Root Shock's Missing Appendix Using Situation Analysis for Critical Policy Studies and Beyond

Abstract

In Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It, Mindy Fullilove analyses how the US government's urban renewal policy destroyed multiple communities across the country. Fullilove intended to include an appendix discussing situation analysis, the research method she used to study root shock. This paper takes up the task of that missing appendix. Situation analysis is a flexible and accessible way to study complex social phenomena or events. The goal is to describe how macro-political, social, and economic structures influence micro-level events, processes, and decision-making. In this paper, we de fine situation analysis and offer a guide to the method, detailing the phases of data collection and analysis: identifying 'what happened' and the people involved; documenting a variety of perspectives on the events of the situation; and se ing events and perspectives within an embedding context. We conclude with a discussion of the unique insights gained when this approach is applied in policy studies.