Night Vision: Navigating Walking Interviews in the Dark

ABSTRACT Mobile interview methods have been widely used for engaging with different places while actively ‘going along’ with participants. However, invariably, these research methods are conducted during daytime conditions, leaving scope for further investigation into the underexplored ‘every night’. This paper contributes to the discourse on mobile methodologies by presenting a case for the use of darkness both as a research method and as a sensory and therapeutic landscape in a rural context. While conducting research after dark is often avoided for safety reasons, this study demonstrates how it can be harnessed to produce valuable findings by drawing the researcher out of controlled environments. The introduction of Walking Interviews In Natural Darkness (‘WIIND’), posited as an innovation to existing qualitative research strategies, supports the theoretical dimensions of introducing darkness to mobile research methods. Using data collected from a study on dark sky tourism in a dark sky park in the west of Ireland, this paper examines how WIIND contributes to the understanding of therapeutic landscapes in a rural context with insights on access and gender perspectives of outdoor recreation after dark. It concludes by advocating for further discourse on conducting research under the disappearing phenomenon of a natural nightscape, and suggests that with careful application, adding the dimension of darkness to walking interviews can provide rich opportunities for researcher–participant engagement.