Abstract
The paper describes an innovative methodology developed as part of a major “mixed methods” collaborative and multidisciplinary research project across several Latin American cities. It offers a systematic “hands-on” methodology about how to conduct multi-disciplinary and team-based intensive case studies of low-income household dynamics and trajectories in self-help dwelling structures in (now) consolidated low-income settlements of Latin America. The research project describes how to collect information about family genealogies, household organization and individual member mobility, tied to materials that allow for the construction of detailed housing plans and architectonic diagrams resulting from self-building in informal settlements over a thirty-year period. The majority of the original “owner” self-builders still reside in these (now) consolidated properties, and the methodology provides for cross generational analysis of household behavior in relation to the dynamics of dwelling construction and use of space, household organization, inheritance and heirship.
Highlights
Case studies are an important and widely used strategy within qualitative research that seeks to understand lowHow to cite this paper: Ward, Jiménez, & Di Virgilio (2014)
A generation later, similar ethnographic and case study approaches recast this rationality and organization into what became more widely understood as social capital (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 1993)
In this paper we make no attempt to reconcile those approaches except to note that many of us work “both sides of the street”, and use qualitative methods generally, and case studies in particular, in order to provide deeper insights about processes that might help explain some of the findings and correlations identified in other broader multivariate data analyses. This is the approach that we adopt in this paper, since we first conducted extensive household surveys and later used an intensive case study methodology to gain detailed insights about the nature and dynamics of household and family organization in low income settlements in Latin American cities (Ward, Jiménez, & Di Virgilio, 2014; Latin American Housing Network [LAHN] www.lahn.utexas.org)
Summary
How to cite this paper: Ward, Jiménez, & Di Virgilio (2014). Intensive Case Study Methodology for the Analysis of Self-Help Housing Consolidation, Household Organization and Family Mobility. In this paper we make no attempt to reconcile those approaches except to note that many of us work “both sides of the street”, and use qualitative methods generally, and case studies in particular, in order to provide deeper insights about processes that might help explain some of the findings and correlations identified in other broader multivariate data analyses This is the approach that we adopt in this paper, since we first conducted extensive household surveys and later used an intensive case study methodology to gain detailed insights about the nature and dynamics of household and family organization in low income settlements in Latin American cities (Ward, Jiménez, & Di Virgilio, 2014; Latin American Housing Network [LAHN] www.lahn.utexas.org). The family and household unit is the primary level at which social networks are embedded and mobilized (González de la Rocha, 1994; Menéndez, 1992: p. 4)
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