Page 25 - World Heritage and Tourism Innovation

Hiyab Gebretsadik Weldearegay Critics on Heritage Laws and Tourism Politics in Ethiopia

Material and Methods the last round of the Delphi. Accordingly, the selected
Research Methodology appropriate specialised sub-panels were the sub-pan-
The multi-layered Delphi method is the principal el of tourism management, archaeology, heritage
analysis methodology employed in this paper. In this management, political science, ethnography, history,
method, panels of specialists who know related areas and the sub-panel of law. This professional diversity
anonymously give an opinion on complex phenome- enabled us to see the issue from seven academic di-
na. If they do not reach a consensus, the process re- mensions. Participants were confined to the various
peats the thesis and antithesis to work towards syn- regional states of Ethiopia only, favouring the estab-
thesis until a consensus plateau emerges. The process lishment of a conclusion that suits the nuances of the
can stop after a predefined stop criterion, consensus Ethiopian scenario and the potential adoption of the
achievement, or results stability. The technique could study’s results predominantly to this very context.
be used in areas where actual scientific dialectics does
not appear, to capture multi-disciplinary or inter-sec- Panel Inclusion Criteria
toral perspectives on a topic that requires various ar- Accordingly, the following inclusion criteria were ap-
eas of knowledge, to assess the desirability of a direc- plied: Professional expertise in one of the above-stat-
tion, or to capture the temperature of opinions on a ed fields. Consistent with the principle that panellists
controversial topic; This is because a knowledgeable should have special qualifications (Hasson et al.,
participant pool generates survey instruments and 2000): More than ten years of work experience in
ideas (Hasson et al., 2000). Ethiopia; Proven track records in publication; Rank
Although there is considerable variation in how of assistant professor or above; More than 30 years of
the method is applied, the Delphi method has its dis- age; and individuals with a minority perspective. Ac-
tinct characteristics: it uses expert panellists; It has a cordingly, we sent e-mails to 131 experts who met this
series of sequential ‘rounds’; employs an ‘idea gener- study’s inclusion criteria through snowball sampling.
ation and evaluation phase; and is interested either in One hundred three professionals showed interest, but
the formation of consensus or exploration (measure- an agreement finished with only 91 of them.
ment) of agreement.
Research Paradigm, Positionality, and Place of the
Panel Size Researcher
Although 10 to 50 experts are considered adequate for The research acknowledges that the researcher’s biog-
content validation (Turoff, 2002), and Delphi surveys raphy, i.e. personal and professional experiences, his-
have had as few as seven and as many as 2000 panel- torical-political location, and pre-study beliefs, may
lists, this study’s panel consists of 91 thematic acade- directly or indirectly influence the design, execution,
micians. The size of the panel was determined by the and interpretation of the research. The recognition
topic area and the time and resources available to the is that the researcher is part of the social world he is
researcher. researching, making it challenging to attain a com-
The type of Delphi used is the Multi-layered Del- pletely ‘objective’ reality. However, this difficulty does
phi Approach; this means there were sub-panels with- not mean that, ontologically, there is no objective ex-
in the panel to capture the interdisciplinary dimen- ternal reality independent of human thinking and out
sion of the discourse. Based on this, seven sub-panels of personal value systems. Siding a positivistic world
of appropriate specialisations that have 13 experts but reflexively acknowledging the influence of biog-
each were formed within the overall panels of the dis- raphy, the research has aspired to achieve ‘empathetic
course to give a total of 91 experts at the beginning. neutrality, eliminate the relationship between the re-
The number of 13 experts does not affect the attrition searcher & the researched, and strive towards dualism
rate throughout the rounds and retain at least seven or knower and known independence and separabili-
experts (as prescribed in FGD) in each sub-panel in ty. Axiologically, they tried to find findings that were

Proceedings of the 7th UNESCO UNITWIN Conference | 21