GoodGeist
A podcast on sustainability, hosted by Damla Özlüer and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network. Looking at sustainability issues, communications, and featuring global guests from a wide variety of sectors such as business, NGOs and government.
GoodGeist
The Ethnography of Sustainability, with Felicity Heathcote-Màrcz
Join us as we chat to the inspiring founder of Bare Analysis, who shares her journey from academia to forging a path in consultancy, bridging the gap between traditional ethnography and commercial practice. Felicity reveals how techniques like shadowing and immersive interviews can transform the way organisations comprehend their human, social, and moral dimensions, emphasising the transformative power of ethnography in sustainability and communication.
Our conversation looks into the intricacies of behavioural change within complex cultural contexts, spotlighting the challenges of capturing multifaceted identities, especially in different global regions. And is if that wasn't all enough, we close by re-evaluating behavioural research assumptions in light of recent global political and technological shifts.
Follow GoodGeist for more episodes on sustainability, communications and how creativity can help make the world a better place.
Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello everyone, you are listening to Good Guys, the message on sustainability which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Damla from Mira Agency, istanbul, and.
Speaker 3:This is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester.
Speaker 2:This podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated and what creativity can do to make positive change happen For organizations large and small. Felicity aims to bridge traditional boundaries between academic approaches to ethnography and industrial praxis to ensure clients gain unique and highly valuable insight and solutions.
Speaker 3:You got through that Damla Well done ethnographic research methods along with other approaches and applied in particular which I'm very excited about in transport and mobility, and has worked for people like the UK's Department of Transport and other regional transport bodies too. So, felicity, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to Danla and myself.
Speaker 4:You're so welcome, steve. Thank you very much, steve and Danla, for inviting me along to have a chat to your audience today.
Speaker 3:Brilliant. Well, I'm excited because I think this could well be our first focus on ethnographics or ethnography, should I, or ethnography, ethnography Anyway. So it's really exciting. First of all, could you tell us what your journey has been like today? Where have you come from to set up your own research organisation? What's your career been like so far?
Speaker 4:Sure, absolutely so. I founded, as you say, research Consultancy Bear Analysis in 2023. And we indeed specialise in providing qualitative research and engagement support for clients mostly in the transport infrastructure, built environment, defence and energy sectors. We've worked with some other sectors too, but mostly we're looking to work with organisations who are facing big strategic social challenges, usually serving the public sector, and who are looking for expert support to build solutions. And we also provide a freelance network within Bear which matches expert academics and freelancers to clients, looking to build the best rainbow teams of resource to solve those kinds of challenges.
Speaker 4:And in terms of what led me to setting Bear up, there were definitely push and pull factors. I am an ethnographer by trade, so I was in academia for a while. That's where I started off my career.
Speaker 4:I was then running the research part of the business for Atkins they're now Atkins Realis intelligent mobility practice and then I was kind of at a point where I thought, you know, I really want to provide a kind of research service that is that's essential that cuts out the noise that I could see across the industry and where a lot of agencies weren't really valuing discovery and the kinds of insights that ethnography can really bring this like deep, qualitative approach and I went for a bit of a workshop and reflection journey and trip to the Bearer Peninsula in Ireland and it was there that I came up with the name Bear Analysis and the idea to set up my own agency, and I really love how the name Bear also means as well as being like what's essential, and bear it means a lot of like in British slang. So you've got this wonderful sort of dual meaning of what is pared down and essential, but also what is abundant and fulfilling. So, yeah, it seems almost like it was meant to be in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2:Well, it seems like you like to play with the tensions and hidden meanings and everything. To play with the tensions and hidden meanings and everything. And I'm so excited we have you today, because trying to understand the dynamics of social change and having a tool to do that, I mean that's amazing and I'm so, so, so curious about it. So time to explore ethnography. Could you give our listeners a very quick look on what ethnographic research involves and how it intersects with sustainability and, of course, our world of communications?
Speaker 4:yes, absolutely, danla. So there's a quote from Peter Drucker which I really like.
Speaker 4:He's like the father of management, consulting studies, and he calls the business organization a human, a social and indeed a moral phenomenon. And for me, that's where we start really with ethnography and the power of ethnography. It's the ability to understand the business and the organization as this more human phenomenon we can bring, bring it to life. We can understand how the social dynamics within organizations work, the importance of understanding motivators and why people really make decisions and help us to really change behaviors as well within organizational cultures. And for me, that ability to do that is the power that ethnography can bring. So ethnography it comes from anthropology. It was originally an anthropological research method, but myself and some other organizational ethnography practitioners we take those methods and we apply them to businesses and to organizations. It's concerned with telling stories with long-term insights. It's the most immersive and context-driven type of research that's available and I would say it's an alternative for businesses that might have commissioned a more mainstream method in the past, so, for example, a pulse survey, or we, you know we've done some workshops, but they're actually looking for something that goes a little bit deeper and to really understand, like I say, that decision making process, that social phenomenon of what their culture really means, and to help then provide that extra layer of understanding to other kinds of methodologies. And in terms of what does it really involve? What's ethnography involved? You often get asked that question. It's things like shadowing. So shadowing is a really key technique. So going along, almost spending a bit of a day in life with your interlocutors, so the people that you're co-creating knowledge with it's not just research participants like being having research done to them, but you're co-creating something with the people that you're doing research with. So shadowing them in their day-to-day, doing more ethnographic type interviews as well. So instead of taking people out into a room and doing separate interviews as well, so instead of taking people out into a room and doing separate interviews, you're again just there in their day to day while they're doing those work interactions or while they're if we're talking about transport ethnography while they're on their journeys or on their commutes to work, for example, and you're able to have an interview during that time, during that space, and you're just able to get a lot of rich data that wouldn't be possible to get if you were taking them out of their normal situation.
Speaker 4:Also, participant observation. So ethnography will involve a lot of observing behaviours and that can really help us. To close what we call the say-do gap, so what people say that they do for example, on surveys, where it's self-reported data versus what are they really doing in reality and when you can observe that difference. It really helps us to be able to identify different means of changing behaviours as well. And then also things like visual research. So it's important to be taking photographs, archival research, understanding kinds of documents and how work is written as well can be quite important to ethnography. And finally, I would say being reflexive is really important when you're doing ethnographic research.
Speaker 4:So some people call this the Hawthorne effect, but there's actually not a clear.
Speaker 4:There's not a clear evidence base whether that's a real thing. But basically, my impact as a researcher in the space on the people that I'm there with and I just have to be very much aware of the feelings in my own body when I'm in a particular space, how I'm being made to feel by my interlocutors, but also asking them how am I making you feel being in this space and observing you and having these interactions with you? And you can tell so much from how your interlocutors are responding to you, you know. Are they being defensive? Are they calling you a spy from management, or are they oversharing? Are they, you know, wanting to kind of really take you into their worlds? Do you feel that you're almost being, you know, pulled into going native, you know, really becoming part of that culture? It's really fascinating how ethnography can make the researcher a key part of that research project. So, yeah, I think in a nutshell that's um, I would say ethnography, oh we've we totally ginned up on ethnography.
Speaker 3:Now, thanks to you for this day, I've got an added layer to the think-do-say-do gap. As a campaigner and somebody that puts campaigns together, there's this say-and-do gap and then there's my optimism bias on top of that, which can get you even further adrift from what you want to happen, further adrift from what you want to happen. And so I've got a question on sort of ethnographic research in practice. Who do you think you would cite as being really good at using this type of research? Felicity in practice, yes.
Speaker 4:So I am going to name two of my clients which might be cheating, but go ahead.
Speaker 4:But they are great. So you know two or three, should we say, of my clients. So I would say National Highways, number one. So National Highways, if anyone doesn't know, they are responsible for the SRN, the Strategic Road Network in England. So that's all the motorways, the A roads, the trunk roads, and they work with local authorities who are responsible for your B roads and your smaller roads.
Speaker 4:And National Highways have been trying for quite some time now, for a few years, to really understand the lived realities of incidents on the SRN. So they want to understand how is work lived in terms of dealing with incidents, rather than just how is work written. So, for example, I've done some work with traffic officers who are those folks who are usually first responders to incidents on the on the SRN. They are not a first responder service, they're not part of the ambulance fire police and though they are not a first responder service, they're not part of the ambulance fire police. They are separate and they're run by national highways but they have to deal with a lot of road traffic collisions, a lot of moral dilemmas. So people who you know, they might find people on bridges who are looking to jump, they might find people having panic attacks on the side of the road, everything from that all the way to, you know, cleaning up debris on the road after collisions and things like that. So they have to really live out work as written and National Highways have got really clear work instructions for, you know, dealing with those kinds of tasks and managing those tasks.
Speaker 4:But I did a long-term ethnographic study with these groups across England and it was really amazing to me trying to understand how these different regional groups of traffic officers were living out that work has described or kind of work has written, and having to make decisions in the moment, having to use that dynamic decision making process to, um, you know, support customers in in the moment. And it was only by really providing that ethnographic lens on some of these problems like how, how is work really being done? What are the risks there that aren't understood because they're not captured in like a little work document. You know we have to actually get out there and see what's happening when a hgv is coming at 70 miles an hour. You know, across the hard shoulder, all of these kinds of things, um, that project was was really valuable and important in providing back, um, the realities of what the the traffic officer service was was really facing um, so proud of that work and the amazing you know spending time with the amazing traffic officers.
Speaker 4:And national highways were really the forefront. This was a few years ago now. Looking at that and looking at how can we understand kind of workers lived? So definitely national highways and I've done some work with them more recently on using ethnographic journeys in vehicle with customers, so with people just driving through roadworks and understanding what are the triggers to people. You know feeling that the journeys are not good. You know being upset with roadworks and we were looking at changing different kinds of message signs at the side of the road to make sure that they're optimized and making people feel calmer and giving people the information they need when they're going through roadworks If their journey is being slowed down or isn't exactly how they would want it to be. So, yeah, national Highways really get it and get why that methodology is important.
Speaker 4:I would also say STEER. So they're a global infrastructure consultancy and we are working together on quite a lot of opportunities to understand the value of using researchers who have got embodied knowledge to, for example, enter harder to hear communities to help their team understand problems. You know, with that really embodied perspective and I'm really passionate about this. It was something I was talking about at the market research society agency owners conference. A couple of weeks ago I was hosting a round table looking at growth and how it's really important, I think, and for the research industry and for all of us agency owners, to be aware of who is the best athlete for a particular project. You know how can we work together to create the strongest rainbow teams, to create the strongest kind of approach, and sometimes that means um organizations saying I can't just use my, you know, full-time perm team of researchers to do every single project because it wouldn't be contextually appropriate and actually we're missing out on a lot of embodied knowledge from these communities because, um, our research team isn't going to be all things to all people. You know, um, and we're probably creating elements of risk there by um not engaging with.
Speaker 4:You know an expert or somebody that comes from those communities to do that kind of research, um, so, for example, um, you know an expert or somebody that comes from those communities to do that kind of research.
Speaker 4:So, for example, you know Orthodox Jewish community.
Speaker 4:You need to have somebody that understands those communities and ideally somebody from those communities to engage and to get that insight, somebody that is from the blind and partially sighted community doing work with those communities.
Speaker 4:So for me, I'm again really passionate about that at bear, and we love to create that sort of matchmaking service for our clients where we can identify who are some of the experts in this, in these kinds of niche areas, and um match them up so you're getting the best kind of best kind of freelancers, um and finally, I would say open inclusion, who are an inclusivity consultancy, mostly doing research and engagement as well. But I absolutely love them and their approach and and they they really get this. So they're they've been at the forefront with um disability research for a long time and they also have a fantastic network of kind of global research partners who are able to, you know, go and really understand in depth, you know, what are these different communities facing and let's bring back this knowledge to help solve these more strategic, bigger, bigger problems. So, yeah, three organizations there who are doing it really well.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to come to behavioral change and how to induce it and where we are at the moment, but I just want to have a little bit of a off script question, because that gap between say and do is very important, especially in Turkey.
Speaker 2:We have been talking about it for a long time because it seems that for a bit of time now the intellectuals have lost the ability to pinpoint what the society wants and how the behaviors can change. Last week we have this very prominent researcher in the field and he just announced his new results for a big, big, big survey in Turkey, and there I just heard that he said that not only the quantitative approach is not enough, but also in the qualitative approach, in the research is missing the stereotypes a little bit, because we're always talking about ABCD and so on and so on. But we now have multi-layered identities, like I can be a white-collar woman, I can be a woman, a white-collar woman, a mom who is very, very, very afraid, a white-collar woman, a mom who is very, very, very afraid, a secular woman, and in all these hats we behave differently. So we do need new categories when we research a specific issue inside the society, and also for your clients too. No-transcript.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, I think that's a fantastic question and, yeah, thank you for sharing that about what's going on in Turkey at the moment. Our assumptions are being challenged and, for sure, I think, in terms of persona development and, you know, making categories out of our audiences. This is important. It's been important for a long time and it's useful. It's useful right to be able to have certain kinds of stereotypes or certain kinds of groups that can then help us to understand, like these are categories and we need to serve these different categories better, because you know, otherwise, it would be um very, very difficult if we're looking at every single individual with all of these intersectionalities, like we have to have certain groups that we can um provide for within a market. But absolutely, I think now, in this cultural moment that we have, that's changing and we've got so much up in the air and where people are wearing these multiple identity hats, it's more important than ever to be listening and to be going out into communities and doing that listening from scratch.
Speaker 4:Right, let's do this qualitative research first and foremost, before you do any big data, big data crunching.
Speaker 4:Let's go and understand stories, let's go and understand lived experiences of these groups that might be emerging or where something interesting is happening.
Speaker 4:People on the margins, on the fringes um, in the ux election recently, you know those in swing states, whatever.
Speaker 4:Let's go and really understand these groups, because without that understanding, we're working on assumptions and that is where new campaigns fail, that is where projects fail, it's where investments are wasted. Um, if we don't get that discovery phase really done well, and if we don't understand our problem and we make sure we're not working on assumptions, then you know we're really wasting our time. Basically, and I think a lot of organizations are waking up to that and like waking up to the risks of that, but I think absolutely a lot of organizations are still not quite there. They don't quite realize the risks that they're putting themselves in by not doing the upfront work and really understanding their audiences and how things are changing. You know that they might rely on, like old personas or they'll buy data and then just rely on that old data and you know particularly stuff that was done like pre-pandemic, like we need to just throw it all away, like we need to do research from scratch and be constantly updating our assumptions.
Speaker 3:I mean, when you think about it, felicity, I mean the. I remember um, we're going to get on to transport uh, a bit, I think. But, um, the department for transport, um had some personas that they worked up years ago, and I'm just really conscious of your point about how so much of that work might be chronically out of date and how culturally we're all, as Damla says, we're just massively intersectional beings where we're taking on board different bits of new tribal belief systems and behaviors, and it's quite chaotic out there, isn't it? But tell us so let's have a look at transport, then, because that's one area where, you know, I've run lots of campaigns on transport over the years, and and it is a really fascinating area of cultural belief systems and habits, and and you've looked at that for so long, haven't you? I mean, how do we shift behavior in that area and why are humans so in love with their cars? There you go, I've said it, but that's, that's the thing we've said the unspeakable do yeah, um, absolutely.
Speaker 4:I'll just say as well, to respond to that earlier point, I've worked with another government agency before that shall remain nameless, who indeed were relying on personas and data, like big data that was collected pre-COVID, maybe a couple of years pre-COVID, and it wasn't serving them, causing so many problems, like you know, later down that research funnel in terms of we can't recruit the right participants because, guess what, these people don't exist anymore because everything has changed. You know, digital divide is different, you know. So, yeah, I really hear you there, and I think it is a big issue when organizations come to do research and it's really important for them to be looking at what is is realistic right now, in the moment we're in right now, and what has changed. And if it means we need to spend a bit more time up front confirming our assumptions, let's do that rather than like relying on old assumptions. So, yeah, 100%, hear that, hear that pain. Um, yeah, in terms of transport. So I think so, indeed done a lot of work in this area, a lot of mobility studies over the years.
Speaker 4:People seek control and autonomy over their time and environment is the first thing. That's one of the number one things that people will always do, and the car has been seen as this number one enabler of autonomy in our cultural zeitgeist in the West for a really long time. You know, most of the 20th century up to now, like, if you look at advertising campaigns, some of the most successful right advertising campaigns ever have been car. You know, automotive campaigns. People love that sort of idea, this like romantic idea of you know being free and on the open road and all of that stuff. So that's really powerful, I think, to say. You know, for one thing, it's a really powerful image that has been part of the Zeitgeist for a long time. So shifting that perception, as you know, from that to the car as actually this is a commodity that is costing you a lot of money, that now has negative connotations because it's contributing to your carbon footprint and it's polluting and you know all of these other things. You don't really need it and it's polluting and you know all of these other things, you don't really need it.
Speaker 4:That has taken some time, but I think that that journey is well on the way, to use a bit of a pun, and that is only going to continue, but I think we do have a real issue, I think in certain countries, including the UK, in that transport behavior change relies on choice and relies on options and people need to have choice in order to change their current status quo, because people don't like change at the best of times. And there are certainly behavioral techniques that we know work and we can implement to shift people out of their cars. But if the alternatives that we get people to try are so bad or unreliable and they don't trust them and they don't work for them, people are going to revert right back to their cars where they feel I've got some semblance of control and you know I'm not going to be late for work and I'm not going to have this unreliable, terrible journey that's also expensive. And they won't ever go back to public transport or to active travel unless we make things easier for people and make public transport, make active travel so walking, cycling, wheeling, you know, much more attractive, it cheaper, make it easy, make it sexy and unfortunately in the UK we haven't had that transformative, generational, you know.
Speaker 4:Investment in other kinds of transport modes, you know it has been roads first for for a long time for various reasons, but I think the work, for example, that Andy Burnham and Transport for Greater Manchester are doing. We're both in Manchester, steve, so we know all about this. But the work that you guys have been involved in at Creative Concern with the B Network, the devolution of the Manchester bus network, is having a tremendous change locally and it demonstrates that change is possible with the right incentives in place. So we're keeping the bus cap at two pounds, as Andy Burnham is doing, for 2025. I think that's a great step and it's also a marker in the sand to say we want to keep public transport cheaper for people and we want people to make that choice to choose public transport rather than their cars.
Speaker 4:But I think unless we do have a more transformative and visionary move towards active travel and public transport, it isn't going to be possible to just use behavioral techniques to shift people. That really needs to come at the end. Once you've had transformative investment, once the alternatives are good, it's then just a case of okay. So we just need to educate people and run the campaign and run a great ad to convince people and raise that awareness, but if the alternative is rubbish, people aren't going to change. So I think that is a key challenge that particularly the UK really has to grapple with right now.
Speaker 2:Felicity, I really want to talk for hours and ask a lot of more and more questions to you, but time is limited, so I have to pass to our last question. And the final question is this our network is ironically called Do Not Smile, because we need to make sustainability a subject that brings happiness into the world. So what? What object, place or person always makes you smile?
Speaker 4:oh, this is a great question. Damla always makes me smile. I mean, I I do love manchester I'm from, and whenever I go into Piccadilly station there is a lovely like statue it's to commemorate the first and second world wars outside the station and although it's it's kind of sad, it's really moving and it does make me smile when I'm like walking up towards it, when I see it, when I'm coming out. So I think that demonstrates, like, the power of art and you know, kind of public realm art to to make you smile and and and feel, yes, this is home and I'm I'm like very supportive of what that stands for wow, damn.
Speaker 3:I think, unless I'm very much mistaken, felicity just said that Piccadilly station always makes her smile, which is a fairly unique statement.
Speaker 2:I think, listening to her carefully, I think she also said that home always makes her smile, right, yeah?
Speaker 3:coming home. That's a lovely thing. No, you're quite right. Well and down this right felicity. We could talk forever about this one, because I think I am just properly waking up to the critical importance of everything that you do. At the moment I've been thinking about a lot, and because we've had such massive shifts globally recently, with people getting things completely wrong in terms of their assumptions around what's going on in people's heads, I think we need to go deeper, a lot deeper in terms of our research. So, thank you so much. Damla, do you want to wrap us up?
Speaker 2:So thanks to everyone who has listened to our Good Guys podcast, brought to you by the Do Not Smile network of agencies.
Speaker 3:And make sure you listen to future episodes, where we'll be talking to more amazing people about how we can work together to create a more sustainable future. So, felicity Damla, see you soon. Bye, thank you. So talking to more amazing people about how we can work together to create a more sustainable future.
Speaker 4:So, felicity Damla, see you soon. Bye, bye.
Speaker 1:Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability Hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
