participant observation

participant observation A major research strategy which aims to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given area of study (such as a religious, occupational, or deviant group) through an intensive involvement with people in their natural environment. The method originated in the fieldwork of social anthropologists and in the urban research of the Chicago School. John Lofland's study of the Moonies in Doomsday Cult (1966), Laud Humphreys's study of homosexuals in Tearoom Trade (1970), and William Foote Whyte 's study of the gang (Street Corner Society, 1955) are classic exemplars. Such research usually involves a range of methods (all of which are separately discussed elsewhere in this dictionary): informal interviews, direct observation, participation in the life of the group, collective discussions, analyses of the personal documents produced within the group, self-analysis, and life-histories. Thus, although the method is usually characterized as qualitative research, it can (and often does) include quantitative dimensions.

The central methodological problem of such research is balancing adequate subjectivity with adequate objectivity. Since a major aim of participant observation is to enter the subjective worlds of those studied, and to see these worlds from their point of view (a method akin to the notion of understanding or Verstehen), the problem of adequate subjectivity is posed directly: how can researchers know that they are accurately representing the point of view of the other, rather than imposing their own views upon the research subject? On the other hand, simply to stay with the subject's own view may risk the problem of conversion and ‘going native’, thus being able to see the world only from the point of view of the research subject or subjects. Here the problem of maintaining adequate objectivity is posed: namely, that of maintaining enough distance to be able to locate the subject's view in a wider theoretical and social context. Participant observers are forever trapped in this dilemma: too much detachment weakens the insights that participant observation brings, but too much involvement will render the data of questionable value for social science. The most comprehensive discussion of these issues is T. S. Bruyn's The Human Perspective in Sociology (1966).

Participant observation may take several forms. In a classic article on ‘Roles in Sociological Field Observation’ (in the journal Social Forces, 1958)
, Raymond L. Gold distinguishes four roles that may be adopted within such research. They are ranged along a continuum of involvement, from complete participant through participant-as-observer and observer-as-participant, to complete observer. This taxonomy again captures the subjectivity versus objectivity dilemma: the first position approaches ‘going native’ whereas the last may well be too distant and uninvolved to generate insights into the subjective aspects of behaviour. See also COVERT OBSERVATION; OVERT PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION.