Session 56

M1 Methods for Analyzing the Economy: Rural-Urban-Relations, Spatial Transformations and the Economy

Spatial transformations, economic transformations and social transformations often usually multually drive each other. Typical examples are industrialization and urbanization. The session aims at asking how to analyze these entanglements of the economy with other transformations and what spatial forms and effects they produce. Examples could be industrialization but also other types of rural-urban-entanglements of the economy, such urban agriculture. Papers address one of the following questions either at a general methodological level or at using a concrete example of a specific research project: (1) Which data are suitable for which kind of research questions and how can they be collected? How valid are results drawn from the different kind of data? (2) Where and how can data be collected? Which sampling strategies can be applied and how does it affect the generalization of results? (3) When and why is it useful to use a mixed-method- or multi-method-approach? And which data collection and analysing methods fit best? What are the challenges the researcher might face? (4) What are further challenges and opportunities of analyzing the economy?