This workshop explores how to incorporate hard-to-access official data into qualitative research on law, governance, and public policy in Hong Kong. We will discuss our experience as researchers on the three-year RGC-funded project Immigration Detention and Vulnerable Migrants in Hong Kong: Evaluating the System, Facilitating Reform.
Official data from 2017 to 2019 shows that Hong Kong detains almost as many (and sometimes more) people each year for immigration control as the number of people imprisoned annually for committing crimes. Despite the large number of migrants routinely put behind bars, there is very limited official data on immigration detainees. Considering that detention concerns persons deprived of their freedom, the lack of data is markedly concerning. In contrast, the prison authority regularly publishes statistics on persons held in their institutions, including prison population numbers by gender, number of self-harm incidents, and cases of solitary confinement.
Our research team at the Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong is conducting the first detailed study of immigration detention in Hong Kong. In addition to secondary literature review, analysis of government documents, and research interviews, we have been engaging in extensive data gathering.
In this workshop, we will discuss the landscape of open government data and challenges in accessing data. We will share our attempts in obtaining official data through access-to-information (ATI) requests via the Code on Access to Information, including specific examples of challenges we faced and how we navigated them.
With relevant data scattered across departments and source formats, cleaning and compiling data can be an arduous task. We will share how we have tackled cleaning messy data, aggregating data across many sources, and crucially, how to analyse and cross-reference your resulting dataset to ensure accuracy. We will also discuss our efforts to present and share this data in ways that facilitates practical impact.
This workshop would be of interesting to anyone interested in civic data and the challenges and process of data gathering. For researchers interested in filing their own ATI requests, please feel free to bring your draft questions for discussion.
About the data page:
https://dsprojects.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/en/projects/immigration-detention-in-hong-kong/For more information about the research project, please visit the project website:
https://immigrationdetentionhk.net/----------------------------------
Date: 22 April 2022
Time: 1500 - 1700
Location: Online via Zoom
Language: English
