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Travel report - Allan Craigie |
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Research trip to Ontario, Allan Craigie, University of Edinburgh
Due to the generosity of the
British Association for Canadian Studies and the Foundation for Canadian
Studies, I had the opportunity to visit Canada
during the summer of 2008 to conduct research at the Statistics Canada Research
Data Centre (RDC) at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
The purpose of the trip was
threefold. The primary objective was to
access Statistic Canada's
Ethnic Diversity Survey. This survey
analysis was undertaken to support my research into territorial identity
mobilization in Nova Scotia. The information is not available to the
public due to privacy concerns. To
access the data I first had to make a peer reviewed application to the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Upon the success of this application, I had
to undergo security clearance by Statistics Canada, which was complicated by
not being based in Canada. Fortunately the clearance came through, but
only on the day the research was scheduled to commence. Once at the RDC, I signed the security
clearances and became a ‘deemed employee' of Statistics Canada, subject to all
the statutory regulations governing Statistics Canada.
The research conducted at the RDC
was fruitful, but was impacted by two of Statistics Canada's rules, which
protect the privacy of the respondents in the data sets. The first rule is that no data can leave the
RDC without being examined by the RDC's Research Analyst. If any cell in an unweighted table is less
than 10 it is not allowed to leave the RDC and is not available for public use.
As the research was testing the sense of belonging people have to their
provinces relative to Canada as a whole in relation to political attitudes, it
meant that many of the results were not able to leave the RDC due to extremely
high rates of belonging to Canada and the provinces-so few Canadians have weak
attachments to either their province or the federation. The second rule is that to ensure no data
leaves without being examined, no portable storage devices such as memory
sticks or MP3 players are allowed in the RDC.
As such, I was forced to spend my days running statistics programmes
without music from my iPod to keep me sane.
The other purposes of the trip
were to meet with academics at Queen's University who are experts in aspects of
my research to discuss my work and gain feedback, and to access secondary
sources not available in the United
Kingdom.
Both of these proved extremely successful, and the feedback I received
will help inform my PhD Thesis.
This research contributed to my
PhD Thesis and established the groundwork for future articles, which will
expand upon my PhD research. I am
extremely grateful to the Association for their continued support of my work.
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