Strengthening Qualitative Research through Methodological Innovation and Integration: Applying Social Network Analysis and Ethnography to Housing Issues

University Of Southern California, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

SES-1024478 Christopher Weare Paul Lichterman Nina Eliasoph Nicole Esparza University of Southern California This project integrates ethnographic research with social network analysis to investigate how a large field of organizations define and pursue housing issues in Los Angeles. It asks: How do different organizations decide an issue is a "housing" issue or related to one? Housing issues may are broadly defined as those locale that lack resources, political power, cultural recognition or a combination of all three. At issue is how collective, problem-solving activity (civic engagement) across institutional sectors and actors respond to a public problem. Since the public problem is housing, the concerns is how voluntary, governmental or commercial organizations, coalitions, and alliances respond to this problem, even when it is not their primary focus. The researchers will investigate organizational styles that make the housing problem an agenda item in some organizations and not others. A combination of ethnographic work and network analyses are carried out over a range of organizations to track which organizations are central or peripheral in the housing field. In this way it will discover which organizational styles and ways of defining housing issues are most widely accepted. The quantitative, network data helps to orient the researchers as to which case studies to examine, ethnographically. And, ethnographic, qualitative work helps to reveal unforeseen network data. Broader Impacts: The project clarifies for policy-makers and citizens the diverse styles of public involvement. It shows the organizational styles' practical consequences for policy, coalition-building, and inclusion of low-income and historically disenfranchised groups.