Kim,

I have sharpened up your research questions some more…

Does the global Cluster system for disaster response offer a useful model of collaborative, integrative and holistic problem solving in an environmentally sustainable way? The bamboo component of the Jogjakarta Shelter project will be used as a case study
with secondary research objectives to:
• What are key relationships, complexities and challenges for effective international disaster response (focusing on the international humanitarian sector)
• How can the tensions between having environmental outcomes and an effective humanitarianism in disaster response be resolved for sustainable practice
• What are the necessary processes for a collaborative, integrative and holistic approach to addressing environmental implications of a disaster response, through a case study of the use of bamboo in post-disaster reconstruction in the Jogyakarta earthquake response 2006-2007.

• Do you think disaster response fits into the category of “wicked problem”? This is one of those esoteric questions that philosophers may concern themselves but I do not think it gets us anywhere in terms of practice. It is though not a ‘wicked problem’ in the same way Ross Garnaut called climate change … in fact he called it a diabolical problem. It is only a wicked problem if we make it one. Humanitarian organisations often over blow this stuff so they seem more important. If they weren’t there things would still get done.

• Do you think that framing this research problem as one of collaborative, systemic, integrative approaches to solving complex problems is useful, as opposed to a more narrow focus on e.g. the environmental implications of disaster response? You have to be a little careful here that you do not over complicate it. If you can well map the collaborative, systemic, integrative approaches and then make judgment on them that is fine. Just be careful in how you map them.

• Having heard all (or some) of the above, do you think that this is a useful research question to draw out of it, or is there a more interesting angle that you can imagine? See my reworking of this in the other comment.

• Finally, what are your thoughts on online research process embodied by this blog? I made a choice to learn less from books and more from people’s everyday opinions - although these opinions tend to be less sophisticated than academic arguments - that is, focusing on developing a consensual comment on a case study, and encompassing a vision that is shared by a wider body of people than just me. Spending less time with the online journals and books is a little scary coming from my training within an institution with such erudite researchers, and such a focus on the books. What are your comments on this choice of research process? Online research is fine but you won’t get the same depth of material that you will get by interviewing people as it is only a tiny sample of people with disposition to blogging who will post thing. You will need to trawl the journals as well.

• Also can you give a flavour of the questions you posed to the NGO types as this is rather critical for the next bit which is analysing the data.

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for your comments on the research questions. I’ll take that into account.

On your response to the fourth question: I realised that I was talking about two different things (and have adjusted it in the text above). The main thing that I was referring to was the fact that I’ve spent nearly half of the time allocated to the thesis year talking to people, not reading-researching. It made me feel a little nervous, considering that there is such a focus at a university on learning skills that relate to reading books, parsing articles, trawling online journals, navigating libraries etc, and much less emphasis on the learning that comes from talking to people. So, to put it bluntly, I was concerned that I would be producing research that somehow wasn’t academic enough, as silly as it sounds. The second issue that I mentioned there related just to the website: I wanted the Human Ecology Forum to comment on the possibilities of online research, considering that most of them seem so reluctant to engage in online media. I was curious about their opinions of a demonstration of an online research project from someone they know.

As for the questions that I posed to my informants, there were two types. From the start, and for the majority of my time, I have simply been learning about disasters in general. So I would introduce myself and what I was doing, with only one question: “Tell me about your experiences working in disasters”. 4 pages of the interview schedule out the window. These were largely open, unstructured conversations. To be honest, I didn’t even know the questions that I wanted to ask until much later.

The vast majority of my research has been through informal conversations or observation at workshops and fieldtrips and casual events, like sitting around having dinner with a group of young Couchsurfers interested in the jobs of the Jogya residents who were looking after them. Some of my best “research assistants” have been backpackers with inquisitive minds who somehow manage to ask over dinner the exact series of questions that I would have wanted to ask.

For an outsider like me to develop a detailed understanding of such a complex environment, it has only been possible through constant discussion and reiteration of issues, debates, ideas and stories around my informants’ experiences of and continued work in disaster response.

The second type of interviews were equally unstructured, but were more formal in that I tended to record them, and ask the informant about a particular topic, e.g. Cluster coordination, bamboo resource management, a particular shelter project etc. I am trying to write up or transcribe all of these interviews, so many of them are actually posted on the blog. If I came up with anything that was readable to another reader, I would blog it. It wasn’t possible to do this with most of my informal research.

Hi Kim,

Here are a selection of responses from the 5th of Sept Human Ecology meeting to the questions you posed to us. I will post them question by question and also put in a section on general responses. Firstly, as you’d no doubt be aware, it was presented by a ‘third party’ and with little time to prepare, plus like all research there are many complexities that need unpacking and which couldn’t really be done so – some responses below show this difficulty in understanding. There was a general feeling that the questions were a tad too complex for the space we worked within and needed to be more direct/clearer. Note that as this comes from a variety of people at the table, some of the suggestions are contradictory and I have tried to group like minded sentiments together. Also, you may get some more responses from those at the meeting (Patrick clearly off of to an early start) and whatever is written below, if you decide to act upon it, then that should be done so with an eye to your supervisors responses. Finally, we’d all like to wish you the very best in your research and we are looking forward to your return and hearing first hand about your time with it all…(pity your back after Patrick runs a Forum, but maybe we can squeeze you in somewhere down the track a bit)…

Hi Peter,

Thanks for taking the time to record all of that and organise it into chunks of responses. That makes it much easier for me to respond to. By the way, the above comments were from Patrick Kilby from MAAPD, not Patrick Anderson, your speaker for next week.

Firstly, I’m aware that it would have been difficult material to present, and appreciate your efforts at the Forum! It wasn’t designed to be a presentation as such, it was more designed to be a heads-up to the Forum that I’m still alive and doing work in Indonesia, and an invitation to visit the blog (which is much more comprehensive). It was also a summary of the fieldwork to give people an idea of what I’ve been doing. It lends itself better to being read: a long blog post wasn’t exactly very presentation-friendly - if I had focused more on communication of my research, I would have done a Powerpoint presentation and posted it on SlideShare. But in the limited time that I had, at least it was something!

To be honest, the questions that I asked weren’t very important. I’m more interested in the possibility of interaction with people from the Forum. I was also finding it quite difficult to think of what questions to ask the Forum. The last presentation that I did wasn’t particularly useful in terms of content, because no-one at the Forum actually knows much about disasters, and the problems that I’m interested in are very practical problems, and the solutions that I’m interested in are practical solutions.

A familiar response to my research is to fall back on critiquing the methodology, because of a lack of understanding of the content. I agree that it’s important, but it’s secondary: it’s a tool. Which is probably why if I’m pressed for time, I’ll leave it out. My theoretical landmarks are public policy and institutions, knowledge systems, collaborative problem solving, globalisation and universal discourses; tools that could be fun to play with, but I find them boring unless there’s something interesting to do with them. I should have realised that an introduction through methodology would be the best way to engage with the HEF, but didn’t think of that … Maybe I should aim to do a methodology post soon!

I have rarely been able to engage with people at ANU about the content of my research, which is one of the reasons that I’ve stayed in Indonesia so long … It’s only people here in Indonesia who can tell me, for sure, which ideas that I’m working on are useful. People at ANU can tell me if the form is appropriate, but that’s not enough for me. It actually makes me a little scared to think of coming back and losing that guidance.

Something that I’m constantly encountering is the familiar criticism of the cavernous gap between academics and people in the field. After the Jogya earthquake, there were dozens of academics running around. But how much (of that time, considerable mental energy, money, resources) has that actually contributed to the work of practitioners? How many disaster workers read journals? Not many …

It’s still something I’m grappling with: how to do meaningful research.

Q1 (”Do you think disaster response fits into the category of wicked problem”?).
* Your research question/topic concern (environmental concerns in with humanitarian) does not appear to be considered as (what we understand as) a wicked problem by those involved in the context/system (of disaster management). By this we don’t mean they need to understand what a wicked problem is rather does it have some of the elements that constitute a wicked problem. Potentially the better response is ‘should’ your research question/topic concern be considered as a wicked problem? If this is the case then that is still to be determined. Therefore, perhaps the best way forward is to describe it as a potential wicked problem that can be determined by a later study/or others.
* Being concerned if it is a wicked problem or not may be a distraction (for your current research), in which case you could simply avoid dealing with it at all as a wicked problem and rely on another metaphor or go for a simple statement of the context as it stands (just spend some time detailing the disaster response environment for instance) and let the general logic of your argument (about environmental costs, etc) carry your point.

Question 2: (‘Do you think that framing this research problem as one of collaborative, systemic, integrative approaches to solving complex problems is useful, as opposed to a more narrow focus on e.g. the environmental implications of disaster response?’) Sorry to say Kim, this was not really a workable question for us - it created difficulties in response as we needed some important clarifications. I’d say in part this is because we had to go through your blog page and some important pieces were missing from it (methodology/justifications most notably).

Question 3 (‘Having heard all (or some) of the above, do you think that this is a useful research question to draw out of it, or is there a more interesting angle that you can imagine?’). Question needs clarifying for similar reasons as to the response in Q2. Plus, your research questions are a tad too broad which means that they are difficult to get a grip on. What we settled on doing was to try and tighten your current research questions in what we thought was the topic context you were concerned with (see end of general responses below).

Q4 (‘Finally, what are your thoughts on online research process embodied by this blog?’).
* Who would access your blog? Those you interviewed? Which informants? So the blog is part of your methods? Not sure about this issue.
* It is hard to judge just how much use you have made of written work versus spoken. But it is important to remember that they are complimentary and not necessarily exclusive. As your attempting to obtain an academic award you are obliged to meet the requirements of that (knowledge) community. There is a fair deal of room to manoeuvre in this, as there is a wide range of places in which to study within academic circles (ie., humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, eg., within the social sciences, anthropology, through geography through sociology, etc, and then down another level (eg., environmental sociology), etc). You have chosen to study within human ecology, so to that extent you are obliged to meet their general requirements as to academic rigour. This means you’ll need, amongst other things, to have completed some kind of literature review (even if a small, tight one). The review can largely stand alone, or be used strongly entwined with your field-data in your discussion (or both, or more). If done well, it will strongly complement your in-field discussions with people and allow you to both do a degree of justice to the many voices heard and to encourage a tightly worded argument that is cohesive and understandable to a reader (academic marker).

General commentary (part 1)
* [Research questions] There is some degree of confusion within your research questions, being too complex and/or too broadly defined for the research you are doing.
* [Research question] A ‘trick’ towards clarifying your research questions (if you so choose to do so) is to be very clear about your basic/primary motivations for doing the research (go onto a PhD, to contribute to the field, to learn about a specific research process, to have a cultural experience, to get a job in a favoured area, etc) and use this to simplify the process of determining the research questions and research context.
* [Research practices] This is a tad hard for me to convey, but there was a sense that considering where you have gotten yourself (in another country, with a rich and interesting topic, with many informants, etc) that you can trust yourself to do a good piece of research, to stay on trajectory with what you have already done and in this, you can also focus on keeping the research from becoming too complex (as you defiantly don’t need any more complexity than you already have)
* [Research practices] It is not always appreciated that with (the kind of) research like that you are doing, you can still deliver a solid piece of work within the context of stating “I set out to do (x), but I got (y), and this means (w)”. You can conceivable look at the proposition, explore its permutations and complexities as linked with the data and submit that. In this, you would be focusing on depth rather than breadth.
* [Research question] As a rule of thumb, the main research question should be tightly worded and the sub-questions that feed the main research question should all help construct the main question (and in themselves be tightly and clearly worded). This is currently not the case.
* [Research question] An important question is what kind of research your carrying out. It would appear that your interested in process and so you do not necessarily need to worry a great deal about the number of people you talk to, as the important element is have you developed enough detailed understanding (from 1+ people) to make an effective discussion around your chosen topic. Spending 70 hours interviewing one person can as adequately answer a particular topic issue as spending 1 hour each across 70 people – this though is highly dependent on the topic/research questions under investigation and research methodology deployed.
* [Research sub-question 1] This question is way too large/ambitious. If you are trying to build some kind of a conceptual depiction of the context of your research it may be more expedient to keep it as tight as possible and possibly present it as some kind of image, chart, map or similar.
* [Research sub-question 2] OK question but it is more (once you have ordered your data) the concluding component of your thesis.
* [Research sub-question 3] Needs to be tightened. We struggled with sorting this into better wording/understanding – are you asking if the Cluster System is able to address environmental concerns/issues or not (as exemplified by the case of bamboo use in the Jogjakarta example)? Or are you asking if the collaborative, integrative, holistic approach in the Cluster System is actually assisting in getting environmental concerns onto the table (versus how things used to be before the Cluster System)? If it is this later point, are you looking at improving the Cluster system because it does not adequately attend to environmental concerns at this point? These issues are not clear and render the question too broad to be useful. Suggest the question be clarified.
* [Research question/context] Beware that you do not spend too much time clarifying the context of your research (what happens in disaster response) versus unpicking the nitty-gritty/details of the specific case (bamboo use in post-disaster reconstruction). To some extent the broad context of disaster response can be built via the literature and externally to the field research site through other informants, whilst the specifics of the use of bamboo is unique to the case and therefore should attract the majority of your field-work attention.

General commentary (part 2)
* [Presentation/methodology issues] There is a need in your presentation for the methodology to be explicitly outlined. Without it, we found it difficult to connect between your research questions, your practice and the justifications for your practice in terms of the questions posed.
* [Presentation/findings issues] The lack of any (preliminary) findings that we could contextualize back to your research questions also meant that it was difficult to get a grip on the scope of your work. It can be effective to state just where you are at with your findings (eg., don’t have any; broad scope only; some specific evidence; too much evidence; etc).
* [Presentation] The Cluster system needs to be more adequately explained in the presentation.

Best wishes Kim and great to see how your preceding! Well done!!
Peter and the Human Ecology Forum

Dear Kim,

This whole thing seems far too complex at the moment, so I am going back to first principles and focussing and answering your questions:

Do you think disaster response fits into the category of “wicked problem”? Yes in relation to the fact that a disaster is by definition, a problem that cannot be resolved within the society that contains it. But this is only a piece of theory in your introduction/context section - not part of the inquiry itself.

Do you think that framing this research problem as one of collaborative, systemic, integrative approaches to solving complex problems is useful, as opposed to a more narrow focus on e.g. the environmental implications of disaster response?
Having heard all (or some) of the above, do you think that this is a useful research question to draw out of it, or is there a more interesting angle that you can imagine?

Your research question needs to be tighter than this:
1. research problem = an investigation into a collaborative, systemic,, integrative approach to solving a complex problem: shelter provision in a disaster response.

This approach will need you to show that the Aid agencies explicitly intend their response to be col, syst, int. I think the cluster program probably does this.

Does the struggle for environmentally sustainable disaster response (as exemplified in the Jogyakarta shelter response) within the global Cluster system offer a useful model of collaborative, integrative and holistic problem solving?

THIS IS THE SAME QUESTION BACKWARDS _ decide which way round you want it, and stop wondering and start answering it.

You have to strip your study down:
1. describe cluster system with emphasis on coll, int etc
2. desctibe disaster respons eyou ahve access to informaiton on
3. describe your methodology: adaptive inquiry?????
4. describe your methods:
blog, key informant, sub-informants, how many , under what conditions….
5. Results - urgent you get these down so they can be critiqued and amende d
6. Discussion: match criteria for cluster system (desctibed in 2) against results - then answer your research question
7. So what ? What use are your findings to future cluster system responses?

Good luck but do start to focus now

Val

Just on those first few questions now at the top of the page. I think what your doing is fine, and having positive case study likewise is fine. My research was more about what worked rather than what didn’t work. We do need both though.

In terms of your field work the methodology you have adopted is fine with wide open conversations… the trick is to corral the data to make a sensible answer. You do not need formal questionnaires but I must admit some vague structure in the conversations helps later on when you are trying to corral the data.

I must say I disagree with the idea of disaster being wicked problems by definition. The vast majority of disasters have been dealt with by the relevant communities. I think it is an outsiders and slightly patronising definition.

Val, thanks for your comments.

Actually, it’s a simple problem:

- What is a disaster response?

- How was an example of sustainable practice implemented in an emergency shelter response?

- How does this demonstrate collaborative problem-solving at an international level?

The initial questions that I asked the Forum were not related to me writing a thesis. I was trying to relate my research to the more familiar topics of discussion that I’ve seen the Human Ecology Forum explore over the past few years - as well as simply letting the Forum know that I’m here. The thing that I’m finding difficult is to find the point of collaboration or discussion with the Forum, because I know that there are amazing people there with valuable perspectives on these sort of problems. So I figured that the broadest common conceptual denominator would be of more interest than the specifics of sustainable construction in emergency shelter. I was thinking more along the lines of the roundtables that we’ve held this year on “Social-ecological change - Who changes, why and how?”

As for focusing, I’ve been focusing on developing this specific research problem for the past two years, so stripping my study down is not the problem! The real challenge is not trying to fulfil the requirements of the formal thesis format, but trying to find a worthwhile research topic: my primary concern is the likelihood of carrying out research that is of no value to anyone but myself. I want to do something that someone gives a shit about.

ANU already taught me to write a thesis, years ago: I’m much more interested in collecting ideas on this website, than specific thesis-writing advice - as you can probably tell by this website, thesis-writing is not exactly the most scintillating part of the year, nor is it the most important to me - but communication is. I admit, I did a pretty poor job of communicating my ideas to the Forum this time. I certainly would do it much differently next time.

Val, what I want from people from the HEF, or indeed any visitors to this blog, is to simply to engage with these ideas and issues as fellow researchers - not to try to teach me how to write a thesis as an undergrad.

I have read your new questions, and my reply is: you can always view your glass as hslf-full or half-empty. I agree with all your criticisms of current university education, but since you haven’t got those skills, for whatever reason, it is never too late! Your post to the Forum was about what you HAVE found, and the skills you found you DID have! So now to fill the other half of the glass.

In what I am reading, for there to be research that people (the Forum, your research participants, ANU examiners) does give a shit about, it needs to be harnessed, focussed, and directed to some main point. This is not about how to write a thesis, but how to communicate what is important in any place and time. As you know, I think that is more important than any amount of diffuse discussion. it certainly determines whether anyone will ever read/use your work. Can you do it?

Hi Val, this website is not a collection of diffuse discussions, it is a collection of posts on different aspects of my thesis. None of the blog posts on this website including this one address my topic in its entirety. So as for research that is harnessed and focussed to a main point, this is a blog post, not a thesis! A small piece of the puzzle.

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