Seeking caravanner insight for anthropology research:

[JoeCaravan]

Greetings Caravanners:

My name is Joe O'Reilly and I am a graduate research student in Queens University Belfast's Social Anthropology department. I am currently conducting research on caravan touring, specifically studying how caravanners consume space and place. To complement my observational fieldwork I am hoping to collect some anecdotal information from caravanners themselves about why, where, and how they caravan.

I have put together 10 brief questions and would be very grateful for your insight:

٭ How long have you been caravanning? Has the caravan experience changed during this period? If so, how?

٭ How is your caravan like your home? How is it different?

٭ What type of activities do you participate in while caravanning?

٭ Do you caravan alone or with family and do you share space?

٭ How do you set up your caravan when you reach your destination?

٭ Why do you enjoy caravanning?

٭ How often do you caravan and where do you typically go?

٭ When you go caravanning do you tour around or stay in one place?

٭ How did you get started caravanning?

٭ Does caravanning have any emotional resonance for you? If so, how?

Your name:

Location:

Note: This information will be published in my research paper. All care will be given to respondents who request anonymity. If you would like for me to send you a copy of my research thesis when completed, please email me: jor22076@aol.com

Thank you,

Joe O'Reilly

Queens University Belfast

Department of Social Anthropology

 

[ColinA]

Sounds a bit too much like market research for me.

 

[emmerson2]

Agreed, Colin.And with a name like mine, given a location, I'd be pretty easy to find or steal my ID.I'll give a miss, I think.

 

[Geist]

OK Joe - I'll bite

٭ How long have you been caravanning? Has the caravan experience changed during this period? If so, how? ⇦br/>

Yes indeed, the caravan experience has certainly changed during the 20 years I've been roaming around. For a start, years ago I could actually afford the necessary petrol!

٭ How is your caravan like your home? ⇦br/>

It's not fully paid for yet

How is it different? ⇦br/>

There's faint chance that it eventually will be.

٭ What type of activities do you participate in while caravanning? ⇦br/>

Eating and drinking seem to be the chief activities of most caravanners (particularly the latter) during the brief periods not devoted to food or drink consumption a favorite pastime is sitting outside the van mentally ascertaining the social status of your on-site neighbours by the age and value of their caravan/car combination.

٭ Do you caravan alone or with family and do you share space? ⇦br/>

It would be nice to go caravanning without my wife - but until someone comes up with a motorised water carrier, I'm stuck with her.

٭ How do you set up your caravan when you reach your destination? ⇦br/>

My role is primarily an administrative one, I direct, advise, and generally supervise activities (stick to what you're best at, that's my motto)

٭ Why do you enjoy caravanning? ⇦br/>

Quite a deep question there, Joe - I'd like to be able to say that it fulfills a deep psychological desire for freedom and the need to avoid confinement (both spiritual and physical) The truth, however (and I'm assuming that you desire complete honesty here?) is that it enables me to act in a thoroughly anti-social manner (by driving slowly and causing huge queues of traffic to form behind me) without the risk of receiving an ASBO.

٭ How often do you caravan and where do you typically go? ⇦br/>

Wherever the roads are busiest.

٭ When you go caravanning do you tour around or stay in one place? ⇦br/>

Oh, tour around - that's the way to cause maximum disruption.

٭ How did you get started caravanning? ⇦br/>

Hard to say - but the idea first began to form after I was hit on the head by a large spanner dropped from a ladder by a work colleague in the mid 80's. I was off work for several months, and it was while sitting in a hospital waiting room, awaiting one of my monthly brain scans, that I was suddenly seized by the idea, 'Why not go caravanning?!" The rest, as they say, is history.

٭ Does caravanning have any emotional resonance for you? If so, how? ⇦br/>

It certainly affords the opportunity to have a laugh at the expense of daft questionnaires, which is, I suppose, an emotional response - so the answer to that one has to be 'Yes'

Thanks for asking.

 

[JoeCaravan]

Hey guys... thanks for your replies... much appreciated... just to allay your concerns, this is not market research... I am studying caravan culture as part of my MA thesis... if you have reservations you may call or email the Department of Anthropology at Queens University Belfast and confirm my status there: +44 (0) 28 9097 or e-mail anthropology@qub.ac.uk

For those interested in more detail, here is my research abstract:

Tourists escape the confines and constraints of their tethered, working lives to find space and leisure often in out of the way places. Transport is very much a part of this reprieve. But for caravan tourists, the mode of travel is not only the means to a destination; it is the embodiment of the journey and the experience as well.

The caravanning tradition remains a popular and growing pastime in Ireland and the UK in particular. In 2003 The National Caravan Council estimated the caravanning industry in the UK generated an annual turnover of more than ₤3 billion of retail sales for product and holiday spend, while documenting nearly half a million touring caravans in use.

From a socio-economic perspective, the caravan industry in Ireland and UK has been widely studied. Tourist boards, caravan clubs and councils, economists, land developers, and environmentalists have collectively funded research to dissect the impact of caravan parks on environmental sustainability, quality of life, and tourism development in rural areas.

Less documented is how caravanning as an activity reflects shifting global trends in material consumption and tourism. The consumption of space and place is very much a central aspect of caravan tourism. The aim of this research project is twofold: first, to identify how caravanners appropriate space and define boundaries inside and outside their mobile homes; and second, to probe the aesthetic appeal of mobile holidays. My overall objective is to create a local narrative of caravanning in Ireland and Northern Ireland that addresses broader trends in global tourism and consumption.

Any further comments -- agreements or disagreements -- or your own observations along these lines are very welcome...

Thank you again!

safe travels,

Joe O'Reilly

 

[kathryn_5122141]

Hi Joe

Good luck with the thesis - I will email you my replies but suggest you might like to try the caravan forum on UK Campsite as well as there are some lovely people on there who might take you more seriously

 

[Geist]

Hey guys... thanks for your replies... much appreciated... just to allay your concerns, this is not market research... I am studying caravan culture as part of my MA thesis... if you have reservations you may call or email the Department of Anthropology at Queens University Belfast and confirm my status there: +44 (0) 28 9097 or e-mail anthropology@qub.ac.uk

For those interested in more detail, here is my research abstract:

Tourists escape the confines and constraints of their tethered, working lives to find space and leisure often in out of the way places. Transport is very much a part of this reprieve. But for caravan tourists, the mode of travel is not only the means to a destination; it is the embodiment of the journey and the experience as well.

The caravanning tradition remains a popular and growing pastime in Ireland and the UK in particular. In 2003 The National Caravan Council estimated the caravanning industry in the UK generated an annual turnover of more than ₤3 billion of retail sales for product and holiday spend, while documenting nearly half a million touring caravans in use.

From a socio-economic perspective, the caravan industry in Ireland and UK has been widely studied. Tourist boards, caravan clubs and councils, economists, land developers, and environmentalists have collectively funded research to dissect the impact of caravan parks on environmental sustainability, quality of life, and tourism development in rural areas.

Less documented is how caravanning as an activity reflects shifting global trends in material consumption and tourism. The consumption of space and place is very much a central aspect of caravan tourism. The aim of this research project is twofold: first, to identify how caravanners appropriate space and define boundaries inside and outside their mobile homes; and second, to probe the aesthetic appeal of mobile holidays. My overall objective is to create a local narrative of caravanning in Ireland and Northern Ireland that addresses broader trends in global tourism and consumption.

Any further comments -- agreements or disagreements -- or your own observations along these lines are very welcome...

Thank you again!

safe travels,

Joe O'Reilly

Hi again, Joe

I'd like to comment on one particular point

"My overall objective is to create a local narrative of caravanning in Ireland and Northern Ireland that addresses broader trends in global tourism and consumption." ⇦br/>

One can safely say that you are unlikely to find many caravanners left in the Irish Republic - principally because they all appear to over here, adding to the diversity of UK life and exercising their newly discovered Human Rights - which, apparently make them immune from the strictures of the law, not to mention the tiresome constraints imposed on other less fortunate UK road users by the Vehicle Construction & Use Regulations.

While, perhaps, not 'Tourists' in the accepted sense (one can reasonably expect a tourist to return home at some point) they certainly are avid consumers - mostly of other people's caravans, which are often to be seen bouncing merrily along behind an unlicenced tarmac lorry, after being removed from driveways and storage compounfs....

 

[JoeCaravan]

Kathryn, thanks for the feedback and i will... and Geist, thanks for the humor, you even got me laughing!! LOL...

cheers,

Joe