Justin Hosbey
Observer
SciCycle
I would probably go and figure out what are the times and places of any kind of community organization that meets like at a community center, if it's group of elders in the neighborhood, if it's some bingo players, if it's a church that has something recreational for kids to do, I'd figure out, "Okay, what institutions are within the neighborhood first?" And then just go visit and show up. So for example, doing research in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, it was really about going to churches and meeting people in church. And then from there snowballing it to, "Okay, now I met you at church. So now I'm going to get an invitation over to your home for dinner or something or a barbecue." And it just rolls into that. That's how we do our work. It's network-based, but you create a purposive sample of this. That means, you're trying to go to a particular place trying to find 10 people. And then from there, it becomes a snowball sample of, "Do you know someone who you think would be good to bring into this program or talk to about the particular topic."