A side-by-side methodological approach: Shared experience,informality and adaptation

Abstract

In shifting environments common to peace and conflict research, methodological grounding is rooted in the fluctuating roles undertaken by the researcher through time and space as one seeks a worldview that is experienced by research participants. This article introduces a side-by-side methodological approach, which developed through research of cross-community interaction amongst ice hockey supporters in Belfast. Influenced by qualitative research that sought to access local voices, this article moves from conceptual guidance and planning into the stands of the SSE Arena, where interviews were conducted with the person in the seat beside the researcher during ice hockey games. In doing so, this immersive methodology offers a contribution to unearthing unheard voices in this oft-studied region through the opportunity to make connection that was unscripted, aided by the informality of the research setting and the limited face-to-face interaction.

Introduction

Developed out of fieldwork experiences amongst ice hockey supporters in Northern Ireland, this article presents a side-by-side methodological approach, contributing to a shift in peace and conflict-focused qualitative research methodologies centring on the relationship of the researcher, local voices and the context and spaces in which the research takes place. As will be demonstrated, a side-by-side methodology has merits beyond a singular research project: the adaptability, informality and experiential nature of the approach contributes to existing ethnographic practices that offer insight into attitudes and actions occurring in the everyday. The case study at the heart of this methodological offering focuses on encounter and community amongst the supporters of the Belfast Giants, the only professional ice hockey ¹ team on the island of Ireland. The side-by-side interviewing approach that took place in the arena offered a unique way of studying the interactions and experiences of hockey fans in Northern Ireland. The informal nature in which these interviews occurred, aided by the seating arrangement of being to the left or right of the interviewee while sharing an experience, offered an opportunity to make connections that were unscripted, opening doors to discussion that would not otherwise have taken place.

In presenting this methodology, this article first offers an overview of the case study and wider setting for which it was originally employed as a primary method of data collection. This overview of Northern Ireland and hockey supporters is followed by situating the approach amongst established and guiding methodological influences and examples. The article then explains the practice of side-by-side interviewing: how the routines, adaptation and local guidance, and notion of audience informed the methodology. The following section then engages with what a side-by-side methodological approach can offer to the study of peace and conflict more broadly, with particular focus on informality and language, face-to-faceness and space. The article concludes by situating the side-by-side approach within a call for further methodological innovation in human-centred peace and conflict research.

Divided Northern Ireland and a hockey arena

The history of conflict in Northern Ireland looms over present day activity. A protracted conflict characterised by shifting powers of control, populations and tactics of dominion over the island of Ireland demonstrate a region long impacted by control and rebellion. The lingering effects of the Troubles remain embedded in the relationships and geographies of Belfast. This oft-violent period took place from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, driven by a Catholic/Nationalist population’s desire to secure a united Ireland and a Protestant/Unionist population that wished to remain within the United Kingdom. Although guns have fallen silent since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, continued division is perpetuated by socio-political and economic factors. Voting patterns (Russell, 2016) and educational segregation (McDowell & Braniff, 2014), as well as the construction of ‘Peace Walls’ in post-peace agreement Belfast (Diez and Hayward, 2008) demonstrate that segregation along ethno-national lines continues as a defining fixture and continuous challenge to conflict transformation within the city (Smithey, 2011). Selway (2011) highlights that over-lapping identities have been largely missing in Northern Ireland and are certainly missing in academic research. The case study upon which this article is based responds to this critique, seeking to construct an understanding of the levels of interaction and communication occurring across historical division at Belfast Giants games.

The Belfast Giants hockey club was established shortly after the Good Friday Agreement was ratified by referendum. The team began play in 2000 in the newly constructed Odyssey Arena (renamed the SSE Arena in 2015), and their popularity is best described as a prolonged and unexpected success. The regularity of games and size of the crowd make the Giants one of the most viewed sporting events in the region; with 32 home games across the hockey season, the fans – including 1500 season ticket holders ² – spend a month’s worth of afternoons and evenings sitting side-by-side cheering for the team. The research in this setting was conducted with an understanding that the SSE Arena during games sat outside of the social and political expectations of division that are evident in present day and historical Northern Ireland (Lepp, 2018), and the event of a hockey match, with its North American sporting entertainment presentation, did not carry the baggage commonly associated with single-community activities. This setting and experience is intentional: the jersey colour, teal, holds no deeper meaning amongst the politicised red, white and blue of the Union Jack, the Orange Order, or the emerald Irish green. The team name, Giants, represents a shared mythical legend Fionn McCool, and gives a direct nod to the Giants Causeway tourist destination. The early advertising slogans of the team included ‘Game for All, Game for Everyone’ and ‘In the Land of Giants Everyone is Equal’, illustrating that the arena is designed to be shared. In response, both Catholic/Nationalist and Protestant/Unionist populations have become hockey fans in Belfast. This is a notable exception in a city where everyday living remains defined by ethno-sectarian division and class – in particular, sport. Although sport has been identified as a potential bridge across divided communities in Northern Ireland, the sporting landscape, in participation and spectatorship, highlights disengagement between communities ³ . It was in this space and place where politics and division were seemingly left at the door that this research determined to understand what this interaction and experience meant to the people choosing to participate and invest in this shared interest.

Guiding methodological influences

The interdisciplinarity of the research lent itself to multiple possible methodological approaches; with no standard methods defining ‘peace research’, the project utilised a varied qualitative approach with an understanding that ‘the field’ is dynamic, and that shifting spaces and contexts are at the heart of the research enquiry. Thus, the research methodology sought to shift, adapt and be responsive to the setting (the SSE Arena), the context (Northern Ireland/Belfast) and the subject (the person I was sitting beside), while also having an awareness of the relationship of the researcher to each of these elements. With the connection between the people and the space at the centre of the research and methodology, the side-by-side approach engages similar and established methodological practices which focus on the role of shared experiences, highlighting ‘go-alongs’ and walking interviews, participant observation, and researcher positionality and personality.

At a theoretical level, this side-by-side research falls under the umbrella of an interpretivist/constructivist paradigm, reliant on the ‘participants’ views of the situation being studied’ (Creswell, 2003: 8). The side-by-side approach is primarily drawn from a shared experience between the researcher and the researched, an experience inclusive of very human and subjective elements. In this way the methodology is based on an understanding of reflexivity that ‘encompasses continual evaluation of subjective responses, intersubjective dynamics, and the research process itself’ (Finlay, 2002: 532). With the researcher as an engaged and dynamic actor in the gathering and analysis of information, the side-by-side methodological approach is part of a growing focus in peace and conflict-oriented research that trends towards the ethnographic as a means of seeking greater access to local voices and experiences (Dzuverovic, 2018; Millar, 2014; Mac Ginty, 2021). The side-by-side qualitative approach highlights reflexivity and relationship construction within the research community, which Millar (2014) connects to consideration of ‘local people’s perceptions and experiences of conflict, justice, security, development, empowerment, dignity, opportunity and peace itself …’ (16). Inherent in the study was developing a deepened understanding of the complexity in relationships and spaces of Belfast, particularly the SSE Arena, which necessitated an integration of the researcher into the research space and activities.

Experiential methods

The study of peace and conflict has long been connected to experiential education. There is a foundational understanding in this ‘interdisciplinary discipline’ that academic study should be tied to critical social action, and in this endeavour, experience is the best teacher (Bing, 1989). Commonly embedded in peace studies programmes are field studies components, in both local and international locations, which put students, researchers, and faculty in active situations. The side-by-side methodological approach takes from these experiential pedagogies and contributes to a body of research that is inclusive of the researcher in the research (Koppensteiner, 2018). The focus on developing informed understanding of the dynamic and changing nature of the research site, as well as the unpredictability of the stimuli offered in a setting, takes an interdisciplinary approach. One strong methodological influence to this research is the ‘go-along’, a form of qualitative interview which combines strengths of interviewing and ethnographic observation. According to Kusenbach (2003), on a go-along ‘fieldworkers accompany individual informants on their “natural” outings, and – through asking questions, listening and observing – actively explore their subjects’ stream of experiences and practices as they move through, and interact with, their physical and social environment’ (263).

Further, interdisciplinary methodological extraction borrows spatial understanding from geography; Elwood and Martin (2000) state that ‘interview sites and situations are inscribed in the social spaces that we as geographers are seeking to learn more about, and thus have an important role to play in qualitative research. We suggest that the interview site itself produces ‘micro-geographies’ of spatial relations and meaning, where multiple scales of social relations intersect in the research interview’ (649). While this resonated within the side-by-side interviews of the hockey arena, there was also something more to the arena during a live sporting match that extended it beyond a stationary research site; thus, a central influence on side-by-side interviewing is the walking interview. The practice of walking through a neighbourhood, city, or area throughout the course of an interview offers ‘insights into the dynamic emotional, affectual and physical relations of power-differentiated people within the everyday fabric of urban life’ (Warren, 2017: 789). Although the physical aspect of walking was not embedded in these interviews, the physical setup of watching hockey from the same vantage point (side-by-side) and the need for the research questions to be ‘framed by a “place”’ (Evans and Jones, 2011: 849) display similarities in method. Walking offers an interview experience where the researcher and participant are exposed to ‘multi-sensory stimulation of the surrounding environment’ (Evans and Jones, 2011: 850; Adams and Guy, 2007). Without the movement, the SSE Arena offered a multi-sensory experience with a crowd reacting and responding to the unscripted stimulation of the game.

Observant participation

The supporters within the SSE Arena, clad in their teal jerseys, were not easily identifiable to the outsider (or insider) as belonging to the simple binaries of Catholic/Nationalist or Protestant/Unionist; nor did the presence of both parties mean that interaction between polarised groups was occurring. The depth of understanding as a researcher was dependent on being able to effectively observe and participate knowingly within this setting. Originating in ethnographic research (Evans, 2012), the value of participant observation is recognised throughout qualitative research (Bernard, 2006). The term participant observation was flipped by Vargas (2006), who asserted that ‘observant participation’ subtly emphasises the researcher as a participant in the ‘field’, and challenges ideas of a neutral, ‘fly on the wall’ approach to data collection and research. Participation in the research setting is founded on the understanding that ‘to learn about the complex dimensions of society and culture in action, the ethnographer almost necessarily has to become involved on a personal level to one degree or another’ (Murchison, 2010: 85). It was only as an active member of the crowd in the SSE Arena during a hockey game that contextualising the person, and the researcher, in the space was able to occur – as the dynamic nature of the audience left room for an outsider to be welcomed into the ranks of team supporter. Returning to the go-along interview, in their research in leisure spaces, Burns et al. (2017) note that, ‘While parallels are drawn with participant observation, the go-along interview differs because it is, in fact, an interview and is more interactive (both with the participant and with the leisure setting) than observations that derive from simply being in a space together. Using this interactive method, asking the “right questions” is secondary to eliciting rich data based on the collective exposure to a multi-sensory environment and interaction within that context, affording access to a participant’s related knowledge and attitudes’ (3). As a fellow Giants fan I was able to become part of what Crawford (2004) describes as the ‘lived experience and source of identity’ (49) that accompanies being a sports fan. Samra and Wos (2014) identify the emotional attachment that is considered a central aspect of being a sports fan; in this manner I joined a community based on shared emotional attachment to the team. It was in this adaptation to the setting, and the communal identity as fans of the same team, that the person in the adjacent seat was open to research questions and conversation.

The participation of the researcher in the setting was essential to accessing the stories and experiences of the hockey arena, and this embedding within the case study research design required an adaptability and reflexivity that accounted for the setting, the research community and, importantly, the researcher-self (Bryman, 2008). England (1994) recognises reflexivity as ‘self-critical sympathetic introspection and the self-conscious analytical scrutiny of the self as researcher’ (244). Such an understanding demands of the researcher to ‘be recognised as part of the construction of the research site, and as such all “data” that emerges should be read as being co-constructed by the researcher. Once this is acknowledged, and even celebrated, the data produced can be understood as political action; a way of knowing and of producing knowledge that is actively engaged with’ (Moles, 2008: 7). Data collection amongst hockey supporters in Belfast required careful consideration in this regard, as the people being interviewed had paid for a night out, with no expectation of being the subject of academic study. The side-by-side approach thus sought to be physically and socially unobtrusive, as the research would have been problematic were it to dampen or ruin the original expectation of the experience.

Personality and positionality

This approach of embedding and becoming an active part of the research setting inherently requires deep consideration of positionality. In a setting of sports fans, the classic meta-categorisations of positionality, described by Muhammad et al. (2015) as ‘… both societal ascribed and achieved identities that confer status on an individual researcher, such as race/ethnicity, or level of education attained’ (1051), supported the research. Being a cis-gendered, able-bodied, heterosexual, white male from Canada in a crowd of hockey supporters did not challenge any notion of belonging. Beyond this, a side-by-side interview also aligns with Moser’s (2008) assertion that personality is integral to access and research. She writes:

‘I found that it was aspects of my personality, such as my skills, my emotional responses to and interest in local events, how I conducted myself and the manner in which I navigated the personalities of others that were the main criteria by which I was judged. This in turn affected my access to certain people, the degree to which they opened up and shared their stories and views, and ultimately had an impact upon the material gathered.’ (383)

In the same way, personality played a significant role in the responsiveness and engagement that occurred during the arena interviews. The unknown element of who might be encountered in an environment relatively beyond the researcher’s control demanded an ability to quickly find common ground to enable the interview to occur, and opened doors to conversation in much the same way as more classically defined positionality categorisations.

The guiding methodological influences combine to form an interdisciplinary approach to research that draws on spatial and contextual awareness, participant observation, and understanding of reflexive researcher positionality. In doing so, the access and responsiveness of the research community generated a nuanced understanding of what it means to be a member of this shared community in this divided setting. These guiding influences contributed to the practices of side-by-side interviewing highlighted in the next section, but also offer insight into narrative-driven, human-focused qualitative research that centres on understanding space, encounter and the everyday.

The act of side-by-side interviewing

From the influences of theory and application emerged a methodological practice of interviewing that was both routine and continually evolving. There are various examples of ethnographic research where researchers have conducted their work alongside participants in context, such as amongst workers in factories (Korczynski, 2011), social workers on house calls (Ferguson, 2016), and with users of public transportation on buses (Wilson, 2011). However, a side-by-side methodological approach, particularly one where the physical position of sitting side-by-side is central to the research experience, is a unique format for qualitative interviews, where most often the researcher is facing their interview subject. The wider setting of the interview, the SSE Arena, offered an opportunity to construct a relationship through a shared experience and intentionally engage in meaningful discussion and data collection. This section outlines the enactment of side-by-side interviewing with hockey supporters in Northern Ireland, engaging with the routines that emerged during field work, the adaptations that continually evolved with the guiding voices of the research community, and the physical dynamics of conducting real-time research amongst an audience.

Routine

The side-by-side interviews conducted within the SSE Arena took place throughout a hockey game, an activity lasting approximately two and half hours, and comprised of three separate periods of play broken up by two intermissions. Within these parameters, interviews were semi-structured, thus leaving space for each interview to take a direction of its own. Permission to conduct academic interviews in this privately-owned space was completed with written consent from the Belfast Giants organisation. Prior to each game, to ensure a random selection of interview participants, a single ticket situated between two occupied seats was purchased online. This process enabled the interviews to occur in a different arena section each game, in an effort to diversify interaction with multiple types of supporters – for example, not just casual fans or season ticket holders.

In the interviews a routine emerged in engaging with the person in the next seat, gaining consent, and conducting the interview. In her work with walking interviews, Saskia Warren (2017) highlights that informing the success of this method, which is steeped in interpersonal sharing of experience, is the construction of trust between the researcher and the research participant. The research in the arena was no different, and within the confines of a single hockey match, trust needed to be built fairly quickly. The three periods of play at each game were used in the interview approach. Generally, the first period involved making introductions – who I was and my purpose at the game. In this conversation I identified myself as an outsider, describing my research, but also corroborated myself as a ‘sort of insider’, using my Canadian status/heritage and accent to illustrate knowledge of hockey and the Giants. Widely, people were responsive to my presence – a Canadian in a hockey arena makes sense – and I would gather verbal consent before transitioning to questions for my research. The collection of verbal consent was solicited purposefully, so as not to disturb the rapport achieved through the first period, and this practice was maintained throughout the interview, with no pen, paper, or recording devices to disrupt the tone of the conversation. During intermissions, when most people would leave their seats, I recorded notes about what had been discussed. These notes offered ‘subtle and complex understandings of these others’ lives, routines, and meanings’ (Emerson et al., 1995: 13). At other times I wrote brief text notes on my mobile phone, a medium that did not endanger the informality of the side-by-side interactions of the research. These acted as reminders of conversation points for field journal entries made after the game, which included in-depth notes about each interview and observations made. This routine evolved across the season, just as the research questions and observations adapted to increasing knowledge of the space and the community.

Learning from the ‘local expert’

An understanding of the heterogeneity of experience and individual conceptions of what the Giants represent was strengthened by time spent between researcher and researched – also a fixture of the walking interview, where the interviewee is recognised as a ‘local expert’ in the research process (Clark and Emmel, 2010). Shortly after arriving in the city, a Belfast-based academic described the supporters of the Giants as being those unaffected by the violence and traumas of the region’s history, a group they considered ‘post-Troubles’. This term has many meanings. The research in Belfast revealed that there are a significant number of people, predominantly working-class and living in single-identity neighbourhoods, who reminisce about the ‘good-old, bad-old days’ with a fondness for a time of violent conflict, often accompanied by difficulty adapting to political and social power-sharing in present day (Gaffikin and Morrissey, 2011; Jarman and Bell, 2012; Mac Ginty, 2006). To these people, when the region was at the height of conflict, the sense of community was also heightened. Alongside this group, there is another considerable segment of the population that has seemingly had an easier time adapting to socio-political change and moving past the traumas of the Troubles, finding less issue in increasing tolerance of difference. To those who have struggled to leave the doctrine of the Troubles behind, this ‘post-Troubles’ group is often perceived as the younger generation, the unaffected, or the privileged whose lives have been less impacted by the harshness of division. In many ways this ‘post-Troubles’ group, like the Protestant/Unionists and the Catholic/Nationalists, is depicted as something homogenous; however, what the stories and experiences unearthed in the arena illustrate is that supporters of the Giants are incredibly diverse.

At the heart of the side-by-side method is Winter’s (1986) recognition that, ‘We do not “store” experience as data, like a computer: we “story” it’ (176). The inspiration of grounded theory runs through a side-by-side approach, as the research’s ‘primary goal is to describe and understand how people feel, think, and behave within a particular context relative to a specific research question’ (Guest et al., 2012: 13). The data collected throughout the research conducted side-by-side was guided by the research participants’ actions and responses in our interactions, with the intention of generating knowledge around the complexities of humans in conflict. Moles (2008) reinforces engagement with local voices, noting that the ‘breakdown of binaries must therefore be applied to the research process, and these methods facilitate a breakdown in the researcher/participant binary, as the participants become experts on their own lived experiences of the space, and can take the researcher by the hand and lead them on a bimble’ (7).

In the ongoing development of the interview approach, routines were important to the process, but adaptation was significant to the content. One such example is that when entering the research setting there was one question I set out not to ask, and another which I quickly learned not to. The question intentionally avoided was: ‘Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?’ Homogenous groups and binary thinking in places like Northern Ireland have their place in statistical analysis and quantitative or mixed methods, but it is challenged by the diversity and depth found in the shared experiences of side-by-side interviewing. With this depth, individuals tend not to fit neatly into prescribed boxes and there was no need to assign this categorisation in the arena – the people I spoke with always volunteered which community they identified with, without being asked.

The second question, however, which I learned not to ask, was one I was unprepared for in my planning: the question of whether there was reconciliation occurring in the SSE Arena was met with aversion. The term ‘reconciliation’ is steeped in the region’s political landscape and by design had no place in the hockey arena (Lepp, 2018). What the side-by-side method enabled was discussion of this, turning a researcher faux pas into a topic of conversation, returning to the notion of the interviewee as the local expert who guides both the research and the researcher.

Audience

While the case study of the Belfast Giants focused on the shared identity emerging amongst supporters of the club across historical division, it also fits into the study of audience and sports fans. The former has historically informed the way that humans act when in groups. The works of Nowell-Smith (1978), whose focus on football found that being a sports fan was embedded in the everyday lives and conversations of fans beyond the act of being in the audience at a match, demonstrate the importance of sports fandom in the lives of team supporters. However, Crawford (2004) highlights that sports audiences are:

‘… frequently divided into coherent units, most commonly based on friendship networks or family units. Though the audience may appear as a ‘mass’, most supporters will travel to the game in small groups, consume and largely interact within these, and then leave with them.’ (26)

Within the context of Northern Ireland, this assertion would carry an assumption that these ‘coherent units’ abide by the division of Catholic/Nationalist and Protestant/Unionist. The divergent notions that audience and fandom can represent both a central part of one’s identity while occurring in compartmentalised social groups offered a tension to this research in a divided setting. The side-by-side method and close physical proximities of sharing armrests, navigating spilled beer during the celebration of goals, and the introduction of an academic researcher to the experience gave way to very human interactions, and within these interactions an acceptance of everyone’s company in the space took place. The public nature of these side-by-side interviews is important to acknowledge; notably the confidentiality of research participants and those encountered during the game was integral (Dubé et al., 2014). In research outputs no side-by-side research participants are named, but the public context had other impacts as well: harsh views that are often harboured in private single-identity spaces (Gaffikin and Morrissey, 2011; Jarman and Bell, 2012) – homes, community pubs, etc. – were not conveyed in this arena.

These interactions also offer support to the SSE Arena as what Oldenburg (1999) describes as a ‘third space’, which he notes as having ‘neither the blandness of strangers nor that other kind of blandness, which takes zest out of relationships between even the most favorably matched people when too much time is spent together, when too much is known, too many problems are shared, and too much is taken for granted’ (56). The interactions of the arena, dotted with distraction and interruption from the stimuli and events happening in the match and within the crowd itself, offered insight to the interview as well as developed an understanding of civility in inclusion and indifference. In this way, the side-by-side method, embedded in the routines and interactions of being a member of this social group, gave opportunity to draw out individual and shared narratives of what Lefebvre (1991) describes as the ‘lived environment’ of the research community, even when this sat outside of the divisive norms in the city and region.

The side-by-side methodology, as a practice of ethnographic inquiry, can be described as qualitative research that is at the intersection of a developed routine, continual building on knowledge shared by the research population, and responding to the space in which the research was conducted. The following section of this article will engage with the distinctive value and methodological contributions of this approach; however, what this section highlights is that the enactment of this methodological approach offers a versatile way to gather information in a horizontal manner that has inherent within its design the desire to increase the voice of the research population. Thus, the practice of the side-by-side interview is one that carries potential for continued evolution, particularly as academic peace and conflict research becomes increasingly localised and spatially aware.

Contributions to qualitative research

While recognising the distinctiveness of a side-by-side methodology in practice, this approach has engrained within it three qualities which make it effective in accessing unique voices and settings. The first is the informality of data collection. Sitting side-by-side offers a way of breaking down obstructions of power and privilege that often cloud researcher-researched relationships. Striving for a sense of equality is embedded in the physical setup: the horizontal seats, side-by-side, mean that the instruments of the institution – desks, notebooks and recorders – are replaced with interactions that allow both parties to leave the ‘script’ and be present in a shared experience. The second quality is the challenge to traditional face-to-face interviewing. The seating arrangement in a hockey arena creates close but non-invasive encounters through which shared identity and interaction occur; an important part of this methodological approach in a physical sense includes the researcher and the researched literally looking at the same thing whilst in discussion. Finally, the third quality is that the research is distinctly framed by an everchanging but defined space, where the researcher is immersed side-by-side hockey supporters while conducting interviews. Through these parameters the researcher and the research community shared experiences that informed understandings of the way that shared spaces and single-identity spaces sit side-by-side one another in the everyday lives of the research community.

Informality

Across the research in Belfast there were a significant number of interviews conducted in traditional face-to-face settings with stakeholders outside of the hockey arena, and these carried a very different tone than those within the arena. In the more formal academic interviews with hockey players and Giants staff, I was met with generic or avoidant responses, later explained to me as likely stemming from the team-wide mandate not to discuss anything ‘political’. In interviews with community peace organisations there was a sense that I was one in a long queue of (post)conflict researchers who came through their offices. Clark (2008) highlights the role of research fatigue that can occur within qualitative research settings, noting an increased ‘apathy and indifference toward engagement’ (965). Indeed, completing research in a place as inundated with conflict researchers as Northern Ireland (Whyte, 1991) offered a challenge; however, the interviews in the SSE Arena presented something very different from these organisational and formal interviews, both in interaction and outcome. Jowett and O’Toole (2006) draw attention to informality, noting that the ability to access information can be aided by the informality of the interaction it is obtained within. The physical aspect of sitting beside someone while sharing an experience offered an ability to form a connection that was not over-thought by the interviewee; it opened the door to candid discussion that would not likely have occurred otherwise.

The discussion of informality connects to the way language was used in the research process. Language used in research of the everyday requires adapting to the environment in order for it to be effectively understood and communicated (Foley, 2002); although James C. Scott (2013) warns that language is often utilised as a tool of states, media, and academics to shape the messages and agency of local accounts of conflict. The SSE Arena does not offer laboratory-like conditions for studying human interactions, and correspondingly the language of the interviews needed to fit the environment. The interviews were representative of the general interactions experienced in the SSE Arena; there were numerous times when responses were laced with the expletives of everyday Northern Ireland, only to be followed with caveats like, ‘Sorry, you probably don’t want swearing in your PhD’. A statement of apology suggested both respect for the collection of research while also the comfort to answer honestly. At a wider philosophical level, language can offer a challenge to the power and privilege that often cloud researcher-researched relationships, by creating an association that has a horizontal level of engagement. Foucault (1972) draws attention to the understanding that knowledge and power are intertwined and cannot be addressed separately. The barriers, or perceived barriers, of knowledge/power can be observed in both the arrogance and carelessness that is often displayed in the distance between researcher and researched, as well as between the researcher and intended audience, be it academic or applied. In many ways, motivated by this critique of academic research(ers), the side-by-side interviewing approach continuously and consciously included the reflexivity to have the researcher understanding of what was occurring within the arena be informed by the experience and knowledge of the person beside me. This knowledge was gained using whatever language the interviewee deemed appropriate – an approach that finds support in Mac Ginty’s (2019) observation that ‘scholarly interpretations of conflict and peoples’ experiences of conflict can be anti-vernacular processes that risk stripping agency from individuals and groups who actually experience a conflict’ (238). The side-by-side relationship and informality embedded in the interview thus offered an unobstructed setting for candid answers to come forward and add a unique voice to wider research on Northern Ireland.

Face-to-faceness

Building on informality, there is benefit to acknowledging the assumptions of face-to-faceness that are embedded in academic interviewing. Face-to-face interaction has been studied particularly within communication studies and social psychology. This method of communication and interaction, often presumed in qualitative research, inspires questions of whether face-to-faceness embodies greater honesty between people (Citera et al., 2005). Widely, the depth of communication at visual and auditory levels in face-to-face interactions ‘increase[s] the rate of social information transmission’ (Van Zant and Kray, 2014; Walther, 1992), which in turn reduces miscommunication (Kruger et al., 2005). These factors are key in the construction of rapport and cooperation (McGinn et al., 2012). Further, being face-to-face helps to lower the perception that someone is being deceptive – following the mantra ‘you wouldn’t lie to my face’ (Rockmann and Northcraft, 2008). However, in settings of division like Belfast, the honesty of face-to-face encounters can contribute to division. In his essay ‘On Face Work’, Goffman (2005) highlights:

‘During direct personal contacts, however, unique informational conditions prevail and the significance of face becomes especially clear. The human tendency to use signs and symbol means that evidence of social worth and of mutual evaluations will be conveyed by very minor things, and these things will be witnessed, as will the fact that they have been witnessed. An unguarded glance, a momentary change in tone of voice, an ecological position taken or not taken, can drench a talk with judgmental significance.’ (33)

The physical seating arrangement of the SSE Arena places side-by-side interviewing as something of a faceless but close encounter, not demanding the eye contact of face-to-face qualitative interviews which occur with more distance between the interviewer and interviewee, often across tables in offices and coffee shops. The side-by-side nature of the interview offers a physical setup that is almost ‘confessional’ in a literal and figurative sense, and is not without precedent. This physical setup has recently been employed by Jerry Seinfeld in his series ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee’ or James Corden’s ‘Carpool Karaoke’, both set up as a way to get to know someone (in these cases celebrities) without the intensity and mask involved in a face-to-face interview. Masks have a place in academic interviewing as well; Knapik (2006) provides a detailed account of the ways in which research communities respond to a researcher’s facial expressions, which influences the way they reply to questions. This notion of unmasking was an important finding from research in the SSE Arena, which established that relationships constructed within the hockey supporter community started with a mutual interest in hockey and were afforded the ability of not giving away too much and entrenching pre-existing divisions before shared interests and identity were established. This same process of unmasking spanned beyond bridging across historical division to include the shared side-by-side experience between the researcher and the researched.

Spatial awareness

As an academic field, peace and conflict studies has become predominantly focused on understanding what peace is and/or how it can be built; however, the side-by-side methodological approach contributes to a growing body of peace research focused on where peace is occurring (Björkdahl and Kappler, 2017; McConnell et al., 2014). In doing so, the side-by-side method responded to a research site that was both physically fixed and socially fluid. The side-by-side approach to interviewing, observing and participating embedded the researcher within the intentional and evolving aspects of the research setting, enabling understanding of the physical and communal identities that emerged from the space.

Burgess’ (1982) notion that research occurs differently in different spaces was important in the research planning, as was the understanding that the hockey arena sits side-by-side more contentious and territorialised spaces in Belfast. Where one is within the city plays a strong role in dictating the engagement and interaction occurring across division, and in this spatial understanding another way of thinking about this methodological approach emerges: the space in which the interviews and observations occur dictate the way the research community interacts with the researcher. The Giants are steeped in external influence; their arena was a mega-project completed with intentionality, and their sport is a non-native activity in this region – and yet the relationships and atmosphere around the team contribute to discussion of locally constructed, inclusive interactions. Mac Ginty’s (2014) notion of everyday peace offers a framing of research approach within the unique setting of the arena, noting that, ‘Everyday peace refers to the routinised practices used by individuals and collectives as they navigate their way through life in a deeply divided society that may suffer from ethnic or religious cleavages and be prone to episodic direct violence in addition to chronic or structural violence’ (549). By being actively involved in the space being studied, the researcher becomes a living part of the routinised practices that are occurring. It is through this inclusion that the research becomes contextualised within a wider backdrop of historical significance, as well as within contemporary liberal peace agendas designed to ‘create’ shared spaces.

The top-down, planned nature of the SSE Arena and the shared narrative at the foundation of the Giants’ existence reiterate that division and peace have become both lucrative and complexly intertwined within the political landscape of Northern Ireland. However, intentional cross-community spaces that do not overtly seek to be divisive nor reconciliatory are rare. In the introduction of their text on ‘narrative inquiry’, Clandinin and Connelly (2000) cite Dewey’s (1938) criteria of experience, noting that, ‘People are individuals and need to be understood as such, but they cannot be understood only as individuals. They are always in relation, always in a social context’ (2). This quote resonates with the side-by-side approach, as the interviews were individual and unique, yet contributed to a tapestry of experiences that enabled a nuanced understanding of an evolving social group. This group demonstrates that new initiatives and activities in post-peace agreement settings are not necessarily synonymous with liberal peace tick-box exercises; rather they can offer welcome expansion to spaces that can contribute to shared identities.

Within the side-by-side methodology that emerged during research amongst Giants supporters in Belfast, the three central qualities of informality, face-to-faceness and space intersected to offer an holistic and distinct methodological approach. This approach engaged lesser heard voices of the SSE Arena and adopted intentional language while utilising an understanding of spatial change processes within a wider historical context. As qualitative research seeks to increase data that informs the complexities of relationships in conflict, a side-by-side research methodology offers qualities that span beyond the systemic, theoretical or practical, and thus enable research on encounter to be engaged with more effectively because at its foundation it is a form of shared experience and encounter.

Conclusion

A fitting environment for this study on post-peace agreement relations between divided groups, the protracted conflict in Northern Ireland has undergone periods of intense violent conflict and disdainful coexistence. What is evident in Belfast is that the cleavages are not left to history but remain embedded in all aspects of life. The all-encompassing nature of ethno-sectarian division – be it residential, economic, educational, political, social or cultural – presented a research setting that had division at its everyday level; in this situating within the everyday, the side-by-side approach to interviewing became central to the wider research project. Back (2007) highlights that ‘Sociological craft involves choosing the right tools of investigation and honing them in a way that is appropriate to the task’ (164). The research goal to produce narratives embedded in the experiences and truths of the researched was enabled by honing the side-by-side methodology, through adaptation to the research environment and drawing on academically-tested methodological influences to situate the approach and enable informality in the research process. The shared experience embedded in the methodology broadened the appeal of participation, increased researcher understanding and facilitated responses that offered greater insight than more formal interviews. The side-by-side approach situated within a framework focused on the lived experiences of the research community offers a contribution that supports existing calls for peace and conflict research to continue to be locally (Mac Ginty, 2021) and spatially (Björkdahl and Buckley-Zistel, 2016) grounded.

The experiential nature of the side-by-side method contributes to ethnographic research and is guided by conceptual innovations in interview practices – particularly go-alongs, walking interviews, and participant observation. However, there is considerable opportunity to adapt and evolve this intentionally side-by-side method; the approach would be legitimised by further applications and evolutions that are true to its adaptable and human-experiential centre. The possibilities for such developments are many, anywhere labour, leisure and social patterns are situated in such a manner that could include a researcher side-by-side the research participants. Yet this development would focus primarily on the physical. The drawing out of local voices could be further developed as well, through expanding the side-by-side terminology and interpretation I see potential to conceptualise the term ‘side-by-side’ as illustrating unity, solidarity or support with the research population. In this way there is space for this approach to be more inclusive of the research community in research production and dissemination. Such developments would draw on community-based research practices (see: Ochocka and Janzen, 2014) while staying true to the methodological approach of immersing the researcher side-by-side the research community and questioning how the researched population experiences the spaces at the heart of the study.