ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the complex challenges of undertaking ethnographic research on drug use within the unpredictable spaces of party zones. It explores guidance to researchers setting out to conduct ethnographic work in spaces such as nightlife resorts, music festivals, and the wider night-time economy. In recent years, cultural criminologists have been critical of the overwhelming dominance of positivism and abstract empiricism within mainstream criminology. Ethnographic fieldwork was carried out in Ibiza over three consecutive summers, with multiple visits in an overlapping process of data collection and analysis a feature of virtually all ethnographic studies. The safety of researchers in ethnographic fieldwork is of paramount importance and is increasingly framed by institutional policies of occupational health and safety. Reflexivity requires researchers to consider socio-cultural aspects of their background and their potential influence on the research process.
