blogging, that is. 

As Co-Investigator on this project, and having been suitably shamed into action by my co-workers enthusiasm for this blogging malarkey, I though it was about time something went on here from me.  To be fair I have just moved jobs to uni of Manc, and the task of setting up and running a new Masters course in a completely new dept has eaten up the time somewhat.

So first impressions of how the project is going: 

there's lots of potential for collaboration with other people working in, on and around Eastside.  My long time friend Dan is a photographer who is working on social aspects of community in the area and has produced some amazing shots of 'life' as it unfolds in the pubs and streets of Digbeth.  Having known Dan for ages and really loving his work the potential of working together is exciting.

playing with all this technical equipment is going to raise a helluva lot of practical issues... as the others have been noting, even something as simple as recording outside, whether it is ambient noise or voices, is fraught with difficulties.  The issues raised by 10 mins in the quad at birmingham uni last week with a noise-meter could probably provide enough material for a 'how to' methods paper. (NB, no ones's saying that this would be an interesting paper. but it would be a paper nevertheless, and I'm sure there was something in the proposal about methods;)

Finally, now i have a mere 3 hours a day to kill on the train i have been able to do some reading around the new 'mobilities paradigm' and the associated field of 'mobile methodologies' within the social sciences.  I was initially excited by the possibilities of using the project to explore nomadic ethics (a la Braidotti), and the difference that moving makes to people's experience of space.  The literature I have read so far has totally underwhelmed me, as it does the classic geography trick of identifying yet another 'overlooked' object of study (in this case, mobile communities) and then applying all the same conceptual approaches to them.  nothing really new there from what i can see.... and yes I am a whinging git... we'll read some more and see whether it really does lead anywhere other than the emporer's new clothes.

so there you have it my first ever blog.  I have crumbled and joined the blogging generation.  before you know it there'll be pictures and everything.

This is evans, blogging off.

In one of the Hitch Hikers' books Douglas Adams noted the tendency among scientists to spend millions of research money and time to prove stuff that everybody already knew anyway.  And it's a staple of the Today Programme to have a chuckle at whatever the latest madness is from some American research team.

Today I feel like I've done something to join these proud ranks.  Jane & I went out with a decibel meter and recorded the noise levels at various points around Eastside.  By no means was this a comprehensive survey (we'll doubtless have to spend several days filling in the gaps), but it was enough to test the principle.  The idea was to create a contour map - like you might do for hills, but shading it in according to noise levels rather than height.

As part of the ArcGIS mapping software there's a tool called Spatial Analyst which will create contours automatically from point data - I used an Inverse Distance Weighted model.  Don't ask me what this means, because I honestly don't know.  But it produces some pretty maps, like this one:

The pinker colours show higher noise levels.  Shock horror, the High Street and area around the bus mall by Moor Street Station are noisier than wandering along the canal.  Bet you never saw that one coming.  Will have to go and survey all the cross streets along the southern side of the railway tracks - Heath Mill Lane where we walked is particularly noisy because of the buses, but others won't be.

Still, I'm feeling happier now that we're doing some of the fieldwork we told the ESRC we'd undertake.  Particularly happy that Jane is getting on with making contacts.  My head is back in teaching at the moment now that the kids are back for a new term.  Spent the last few days writing a lecture about feminist research epistemologies for the second years.  I bet they'll be as happy to hear about it as I was to write it.  Still this department has 8 female teaching staff compared to 48 men - somebody needs to say something about gender inequalities and I guess it'll be me.