I feel like Andrew's question is referring both to how I imagine I'll be conducting my study, how it might be received or perceived in the community, and what challenges or surprises I might encounter. It's a good question that will help me solidify my research focus and plan.
First I want to make a general study of the clinic's policies and function in relation to the community. Joan Dixon, the IAS 220 - International Development Professor, recommended a way to do this. Namely with The Community Capitals Framework Theory, by Cornelia Butler Flora (see below)
Sustainability in a community or organization is effected by the availability and strength of each of these "Capitals". For example, built capital for the Salvation Army Health Clinic might involve how functional, serviceable and sturdy their building is, their natural capital would involve the herbs or diseases are available/present in the area, the Human capital describes what doctors and volunteer skills are available in the community, etc. Identifying how each capital is involved and how they positively or negatively effect the sustainability of the clinic will give me a thorough description and coprehensive understanding of sustainability strengths and challenges.
Second, I want to involve the Wiamoase community opinions of the clinic's efforts. How would they measure the influence and involvment of the community on the clinic's efforts and focus? What needs does the community have? Does the clinic meet the primary needs? What challenges do they see the clinic having? What solutions would they offer to those challenges? This is a way to explore the level of participation the clinic employs and the community feels. Since this is a huge topic in Development, I want make their thoughts a focus of my study.
I'm sure that as my understanding of Development Theory and ethnographic studies, these ideas will narrow and focus, but I'm excited to study this topic in Wiamoase. I wonder if I should learn more about Salvation Army Efforts to avoid surprises and unknowns in that part of my study. I wonder who I could specifically interview to get a good sample of neighborhood opinions. Is this study too broad or am I focusing it enough? How open will people feel they can be with me about this topic? Is it something that interests them? Is it something they can see a benefit in being involved in? How will they feel when I ask them these questions? Will anything (like the influence of the clinic in the area, or the possible consequences of being open about concerns or improvements they would want to make) keep them from being open? How might studying and understanding the community politics and relationships better improve my the quality of my interviews?
I'm excited about the way this project is shaping. What are your thoughts?
Wow this is a great blog post! I got a great idea of your project and what you are up to even though I was not previously familiar with it. The image really helped, and I love how you have a streamline of questions instead of just a summary of what you read. The clinic in Ghana was one of the most interesting places I ever went to, and I am sure there is a lot of material to work with.
ReplyDeleteYou mention wondering about who to interview to get good neighborhood insights. Have you considering doing a survey? That would generate a lot of results and you could ask more people to do it through convenience sampling to maybe get a bigger picture.
Michelle, here is the url for the blog I told you about: community-capitals.blogspot.com. I haven't looked at this blog until today, but after looking at it I noticed they haven't really posted anything on it. haha. Maybe you can get on there and comment and get some discussion going with the people there. This blog was started at the end of the CCF Institute back in October. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI saw that you were also centering your project on development from the class blog list and am glad that I checked out what you had to say. The graphic and your explanation of it seemed to answer some key questions to formalizing your approach to the topic. I'll probably try and incorporate the community capitals framework into my research as I look at landscape development. Also I liked that you said community opinions about an organizations efforts are important. That's an interesting concept to explore about whether or not the people see it as a positive influence. Thanks for the post!
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