by patriarchy and the power imbalance experienced by the dominant male and the passive female. Subsequently there are concerns that in previous research the representation of females opinion have been skewed by the inability of the male researcher to remain detached from patriarchal bias.

Using friendship as an ethnographic research method eliminates the time spent “getting to know” the researched and can allow for the previously established friendship connections to create a more open, multi-voiced and emotionally rich inquiry. Similarly focus groups, while they have been criticised for creating an environment that could be considered “uncomfortable or suppressive”

Figure 15:Jane Jacobs Protesting in 1964

(Bryman, 2016, p. 518), allow for detailed iscussion of a topic, and interaction between participants can shape and balance a debate (Bryman, 2016, p. 501). In order to achieve non-biased, multi-faceted comments from a young female demographic, a focus group format with friends was a fitting approach that promoted open and detailed discussions.

Acknowledging that one’s personal experiences and values will impact the research and that “value neutrality is a myth and attempts to mitigate bias” (Lumsden, 2012, p. 5), feminist ethnographic research embraces personal involvement as a valuable asset for exploration (Reinharz, 1992, p. 258). This inquiry has been derived from personal consideration and therefore intends to offer personal reflexivity throughout the research in order to use my emotional involvement as a rich resource of detailed insight (Owton & Allen-Collinson, 2013) and enable connection between myself and the researched. Positioning myself among the inquiry challenges the power imbalance and allows natural dialogues ‘in the ebb and flow of everyday life’ (Tillman-Healy, 2003, p. 731) and offers more personal and intricate perspectives.

Using Imagery to support discussion

Figure 16:Women and Transport Visual methodologies are beginning to be recognised in ethnographic research ‘as a documenting tool, a form of interrogation’ (Pink, 2005). Recognised as ‘representations of the objective world’ (Prosser, 2005) images have ‘spanned the evolution of humankind … drawings and photographs’ (Prosser, 2005). Visualisation elicitation techniques use stimuli to open and guide conversation, a technique that “enhances participants’ ability to elaborate on their own conceptions … rather than limiting them to … theory or previous research” (Barton, 2015). Visual elicitation is a “can-opener” technique for discussion (Cederholm, 2011, p. 92) that was used in this research to connect with a group of young females living in an increasingly ‘hyper visual’ culture (Rose, 2014).

By acknowledging my subjectivity, engaging in a reflection of my personal exposure to the visualisations of future city designs through education, the following images were selected from online news and social media to use as an anchor for the focus group discussions.

The focus group format allowed for discussion to happen naturally and the three phases, including the visualisation elicitation helped to guide the discussion to create more indepth and focused responses to the research.

“Can - Opener” Images

Image 1: New Clark City I interpret this image as a typical visualisation of a future city. New Clark City is a ‘city from scratch’ (Shephard, 2019) in the Philippines. This development is “building for people” (Bracher, 2018), however the Philippines is a culture where “women [have] a more traditional outlook on gender roles” (Demanarig & Acosta, 2016) and as a result the design process may suffer from male bias.

Image 2: Bosch This image was first presented to me during a discussion about driverless cars and their impact on urban spaces. Bosch presented this image as a technology enhanced environment that one might find in a smart city future.

Image 3: Sidewalk Labs Side Walk Labs an urban design firm working on the waterfront in Toronto, is ‘reimaging cities to improve quality of life’ (Sidewalk Labs, 2020) with their use of innovative ideas focusing on “mobility, public realm, sustainability, social infrastructure and digital innovation” (Sidewalk Labs, 2019). The imagery used by Sidewalk Labs, has already been critiqued as “typically simplistic, with child-like round edges and bright colours … where people are treated like infants … cute icons of urban life” (Koolhass, 2014). As a result I was interested in including this image in the research to investigate whether the same opinion was discussed.