'Common-sense’ research: Senses, emotions and embodiment in researching stag tourism in Eastern Europe'

Recording of presentation given at Vital Signs 2 Conference, 7-9 September 2010, University of Manchester
In this paper I will draw on my experiences of conducting my doctoral research on all-male premarital stag party tourism from Britain to Krakow, Poland. The research therefore concerns the performative and embodied aspects of hegemonic male behaviour that are encouraged and enacted in highly gendered tourist leisure spaces. Central to the process of gaining an ethnographic insight into the stag tourism phenomenon was a willingness to centre sensory, emotional and embodied data in the participant-observation research process. Methodological reflections, therefore, recall the effects of conducting research in a setting which is mediated by the consumption of alcohol and collective drunkenness and pervaded with sensory (the thump of nightclub base speakers, the drunken cheers of stag group participants, the smell of vodka) and emotive (feelings of elation, amusement and disgust) stimuli. Particular importance can be given to the benefit of mutual ‘common-sense’ experiences in building rapport between researchers and their participants. Further, the research topic gave rise to an unusual pace of research, oscillating between moments of intense involvement in the research setting and periods of rest, recovery and reflection. The paper concludes with discussion of some of the potential pitfalls of incorporating such data into theoretical and conceptual frameworks which can often act to deny or minimise the lived experiences of both researchers and participants.