Suchergebnisse

Scholars have identified a range of factors that influence the ability of researchers to access hard-toreach groups and the willingness of their members to participate in research. In this paper, we draw on insights from both ethnographic methods and participatory action research to demonstrate the importance of building trust in our relationships with hard-to-reach participants in research based on interviews. Such trust-building, we show, is greatly facilitated by pre-recruitment immersion that aids not only the recruitment of individual participants but also improves the quality of the data collected. These methodological concerns emerged from an interview study focusing on Muslim women's use of urban public recreational spaces in South-East Michigan. Although the first author of this paper, as a woman and a Muslim, is a formal insider in the study population, her experiences with recruitment demonstrate that the access granted by insider status is insufficient as grounds for a research relationship based on trust. This is so especially when the target population is as marginalized and embattled as the post 9/11 immigrant Muslim community. With more than two years of community immersion, however, she was able to foster enough trust to secure a large number of committed participants that spoke freely and thoughtfully about the issues at stake (78 in all).

When Fracking Comes to Town traces the response of local communities to the shale gas revolution. Rather than cast communities as powerless to respond to oil and gas companies and their landmen, it shows that communities have adapted their local rules and regulations to meet the novel challenges accompanying unconventional gas extraction through fracking. The multidisciplinary perspectives of this volume's essays tie together insights from planners, legal scholars, political scientists, and economists. What emerges is a more nuanced perspective of shale gas development and its impacts on municipalities and residents. Unlike many political debates that cast fracking in black and white terms, this volume's contributors embrace the complexity of local responses to fracking. States adapted legal institutions to meet the new challenges posed by this energy extraction process while under-resourced municipal officials and local planning offices found creative ways to alleviate pressure on local infrastructure and reduce harmful effects of fracking on the environment. The essays in When Fracking Comes to Town tell a story of community resilience with the rise and decline of shale gas production