The following blog will be covering the methods utilised to conduct our research during our time in Amsterdam.
As a group we were all intrigued by over-tourism in relation to the relaxed drug policies and the implications it has, particularly on the locals. This interest was sparked by a number of news articles, especially with the recent ‘stay away’ campaign. This campaign arose due to the huge amounts of tourists that visit Amsterdam to “go wild” rather than explore the city’s rich cultural history (USA Today, 2023).
Due to the nature of our research topic, we came to the conclusion that the use of semi-structured interviews and an ethnographic appraoch was best suited for our study.
Interviews
We decided to utilise interviews, specifically semi-structured as it enabled us to gather rich in-depth data due to the ‘reciprocity’ naure of the method (Bloom & Crabtree 2006, cited in Kallio et al, 2016). This is because of the way semi-structured interviews are conducted since it consists of a set of open-ended questions, allowing the participant to expand on their answers (Adeoye‐Olatunde & Olenik, 2021). Therefore, it was extremely important to not interrupt the interviewee throughout the process in order avoid limiting our findings, as on occasion they would drift off and talk about other issues we may not have considered earlier. However, this aspect of semi-structured interviews could’ve potentially proved to be troublesome since the participant may stray away from the core topic too much. In order to manage this, we drafted a set of core questions we felt were paramount in aiding our research. This allowed us to keep the interviews on track and provided us with a safety net to fall back on if we felt the interview was derailing off topic.
Ethnography
Originally, we planned on using ‘urban tours’ as our second research method. However, upon receiving feedback from our tutors we collectively decided to opt for an ethnographic approach. This change provided us with the platform to obtain richer qualitative data due to the broader nature of the method. For instance, ethnographic research involves participation as well as observation over a period of time (Naidoo, 2012). However, we still took advantage of urban tours as a source of information and even asked the tour guide (local) for his opinion on drug-tourism. In addition, we went into coffeeshops to understand the vibe of these places and to see if we could notice if majority of people coming in and out were tourists or locals. Thus, we made sure to utilise all aspects of an ethnographic approach in order to collect rich, in-depth meaningful data. After conducting all research, we analysed and interpreted the data in an attempt to explore and discover any sort of potential pattern.
References
Adeoye‐Olatunde, O.A. and Olenik, N.L., (2021). Research and scholarly methods: Semi‐structured interviews. Journal of the American college of clinical pharmacy, 4(10), pp.1358-1367.
AMSTERDAM.NET (2019). The Bulldog, Amsterdam's most famous coffee shops. [Online] available at: https://www.amsterdam.net/en/amsterdam-nightlife/bulldog-coffee-shops/
Kallio, H., Pietilä, A.M., Johnson, M. and Kangasniemi, M., (2016). Systematic methodological review: developing a framework for a qualitative semi‐structured interview guide. Journal of advanced nursing, 72(12), pp.2954-2965.
Naidoo, L., (2012). Ethnography: An introduction to definition and method. An ethnography of global landscapes and corridors, 10, p.1-22.
Reyes, J. (2024) Personal Photo. [Cover Photo]
March 19, 2024
