Publications

Excerpt The primary focus of this volume is on the use of spatial technologies in urban hazard and disaster issues, concentrating on their use in four stages in the disaster management process: response, recovery, preparation, and mitigation. … the editors of this volume have provided an extremely useful addition to the literature in this area…

In this paper we present a multi-dimensional analysis of the closure of Woolworths in Wales and the way in which the loss of this familiar high-street brand can be accounted for at a number of levels and within different social arenas. Primarily, the paper demonstrates how Woolworths is positioned as a symbol of a previous…

This paper reports on an ethnographic study to explore the experience of dignity in the acute care of older people in four acute NHS trusts. It explores the prevalent view that acute care is not the right place for older people and the failure to acknowledge that the largest group of users are the very…

A multilevel analysis of cross-sectional data from a survey involving 1941 pupils (in grades 10 and 11) and policy indicators developed from interviews with staff from 45 secondary schools in Wales examined the hypotheses that pupil smoking prevalence would be associated with: restrictive staff and pupil smoking policies; dissemination of school smoking policies; and implementation of smoking…

The local economy relies on a division of labour that develops highly specialized skills. In searching for an understanding of the growing work gap within the United Kingdom, emphasis is placed on recessions that connect to loss and redundancy of physical and human capital. High levels of regional unemployment following deindustrialization convert into high levels…

The contrast between the Welsh Assembly Government’s stance on higher education tuition fees and that of the UK government hit the headlines recently. But Gareth Rees, Director of the Wales Institute for Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD), questions whether currently devolved powers are sufficiently robust to sustain this distinctive Welsh policy.

In this short paper we take issue with some recent developments in the design and application of qualitative research which, to our mind, are indicative of a reductionist tendency. As discussed previously (Atkinson, Delamont, and Housley, 2009 Housley and Smith, Forthcoming), ‘qualitative methods’ are increasingly deployed across disciplinary boundaries and are to be found in…

In this issue of Qualitative Researcher we return to questions of innovation within qualitative research practice. Readers will be aware of the many recent calls to methodological development and innovation across the social sciences. These have stemmed partly from the external environments within which and against which social scientific research is situated. There are increasing…

Qualitative mobile methods are heralded as innovative ways to involve participants, disrupting the power dynamics of the static interview and allowing the production of a co-constructed knowledge, between the researcher, the participant and the landscape. Much of this practice is informed by an understanding of place as something fluid, mutually produced and constructed. Previously we…

Whether they capture the still or moving image, visual methods are the oldest new methods in qualitative research. Anthropologists from Malinowski (1929) onwards have included photographs in field reports, and in later decades made films about different cultures (Ball and Smith 1992). Sociologists trained in symbolic interactionism such as Howard Becker (1974) and Doug Harper…