Ado/apting established methods: a critique of McWha, Frost, & Laing (2018)

Adopting research practices such as the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) from health and social psychology into tourism academia is a necessary and welcomed initiative. While adopting such tools is generally perceived as a positive endeavour aimed at widening the scope of tourism investigations, attempting to adapt already established methods should immediately raise stringent philosophical and methodological concerns. One such research project is McWha et al.’s (2018)* IPA investigation of travel writers’ essentialist and (co-)constructed selves. Reading this study against the works of Prof. Jonathan Smith (the developer of IPA) and his colleagues reveals its breach of IPA’s core principles and methodological guidelines. The present article warns that excessively and discretionarily adapting or ignoring IPA’s foundational elements transforms this method into a new research tool altogether. The arguments presented in this methodological critique should have important implications for researchers, reviewers, editors, and publishers alike. *(McWha, M., Frost, W., & Laing, J. (2018). Travel writers and the nature of self: Essentialism, transformation and (online) construction. Annals of Tourism Research, 70, 14–24)