PART OF A FIRST DRAFT OF METHODOLOGY

THIS IS PART OF A FIRST DRAFT OF METHODOLOGY. A PROOFREADING IS NEEDED.

Methodology

For this study, two subjects will be selected and photographed to learn poverty in Korea. The point of selecting the subjects is to identify those who represent poverty in modern society  of Korea. In addition, in-depth depiction of poverty is of importance as well. For this study, photographing few subjects will be more efficient to deeply portray how poverty looks like in Korea. Thus, given future interviews committed, having few subjects is to avoid complication of viewing many different subjects and to let outside interviewees focus on and apprehend subjects. Therefore, I focus on two subjects who I believe well project poverty in Korea- particularly in Busan, a second biggest city in Korea. Two subjects are categorized by a family with children and an elderly couple living by themselves. Those different type of a family will project a different sort of a living style which can contribute a diversity of poverty. For instance, a family with children will allow me to view the interactions between parents and their children, and their children themselves. In contrast, an elderly couple is unable to show much interaction with each other. Furthermore, during interviews, the family with children would be expected to provide more insights into their relationships both between parents and their children and their children by themselves.

Another point when to select subjects is location of subjects - where they currently live in the city. First, the family with children has lived in a poor town believed to be the most vast poor area located near in Busan Port.  It is a well-known place where economically the underprivileged people have lived since Korean War in 1950. The fact that the place is identified with a historical site of retaining an old-fashioned living style attracts tourists -even foreign tourists. The family have lived in the place where historically the poor have resided. Second,  on the contrary, the elderly couple have lived in a town where it becomes so urbanized with the dazzling apartment complex surrounding their home. It means that the town recently experiences civilization except the couple’s house.   Therefore, the two different selection of subjects living in a unparalleled site is expected to glimpse a different aspect when it comes to show poverty in Korea.

I would choose 15 photographs for each of the subjects for an interview with them. During the interviews, all of the two subjects are questioned about the following questions.

Lists of questions

- Can you say about this photograph?

- What do you think this photograph means to you?

follow-up questions

-  What do you think it could miss in this photograph? -  

Rather than a collective interview with multiple persons, an individual interview with a single person will be implemented given the concerns whether their family members could interrupt their own responses. Another important point of interviews is that outsiders, not both of the family members, will be interviewed to learn how non-members of the family think about poverty I photograph. It will provide  different insights into poverty which outsiders think the subject reflects. Thus, responses obtained from outsiders will allow me to identify what I miss in my photographs. Who will be selected for outsider interviewees?

- social class economically

wealth - middle-aged person

poor- middle-aged person



- age and gender

young man

young woman

old man

old woman



Questions for outsider interviewees.

- What do you think the selection demonstrate about?

- Can you select, if you can, the best five(?) images which describe poverty?  and would you tell me why you choose them?

- What does  this selection misses to depict poverty? -