Implementing qualitative social research in my Christchurch case study

6.5.1

Human ethics committee approval

As this research involved observing and interviewing members of the public, an application for approval from the Human Ethics Committee of the University was required following the stipulated process. Approval was granted subject to various conditions, these included:

1. not identifying members of the public raising questions at meetings observed without their consent

2. providing interviewees with a Research Information Sheet outlining the research and who to contact if they had concerns

3. obtaining completed consent forms from participants prior to the commencement of interviews

4. interviewees having the option to either be digitally recorded or have written notes taken

5. interviewees having the option to withdraw at any time and also choosing not to answer any question

6. interviewees having the option to delete quotations or comments that may lead to their identification

7. any interview to immediately cease should a participant show signs of distress and support to be offered via a support system previously put in place

A copy of the Research Information Sheet and Consent Form are included in Appendix A

Because of the physical, psychological and economic impact of the Christchurch earthquakes on the people involved in the research situation it was decided to defer commencing interviews until sometime after the earthquakes had subsided and people had the opportunity to get their lives back in some kind of order. This was especially important due to the subject area being within the CBD and the interviewees were therefore likely to have been present or near locations where the greatest loss of life and damage occurred. Earthquake-related disruptions to my situation and the operations of the University were also a factor in this decision, so interviews did not commence until 28 months after the initial earthquake and 23 months after the most devastating event of 22 February 2011. Even after this lengthy delay four “strong” rated earthquakes with a magnitude of over five were felt during the period during which the interviews were being undertaken, but by this time these tremors had become part of normal life in Christchurch.

6.5.2

Observation of public meetings

In the intervening period research continued via gathering data on the history of the Lichfield Lanes location, identifying the people to later be interviewed, and by observation at various public

meetings being held that had particular reference to the future of the part of the central city in which the Lichfield Lanes area was located. Participant observation would help identify what it was that those attending valued about the CBD prior to the earthquakes and what aspects were perceived as important to successful revitalisation and the future of the central city. These findings would help inform and contextualise the interviews to be carried out later.

Most of these meetings were convened by a variety of individuals and groups concerned about the future of this part of the CBD in the post-earthquake environment. I assessed that my observation at these meetings as a member of the audience was unlikely to cause any greater stress on those attending than they were already suffering, and in any case, they were choosing to attend these meetings of their own free will, aware that the issues raised would be disturbing. In addition, as these were public meetings the content could be recorded and reported by the news media in any case. Notes recording my observations were taken during the meetings and written up more fully immediately afterwards. Recording the actual meetings was considered, but rejected due to problems gaining consent, identifying who was speaking and potentially inhibiting the free flowing discussion during question and answer sessions that often provided the most valuable insights.

In total nine meetings were observed, at which presentations were made by fifteen different speakers, followed by extensive and often passionate discussion. The speakers included City Council staff, historians, developers, property owners, architects, engineers, lawyers, valuers, planners, financiers, academics, politicians and activists.

As time progressed, it became clear that the people attending these meetings were to be completely excluded from decisions and participation in the future of this part of the CBD by the various

authorities now in control as well as by other circumstances, for example delays in settling insurance claims. The central government authorities controversially developed large scale plans to demolish many of the buildings in the CBD and compulsorily acquire 34 hectares of land clearing the way for a comprehensive rebuild of the city by major developers and government agencies. In contrast, many of the attendees at these meetings were small business owners, or the owners of small commercial buildings in the CBD, or those with an interest in the preservation of heritage buildings.

Understandably, participation in meetings (which effectively became protests at being excluded) dwindled, and the movement to be involved in the future of the CBD died out as people chose to get on with their lives and take up opportunities elsewhere.

It was initially intended that the results of this observation would form a separate results chapter, but because the participants were so varied and became disillusioned over time and largely irrelevant to the CBD rebuild, the meetings did not yield the expected data. There were some enlightening comments made though by both speakers and attendees, so these have been

synthesised where appropriate into the analysis of the interview results in Chapters 7, 8 and 9. As a result the main data source for thesis has been my interviews, although this was unanticipated at the outset.

6.5.3

Interviews

While most of the common qualitative techniques described earlier in this chapter were used to some extent in this research, the main emphasis was on semi-structured interviews. This involved asking starter or open ended questions designed to get respondents to use their own words to explain the situation or tell their story. What they chose to mention first can indicate the relative importance of issues, and I sought expansion of responses in areas important to the research or identified by other respondents. In fact, often very little prompting was usually necessary with the interviewees keen to tell their story and give their interpretation. The objective was to generate possible explanations and examine relationships rather than test hypotheses.

In most cases these interviews also involved a type of “on the spot” Delphi technique whereby responses of previous interviewees to important issues were raised with interviewees to facilitate or expand on their own responses. This enabled some preliminary analysis at the same time as data collection, making the process more efficient. However, as was discussed earlier, this approach within grounded theory is controversial among researchers favouring a hypothetic-deductive research methodology.

The initial interviews took place in early 2013 coinciding with when the cordons around the CBD mentioned earlier were finally lifted. The bulk of the interviews were conducted in mid-2014. Thirty potential interviewees were identified initially via a list of contacts obtained from one of the business owners in the Lichfield Lanes area that, prior to the earthquakes, had helped coordinate joint

marketing and other promotional events. Many of the contact details were by then incorrect as the list predated the earthquakes and all the businesses on the list had been either displaced, locally, within New Zealand or some overseas.

Most of businesses within the Lanes were on the list, and the vast majority of these were hospitality and retail businesses that had occupied ground level space immediately prior to the earthquakes. There were some upper floor office tenants included in the list, as well as the developers of the Lanes area, but it proved impossible to track down the few residential tenants occupying buildings in the Lanes prior to the earthquakes. Missing also were some businesses that had occupied space in the lanes earlier, but decided to leave for various reasons prior to the earthquakes. Interviewees were later asked to identify other people that should be interviewed and this helped track down some of these people.

By an intensive search process and utilising the Internet to find the names of businesses and business owners, current contact details were obtained for twenty three of these businesses. Of the

earthquakes and the remainder could not be traced or failed to respond to messages sent to what appeared to be valid e-mail addresses.

Appendix A to this thesis includes a copy of the e-mail sent out to invite interviewees to take part. Of the 23 invitations sent, 21 responded agreeing to take part and 18 interviews eventually took place. While it was initially anticipated interviews would take approximately thirty minutes, most interviews ended up taking close to an hour and some extended towards two hours. Interviewees seemed very keen to talk about the Lanes and their experiences and opinions, before, during and after the earthquakes. They seemed to find the process cathartic and therefore helpful to them as well as informative for me. Many spoke at length on issues relevant to the research with very little if any prompting. Prompting questions are listed in Appendix B

All the interviews were digitally recorded and subsequently transcribed verbatim. This proved to be a massive task due to both the length of the interviews and the speed at which some of the

interviewees spoke. The benefit was the collection of a large amount of data, only some of which is used in this thesis. The major component omitted is the experiences of the interviewees in the minutes, hours and days immediately post-earthquake. Much of this is not seen as especially relevant to the property investment focus of this research and is an area researched by many others in Christchurch. But it would have been insensitive to try and stop interviewees talking about their experiences of this nature during the interview process.

None of the interviewees became obviously distressed during the interviews, though many were clearly unhappy with the way things had occurred and had concerns regarding the future of the city. None of the participants asked for their comments to be withheld, but some comments were not included because they could have been associated with particular people and may have been seen as insensitive, inappropriate or offensive.

The transcripts of the interviews were loaded into the NVivo software package in order to facilitate coding into nodes. Initially 34 nodes were identified, these were subsequently refined to 20 nodes (with sub nodes) and finally 13 major nodes or themes.

These major nodes or themes are listed below:

1. Gentrification and the inner city tram

2. Architecture in the High Street and Lanes areas

3. The Lanes: Offering a different experience to one found in a mall

5. Chaos, variety and personalisation of the Lanes buildings

6. Presence of owner operated businesses

7. Social and psychological dividends for business owners; they are not just in it for the money

8. Feelings of belonging to a community

9. Importance of residential uses

10. Bars and brothels, their impact

11. Importance of rent and lease terms

12. Business success factors.

13. Trade prior to the earthquakes and after September 2010

The 13 nodes identified above were further refined into three groups – each the subject of separate results chapters 7, 8 and 9.

As the issues arising from the interviews were numerous and interrelated and the responses of the interviewees nuanced, some guidance on interpreting these results is warranted. In Chapter 3, a model (Figure 3.2) was introduced, showing the complex relationships between factors impacting on CBD revitalisation. For further clarity, Figure 3.2 has been disaggregated at the start of each of the following results chapters to highlight the issues under consideration in that chapter. The model is then progressively re-assembled, showing the relationships to other results chapters.