Cambios de expresión en genes marcadores de defensa en tomate

3.6 Research procedure

The following section will outline the research procedure carried out for this project.

Outlining the process of the integrated methodological approach utilised for this study.

3.6.1 Walking ethnography

The researcher made six visits to the Olympic Park, the surrounding areas such as Hackney and Stratford, and spent one to two hours a time exploring, feeling, and sensing this space. The visits were spread over six months between September 2017 and February 2018 and were conducted within varied circumstances: weekends and weekdays, in the daytime and at night time and in Autumn and in Winter. For the context that is being analysed to be understood effectively, the ethnographic researcher must visit during different situations to establish a representative snapshot of the space in question (Legat 2008). The researcher took field notes as the space was explored, writing down the feelings and experiences that were evoked as certain aspects of the urban context became apparent. These notes, coupled with photographic images taken of this urban space, converge to create a set of documents which allow different types of multi-sensory and multi-modal experiences to be (re)presented and analysed (Pink 2008b). By undertaking this walking ethnographic practice, the researcher could familiarise and integrate oneself into the context being investigated: helping to engender a greater cognizance of the structural process occurring within this space and adequately preparing the researcher for greater interpretation of the subjective participants experiences and meanings (Lee and Ingold 2006; Evans and Jones 2011).

3.6.2 Adapted Photovoice (‘Instavoice’ logistics)

By using the ESRC guidelines (Figure 1) on ethical research in social media as a foundation and building on studies that have used Instagram to elucidate thought through photos (Yi-Frazier et al. 2015; Creighton et al. 2017; Utekhin 2017; Toscano 2017): the logistics for the ‘Instavoice’ method were developed. The procedure began

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with creating a private Instagram account for the project named: 2012oulp. Once the relevant consent forms were signed and collected, the participants were given the login username and password to the account and asked to upload one image a week for six weeks. The participants were invited to upload photos that they felt represented their everyday interactions or experiences with the QEOP and surrounding spaces and asked to provide an excerpt of text that explained this interaction further. The participants were reminded that during any time of the study, they could withdraw their consent or limit the use of the posts they made. The participants were made aware that they could inform the researcher at any time which photos they wanted removed from the project account. Moreover, the participants, after the six-week data collection phase, were invited to revisit their consent and address any issues or concerns they may have. They were reminded that full anonymity would be upheld throughout the project and publication of the collated posts would not disclose names/identities of participants.

3.6.3 Qualitative interviews

The interviews were held in a venue of the participants choosing. These ranged from local cafés to staff rooms and allowed for a relaxed and informal atmosphere to be established. This was key when conducting the interview, as the participants felt comfortable in this space and allowed for a more natural conversation to flow.

Participants were reminded of their consent for the photos and asked if they would like to withdraw any images from publication in this thesis. The participants were given the Phase Two Information Sheet (see Appendix 4) and Phase Two Participant Agreement Form (see Appendix 5) a week in advance and asked to read, sign and return at the beginning of the interview. The researcher then read out the interview introduction and then continued with the interview. The questions asked can be seen in the interview schedule (see Appendix 6) and were produced to adequately engender deep insightful meaning about the research context, and while there was a structure to these questions, if an interviewee gave an answer that prompted the researcher to deviate slightly from the interview schedule, that was acted upon. The interview was recorded by the researcher and then uploaded and saved onto the researcher’s personal, password protected hard drive and once fully transcribed, deleted from all devices. All interviewees were asked prior to the interview whether they were happy to be audio recorded and were also reminded via the Participant Information Sheet and were able

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to sign their consent to this on the Participant Agreement Form. The interviews were then transcribed for analysis by the researcher, with all transcriptions saved on the same secure, password protected hard drive.

Although interviews can be costly to undertake and time-consuming, they can provide rich, in-depth accounts of the experiences and meanings ascribed by the subjective participants and allow the interviewer to provide questioning and prompts that can allow participants to naturally describe their experiences in greater detail. By facilitating a more informal, conversational style to the interview, it permitted greater fluidity within the interview process. It is vital to be open minded within the interview at all times and to ensure that the interviewer is neither critical nor judgemental of the interviewee’s responses. Moreover, this interview method allowed the researcher to draw upon what had previously been discussed if they felt it was relevant at a later point within the interview. It was integral to utilise descriptive questioning that focused on the “how?” and the “what?” and most importantly, the “why?” questions to engender deeper responses and insights into the inquiry at hand (Turner 2010).

Questions that were clear, concise and simple were important when trying to engender insightful data, as it was important that the questions focused on single points and steered clear of complicating the questioning process with double questions. Both the walking ethnography and the literature review provided the researcher with a more than adequate level of knowledge of the context being discussed, which thus allowed appropriate and in-depth questions to be asked in response to participant answers.

By using photo-elicitation methods within the interview process, an interview environment was promoted which was conducive to longer, insightful interviews that enhanced the memory recollection of the participants, stimulating new thoughts and offered a unique way to understand and interpret lived experience in both the past and present (Liebenberg 2009; Matteucci 2013). As mentioned in previous sections within this chapter, this research acknowledges a relationship between the researcher and the participant and was necessary to sufficiently interpret meaning from participant images and reflection of experiences.

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