The purpose of the thesis is to explore the subjective lived experience of spouses accompanying conference attendees to conference and the meanings of that travel to the individuals, from their perspectives. To meet the research aim, it was felt important to give voice to the research participants and to acknowledge the researcher’s understanding of participants’ voices. The knowledge sought here concerns participants’ reflection on their experience and the researcher
understanding participants’ accounts through the inductive process of
interpretation of the meaning of their perspective. This means that the research is designed to capture the subjective ‘feel’ of particular experiences as well as to identify recurring patterns of experience among a group of people. The
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phenomenological focus of this thesis therefore requires a distinctive approach, namely interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) rather than giving privilege to any one particular phenomenological philosophy.
Firstly, IPA enables me to explore accompanying spouses’ subjective experience focusing on pre-reflexive features and the meanings of such experience (Brocki & Wearden, 2006). In fact, phenomenology has increasingly been a preferred
approach in studies of the tourist experience (see, for example, Hayllar & Griffin, 2005; Li, 2000; Pernecky, 2006; Santos & Yan, 2010; Szarycz, 2008; Uriely, 2005; Ziakas & Boukas, 2013). This is because phenomenology focuses on the nature and meaning of a specific phenomenon as it is experienced. Thus, it helps the researcher provide new informative sources and knowledge in the tourism literature by describing a deeper understanding of lived experience from the insider’s perspective. While the importance of the individuals’ accounts in
understanding the nature of the phenomenon is still emphasised, the focus of these studies is on the discovery of the phenomenon’s underlying structure as
experienced by research participants. The understanding of how participants consider what is happening to them appears to be still missing from published research. This may result in the objectification of knowledge if it is pursued with positivistic assumptions (Szarycz, 2009), that is, “interpreting embodied subjects becomes interpreted categorised objects” (Cunliffe, 2011, p. 652). As this thesis is positioned within the interpretivist paradigm, however, it requires concerning the meanings of accompanying spouses’ subjective experience of conference travel rather than the objective nature of conference travel experienced by them (Willig, 2008).
This thesis intends to go beyond the description of the underlying structure of the lived experience of the participants to explaining the meaning of the conference travel experience for accompanying spouses within the context of the individual’s life world (Smith et al., 2009). IPA can facilitate a depth and richness of the description and understanding of the lived experience of the participants (Smith et al., 2009). It allows participants to provide personal meaning to their experiences (Smith, 2004). This meaning is used in the present research to reveal the
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objective documentation of that experience. IPA helps me to produce knowledge that reflects the set of specific meanings both shared by all the participating accompanying spouses (i.e. commonalities) and subjectively and distinctively embodied in that experience (i.e. particularities) (Larkin et al., 2006; Smith, 2011). Therefore, the research consistent with an IPA approach may provide a unique contribution to ‘subjectivised experience’ by making visible an insider’s perspective on, for instance, how and why spouses accompany attendees to conferences, a perspective not previously obtained in tourism studies.
Secondly, IPA allows me as the researcher to provide my interpretation of the meaning of the phenomenon (Smith, 2004). Acknowledging that access to the participant’s accounts is partial and inevitably complex, IPA considers the researcher’s understanding of the participants’ thoughts as necessary (Willig, 2008). Many studies employing IPA address the influence of the researcher’s own beliefs and experiences; see the existing literature (for example, Connop & Petrak, 2004; Quinn, Clare, Pearce, & van Dijkhuizen, 2008; Turner et al., 2002). In particular, Reynolds et al. (2011), exploring the meanings of visual art-making for older women living with arthritis, recognise the role of the researcher as central to the inductive processes of making meaning, because in their study, “the
researchers bring their own academic and professional perspective to make sense of participants’ accounts during IPA, so we accept that researchers with different academic backgrounds might construct somewhat different overarching themes” (p. 330).
However, it was difficult for me to draw any interpretation of the participants’ narratives from preconceived notions or theoretical constructs as theories about accompanying spouses’ lived experience are under-developed in the tourism literature. Reid et al. (2005) advocate for IPA as a suitable approach for new research lacking a theoretical pretext or pre-existing theoretical viewpoint, as it is idiographic, inductive and iterative. For instance, in the study of identity
development of women during the transition to motherhood, Smith (1999b) proposes a theoretical model of the relational self that evolved from an analysis of the accounts of participants’ experiences. In addition, Dickson et al. (2010) contribute to knowledge about extant caregiver literature by raising a number of
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issues around being the spousal caregiver of an acute SCI patient. Their study covers ground from the caregiver’s own perspective that previous quantitative researches overlooked. They maintain that an IPA approach addressing a
hermeneutic of empathy with a phenomenological, idiographic focus facilitates a detailed, nuanced understanding between the participant’s narratives and the researcher (Dickson et al., 2010).
Therefore, a priority of the present research was to consider all accompanying spouses’ account from an IPA orientation (Smith, 2007; Smith et al., 2009). This helped me pinpoint central issues articulated by the participants during the research process while also allowing for the emergence of theoretical arguments (Smith, 1999a). Indeed, with hermeneutic empathy during the questioning of the participants, I was able to gain a rich understanding of their experiences. A detailed discussion on these processes is presented in Section 3.7 Data Collection and 3.8 Data Analysis. My understanding of participants’ understanding of their experience was obtained, therefore, through a hermeneutic circle between my ideas, experiences and beliefs (the whole) and my encounter with each participant in the research (the part) (Smith et al., 2009). This well led to an understanding of the dynamic between the theory of the tourist experience (the whole) and the accompanying spouses’ lived experience (the part) (Gadamer, 1988).
Conference attendees’ voices are also heard in this thesis. Due to the paucity of research into the accompanying spouses’ phenomenon, it was felt important to acquire supplementary accounts of conference attendees, i.e. those who
participated in a conference and travelled there with their spouses. The main reason for including these individuals was the anticipation that each would have had a meaningful impact on the accompanying spouses’ experiences (Pocock et al., 2013). Although attendees did not necessarily spend all the time during the conference with their spouse, they were still likely to have influenced that spouses’ experience and the reason for the spouse accompanying them, the feelings of being together away from home and their engagement with the
conference society. It, therefore, seemed appropriate to consider the perspective of conference attendees as well. The appropriateness of the relevance of other’s voices is evident in the study by Pocock (2011). In her thesis, she explored the
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influence of significant others on returned travellers’ experiences and incorporated their voices to strengthen her understanding of travellers’ experiences of home and their return to it. In a similar sense, my interpretations of conference
attendees’ understanding can function as a source of deepening the accompanying spouses’ experience. Such an approach contributes to a holistic understanding of the accompanying spouses’ experiences, specifically when the researcher sharpens the focus onto time shared by spouses thus linking their thoughts and experiences. IPA, with its phenomenological, hermeneutic and idiographic focus, is, therefore, deemed the most appropriate approach for this thesis. Its strong inductive
emphasis also facilitates the development of unanticipated but significant
constructs by the participant, the research not being solely determined on the basis of guided theory, however closely it engages with the data (Smith, 2004). This thesis can hence facilitate a deeper understanding of what conference travel means to an accompanying spouse from that spouses’ own perspective and expressed in his/her own terms.