Representations of Poverty and Place: Using Geographical Text Analysis to Understand Discourse

Description

This book explores a novel methodological approach which combines analytical techniques from linguistics and geography to bring fresh insights to the study of poverty. Using Geographical Text Analysis, it maps the discursive construction of poverty in the UK and compares the results to what administrative data reveal. The analysis draws together qualitative and quantitative techniques from corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, Geographical Information Science, and the spatial humanities. By identifying the place-names that occur within close proximity to search terms associated with to poverty it shows how different newspapers use place to foreground different aspects of poverty (including employment, housing, money, and benefits), and how the London-centric nature of newspaper reporting dominates the discursive construction of UK poverty. This book demonstrates how interdisciplinary research methods can illuminate complex social issues and will appeal to researchers in a number of disciplines from sociology, geography and the spatial humanities, economics, linguistics, health, and public policy, in addition to policymakers and practitioners. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxv Defining and Measuring Poverty (Laura L Paterson, Ian N Gregory)....Pages 1-18 Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, and Poverty (Laura L Paterson, Ian N Gregory)....Pages 19-39 Geographical Information Systems and Textual Sources (Laura L Paterson, Ian N Gregory)....Pages 41-60 Conducting GTA Using Poverty as a Search Term (Laura L Paterson, Ian N Gregory)....Pages 61-93 How to Use GTA in Discourse Analysis (Laura L Paterson, Ian N Gregory)....Pages 95-122 Locating (Un)Employment in the National Press (Laura L Paterson, Ian N Gregory)....Pages 123-158 Characterising Poverty in Place: Benefits Receipt in Britain (Laura L Paterson, Ian N Gregory)....Pages 159-192 Geography-Based Discourses of Poverty (Laura L Paterson, Ian N Gregory)....Pages 193-226 Conclusions (Laura L Paterson, Ian N Gregory)....Pages 227-244 Back Matter ....Pages 245-260