ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine the use of qualitative approaches for sense of place and health studies. The chapter is also located in the use of qualitative research and the use of qualitative methods in the social sciences and increasingly the humanities. It is also located in the academic arena, and therefore excluding, the work of journalism and social commentators in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Qualitative approaches may be dated from the early twentieth century, especially the work of Malinowski (1922) with his attempt “to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world”. This attempt to capture the world of others – despite limitations and challenges – remains central to the project of qualitative research. It remains even as qualitative researchers moved to explore and understand complex, often urban societies and frequently their own society. Begun systematically by the Chicago School of Urban Sociology in the 1920s and 1930s, these ethnographers (see Hannerz 1980) used interviews, key informants, statistics and documents to tell the stories of specific social groups. This was taken on by others to study communities or localities throughout the U.S. and Britain in the 1940s and 1950s. Later, attention would be paid to specific environments – factories, schools, and hospitals, geared towards an understanding of meanings and experiences as seen by those in such environments or situations.
