This research employed ethnographic methods including participant observation, semi-structured interviews with tour guides, conversational interviews with tour participants, and photography. This combination of methods allowed for comprehensive analysis of how tours affect participants’ perceptions and relationships with Modena’s centro storico, and their ‘sense of place’.

 

Observation

 

Participant observation of the walking tours was the primary methodology used in this study, allowing an emplaced exploration of others’ relationships with their environment (Watson & Till 2010). Acting as an observer-as-participant, I observed three two-hour walking tours of Modena’s centro storico, run by the Modenese company Free Walking Tour Italia on Sundays throughout October. Each tour highlighted different periods of Modenese history: Percorsi d’Acqua[1]; Segreti e Gossip della famiglia d’Este[2]; and Tra Guerra e Resistenza[3]. These sessions had two main objectives. First, using the frame of place as an archive, to observe which material elements were highlighted, and what meanings and narratives were associated with them by the guides. Second, to observe the ‘sociality’ of walking: interactions between tour participants; their contributions to the tour; and their reactions to certain stories.

​

Self-reflective field-notes were made throughout observation sessions, acknowledging the need for subjectivity and the ‘situatedness’ in understanding lived experiences (DeLyser et al. 2010 p. 7). In addressing validity within my research, I observed multiple tour topics which provided the widest range of observational consistency. Saukko (2003) and Pink (2008) acknowledge the need for critical awareness of limitations in one’s own understanding, and acknowledgement of the researchers own emplacement and involvement in producing sensorial representations of place. Field-notes aimed to analyse my feelings and perceptions throughout the tours, including my inability to understand certain local knowledge and language elements, in addition to general note-taking for later use. Field-notes also noted how my presence as not only a researcher, but as a straniera[4] amongst groups of residents, affected the social scene of some tours and hence my data collection, which May (1997) argues is paramount in producing honest research.[5]

​

Photography was used to note visual aspects of highlighted elements of place, people’s interactions, and the guides’ methods of story-telling throughout the tour. This aimed to capture the sensory richness and materiality of the centro storico, and communicate more empathetic and sensorially-embodied understandings of my experiences (Pink 2007b; Rose 2001). Visual methods have been criticised historically for implying authority, providing a distanced and detached viewpoint while examining people as ‘objects of enquiry’ (Crang 2010 p. 210). However, by acknowledging photographs in this research as temporally-static representations of place, photography in this project aims to enable more empathetic interpretations of its findings (Pink 2007a). As such, the use of collaborative methods aims to better reflect the multisensorial nature of place in exploring the centro storico through these walking tours.

​

Interview

 

A range of interview styles were utilised in this project to extend upon information gathered by observation. During observation sessions, conversational walking interviews were conducted with participants to explore their personal experiences and memories of the centro storico, and their motivations for tour participation. Two semi-structured interviews were undertaken with Francesca and Loredana, the principal tour guides in the company. These allowed me gain a more nuanced understanding about why the guides chose certain topics, communication methods, stories and places.

​

Through conducting walking interviews, I was able to share rhythms of movement with other tour participants, becoming similarly emplaced and better able to understand how they perceive Modena’s centre (Lee & Ingold 2006; Pink 2008). The sensorial and emplaced format of walking interviews proved effective in stimulating memories linked to place from interviewees (Riley & Holton 2016). Riley and Holton (2016) state that walking interviews can provide possible further insight into responses with less direct pressure on the interviewee. While I cannot directly attest to participants’ experiences, my experience echoed this as I felt less pressure on my Italian language abilities due to the conversational format. Additionally, walking with tour participants allowed them to clarify guides’ site explanations when I had issues with understanding. These clarifications then provided a platform from which to ask further conversational questions.[6]

​

Recorded, semi-structured interviews enabled an exploration of how tour topics, routes and emphases are affected by the guides’ own relationships with Modena’s centro storico, and an analysis of themes identified during tour observations. Additionally, I used these interviews to discuss and clarify statements made by the guides in order to ensure my representations of place within my observations of tours were as accurate as possible, despite listening in my second language.[7]

Issues and considerations

 

Information sheets were provided and consent was gained from both tour participants and tour guides prior to observations, photography and interviews. Within field-notes and quotes, pseudonyms were chosen for both tour participants and one tour guide whom did not wish to be named. Features of members of the public unable to consent to photography were obscured.

​

Recording devices were not proposed to be used for walking interviews in the planning for this project. However, after analysing the field-notes from walking interviews, I determined they were insufficient in capturing the nuances of responses. I decided to use a recording device for my final tour (Guerra e Resistenza). This allowed me to concentrate on capturing the sensorial context and my own reflections in my notes. Despite Al-Yateem (2012) noting the potential for recording devices to be an obstacle to rapport building and flow, I noticed the opposite as the device allowed me to be more present in my conversations with participants.

​

Issues with the co-construction of meaning during interviews conducted in Italian, my second language, required careful consideration. In following Talmy’s (2010 p. 27) non-traditional approach to interviews as ‘collaborative achievement’, this research aimed to gather contextually-rich data: a socially-constructed representation of truths and attitudes (McDowell 2010). However, limitations including the language barrier must be acknowledged, as interviews were conducted in Italian. To ameliorate this, interview questions were pre-prepared and practiced and the guides’ high level of English proficiency assisted to explain unfamiliar terms when required. Despite previously planning to send interview transcripts to the guides to foster co-collaboration and lessen misunderstandings and power imbalances, I chose not to send them, realising the imposition this created on the guides’ busy lives (Watson & Till 2010). Instead, I decided to actively summarise each reply they gave me during the interview and check it was what they meant in order to confirm my understanding.

 

Footnotes:

 

[1] Waterways

[2] Secrets and Gossip of the Este Family

[3] Between War and Resistance

[4] Foreigner

[5] This can be found at Appendices D.2. and D.3.

[6] Interview questions for the walking interviews are at Appendix A.

[7] Interview questions for the two guide interviews are at Appendix B and C.