Write a paper constitutes the methods chapter for my dissertation, which uses an ethnographic approach to urban planning. It lies at the intersection of urban planning and sociology. It asks how “storytelling” as a method can advance our knowledge about the built environment. The research explores the lived experiences of Black trans women in the District of Columbia, an overlooked and understudied population. The researcher is non-trans nor Black but exercised methods that dismantle the researcher/participant hierarchy to gain access and build trust. Due to the difficult-to-reach nature of the studied population, snowball sampling was integral for recruiting participants. The ethnographies led the researcher to locate the physical site in the urban environment where the studied population assembled and formed a community. Moreover, the researcher asked participants to produce mental maps to visualize the way they perceive the built environment and help planners understand further their lived experiences. Please focus on:
storytelling as a method for spatial knowledge
Accessing difficult-to-reach populations and snowball sampling
the importance of critical ethnography for urban planning methods
mental mapping and psychogeography
