Geographic Interviews as a Qualitative Geographic Information Systems Method for Understanding Experiences of Place

Overview: This presentation describes how geographic interviews, an emerging geographic information systems (QGIS) method, may be employed to understand participants’ complex experiences of place. I offer a case example of how this method has been used to engage young people in a permanent supportive housing setting, and discuss potential methodological applications.Proposal text: This presentation will describe the use of geographic interviews (GI) as an emerging social work research method. Drawing upon qualitative geographic information systems (QGIS) methods more broadly, I have been developing this method to understand participants’ emotional and embodied experiences of place. This presentation will share initial learnings from the first application of this method in a permanent supportive housing (PSH) setting for young adults, and will end by charting possible future methodological applications.

Using mapping to illustrate participants’ experiences of place is a longstanding tradition within Qualitative Geographic Information Systems (QGIS) methods, yet an underutilized approach within social work research (Teixeira, 2018). GIs draw upon two well-established practices within QGIS: walking tours or “go along” interviews, and sketch mapping. “Go-along” interviews (Carpiano, 2009) are a method in which researchers walk, drive/ride, or otherwise physically travel alongside participants to understand their experiences of place. Similarly, walking tours (Clark & Emmel, 2010; Kinney, 2017) engage participants through conversation while walking to understand how they experience places like neighborhoods. Such methods tend to include opportunities for participants to lead or shape the interview experience in a participatory manner by literally leading the researcher. Sketch maps, one type of mental mapping approach in QGIS, rely on constructivist epistemological frameworks to combine cartographically accurate maps with the unique lived experiences of participants (Boschmann & Cubbon, 2014); participants’ individual and collective experiences can be overlayed upon spatially precise maps to shed light upon how places are experienced. By combining multiple QGIS methods, GIs engage participants in both embodied and emotional experiences of place; further, GIs can be used to explore both individual and collective place experiences.

I will share the context in which GIs have been employed thus far – with young adults in a permanent supportive housing (PSH) setting. In this initial application of the GI method, I aimed to understand how the PSH setting was experienced by residents. The PSH setting surveyed seeks to be a trauma-informed permanent living option for young people with histories of chronic housing instability. I interviewed young people about places in the PSH setting where they felt safe/unsafe, comfortable/uncomfortable, and connected/disconnected, and physically followed residents to these places (if participants desired). Participants also mapped these emotion-specific locations onto blueprints of the PSH space. These maps were analyzed at the individual level to highlight personal place experiences. At the composite level, cartographic trends and outliers were identified, and interviews are thematically analyzed to represent these trends and outliers, as well as “contested places” wherein emotional experiences of place vary across participants. Common spaces emerged as contested places, wherein participants felt both connected yet unsafe, urging further exploration into what may build safety in common spaces of PSH.

At CSWE, I will share the initial applications of the GI method and invite attendees into dialogue about potential applications beyond engagement with young adults in PSH. Ultimately, I aim to further develop the GI method while contributing to place-based and participatory research methods for social work education and practice broadly.