Participant Observation

Abstract

Investigating the meanings of human existence as they are constructed and enacted by people in everyday life situations and settings presents serious challenges for all forms of human studies. Participant observation, whereby the researcher interacts with people in everyday life while collecting information, is a unique method for investigating the enormously rich, complex, conflictual, problematic, and diverse experiences, thoughts, feelings, and activities of human beings and the meanings of their existence. Use of this distinctive method emerged with the professionalization of anthropology and sociology where it gradually was formalized and later spread to a full range of human studies fields. Its practice nevertheless remains artful, requiring creative decision making about problems and questions to be studied, appropriate settings and situations for gathering information, the performance of membership roles, establishing and sustaining trusting relationships, ethics, values, and politics, as well as record making, data analysis and interpretation, and reporting results. This essay provides a brief sketch of the method of participant observation and an overview of a few of the more central issues of its practice, including its location historically within the framework of different views of social scientific methodology.

An Ethnographic Study of Tagging Cultures

“…The behaviors of the tagging community are seldom transparent for the surrounding society, but one possible way to get to know this culture is through participant observation. About participant observation, Jorgensen (1989) points out that Participant observation is especially appropriate for exploratory studies, descriptive studies, and studies aimed at generating theoretical interpretations (…) the methodology of participant observation seeks to uncover, make accessible, and reveal the meanings (realities) people use to make sense out of their daily lives (pp. 13-15).…”

Applying a Layered Framework to Disaster Recovery

“…We employed a case study using participant observation in this study (Jorgensen, 1989). By observing participants, we could examine factors that would otherwise have remained concealed using other methods (McAvoy & Butler, 2007).…”

Untitled

“…However, the paper's understanding of the observing viewer of the dance practice could gain from the valuable perspective of the 'participatory observer' provided by anthropology (Jorgensen, 2015), since this position is not a neutral one, but interferes with the observed dance improvisation.…”