Place matters: assessing the potential of the ecomuseum in the UK to (re)connect communities to their landscape and help foster regenerative futures.

McMillan, V, 2024. Place matters: assessing the potential of the ecomuseum in the UK to (re)connect communities to their landscape and help foster regenerative futures. [Dataset]

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Abstract

This is a subset of data relating to the thesis Place matters: assessing the potential of the ecomuseum in the UK to (re)connect communities to their landscape and help foster regenerative futures.

This Midlands 4 Cities AHRC-funded project explores the potential of UK ecomuseums as a process and mechanism through which to (re)connect communities to their landscapes and so combat cultural severance through promoting a more integrated holistic ecological approach to understanding place and if this can help foster regenerative community stewardship. To do so, it sought to investigate participation, perception and impact of five case study ecomuseums from the perspectives of various stakeholders; steering groups, employees, volunteers, participants and wider community members. Additionally, it sought to understand the emotional connections people had to the places they live. This widened the participant group to include a larger cohort of all ages from the communities of three of the case study areas in addition to the stakeholders aforementioned.

All data collection design, collection and analysis was carried out by the researcher/author alone, with the exception of the collection of 3 creative community mapping activities which were kindly left in place for a period of time with community support then returned to me (see creative community mapping section below).

42 men and women aged between 21 – 82 yrs took part in 46 semi-structured interviews (3 participants did a repeat interview, and one interview took place over two sessions). Thirty-two were during or shortly after the first tranche of fieldwork visits, and 14 during or around the second tranche. Most interviews lasted between 60 to 90 minutes. However, 12 interviews were walking interviews. These generally lasted significantly longer, lasting between two and a half hours and six hours.

All interviews were carried out by the researcher/author. Most interviews took place in person, but 6 were online (Teams) and one was via email response to requested interview questions. All interviews (with the exception of the latter) were audio-recorded. The recordings were transcribed into Word documents, and thematic analysis using manual open coding in NVivo was performed.

In addition, a further 40 participants completed an anonymous online survey which included both quantitative and open qualitative questions. Participants' ages ranged from the 16 – 24 yrs age bracket through to 65+. Data was collected via JSIC online survey and transferred to MS Excel file and analysed using the same manual open coding in NVivo for collective analysis.

One participant took part in a repeat survey after a few months to register changes to answers after further involvement with their local ecomuseum. Data collection and analysis as above.

Two participants, aged between 45 – 65+, took part in Personal Ecologies (PE) journalling and mapping. This included writing, drawings, photographs and found objects in the creative journals and maps produced by the participants over a period of time and then either posted to me or photographed and emailed to me. These were digitally photographed and the text transcribed into a Word document, then analysed using the same manual open coding using NVivo as all data sets in this study were.

Lastly, 214 participants took part in two anonymous creative community mapping activities: PE postcards (124 participants, and community roll mapping (190 participants). Participants’ ages ranged between 2 - 87 years. These activities included written and drawn responses on what people loved most about where they lived. The data was collected at 13 community pop-up events designed and arranged by the researcher/author. 10 were delivered by the researcher/author in person. A further 3 were supported by community members/organisations, then the resulting roll (1 event) and postcards (2 events) then returned to me for analysis. The postcards and roll mapping contributions were transcribed and photographed and put into tables in Word. These were then uploaded to NVivo for analysis using the same manual open coding as other data sets above.

A copy of the NVivo codebook created is also retained as a separate file for clarity.

Observation Data: photographs of the ecomuseum areas and sites were taken as in-field notes to aid with memory and analysis. Some are used in the thesis for illustrative purposes. Originally, I had planned the photographs to create deep-maps of the case study areas, but timeframe has not allowed this so far. Photograph collections are included here to give greater context to the case study areas and so to the thesis.

The key results of this study found that people’s deep connections to place were founded in a holistic heritage of intertwined culture/nature, human/nonhuman social relationships at different scales and across time. These connections were evidenced to be founded and strengthened through a knowing-belonging-caring feedback loop, intrinsic values, and notions of community. The result of this knowing-belonging-caring feedback loop is active care. This supports the conceptualisation of the broader concept of Land Connectedness as the basis and route to counter cultural severance, build connection and foster stewardship and co-flourishing of both human and nonhuman communities in place. This study found that ecomuseums present an excellent mechanism not only to promote land connectedness but also to channel emotions into action by empowering opportunities and agency for communities to enact social and environmental solutions and actions.

Item Type:	Research datasets and databases
Description:	Data type: Interview transcripts, survey data Data collected: 2021
Creators:	McMillan, V.
Publisher:	Nottingham Trent University
Date:	December 2024
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.17631/rd-2024-0026-ddat DOI 2323303 Other
Rights:	The interview schedule and survey questions will be available to view from 18.06.2026. Anonymised interviews transcripts*, survey and PE Journals & individual PE map*, postcards and community roll mapping transcripts, photographs and analysis files will be available to researchers to facilitate independent scrutiny of project findings and future research reuse. *Interview transcripts and PE journals and individual PE map are restricted. To arrange access please contact the Open Research Team: libopenresearch@ntu.ac.uk
Divisions:	Schools > School of Arts and Humanities
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	18 Dec 2024 11:27
Last Modified:	18 Dec 2024 11:46
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/52732

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