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Archway Divided: A Case Study

Decent Essays

The neighborhood of interest is Archway in the North London Borough of Islington. To the north is Upper Holloway, to the south are Tufnell Park and Kentish Town, to the west is Hampstead Heath, and to the east is Finsbury Park. It was named after the Archway bridge (since rebuilt and renamed the Hornsey Lane Bridge) and was previously included as part of Highgate. The neighborhood itself consists of seven small and two large parks, a tube station with the Northern line, and seven bus routes that begin or conclude within the neighborhood. Jarring characteristics that define Archway are its Victorian houses and circa 1970s buildings. The central area of the neighborhood is undergoing major renovations to change the one-way gyratory to a modern …show more content…

Colin Robson and Kieran McCartan address that “…research, carried out with the best of intentions, becomes unethical because of such effects.” (Robson and McCartan, 2011: 208) These are called ‘unintended consequences.’ They go on to describe an article called, ‘The unanticipated consequences of planned social action’ (Merton, 1936), in which research was carried out and resulted in negative, unplanned repercussions. While this is never the aim of any research, it is appropriate to address that these outcomes can happen, as well as the reasons these might happen. Before beginning research, ethical considerations are put in place to properly protect both participants from harm and the researcher’s mode of study. Two of the most crucial to be considered are informed consent and confidentiality. Each of those come with their own …show more content…

the potentially unequal power relations in the field between the researcher and the interviewee

When the ethnographic observation is conducted through covert observation, the data collected must allow the inadvertent participants to remain anonymous by creating fake names and avoiding faces when taking pictures. This will protect the results of the current study as well as my reputation for future studies. Another important issue to address are biases I may possess before going ahead with my research, especially the interview portion. I may hold biases when it comes to my own eating habits (i.e. what I determine to be healthy or unhealthy, how I consume food, and how I feel towards food and the neighborhood of study) and have to make sure that I remove those biases when it comes to writing and conducting the interview. Ethnographic

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