Author
Lyn Richards

Pub Date: 11/2009
Pages: 256

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Lyn Richards
Title: Elderly Survivors of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake in Japan

Author: Junko Otani: Osaka University, Graduate School of Human Sciences

Setting up the project
I used a mix of quantitative and qualitative approaches. My research was exploratory and started by looking at what was happening to the elderly survivors of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake living in temporary shelters (TSH) and public reconstruction housing (PRH) and seeking lessons for the future ageing Japanese society. My research was a set of case studies looking at a small part of the reconstruction process of the communities. I used multiple methods in a flexible design. Case studies were: individual case studies and community case studies such as TSH and PRHs. [More...]

The data
I used both quantitative and qualitative approaches but the main part was qualitative. For the quantitative research, I used data from the public health survey and media data. The public health surveys data were used for the secondary analysis to provide background information on the people in TSR and PRH that I was looking at in my case studies. The main part of this study, however, is based on content (both qualitative and quantitative) analysis of media reports and on case studies using multiple-methods, ethnography including participant observation, formal and informal interviews, and the analysis of documents, and records. I used NVivo for media data, interviews, and ethnographic field notes. Media data was collected from TV, newspapers, and interviews during my fieldwork. I videotaped TV coverage and prepared transcripts from the videos in English so that I could code them as documents. [More...]

Working with data
A combination of various methods of analysis was employed. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used for the media data. I started to work with a first set of media data and then other data from other sources followed in parallel, not completely consequently. So I needed to organize vast pages of data of multiple data sources by different set of sources. I organized the data according to type, that is, media and ethnography, as well as research site. I allocated data to different folders, so it was easy to access at the same time to data which went to different folders. [More...]

Analysis processes
My research design employed data triangulation and methodological triangulation. I used software for the qualitative part of my research, which was core in my research, for managing different types of data sets concurrently and the data collected in various ways. Gender analysis was important. In the course of analysis process, I wanted to access and get back to different data from different sources repeatedly and compare them. The software enabled me to do so without making a mess of tons of papers. I was writing up my PhD while moving internationally repeatedly between Japan, UK, China and one trip to Australia. Having my research project in software enabled me to be a mobile researcher. Otherwise, there would have been more crisis when I might have had to give up completing my thesis. [More...]

Reporting the project
I kept going back to my data from different angles when writing up reports and chapters. NVivo helped me to do so by searching text. It was a challenge to make it one story because this research project was a set of case studies. The conclusion was that disasters are long drawn out events for vulnerable older people, especially without money or families. Official statistics and the media make their own interpretations of what is going on and the workers on the ground reproduce many of their views and some old prejudices of their own. [More...]

List of References