Digital Nomadism in Thailand and Indonesia: What are the Impacts and Benefits?

Background

• A new form of “lifestyle migration”

 

• Existing research:
  • telecommuting (Baruch 2001)
  • expatriate communities (Fechter 2012)
  • coworking (Gandini 2015)
  • backpacking (Paris 2012)
  • digital nomads in Ubud (Altringer 2015)

 

• Digital nomads: A new, under researched, class of lifestyle migrant

 

 

Background

• Positively contributing to the growth of knowledge society in the developing world?

 

• Or perpetuating existing inequalities?

 

• More research needed to gain a clearer view of impacts and benefits on local communities in the developing world

 

Research Question & Aims

Methodology

 

• Constructivist/Post-positivist: Interrogating people's “perceptions of the world rather than the 'world as it is'” (Moses & Knutsen p10)
   
• Cross-cultural investigation

 

• Benefits and Impacts: What constitutes a benefit versus what constitutes an negative impact is culturally specific and value laden
   

 

 

Method

 

 

• Ethnographic observation followed by semi-structured individual interviews (Wengraf 2001)

 

• Ethnographic phase: Build familiarity, trust. "Self-disclosure" (Holstein & Gubrium 2003, p.14)

 

• Ethnographic phase: "how the lived experiences of the particular subject category ...can inform participants' conversation in the interview situation” (Holstein & Gubrium 2003, p.6)

 

 

Method

• Semi-structured interviews: Well suited epistemologically to acquiring socially constructed knowledge. Exploring knowledge “based on the meanings that life experiences hold for the interviewees” (DiCicco-Bloom & Crabtree 2006, p.314)

 

• Semi-structured interviews: Interview schedule adapted based on the learnings of the ethnographic phase

 

• Semi-structured interviews: Focus on local peoples' perceptions and experiences of digital nomads. Phenomenological line of questioning

Method

• Semi-structured interviews: Conducted face-to-face in the interviewees native language, with a translator

 

• Semi-structured interviews: Translation will provide a significant challenge to adopting a reflective interviewing style

 

• Semi-structured interviews: Temple & Young offer several useful tips for dealing with translation challenges (Temple & Young 2004)

Participants

 

• Focus on two cities, Chang Mai and Ubud. Among the top digital nomad destinations

 

• Anyone who lives in the local community that has interacted with or been exposed to digital nomads

 

• Not targeting a specific community segment, demographic or niche

 

 

Participants

• The recruitment stragegy will be the “site based” approach (Arcury & Quandt 1999)

 

• Establish relationships with "gatekeepers" in coworking spaces and cafes

 

• Option for "snowball" sampling 

  (Atkinson & Flint 2001) if appropriate participants prove scarce; goal of 30 interviews per city (Baker & Edwards 2012)

 

• Plan C: Reverse approach - establish relationships with digital nomads to get to local community members

 

 

Analysis

• Inductive process; not testing a pre-determined hypothesis; identify emergent patterns, categories, themes (Schutt 2014)

 

• Narrative analysis: “seeks to put together the 'big picture' about experiences or events as the participants understand them” (Schutt 2014, p.338)

 

• Transcripts coded with a view to identifying narrative archetypes which reveal benefits and impacts of digital nomadism
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ethics

• "Flexible and contextual...ethics [in qualitative research] involves trustfulness, openness, honesty, respectfulness, carefulness, and constant attentiveness" (Davies & Dodd 2002, p.288)

 

• Potential for ramifications amongst community groups/members - participants will be anonymised

 

• Consent forms; raw data encrypted

 

• Maintain contact with participants

 

• Acknowledge translation; attribute translators

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Timeline

• Proposed duration: 1 year

 

• Main phases:
  • 3 months in the field in Chang Mai, Thailand
  • 3 months in the field in Ubud, Indonesia

  • 6 months to conduct transcription, analysis and write up report

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thankyou.