Sensitivity to cultural difference in tourism research: contingency in research design

The Methodological and Practical Issues of Conducting Tourism Research into Aboriginal Communities: The Manyallaluk Experience

“…It was found that the word 'research' created barriers between the researcher and potential partidpants, so the terms 'gathering information' and' study' were used instead. Their experiences correspond to some extent to other personal accounts of conducting research within Aboriginal communities (Schuler et al 1999;Tuhiwai Smith 1999).…”

“…The study undertaken by Schuler et al (1999) illustrated the importance of conducting research that deals with major ethical and cultural issues throughout the planning and implementation process. They provided a personal account of developing a research design to explore tourism impacts on the Djabugay community near Cairns, Queensland, Tourism Recreation Research Vol.…”

“…Several authors have discussed the cultural issues that evolved during the course of their research or work experience with Aboriginal communities (Holmes et al 2002;Donovan and Spark 1997;Crawford 1989;Crawford et al 2000;Hoog and Sherwood 1979;Schuler et al 1999;Miller and Rainow 1997). The cultural differences noted as potentially impacting on the effectiveness of the communication process between a non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal person were related to the role of questioning, privacy, language, information gathering, and concept of time common to Aboriginal cultures.…”

“…Contrary to the experiences of Holmes et al (2002) and Schuler et al (1999), the ethics approval process for this study was relatively uncomplicated. This can be attributed to the researcher learning from the experience of other researchers who have conducted tourism research in an Aboriginal community setting.…”

“…However, only a limited number of personal accounts and experiences have been documented to date within this topic area (Schuler et al 1999;Holmes et al 2002;McMasters 1996;Dudgeon 2000). Much of the literature dealing with these issues has drawn on the experiences of health researchers and only one account exists that describes the contingencies in research design, related to tourism research (Schuler et al 1999). Yet, experiences that highlight problems and difficulties in data collection and sampling will differ significantly within disciplines such as health and business.…”