Fieldnotes and situational analysis in environmental education research: experiments in new materialism

Abstract

This article details the approach taken to a recent study in an environmental education context, with a focus on the writing and analysis of ethnographic fieldnotes. This approach drew upon aspects of new materialist theory and multi-species ethnography for the writing of fieldnotes, and Situational Analysis for their analysis. These approaches represent a ‘site of experimentation’ that arose through attempts to carry out research in a manner sensitive to new materialist theories, whilst operating within a time-bound, collaborative study. As well as highlighting potential synergies, this article also explores the constant tensions that arose when attempting to use existing qualitative research methods in combination with new materialist theories. It is not intended as a guide to conducting research in a ‘new materialist’ or ‘post-qualitative’ manner, but rather as an insight into the tensions, synergies and on-the-ground methodological struggles within this site of experimentation, and what was produced through the ‘research assemblage’ thereby created. The article aims to demonstrate the ways in which existing qualitative research methods were re-oriented through this approach, as well as the onward effects of these re-orientations on what then amounted to ‘the data’.

Keywords:

• Environmental education
• post-qualitative
• new materialisms
• ethnography
• Situational Analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Andy Ruck is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Social Sciences (Education) at the University of Stirling, Scotland. His PhD research has been connected to the Polli:Nation project - a UK-wide environmental education initiative involving young people from 260 schools in the transformation of their school grounds into pollinator friendly habitats. His research looks at the processes by which learning is produced through the practical aspects of this project, as well as young people’s own perspectives as to the “significant elements” comprising it.

Greg Mannion works as a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences (Education) at University of Stirling, Scotland. His approach to educational research brings together theory and empirical perspectives on participation and rights based education, intergenerational education, person-place relations, nature and culture. Much of his research looks at the way in which places can be important in participation and learning for children and young people alongside adults and communities. In recent projects, his research considers local and global connectivity in education, place-responsive pedagogies, and the role of place and intergenerational dialogue in pupil participation in education. https://www.stir.ac.uk/people/11039.

Notes

1 The first author, who carried out all research described here. The second author was responsible for setting up this doctoral study, and played a key role in the development of many of the ideas explored in this article.

2 Quotation marks are used here either to indicate the inherent tensions in words such as ‘data’, ‘elements’ and ‘research design’, as well as when terms are attributable to a particular author. We place problematic words in quotation marks at their first appearance, then use them without quotation marks thereafter.