The bitter sweet poison of ethnographic research

Abstract

I would like to thank the editors of this journal for asking me to write a response to the articles included in the special issue of the International Journal of Drug Policy on ethnography and multidisciplinarity in drugs research (volume 13.4). In making that invitation they prompted me to read an academic journal from cover to cover for the first time in many years and for that I am very grateful. The focus of the special issue is timely and important. It seems intuitively right that those of us carrying out qualitative and ethnographic research in the drugs field should look at where we are going, what contribution we are making and what the future might hold. The various papers in the special issue testify to there not being a single universally held view of ethnographic research, even amongst those who would be seen by others as amongst the best exponents of these methods. The papers show persuasively that wherever there is a need to understand human behaviour, ethnography and qualitative research have an important contribution to make. The papers within the special issue contain many examples where qualitative researchers have made such a contribution and where we can feel a justifiable sense of pride at the work of our colleagues. But there is something else that runs through many of the contributors to the special issue, and that is a sense of anger and injustice (Moore, 2002). Anger that their work is not taken as seriously as it might be and injustice that the work of others, most notably those working in the biomedical field, are funded more generously than we are, and often sit in judgement on our grant applications. In this commentary I want to raise a rather different image of the qualitative researcher to that of the poor relation of quantitative research. The image that I want to consider is that of qualitative research as a powerful influence on others opinions and beliefs. I believe that if those of us using qualitative and ethnographic research methods occupy a marginal status in the drug field it is in part because we have not learnt the true power of our narratives. Before discussing this further I would like to make a general point about the role of research in drug policy. For the most part I think one would have to conclude that the world of drug policy is largely an evidence free zone. It is not that our quantitative colleagues have stolen all of the influence (even where they have garnered most of the money) it is rather that policy makers are often not that interested in research results. Such individuals often favour their own, or their advisors’ views, as to what the population at large may feel on any particular topic. To some people that might seem a rather cynical suggestion. On the other hand the figures do not generally stack up in terms of there being an enormous regard for evidence in the drugs field. Within Scotland, for example, our government recently estimated that the total amount of money spent each year in responding to the use of illegal drugs was something of the order of £330 million. The allocation of funds to drugs research in Scotland represents between around one quarter to one half of 1% of that money. On that basis one would have to conclude that somewhere in the region of 99.75% of the funding on drugs is being spent on the basis of 0.25% of investment in supporting the research to gather evidence about the nature of the problem that is being addressed. Within the US, the level of funding for drugs research is considerably in excess of that, although within the UK more broadly the expenditure is roughly the same as in Scotland (Royal College of Physicians, 2002). Research in general then, rather than qualitative research in particular, plays only a minor role in drug policy and practice. Despite the paucity of funding, I believe that qualitative research can have an influence that is far in excess of that by our quantitative colleagues. To take an example from one of the papers in the special issue. Maher (2002) wonderful researcher, has written of the occasion when she received a needle stick * Tel./fax: /44-141-330-2820. E-mail address: gkua27@udef.gla.ac.uk (N. McKeganey). International Journal of Drug Policy 14 (2003) 123 /125