From Focus Groups in Community Settings, to In-depth Interviews in Pubs: A Case Study on Researching Irish Men, Masculinities, and Illicit Drug Use

This case study is based on sociological research spurred on by curiosity about the disparity of gender differences in Ireland’s illicit drug landscape and a contention that Irish men’s historical gender invisibility resulted in their predominance as drug users being ignored and underexamined from a gender standpoint. Explanations for Irish men’s predominance as drug users were limited, and little was known about the gendered meanings that men ascribed to their use of illicit drugs. The research explored Irish men’s views on and experiences of illicit recreational drug use, examining how men use illicit drugs as symbolic social objects to communicate messages about their masculine identities. This case study provides insight into using focus groups and in-depth interviewing as research methods focusing on the use of social spaces for conducting research on men, masculinities, and illicit drug use. The focus is on the use of social spaces as research sites and exploring a sensitive topic in these spaces. This case study achieves two goals: (1) to highlight the challenges of conducting focus groups in community settings with both small and large groups of men on the topics of masculinities and illicit drug use and (2) to reflect on in-depth interviews conducted across a range of public and private social spaces including pubs, office buildings, private residences, and online. Readers will learn about the technical and methodological challenges and issues relating to both focus groups and in-depth interviewing encountered through this research project, with a view to informing the readers’ own research practices.