Data, data collection and empirical analysis

A brief description is given below regarding the empirical work and analysis of the thesis. To provide evidence and to elaborate on the proposed conceptual framework, two empirical case studies (Stake 2003) were conducted. As the objective is to investigate the cultural logic of translocal marketplace cultures by exploring neo-tribal forms of transnational cultural production, several criteria were used to evaluate and choose appropriate empirical settings: Most importantly, empirical cases were selected that 1) represent new forms of neo-tribal cultural production, 2) offer in-depth insights into transnational marketplace phenomena with reasonable scope, 3) give access for the researcher, 4) enable both online and off-line investigations and finally 5) allow the development and experimentation of new methods.

The first empirical case study set out to examine a translocal marketplace culture in the context of traveling (see Essay II “Environmental Dialogue in Online Communities” ). By means of netnographic methods, a transnational online community of “global travelers” in which consumers participate from around the world, was studied. The selected community was ideal for the study of translocal cultural production because it consisted of 139.906 registered members from 244 countries. The community was considered inherently translocal because of its nature: the members being active travelers who were constantly on the move around the globe while simultaneously participating in the online dialogues at the community website. Therefore, the participants took part in the translocal cultural production, for instance, by posting comments on discussions around a variety of topics as well as by reporting travel experiences or images from different parts of the world.

To provide some additional insights and background information that cannot be found in the original paper, Appendices 1-3 give further details concerning the studied community and its members. For instance, it was possible to retrieve rather detailed information about who the travelers were, where they came from as well as how they travelled around the globe. Based on this data, it can also be concluded that the traveler community offered an excellent opportunity to study the production of transnational cultural forms and practices.

The empirical research was carried out in 2006-2008 by employing two principal research strategies:

First, the researcher observed the community activities and discussions during a period of two years in order to gain an insider’s perspective in the community. Second, the researcher gathered data and recorded field notes concerning particular transnational cultural practices and dialogues related to sustainable travelling. In addition, it was possible to identify the most active community members (see Appendix 3) for cross-sectional analyses that provided useful insights for understanding the essence of the large community. All data was also coded thematically using NVivo7 software (by QSR International Pty. Ltd.). However, the software was utilized mainly for organizing the gathered data. As the data corpus consisted of a total of 761 pages of downloaded forum discussions on sustainable aspects of travel, 70 representative threads (see Appendix 4) were chosen for the analysis reported in Essay II.

The second empirical case study set out to investigate a neo-tribal marketplace culture in the context of an extreme sport of paintball (see Essay IV “Brothers in Paint” ). By means of a practice-oriented, multi-sited ethnographic study, a translocal paintball marketplace culture was analyzed. Paintball, a team

and tournament based sport was chosen for the empirical investigation primarily because it is currently played in over 110 countries and it provided access to a transnational, rapidly changing marketplace culture in an intriguing setting. The translocal nature of the sport was present due to the international tournament based format: Recurrent tournament events, games and training sessions in various countries organized and reproduced paintball as a translocal practice in which international participants engaged. As illustrated in the videography included in this thesis, a strong sense of community seems to connect the transnational paintball tribe.

Briefly put, paintball is a sport where players advance on a field shooting each other with paintball markers. It is a highly competitive, high-tech, fast-paced and exiting sport requiring athleticism and skills. Paintball therefore requires countless hours of practice, commitment, effort and team-work to master. The sport has also become a multi-million euro industry supported by a large number of companies, brands and equipment manufacturers. In the United States alone, it is estimated that there are over 10 million paintball players. Despite having suffered from negative attitudes related to war-like features of the game, paintball has recently gained more public awareness due to such things as mainstream media coverage (e.g. ESPN) as well as having adopted into computer games (e.g.

NPPL Championship Paintball 2009, Microsoft Xbox 360).

Although paintball has undergone some significant changes since its early days, the present form of paintball is played in competitive tournament series consisting of large scale events with trade shows, spectators and hundreds of teams (for instance, over 150 teams of more than 15 nationalities in a typical Millennium event). The largest paintball tournament series in Europe is the Millennium Series yearly spanning five events across Europe. The United States has two competing large-scale tournaments series, the PSP and the NPPL of which the former hosts the largest single international tournament of the year, the PSP World Cup.

The empirical study was significant: ethnographic fieldwork was carried out in five large-scale international paintball tournaments, in European Millennium tournaments (Malaga, Nürnberg, Toulouse, London and Paris) and in the PSP World Cup (Orlando) in 2008. In Millennium tournaments there were around 130 paintball teams from 20 countries and in the World Cup tournament in Orlando more than 500 teams participated. The data consists of approximately 100 informal interviews, 20 videotaped interviews, 400 recorded photographs and 50 hours of videotaped paintball practices in tournaments and casual settings. In addition, netnographic

materials were collected from paintball online communities and over 100 paintball-related publications were reviewed.

Paintball was chosen for the study partly because during my doctoral studies, I had an excellent access to paintball and key informants via my co-author who had been participating in the sport for over 14 years on the international amateur level. The research team consisted of three members with varying levels of paintball expertise. During the project, I experienced paintball on-field for the first time and sought to gain an insider’s perspective into the sport. This was achieved by participant/practitioner-observation (on and off-field), triangulation of perspectives with the research team as well as by analyzing the collected ethnographic materials.