Communitydialogue

Saffron patch walk - extra

This is a photo of Tick Tock park as it is locally known, the whole estate was built around the design of a green lung in the centre of the estate, which is shown on aerial maps of the estate.   

This is photo of the railway bridge that connects the local secondary schools and the estate.  Although many people find graffiti offensive here it is hidden from public view unless you go under the bridge itself.    

This is the famous Porkpie library that is registered as grade two listed building and is conected to the porkpie island that learner drivers have for generations feared because of the amount of traffic that uses the roundabout.

Saffron patch walk, 23 July 08

Saffron is a tight little community hemmed in on one side by the train tracks to London and a main road on the other. A real mix of owner-occupied and council properties, overseen by a fair few CCTV cameras.

We walked the patch with Karen Pickering; from the vibrant Linwood centre through Tick Tock Park, past the railway line, through the school fields left totally unmanaged and back through quiet streets to the centre.  Along the way we met one of the local police officers on his bike; if it wasn't for his uniform and technology it would have seemed almost a scene from the 60's.

Modern health issues, however - high rates of drinking, smoking and teen pregnancy, cardiovascular diseases and mental health issues - and just one general practice within the area.

The challenge, it would seem, is to help Karen maintain and develop the things she's doing within the community; to mainstream that activity and assist the community to get more engaged in the PCT's work.

Ethnography and interviewing

In the project work in Derby we've already started to discuss the relevance of ethnography as a way of complementing the understanding we get from other, more traditional, sources.

But how to do it?

This video was created by students at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), a design school that has a great reputation for innovating in user research methods. It uses 'high quality jeans' as the area of inquiry, but it discusses what ethnography is and is not, it describes how to do the fieldwork and looks in detail at one-on-one interviewing skills. If you can get access, it's well worth the 30 mins.

Also available here