Data progress on Forcett fire

The past few months have passed quickly, as I head towards my mid-candidature. I conducted two field trips to Tasmania last year, in August and October, conducting 27 interviews on community-led recovery. The 40 people (22 women and 18 men) interviewed were all involved in the 2013 Forcett Tasmania bushfire, and ranged from community members, to volunteers, as well as representatives of local and state government and non-government services. The audio recorded interviews have been transcribed and returned to interviewees for approval. 

I have been progressing the data analysis phase of the research, data coding and theory building. This phase will involve theoretical sampling in the near future, a process in grounded theory where sampling occurs until no new data emerges. In the later part of 2015, I gained valuable experience conducting grounded theory coding for another research project. 

I was also fortunate last year to present the progress of my PhD at the RMIT Sustainable Volunteering workshop and receive important feedback from CRC end-users. Attending the AFAC/CRC conference in Adelaide was valuable - I presented a poster on my research project, participated in training and a field trip, networked and generally kept abreast of new research. So far in 2016 I have attended two workshops: ‘writing an article’ by SAGE and ‘presenting your research with impact’ at RMIT University.