Applying creative ethnography in the study of deindustrialising neighbourhoods
By Alexandrina Vanke
Deindustrialisation is a global complex process. It leads not only to the closure of factories which would otherwise damage the environment but also negatively affects everyday life and job opportunities of working-class people. Deindustrialisation often goes hand in hand with neoliberal urban development resulting in gentrification and displacement of longstanding residents of former industrial neighbourhoods and council estates.
Due to the multiple impacts of deindustrialisation on the lived experiences of local communities, it is important to develop multi-sensory approaches and innovative methodologies relevant for researching place attachment, sensual experiences and urban imaginaries of people residing in post-industrial urban areas.
Illustration by Alexandrina Vanke based on ethnographic data from her research
In my study of two industrial neighbourhoods with mixed social compositions in the cities of Moscow and Yekaterinburg, Russia, I drew on the approach of multi-sited ethnography. Its research design built on a combination of the mainstream qualitative methods of interviewing, observation, participation and the creative method of drawing of the neighbourhoods studied made by research participants, also known as a mental mapping technique.
A mental map is a visualisation of the subjective perception of urban space by city dwellers. Kevin Lynch applied mental mapping in his study of the city images in the US. According to Lynch, each image of the city composed by many individual images, which share some similar visual patterns. In my research on Russia’s industrial neighbourhoods, I used mental mapping to explore structures of feeling as affective principles regulating sensual experiences, urban imaginaries and practical activities of local communities. Mental mapping was aimed to elicit how members of those communities sense and imagine their urban areas.
During the interview, I asked research participants to draw their neighbourhood on a blank A4 sheet of paper and then to explain verbally what they drew. 43 drawings of the two industrial neighbourhoods were obtained altogether. These drawings were complementary to the interview transcripts, field notes, photographs and short videos made by the researcher. As far as these data were of different types, textures and formats, it is possible to talk about their multi-sensory nature.
Needless to say, using drawings as a creative research method is not easy because such sensory data may produce some methodological problems in the analysis. Researchers often face difficulties while interpreting drawings due to variation of their elements and multiple meanings of visual images. That is why the application of drawing in research requires an elaboration of a particular analytical strategy. For example, in the study of Russia’s industrial neighbourhoods, I produced interpretations of drawings by using a three-staged analytical scheme, which was part of the complex analysis of the whole multi-sensory data set.
Visual created by artist Polina Nikitina, based on Alexandrina’s data
The study has revealed that senses and imaginaries of local communities in Russia’s industrial neighbourhoods are shaped by the co-existence (and conflicts) of multiple structures of feeling, including Soviet and post-Soviet, industrial and post-industrial, socialist and neoliberal structures. The complex analysis of the neighbourhoods’ images allowed a reconstruction of an industrial structure of feeling visualised in the drawings. Working-class and long-standing middle-class residents showed an affective attachment to place informed by an industrial structure of feeling manifesting itself in their warm feelings towards their neighbourhoods, as well as in the values of communality, mutual support and shared space. Longstanding residents perceived their places positively like home, despite the negative perception of the same areas by outsiders.
Implications for creative ethnography
When researchers apply drawings as part of creative ethnography, they should reflect carefully on the strategy of data analysis. The analysis will be more rigorous, if interpretations of drawings are contextualised by and situated within the complex analysis of the whole data set.
Apart from this, researchers can use drawings not only as sensory data but also as visual illustrations in research publications and oral presentations, which can support a textual narrative.
Article Details
Co-existing structures of feeling: Senses and imaginaries of industrial neighbourhoods
Alexandrina Vanke
First published online January 30, 2023
DOI: 10.1177/00380261221149540
The Sociological Review
Watch the video abstract here.
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