Island settings and their influence on geographical research methods

Abstract

This study presents lessons learned from the application of mixed methods during three field visits to central Mediterranean islands over an eight-year period to learn about and from visitors who voluntarily paid to experience ecotourism. The study outlines various challenges encountered in research in small island settings. Such challenges include logistical difficulties to reach islands, including those originating from weather conditions, difficulty in practising observation in small communities, sampling dilemmas, different levels of trust and willingness to disclose views among interview participants, lack of standardised data, language barriers that may limit who conducts research on specific islands, and substantial fluctuations in population size throughout the year. Findings show that the choice and application of methods for island research need to be informed by island dynamics; this entails adapting methods and using different data collection techniques to mitigate challenges arising from island settings. The study also outlines the need of more research in the application of mixed methods when studying islands.

Special section: Considering suitable research methods for islands

“…Agius’ fieldwork was undertaken following the call of various island scholars for researchers to take what is known as a nissological point of view (McCall, 1996) and study and represent the experiences and views of islanders on their own terms. Agius takes up the challenge to rethink island research methodologies by adopting mixed methods and arguing for an adaptive approach to research design: “studies of islands and the methods deployed in those studies need to adapt to environments being studied and be informed by local and regional perspectives.” As Agius (2023) documents, there is a great need for adaptive strategies given the difficulties of access to these and similar small islands, language barriers, the many and varied systems used across different contexts regarding government data collection, and the unwillingness of some tourism providers to divulge data in competitive contexts. Integral to this adaptive approach is communication with all parties involved.…”

Radical rest and recreation and their spatial permutations

“…Thereafter, we present a special section on island methodologies and geographies comprising a guest editorial by McMahon and Baldacchino (2023) and five papers on decolonising methodologies (Farbotko et al, 2023), islandness and art (Brinklow, 2023), island settings’ influences on methodologies (Agius, 2023), connectivity conservation strategies on islands (Kirkpatrick, 2023), and insider perspectives on island research (Teasdale & Teasdale, 2023).…”