Participant observation is a type of research strategy. It is a widely used methodology in many disciplines, particularly, cultural anthropology, but also sociology, communication studies, and social psychology. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals (such as a religious, occupational, or sub cultural group, or a particular community) and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their natural environment, usually over an extended period of time. The method originated in field work of social anthropologists, especially the students of Franz Boas in the United States, and in the urban research of the Chicago School of sociology.
In anthropology, participant-observation is organized so as to produce a kind of writing called ethnography. It can be applied or academic in nature. A key principle of the method is that one may not merely observe, but must find a role within the group observed from which to participate in some manner, even if only as "outside observer." Overt participant-observation, therefore, is limited to contexts where the community under study understands and permits it. Critics of overt participant observation argue that study is subsequently restricted to the public fronts socially constructed by actors. Gate-keepers ensure that known research never goes backstage, making covert strategies necessary especially when conducting studies on government entities or criminal organisations.[1]
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Such research usually involves a range of methods: informal interviews, direct observation, participation in the life of the group, collective discussions, analyses of personal documents produced within the group, self-analysis, results from activities undertaken off or online, and life-histories. Although the method is generally characterized as qualitative research, it can (and often does) include quantitative dimensions. Participant observation is usually undertaken over an extended period of time, ranging from several months to many years. An extended research time period means that the researcher will be able to obtain more detailed and accurate information about the people he/she is studying. Observable details (like daily time allotment) and more hidden details (like taboo behavior) are more easily observed and understandable over a longer period of time. A strength of observation and interaction over long periods of time is that researchers can discover discrepancies between what participants say—and often believe—should happen (the formal system) and what actually does happen, or between different aspects of the formal system; in contrast, a one-time survey of people's answers to a set of questions might be quite consistent, but is less likely to show conflicts between different aspects of the social system or between conscious representations and behavior.[2]
Participant observation has its roots in anthropology and its use as a methodology can be attributed to Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī (973-1048), a Persian anthropologist who carried out extensive, personal investigations of the peoples, customs and religions of the Indian subcontinent. Like modern anthropologists, he engaged in extensive participant observation with a given group of people, learned their language and studied their primary texts, and presented his findings with objectivity and neutrality using cross-cultural comparisons.[3]
Participant observation was used extensively by Frank Hamilton Cushing in his study of the Zuni Indians in the later part of the nineteenth century, followed by the studies of non-Western societies by people such as Bronisław Malinowski,[4] E.E. Evans-Pritchard,[5] and Margaret Mead[6] in the first half of the twentieth century. It emerged as the principal approach to ethnographic research by anthropologists and relied on the cultivation of personal relationships with local informants as a way of learning about a culture, involving both observing and participating in the social life of a group. By living with the cultures they studied, these researchers were able to formulate first hand accounts of their lives and gain novel insights. This same method of study has also been applied to groups within Western society, and is especially successful in the study of sub-cultures or groups sharing a strong sense of identity, where only by taking part might the observer truly get access to the lives of those being studied. The Social Organization of the Western Apache published in 1941 after the death of its author Grenville Goodwin, established him as a major figure in the field of ethnology, as it was based on his decade of work as a participant-observer with the Western Apache.[7]
Since the 1980s, some anthropologists and other social scientists have questioned the degree to which participant observation can give veridical insight into the minds of other people.[8][9] At the same time, a more formalized qualitative research program known as grounded theory, initiated by Glaser and Strauss,[10] began gaining currency within American sociology and related fields such as public health. In response to these challenges, some ethnographers have refined their methods, either making them more amenable to formal hypothesis-testing and replicability, or framing their interpretations within a more carefully considered epistemology.[2]
The development of participant-observation as a research tool has therefore not been a haphazard process, but instead has practiced a great deal of self-criticism and review. It has as a result become specialized. Visual anthropology can be viewed as a subset of methods of participant-observation, as the central questions in that field have to do with how to take a camera into the field, while dealing with such issues as the observer effect.[11] Issues with entry into the field have evolved into a separate subfield. Clifford Geertz's famous essay on how to approach the multi-faceted arena of human action from an observational point of view, in Interpretation of Cultures uses the simple example of a human wink, perceived in a cultural context far from home.
A variant of participant observation is observing participation, described by Marek M. Kaminski, who explored prison subculture as a political prisoner in communist Poland in 1985.[12] "Observing" or "observant" participation has also been used to describe fieldwork in sexual minority subcultures by anthropologists and sociologists who are themselves lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender; the different phrasing is meant to highlight the way in which their partial or full membership in the community/subculture that they are researching both allows a different sort of access to the community and also shapes their perceptions in ways different from a full outsider.[13] This is similar to considerations by anthropologists such as Lila Abu-Lughod on "halfie anthropology", or fieldwork by bicultural anthropologists on a culture to which they partially belong.[14] The sociological methods known as grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss) overlap significantly with the more formalized versions of participant observation.