Great response from David. Mahgol - your proposed study seems 'somewhat confused'. I would not encourage it in its current format. Probably best to decide - it is phenomenological, ethnographical or mixed methods? The 'hybrid' that you present seems 'out of kilter'.

First, if this is part of a mixed methods project, then there needs to be some integration between the qualitative and quantitative results. You can't just conduct two separate studies.

Second, I'm not sure whether sense of place is a strong candidate for a phenomenological study. In particular, if you want to emphasize the lived experience of being an immigrant, you cannot simply assume that sense of place is a central feature in that experience.

Third, it would be uncommon to base either ethnography or phenomenology on a theme-based analysis of interviews (thematic analysis is almost always limited to interviews).

So yes, you probably are trying to blend together too many things at once. I suggest you start by concentrating on your central topic around the experience of immigration, and then do a literature search for examples of different ways of studying that experience. In particular, can you find phenomenological studies on this topic? What kind of ethnographic work has been done in this area? Are there studies of immigration that used thematic analysis? As tool for this kind of searching, I recommend Google Scholar.

The goal in such a search would be to see how you yourself feel about the kinds of results and messages that are produced by these different approaches. What kinds of results speak to you in a meaningful way, and which methods can produce what you want to accomplish?

Great response from David. Mahgol - your proposed study seems 'somewhat confused'. I would not encourage it in its current format. Probably best to decide - it is phenomenological, ethnographical or mixed methods? The 'hybrid' that you present seems 'out of kilter'.

Hi Mahgol Motalebi

From what you described, it seems to me that long-term ethnography would be one of the most suitable methods for you to conduct your research on sense of place among migrants. If you are interested in dialoguing with anthropology, maybe you could have a look at literature on 'anthropology at home' - meaning when anthropologists research the groups they belong to, which seems to apply to you. In conjuntion with the bibliography on anthropology at home, auto-anthropology could also be a theme worth exploring, as it would allow you to include yourself in the investigation, as both researcher and informant. I particularly recommend 'The limits of auto-ethnography', by Marilyn Strathern, as a starting point. Hope it helps. Good luck with your project!

Other options would be either "go along" interviews or photo elicitation.

Thank you all for your answers. Really appreciate your feedback.

I assume that I misunderstand the “phenomenology-based Ethnography” and confused myself even further with exploring different research paradigms in the past week.

As a fundamental question, Is there a necessity to label the research with a specific methodology?

If yes, how should that affect the research design?

Some further explanation:

Due to the research question's dual essence (people and place interaction), I took advantage of the embedded mixed-method design. The quantitative analysis has a supplemental role that gives me insight into the possible influence of place characteristics on immigrants (their perception of their local space):

I am investigating the correlation between neighborhood characteristics and the settlement pattern of the case study to see which characteristics and to what extent exist in the case studies’ neighborhoods.

And,

before I start questioning my methodology and research design, to uncover how the case study uses urban space, and how that affects their belonging, I was doing semi-structured interviews with a sample from the case study.

David L Morgan, thank you for the response. Could you please elaborate on your second and third points?

On the second: why the sense of belonging can not count as a phenomenon? what if I am looking the other way round, that I am emphasizing the sense of belonging as a phenomenon and realize how that feeling evolves by exploring the lived experience of immigrants through their spatial practices.

On the third: I assumed that phenomenology" and "ethnography" define and label the theoretical framework of the study: Methodology

and thematic analysis is just one of the Methods for the analysis of the data (interview transcript) and it can mix with other methods that can serve the chosen methodology (Like fieldwork in the ethnographic study)