Though the focus of my thesis has not changed, what has been clarified over the past six months is the methodological approach that I wish to employ. I am interested in the pursuit of qualitative research methods, as practices that represent an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge. I am keen to produce a thesis that signifies the convergence of a number of ideological stances, that utilizes a wide range of research methods, written styles, and observational angles.
I wish to avoid writing a thesis that assumes the role of outside quantifier: I do not wish to occupy the position of colonial ethnographer, observing the habits and customs and cultural output of the Lake District, from the assumedly elevated position of expert analyst. Instead, a qualitative research model offers a conceptual framework that is gendered and multicultural, and is thus a more appropriate – and I would argue interesting – position from which to weave a written thesis that attempts to reconsider certain ‘truths’ about the landscape of the Lakes.
My earlier desire to take on a mixed-mode thesis came from my wanting to approach my work in a way that interconnected practice with research, in order to locate myself within, rather than without, the project. I am interested by how research might pull at certain hierarchies and traditions, and how it might therefore actively mimic the same themes of my thesis. I like the idea of producing work that interrogates hierarchies as much through its form as through its content. I see qualitative research strategies – weaving together a research project that refuses to privilege one methodological perspective or theory – as an exciting opportunity to borrow from a number of disparate theoretical models and practices.
Though I have dropped the ambition to unite visual illustrative practice with research, the desire to remain on the inside of the project remains steadfast. I shall employ qualitative research practices that locate and situate the researcher in the world, and am keen to utilise interpretive material practices that make this world visible. I should like to draw upon ‘a variety of empirical materials – case study; personal experience; introspection; artifacts; cultural texts and productions; observational, historical, visual and interactions texts’.
It is from this notion of interconnection and range that I came to the concept of bricolage, or assuming the role of the bricoleur. Though it is sometimes disregarded as a methodological approach which is prone to being vague and imprecise, bricoleurs come in many forms, and interpretative bricolage is a methodology that knits well with cultural studies. Qualitative research can thus be described as ‘multimethod’ in its perspective, as it chooses to incorporate a range of different voices, points of view, and political angles; and the researcher is at liberty to draw upon various research tools in her desire to make ‘the world’ of the research questions visible. But I have said little so far about the content of the project, or what I am going to look at, rather than how I am going to go about looking at it. Below, I have sketched out a rough chapter plan which details the cultural texts I wish to look at as overlapping sequence of representations of the Lakes:
1. The Lakes in television: ITV1’s The Lakes; BBC2’s One Man and His Dog; W.G Hoskins’ The Making of the English Landscape, and Landscapes of England.
In this opening chapter I am to employ the methodological tools of media and television studies to look at how work and employment is presented as an integral part of Lake District ‘life’ – and analyse the kind of narrative structures that are devised to denote the assumed ‘eternal values’ attached to vocational work in the Lakes
2. Ingrid Pollard: ethnicity in the Lakes. Also I want to us Conrad Atkinson as a case study but I’m not sure how yet
3. The difficult third chapter
4. Wainwright: I want to use this chapter to look at how Alfred Wainwright’s illustrated texts formed part of the politicized ‘opening up’ of the Lake District countryside; to examine how access to the land has changed common perceptions of the landscape; and compare his hand-drawn illustrations to other visual depictions of the landscape, such as maps, photographic guides and walking handbook.
5. Railway posters, adverts and packaging in the Lake District: I wish this chapter to focus upon how the Lake District figured in poster art, advertising literature and commercial packaging. This is where I'd like to talk about the picturesque tradition, and how that has informed our understanding of the efficient representation of the landscape.
6. Political rhetoric: Using close textual analysis, I want to focus on how the Lake District has been used within speeches by a number of political figures including Thatcher, Chamberlain, Baldwin, Atlee, Nick Griffin and John Prescott. I'd like this chapter to look at the overlapping rhetorical tropes of these speeches and in an attempt to locate a ‘common parlance’ that exists within political representations of the Lakes.
A defining aspect of qualitative research that makes it quite distinct from quantitative research is the blurring of the boundary line between traditional notions of ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ research, as such researchers see all methods as a complementary web of insight and knowledge. Qualitative approaches encourage writing that draws upon observation and participation, and sees such writing as articulating a liberal and feminist ideological underpinning. I am therefore keen to visit the Lake District and undertake participatory research methods such as interview, case study, visual practice, written observation, anecdote and personal account. I shall re-visit the Lakes and take photographs and produce my own visual practice, but this work is not to be exhibited as part of my PhD assessment.
To conclude, this project will call attention to the value-laden nature of academic enquiry, by focusing on rupture, overlap, intersection and coincidence of Lake District representation, rather than the ‘grand narratives of the aloof observer’ .
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