In quality the approach to collection and analysis of information is participatory, quasi-ethnographic and grounded (that is, theory development emerges from and is ‗grounded‘ in qualitative data). These qualities are useful for researching in- depth lived experiences (Elliott and Jankel-Elliott, 2002). The participatory quality is empowering, and respects and encourages input and ideas from research participants. Glass (2003) has suggested that:
If we are serious about promoting successful ageing, then we need to know more about what older people value and how they define successful ageing.
Were the suggestion by Glass adopted, researchers would become knowledgeable about the perspectives and aspirations of older people, in contrast with normative research, where others who write about and on behalf of older people can
overlook crucial sources of knowledge that are gained from working with older people, talking with them, listening to them and seeking to understand and share their perspectives (Shotter, 2004).
Consistent with a participatory approach I sought to interact with study participants sensitively, and sought to respect and value their perspectives, including by casting them as experts, by attending, listening and recording they had to say. My intention was to privilege their knowledge, while seeking to question externally imposed and objectifying concepts that have historically been used to describe their housing experiences.
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Ethnographic methods are a form of field research that seeks to analyse cultural practices and which have been used, for example, in the identification of
institutional and personal barriers to improving health outcomes for socio-
economically disadvantaged older people (in this case, homeless men) (Quine et al, 2004). Barriers have been identified as: rigidity of the health care system,
unavailable services, lack of funds to pay for services, and inadequate or no transport, denial of health problems, fear of loss of control, fear of providers‘ actions, concern about financial resources and personal feelings. The authors (Quine et al, 2004) concluded that while participants were motivated to improve their health and independence, lack of the basic requirements for healthy ageing, notably adequate incomes and housing were an impediment.
By enabling people to speak about their experiences, ethnographic methods fill the gap between policy discourses informed by population level surveys and
knowledge of the specific circumstances and the needs of vulnerable populations (Quine et al, 2004). Ethnographic methods have been used to study ageism in aged care institutions where strategies for reducing stigmatising behaviours were identified as family member advocacy, resident autonomy and awareness by administrators (Dobbs, Ekert, Rubinstein, Clark et al, 2008).
This ‗quasi-ethnographic‘ quality of the approach acknowledges that information collection was embedded in ordinary everyday situations and interactions. I collected conversational material by means of informal in-depth interviewing, which involved me entering and participating in study participants‘ lives (Rice and Ezzy, 1999). However, the approach needs to be qualified because the level of involvement and observation was time limited and did not extend to a closed in- depth study of a specific cultural group over time, within a specific geographic location.
The quasi-ethnographic quality is reflected in the fact that all interviews took place in Southern Tasmania, and that I met with the women in their own homes, where I observed their manner of living and learned about their accustomed daily
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the sharing a cup of tea or coffee and listening to their conversations about family, friends and neighbours. Some interviews provided the opportunity to meet people from the women‘s social networks. In the case of the workers, one took place in a workers‘ own home, all the others in workplaces.
My information collection was designed to ensure that the women‘s stories and perspectives were adequately represented. I delivered open-ended questions in a relaxed conversational style, in order to elicit responses from people who might have been frail and vulnerable (Russell, 1999), and unaccustomed to speaking up about issues that were important to them.
The grounded quality refers to the fact that I did not formulate hypotheses in advance: rather, my hypothesis testing and theory development was ‗grounded‘ in the process of information collection, whereby concepts and theory development emerged through a constant process of comparison and observation (Dick, 2000) leading to further questioning and exploration. The grounded quality allowed room for flexibility and responsiveness to what I uncovered.
Having identified contrasting views on ageing between policy-makers and residents, I sought to use a ‗grounding‘ approach to aid my interpretation of the findings within a wider social policy context. This led to the identification of theorising by Levitas (2003; 2001; 1998), who has argued for a genuinely critical social policy with a Utopian27 dimension. According to Levitas, Utopian theories
when applied to sociological methods can achieve insights that are: born of the marriage of empathy and reason– of the ability to see human behaviour as both individual and aggregate, to detect the pattern and logic in the web of human relationships, and even (if one is visionary and determined) to pinpoint threads that must be unpicked and rewoven to pattern society in a different way (Pedersen, 2004, quoted in Levitas, 2009).
Using critical discourse analysis, Levitas (1998) identified three typologies for social inclusion policy discourses in the United Kingdom; that she argued have
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served to reinforce policies that have reproduced the stigma and inequality that these policies have purported to redress. Levitas noted that these discourses employed flexible concepts, whose meaning depended upon their context and the assumptions of user and audience, which were frequently unclear and contested; and where narratives appeared to slide between discourses (Levitas, 2004). Levitas referred to these three typologies as redistributionist, moral underclass and social integrationist. Watt and Jacobs (2000) have successfully applied Levitas‘ three typologies to an analysis of housing policy discourses. However, while these authors (Watt and Jacobs, 2000) referred to a gender dimension that affects single mothers who are not in the workforce, they have not applied these typologies to the housing of older women.
Taking the lead from Levitas (2009; 2004; 2003), in the concluding chapter I have drawn on the findings and wider evidence base, in order to propose a vision for a new era and a new society. The vision is not Utopian in the sense of an idle dream or dangerous delusion (Levitas, 2003) that would be impossible to realise. The vision speaks of a desire to transform and transcend not just imagined places or spaces. It is an expression of an intrinsically human impulse to aspire to a better way of living; for the kind of society that researchers like me, older residents and policy professionals might like to see; consistent with the goals of sociology and the aspirations of sociological research.
What I have proposed is not intended to be a complete policy vision, nor is it intended to be a policy development exercise based on balanced arguments and a comprehensive consideration of available evidence, resources and stakeholder perspectives. Rather, the vision is my response to a sense that something important has been missing from the policy debate on population ageing and housing. Consistent with the purpose of the study and an existential
phenomenological framework, the vision introduces a largely overlooked human and experiential element to policy discourses on housing for older women, by proposing solutions to a fundamental social problem.