Situated Research and Place
Situated research builds on the concept of place…but not place as a location, or place as confined to the local. Think of place as a gathering of processes and perspectives across space and time: all environmental issues literally take place somewhere, and this is why we must understand their various dimensions. Here is an article that explores place and how it applies to environmental issues, and here are some important dimensions represented in a mindmap.
As a start, it’s good to imagine how environmental issues unfold differently in a variety of geographical contexts…all of which contribute to any given place:
- Biological: Various biomes of the world
- Climatic: Climatic zones (which correlate strongly with biomes)
- Cultural: Predominant religions, languages, etc.
- Demographic: Areas of high or low population density
- Discursive: Constructions of place such as wilderness or wasteland
- Economic: Types of development, e.g. core/periphery/semiperiphery (though vague concepts, e.g., “developing countries,” aren’t very helpful)
- Geological: Landforms of the earth, or areas with common geomorphic processes
- Historical: How perceptions and practice in a place have changed over time
- Land Use: Forms of land use/land cover
- Political: Various characteristics possible here, e.g., form of democracy or refugee status
- Settlement Type: Forms of human settlement (again, vague terms, e.g., “urban areas,” may not be helpful)
Data, Methods, Theories, Frameworks
Situated research, or interdisciplinary environmental research building on the notion of place, involves four interrelated components: data, methods, theories, and frameworks.
- Data are the most elemental component—though arguably meaningless without the other components! Given our broad approach in ENVS, a wide range of empirical information spanning the sciences (e.g., field measurements) to humanities (e.g., archival texts) may count as relevant data.
- Methods are how one makes sense of—analyzes or interprets—data. One could imagine that methods always follow data, i.e., the data you’ve collected dictate the method you will choose. And this is certainly true, in part. But the story could also be told differently; see below.
- Theories are broad explanatory hypotheses (often assumed as true!) for how the world works: one notorious example is (neo-)Malthusianism, where human population growth is understood as the main cause of environmental problems. When a theory achieves paradigmatic status—i.e., becomes a taken-for-granted point of departure—it dictates appropriate methods and data to be invoked, such as Malthusian-inspired correlations of population growth and environmental impact over time.
- Frameworks are basic assumptions about reality: they do not so much explain reality (which a theory does) as effectively constitute reality. The framework of positivism in the social sciences, for instance, assumes that what is real is empirical, effectively limiting reality to what one can empirically measure. Theories and frameworks are often interrelated: a particular theory about reality assumes a particular framework for reality.
Whew! That was abstract. How does this apply to situated research? The bottom line is that situated research is mindful of both empirical (data/methods) and conceptual (theories/frameworks) components. Practically speaking, good situated research builds on good situated theories/frameworks (e.g., political ecology and its primarily materialist assumptions about reality), and draws upon a wide range of relevant data and methods spanning the physical and life sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and humanities.
It is common for other forms of research to be far more restricted than situated research, often because they build on settled theories/frameworks or preferred methods. In contrast, situated research is inherently more open due to its interdisciplinary nature, but this mandates that it be more empirically and conceptually sophisticated as well. Situated research is fun, but it is not easy!
Research Questions
Did you know that scholarly research is just a structured way of asking and answering questions? The same goes for situated research. There are four types of questions you’ll generally be asking:
- Descriptive (“what is going on?”)
- Explanatory (“why is it happening?”)
- Evaluative (“so what? to what extent is it a problem?”)
- Instrumental (“what can be done?”)
All four are important to environmental studies, but it’s impossible to answer evaluative and instrumental questions until we’ve thoroughly researched the more basic descriptive and explanatory questions. (Sometimes we think of them in these pairs: descriptive/explanatory vs. evaluative/instrumental.) Additionally, below you’ll see how these questions fit into the hourglass approach our students deploy as they pursue situated research.
For all four types of questions, here are some things to avoid, with examples of problematic questions:
- Questions with Big Words: “How can we make cities more sustainable?”
- Questions that rest on unquestioned assumptions—essentially, questions that aren’t questions: “How do bioswales play a major role in solving problems of urban runoff?”
- “Trojan horse” questions, with the real question inside another question: “What are the benefits of eating locally?”—ostensibly a descriptive question, but with an important evaluative question inside it: “Is eating locally a good or a bad thing, and for whom?”
Hourglass Approach
Situated research often proceeds via an hourglass approach, like this:
- Start with a broad environmental issue (top of the hourglass) and pose one or more general framing questions, then…
- Zoom in to a particular situated context (middle of the hourglass) and pose a focus question to guide your research, from which…
- You’ll zoom out again (bottom of the hourglass) to consider implications, followup research, etc. for your broad issue.
If all you do is discuss broad issues, that’s just the first step. If you only focus on a specific focused question, that’s just the second step. The real mark of useful scholarship is to zoom in and out like an hourglass, connecting the major environmental issues of our time to specific, researchable situated contexts.
See the Doing Situated Research overview page for an hourglass diagram and rubric. The simplest rubric would be for you to ask three questions:
- Am I starting with a broad environmental issue, as expressed via one or more significant framing questions?
- Am I exploring this broad issue via an answerable focus question in one or more situated contexts?
- Am I deriving larger implications from my answers to this focus question in this situated context, ultimately to address my framing questions?
Framing and Focus Questions
You can see that framing and focus questions anchor your situated research project in a good hourglass approach, so they become some of the most important pieces of the puzzle. The two relate in various ways: (a) sometimes a focus question is just a much more specific, situated version of the framing question; or, (b) sometimes a focus question addresses descriptive/explanatory dimensions of the more evaluative/instrumental framing question.
Below is a handy table comparing framing and focus questions:
| Characteristic | Framing Question | Focus Question |
|---|---|---|
| Conceptual/Spatial Scale | Broad | Focused |
| Situatedness | Not situated | Situated |
| Language/Style | Generally popular | Generally scholarly |
| Question Types | Often evaluative/instrumental | Often descriptive/explanatory |
| Answerability | Often too general to answer | Intentionally designed to be answerable |
Thesis Statements
When you complete your situated research, you will want to communicate it to others, in a variety of ways. All will involve summarizing your situated argument in what is generally called a thesis statement. Some good general advice on thesis statements is available here, here, and here; in the context of situated research, make sure your thesis statement does the following:
- It provides the gist of your answer to your focus question in a manner that also sheds light on your framing question. Remember from the above that focus questions are answerable, whereas larger framing questions usually are not; nonetheless, if your focus question follows from your framing question, the answer to your focus question should then offer some clarification on the framing question!
- Your thesis statement often involves both a descriptive/explanatory assertion (in relation to the focus question), and an evaluative/instrumental assertion (in relation to the framing question). (Indeed, one good resource on thesis statements mentions these as the four “types of claims.”)
A situated thesis statement thus builds on the hourglass approach by which you will do situated research. This is why it addresses both your focus and framing questions, and why it may include descriptive/explanatory and evaluative/instrumental assertions.
Some Examples
Our students have done excellent situated research, which you may consult as models for your own situated projects. One example, done by students participating in an ENVS-sponsored overseas program in 2013, involves periurban environmental health in Swaziland; see here for a publication resulting from this research.
Over the years, a number of ENVS students have completed impressive senior capstone projects applying the situated approach. Here are just a few examples, from 2015 honors theses:
- Livestock Livelihoods: Growers’ Perspectives on the Production and Marketing of Australian Wool (Katherine Jernigan ’15)
- Masdar City and the Politics of Utopian Eco-Development in the United Arab Emirates (Gabby Henrie ’15)
- Recreating the Sacred Landscape: Tourism and Pilgrimage in Himalayan Sacred Places Under the Economic, Social, and Political Conditions of Modernity (Robin Zeller ’15)
- Whiskey’s for Drinkin’, Water’s for Fightin’: Science, Politics and Dam Deconstruction in the Klamath Basin (Kelsey Kahn ’15)