The global pandemic has created a radically changed landscape for the practice of research. As we all face these challenges and look to rethink our research projects and approaches in line with this new situation, we wanted to gather together some resources that might provide some useful guidance, information, and support. These resources are thought particularly for undergraduate social and cultural geography students, but will of course be useful more widely too. We hope that you find them helpful. This is a live resource, and we will be adding things as and when they come up in the coming months. If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to get in touch with the group’s Dissertation Officer, Dr. Sofie Narbed: sofie.narbed@rhul.ac.uk.
Crowd-sourced resources
Don’t know where to start? Colleagues at Cambridge University have created a crowd-sourced document specifically focused towards Human Geography research which may be a great place to start.
Online research methods
If you’re thinking of taking your methods online – whether that’s interviews, questionnaires of analysing online media – we’ve found some great resources about online research methods to help you get started.
Secondary data sources
Due to the difficulties of doing ‘fieldwork’ during a pandemic, you might find yourself working predominantly with secondary rather than primary data for your dissertation. Here’s a list of secondary data sources which are freely available online, that could be used as a basis for a social/cultural geographical dissertation study.
Secondary data analysis
So you’ve chosen to use secondary data in your dissertation – what next? We’ve put together a list of readings which provide guidance on secondary data analysis of visual materials, texts, adverts, films and more.
Mapping resources
Mapping online datasets can add an extra dimension to your project. Take a look at our top picks for mapping resources.
Webinars, conferences and podcasts
Looking for further inspiration? We’ve collated lists of webinars, conferences and podcasts, all about accessing and using secondary data sets and adapting research methods to the new situation we are in.
Methods used in SCGRG prize winning dissertations
We’ve looked through the full back catalogue of SCGRG prize winning undergraduate dissertations and found useful examples using lockdown-appropriate methods.