Toolbox: Capturing and Understanding Telecoupling through Qualitative Research

Abstract

Understanding land-use change requires attention to local contexts and global processes. In this chapter, zooming techniques and multi-sited research are presented as two qualitative approaches that can capture both aspects of change within the same research project. This chapter describes how zooming techniques and multi-sited research enable the in-depth contextual knowledge needed in qualitative research while allowing the researcher to follow processes outwards in space and backwards in time. Practical advice and examples as well as trade-offs associated with the two approaches are also presented. It is argued that qualitative research is important in telecoupling analysis, as it allows the research to ask who, what, where, and when, in order to get to the how and the why of a certain land-use event or change.