The Quest for Heartful Environments: A Qualitative Researcher's Journey

Abstract

The use of qualitative methodologies in the built environment presents many possibilities for in-depth understandings. This is critical in a world where complex layers of difference must be appreciated and sensitively accommodated in neighbourhoods, towns and cities. Nevertheless, qualitative researchers in the built environment have had to fight for the legitimacy of their approach, arguing that it is of equal significance to more traditionally accepted modes of inquiry. My article is set in this historical context. Focusing on urban planning, it relays a personal journey-that of qualitative researcher, educator and practitioner working to develop understandings of everyday expressions of difference. I discuss specific examples of qualitative research and practice in urban planning, showing how they have enhanced knowledge of contemporary people/place relationships in culturally diverse contexts. In an increasingly multicultural world where change is omnipresent, such awareness must underpin built environment policy and practice. I conclude by suggesting that people-centred environments will only be developed by researchers and practitioners working holistically and in heartful ways.

Intolerance for Noise and Disorder: Questioning the ‘Publicness’ of Auckland's Lower Queen Street

“…A variety of qualitative approaches were used, including semi-structured interviews and participant observation (cf. Thompson, 2006). Specific efforts were made to interview people who experienced and produced public spaces in divergent ways, in order to gain insight into how they conceived of the uses and accessibility of public spaces.…”

Social Constructionism and Housing Studies: A Critical Reflection

“…In this regard Sandra Harding (1991Harding ( , 1992Harding ( , 1998) is a useful example. Of course there are other feminist standpoint epistemologies on whom one could draw at this point (Alcoff & Potter, 1993), and others have contributed to an understanding of issues regarding the inclusion of excluded voices (Smith, 1987(Smith, , 1990Denzin & Lincoln, 2005;Thompson, 2006;Liamputtong, 2007). However, I have chosen to use Harding because she specifically recognises and addresses the issues of the social construction of science and its claim to neutrality which distorts the social, while not recoiling to epistemological relativism.…”