A big THANK YOU to all of the people who have helped out with 'Rescue Geography' so far - academics who have shared papers, presentations and words of encouragement, people at Central Library who have helped with finding old photos, Dan who is hopefully taking lots of new photos, people who have helped to 'spread the word' about the project and, above all, the interviewees who have told me fascinating stories about the past, present and future of Digbeth/ Deritend/ Eastside.

A very Merry Christmas to you all!!

It's extremely good having Jane working full time on this project, because I keep seeming to get bogged down in other things and forgetting about it.  Lots and lots of student-related things, which is a bit frightening as this is supposed to have been the term where I have very little teaching and so can get on with research stuff.  So I'm absolutely not looking forward to coming back in the new year.

But enough of my woes.  The GPS failure was my fault as I'd left the charger in my desk drawer (which is full of bits of electronica both useful and massively obsolete) and forgotten to give it to Jane.  But it does reiterate the point that this is a right pain to sort out at times as there are so many things to keep charged / switch on when walking. 

I have been playing with shading the paths on the website maps to give a sense of direction being walked, which I think works quite well - I particularly like the pale to dark blue which seems to fit nicely with the underlying colours of the google maps.  Cartographic experimentation, it's a bit like proper geography!

Going to simplify things a bit in the new year as the tablet PC has proved not to be particularly useful in terms of a prompt.  In fairness it was always a bit of a stretch to see whether people would be interested in watching their progress around the map in 'real time' (or with a minute or so delay between screen refreshes).  But we've proved that this is something that could be done in principle - particularly if the person running the interview is pretty happy faffing about with GIS.  Something to be expanded on in a future project probably.  It gave an opportunity to rethink how we use technology in the field at least.  Nonetheless I'm sure Jane will be delighted at not having to heft around a heavy computer on her walks.

Other piece of good news was that the ambient noise recorder has finally turned up (only three months after it was ordered!) so James & I are going to go out in the new year and sample some of the sounds of Eastside as they currently exist.  Doubtless I'll connect these to a google map in some fashion (ah, the joys of google mapping) and James has talked about persuading a friend of his to connect these into some dance beats, a bit like the Birmingham Frequencies project by Biosphere and Higher Intelligence Agency.

In the meantime, however, I'm going to fiddle with some more of next term's lectures and contemplate my stack of Xmas marking.  Joy to the world, good will to wo/men etc.

I have just finished the last interview before the holidays, so the final tally of interviews in the first third of the project is:

Walking interviews - 4 completed, 1 arranged (as before)

Traditional, sedentary interviews - 1

'Double' interviews (sedentary, then walking) - 2 completed, 1 in progress, 1 to be arranged

So that's 10 people  , another 20 to find   !!!

It's been a while since there was an update on this page, so sorry if you have been trying to follow our progress - it's actually been quite good recently!  I've managed six interviews in the last couple of weeks and would be out now if the battery in the GPS 'bleeper' hadn't failed this morning.

After the last appeal for more women to come forward and talk to me, I've interviewed ... one!  But have arranged to speak to another in the new year.  So, the current interview situation is:

Walking interviews - 4 completed, 1 arranged

Traditional, sedentary interviews - 0 (given the choice between these and walking interviews, no-one wants to do these - well, they don't capture the imagination quite the same, do they!), but I'm hoping to arrange one soon

'Double' interviews (sedentary, then walking) - 1 completed, 2 in progress, 1 to be arranged

So, that's 9 (or possibly 10) respondents out of the hoped-for 30!  Not bad, but it does mean that there will be more of a sense of urgency when we all come back after Christmas.

Anyone hoping for a hint of the likely results will be disappointed, though.  I am currently veering between having complete confidence in the improved results that come from a walking interview and being absolutely impressed by the thoroughness of the sedentary interviewees.  In true academic style, the answer so far is - 'more work needs to be done'!!  (Never mind the PhD, it's coming up with answers like this that prove your credentials!!).  I can report, though, that so far all the interviews have been really, really different.  I have heard views from people who look at the area through artistic eyes, through having spent childhoods and teenage years there and through having worked with disadvantaged people.  Many stories have had happy associations, a few have highlighted how the area has been/ can be a place of fear - sometimes it's difficult to imagine the infinite variety of meanings that a place has!  This is perhaps not very surprising, but certainly makes 'data gathering' (doesn't that sound a poor turn of phrase, given the rich variety of stories I have actually been recording!) an absolute pleasure.  Analysis may well be another matter, but I am really looking forward to getting the corrected transcripts back in order to see what is really going on, rather than replying on my (fading) impressions of the interviews.

On the technology side, everything has acted up at some point, but has mostly been well-behaved (especially when switched on, charged up, etc).  As the maps on the interview pages show, the GPS signal has been a bit inaccurate.  It gives the impression of us walking straight through (or maybe over!) buildings and magically jumping from street to street, especially in the northern corner of Digbeth.  Maybe it's something to do with the power of the Bullring, atmospherics in outer space, or a lack of power left in the GPS unit.  We'll see on the next walk....