2:15 PM - 2:30 PM
[HTT14-03] Geo-phenomenology: A Qualitative GIS Approach for Understanding People’s Lived Experiences
★Invited Papers
Keywords:phenomenological analysis, qualitative data analysis, exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA), qualitative GIS
Ⅰ. Introduction
Although geographic information systems (GIS) were used worldwide, there has been remarkably little debate about an applicability to understanding qualitative aspects of geographical phenomena. The aim of this study is to contribute methodological advances in GIS at the intersection of quantitative methods and qualitative analysis. The approach to GIS-based phenomenology developed in this study, called "Geo-phenomenology," is based on the integration of spatial analysis and interpretation to understand participants' lived experiences. The three central elements of this approach are (1) go-along interviews to obtain the lived experiences of participants; (2) spatial analysis and exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) in GIS; (3) interpretative phenomenological analysis as a qualitative approach. A case study of the commuting route of a female graduate student, Ms. J, attending a national university in Japan, is used to illustrate the approach.
Ⅱ. Research Method
Ms. J was asked to speak spontaneously about her memories and impressions on the way to school. The semi-structured interview is known as an appropriate method for interpretative phenomenological analysis because the participants narrate their experiences from their perspective. The survey was conducted over two consecutive days. On the first day, an overview of the survey was given, and we conducted the go-along interview from her school building to her house in the evening. The second day's survey was conducted in the morning, and the go-along interview was conducted from Ms. J's home to her school building along the same route as last night. During go-along interviews, the GPS (10-second intervals) and voice recorder were used.
Ⅲ. Results and Discussion
Combing the obtained narratives with locational information, Ms. J’s lived experiences could be visualized spatially and temporally. From the quantitative point of view, the number of words was interpreted for where she was interacting with locations. Conversely, what content of narratives changed where was shown by ESDA in the qualitative perspective. Removing previous geographic knowledge and preconceptions (i.e., Epoché), the relationship between J's narratives and the environment on the way to school was analyzed. As a result, the number of words was highly distributed around the waterfront and the park. Focusing on the content in narratives, Ms. J recognized the area around the university as a rich natural environment. Moreover, an overall discussion of Ms. J's responses, the central theme of her experiences on the commuting route was closely related to youth. Geo-phenomenology makes it possible to find spatiotemporal patterns and rules of his (her) world regarding the way he (she) interacts with the various facilities, natural environments, people, and places. In addition, the method of this approach allows various spatiotemporal analyses because the narrative data is directly combined with the attribute table of the vector data. This is one of contributes that the development of analytical methods for qualitative GIS that is relying on visualization. Previous GIS research has been dominated by objective analysis using large amounts of data. In contrast, geo-phenomenology proves that using GIS is also useful even when the sample size is N=1.
Although geographic information systems (GIS) were used worldwide, there has been remarkably little debate about an applicability to understanding qualitative aspects of geographical phenomena. The aim of this study is to contribute methodological advances in GIS at the intersection of quantitative methods and qualitative analysis. The approach to GIS-based phenomenology developed in this study, called "Geo-phenomenology," is based on the integration of spatial analysis and interpretation to understand participants' lived experiences. The three central elements of this approach are (1) go-along interviews to obtain the lived experiences of participants; (2) spatial analysis and exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) in GIS; (3) interpretative phenomenological analysis as a qualitative approach. A case study of the commuting route of a female graduate student, Ms. J, attending a national university in Japan, is used to illustrate the approach.
Ⅱ. Research Method
Ms. J was asked to speak spontaneously about her memories and impressions on the way to school. The semi-structured interview is known as an appropriate method for interpretative phenomenological analysis because the participants narrate their experiences from their perspective. The survey was conducted over two consecutive days. On the first day, an overview of the survey was given, and we conducted the go-along interview from her school building to her house in the evening. The second day's survey was conducted in the morning, and the go-along interview was conducted from Ms. J's home to her school building along the same route as last night. During go-along interviews, the GPS (10-second intervals) and voice recorder were used.
Ⅲ. Results and Discussion
Combing the obtained narratives with locational information, Ms. J’s lived experiences could be visualized spatially and temporally. From the quantitative point of view, the number of words was interpreted for where she was interacting with locations. Conversely, what content of narratives changed where was shown by ESDA in the qualitative perspective. Removing previous geographic knowledge and preconceptions (i.e., Epoché), the relationship between J's narratives and the environment on the way to school was analyzed. As a result, the number of words was highly distributed around the waterfront and the park. Focusing on the content in narratives, Ms. J recognized the area around the university as a rich natural environment. Moreover, an overall discussion of Ms. J's responses, the central theme of her experiences on the commuting route was closely related to youth. Geo-phenomenology makes it possible to find spatiotemporal patterns and rules of his (her) world regarding the way he (she) interacts with the various facilities, natural environments, people, and places. In addition, the method of this approach allows various spatiotemporal analyses because the narrative data is directly combined with the attribute table of the vector data. This is one of contributes that the development of analytical methods for qualitative GIS that is relying on visualization. Previous GIS research has been dominated by objective analysis using large amounts of data. In contrast, geo-phenomenology proves that using GIS is also useful even when the sample size is N=1.