Geographic location poll

[sqbr]

I've been pondering how to do polls about various things in a way which minimises people feeling excluded or otherwise misrepresented. And I think the easiest way to test those ideas out is make polls and see what people don't like about them!

First off, nationality. As was pointed out to me the last time I tried doing a poll on this topic, just because I've lived in the same country my whole life and fit comfortably into it's majority culture doesn't mean other people's identities are so simple. It struck me that asking where people are currently located is a much less ambiguous question though of course you have to be careful not to then make the jump from "geographic location" to "national identity" in the analysis etc (especially since people might be on a three day business trip or something :)).

So! Please do this poll and then tell me anything about it that bugs you.

Poll #3915

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 39

In which geographic region are you currently located?

Africa
0 (0.0%)

North America
12 (30.8%)

South America
1 (2.6%)

Asia
1 (2.6%)

Europe
9 (23.1%)

Oceania
17 (43.6%)

Polar regions
1 (2.6%)

Somewhere at sea
0 (0.0%)

The sky/Space/parallel universe etc
0 (0.0%)

Other
0 (0.0%)

Using Wikipedia's Regions of the World. I divided North and South America since they are two different continents.

Another different question I could ask is "in which geographic location is the place or places that you consider "home" in some significant way?" but that's a bit vague, maybe.

Any alternatives, extra questions or extra answers etc you think would be better?

Comments

[adelheid]

'In which geographic region are you currently located?' is really quite a different question from 'in which geographic location is the place or places that you consider "home" in some significant way?' Plus, that second one would need to be a tickybox question rather than radioboxes. For me, anyway. (Also, place or places that I consider home may still not indicate nationality, plus recall that a person may have more than one nationality.)

The one thing that bugged me in this one is actually something that I need to stop being bugged by, which is having to tick 'Oceania' rather than 'Australia'.

[yalovetz]

Currently located in Oceania, legal citizen of and cultural identity most informed by an upbringing in a country in Europe, and also a legal citizen of a country in the Caribbean (which would probably come under North America in your poll, or perhaps Somewhere at sea).

For me, legal nationality =/= cultural identity =/= current location.

[kaz]

I have German/US-American dual nationality, was born in the US and spent most of my childhood in Germany but part of it in the US, my cultural background/family background/etc. is German and I do NOT consider myself American although I sometimes do consider myself to be from the specific state where we lived (although not the one I was born in). And, to top things off, am currently living in Britain and have been for six years, aka the entirety of my adult life.

So, like, if you asked me where "home" was I'd say Germany, and if you asked me for a location in Germany I'd give the city in which my family lived after returning from the states although I only set foot in it for the first time when I was eleven (because the only alternative is the city we moved from when I was five which I cannot remember living in, and which is in Bavaria when I do not consider myself Bavarian), if you gave me ticky boxes and separated out "home" and "where you are from" and "cultural background" and "ethnic background" and all that I might also add Britain and might might MIGHT add "Connecticut" if it was an option but would never add "USA" (?!?! my brain.)

...it's complicated? D:

Personal rage buttons for me are assuming birthplace, nationality, or ethnic background entail everything else (for the first two, as said, do NOT consider myself American - and birthplace actually erases my identity as German completely - for the last, I get severely pissed off when people argue as though a US person of US culture with German heritage a few generations back is totally the same as and equivalent to me and my experiences), conflating culture with other identity markers, assuming there are no cultural differences between Western countries (minimising culture as an aspect of identity or, especially, conflating US culture and German culture and other Western cultures, sets me off like nothing else. I am still plumbing the depths of the complexes and hurts growing up with a minority culture in the US gave me.)

I am understanding of just "Europe" though because there's not enough boxes for every country in the world, so unless something else is going on it pings me as a space limitation rather than conflation. Do admit to feeling kind of >:) to see all countries being treated that way, since usually it's something like "US, Canada, Australia, UK" and *then* "other country in Europe, etc." (or sometimes just "other country" as one option which... yeah, not so much.) Also, I do generally consider "where are you from" as a question okay because that's a question I can interpret in a way I find comfortable, although it's somewhat different in RL (where if I answer "Germany" people think I've just recently moved to the UK and if I answer "(city in Britain)" people think I'm British. *sigh*). You might also try something like "what do you consider your national identity/ies" or... idk. /o\

Sorry for the wordflow, just, IT'S COMPLICATED. D:

[ex_peasant441]

Perhaps 'in which region do you live?' would be a phrase that gave you a better idea of what I think you are trying to find out, since it eliminates the problem of short term travelling. Most people I think have a mental concept of where their residence is.

[moonbug]

In a previous place I worked we had "North Africa and Middle East" and "Sub-sahara Africa" as separate locations rather than as "Africa". There were also other sub regions listed rather than the usual 7 continents. This is because we wanted to group where people came from not only in terms of physical geography but cultural geography.

Of course even within a country there are different cultural and ethnic groups that people identify with, which change their perception of "home".

I guess it depends on why you are asking where people are, what are you hoping to do with that data, how is that going to affect what you write/do/talk about/whatever in the future.