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Methodology: An Introduction
• dark commemorative events are recognisable in a regional or even
international environment (significance for tourists/visitors);
• dark commemorative events must relate to different conflicts of the
20th century with human casualties (history-centrism);
• different ‘background beliefs’ of dark commemorative events (or of
the visitors) must be clearly identifiable;
• dark commemorative events must have different ‘ethnic backgrounds’
(ethnic origin of past victims and current visitors).
Covert participant observation is then used for data collection, which
is methodologically compatible with the claims of Harrison et al. (2017)
and Kohlbacher (2006). It is an ethnographic method used in the natu-
ral setting with the purpose of an in-depth insight into a specific place
(social environment) and its everyday life (Hay, 2010; Kawulich, 2005).
Through community involvement, recurrent contact with people and rel-
atively unstructured social interactions, this method thus enables a par-
ticularly effective way of exploring the peculiarities of the definite local
environment (Hay, 2010); the researcher as a careful observer and a good
listener, within a limited time, observes the interactions and behaviours,
listens to the participants (speeches, conversations, including those with
the researcher) and asks questions (Kawulich, 2005). This study delib-
erately adopts the covert role of participant observation, in which the re-
searcher’s identity, the aim and purposes of the research as well as the fact
that people are being observed, are concealed. This may cause many eth-
ical concerns. Researchers must therefore consider strict ethical limita-
tions in the implementation of this method (Lugosi, 2008; Spicker, 2011).
When this method is used in the public sphere, without focusing on the
selected individuals, then generally there are no ethical concerns (Spicker,
2011).⁵ This is a crucial methodological assumption for our covert partici-
pant observations (hereafter observation) of public dark commemorative
events, considering that a narrative analysis is employed for the analysis
and interpretation within the qualitative context.
In order to reach the aim and purpose of the research, many comple-
mentary research methods and techniques are employed in the quantita-
tive part of this study – see Figure 9.5. First, a content analysis is useful
in social sciences, where its growing ‘popularity’ is evidenced in a num-
⁵ More can be found in Bryman (2012, pp. 138–140), The Research Ethics Guidebook
(Covert or Deceptive Research, n.d.) and the Code of Ethics of the American Sociologi-
cal Association (2018).
148
• dark commemorative events are recognisable in a regional or even
international environment (significance for tourists/visitors);
• dark commemorative events must relate to different conflicts of the
20th century with human casualties (history-centrism);
• different ‘background beliefs’ of dark commemorative events (or of
the visitors) must be clearly identifiable;
• dark commemorative events must have different ‘ethnic backgrounds’
(ethnic origin of past victims and current visitors).
Covert participant observation is then used for data collection, which
is methodologically compatible with the claims of Harrison et al. (2017)
and Kohlbacher (2006). It is an ethnographic method used in the natu-
ral setting with the purpose of an in-depth insight into a specific place
(social environment) and its everyday life (Hay, 2010; Kawulich, 2005).
Through community involvement, recurrent contact with people and rel-
atively unstructured social interactions, this method thus enables a par-
ticularly effective way of exploring the peculiarities of the definite local
environment (Hay, 2010); the researcher as a careful observer and a good
listener, within a limited time, observes the interactions and behaviours,
listens to the participants (speeches, conversations, including those with
the researcher) and asks questions (Kawulich, 2005). This study delib-
erately adopts the covert role of participant observation, in which the re-
searcher’s identity, the aim and purposes of the research as well as the fact
that people are being observed, are concealed. This may cause many eth-
ical concerns. Researchers must therefore consider strict ethical limita-
tions in the implementation of this method (Lugosi, 2008; Spicker, 2011).
When this method is used in the public sphere, without focusing on the
selected individuals, then generally there are no ethical concerns (Spicker,
2011).⁵ This is a crucial methodological assumption for our covert partici-
pant observations (hereafter observation) of public dark commemorative
events, considering that a narrative analysis is employed for the analysis
and interpretation within the qualitative context.
In order to reach the aim and purpose of the research, many comple-
mentary research methods and techniques are employed in the quantita-
tive part of this study – see Figure 9.5. First, a content analysis is useful
in social sciences, where its growing ‘popularity’ is evidenced in a num-
⁵ More can be found in Bryman (2012, pp. 138–140), The Research Ethics Guidebook
(Covert or Deceptive Research, n.d.) and the Code of Ethics of the American Sociologi-
cal Association (2018).
148
