Talk:Participant observation

General

First, this isn't a sociological article (it's anthropological!)

But, it's on the right track. It needs to expand the contributions of Renato Rosaldo, who should have his own article. It needs to include and expand the contributions of Clifford Geertz. There are some major methodological essays that should be included, most of them compiled in Naroll's book (I'll check the spell there - I believe it's Naroll). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Levalley (talk • contribs) 04:51, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

There is always room for improvement. I don't know that Geertz was ever considered an nnovator in fieldwork. But good resources would be Wengle (Wengel?)'s Ethnographers in the Field, Powdermaker's Stranger and Friend, Peggy Golde's Women in the Field among others. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I know (or knew) Peggy Golde and worked with her at the time she wrote that book, mostly as a sounding board and gopher - but still, yes, she put together quite a list. She considered Jean Briggs to be a great innovator in the field. Have you read Geertz's book (first chapter of Interpretation of Cultures is the essay in question regarding participant observation as a field method). There are certainly others who could be added. I came today to say that the last sentence in the first paragraph is misleading and false, in my view. I was taught (and hear constantly) that participant-observation is a method that can be short or long term. Where I went to school, longterm was considered better than short term, but undergraduates began with short term. I taught a short course on participant-observation in the early 80's and still teach courses on basic observation (often in applied settings). Peggy thought of Geertz as an innovator but was very caught up in the women-thing at the time. Jean Briggs, though, certainly deserves a mention, I'd say. It's on my list of things to do/people to add. Levalley (talk) 02:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)--LeValley

The jump from the 19th century to 1929 (with Malinowski) leaves out the fact that Malinowski's fieldwork was much earlier (during WW1). Radcliffe-Brown needs to be mentioned before Boas. There's a missing cast of characters of course, but many of them are already treated elsewhere on Wikipedia, so I'm thinking that people who have milestones in P-O should be mentioned. Someone from the Chicago School who contributed a lot needs to be named, if it is to be mentioned as so formative (it's my understanding that White, for example, was an anthropologist, not a sociologist - I'll check). There's a Malcolm Collier (sister in law, I believe, of the BIA John Collier) who studied the Navajo very early on. I've got lecture notes from Joe Greenberg and citations on Al-Buruni and what his participatory role was, I'll try to find and add them. Geertz, btw, was important in elaborating the observer effect and much of his theoretical perspective came out of that effort. Rosaldo, of course, wrote the last famous book on the topic, as far as I'm concerned.--Levalley (talk) 02:27, 31 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

That's interesting, I read Geertz's essay as an essay on ethnography, a kind of text, not on participant observation as a field method. Geertz seems to be saying that anthropologists in the field produce texts and that the ethnographer (i.e. the writer)'s task is to interpret those texts. He invokes the theories of philosophers Ryle and Wittgenstein to support his argument. In this he seems to be like Eric Wolf, arguing that anthropology is among the humanities, against Marvin Harris, who argued it was one of the sciences. But I still do not see anything at all innovative about "participant observation" in that chapter. Call me old fashioned but like Malinowski and Boas I see participant observation fieldwork as requiring lon-term residence and work in the local language. I know that some anthropologists and many non-anthropologists do another kind of research called "qualitative methods" which can of course be done very quickly. But that is not the same thing as participant observation, is it? Also, why put Radcliffe Borwn before Boas? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

==

This statement is dated: "Gate-keepers ensure that known research never goes backstage, making covert strategies necessary especially when conducting studies on government entities or criminal organisations." While covert anthropology may exist, there was a very strong and well known movement opposing it among members of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in the English speaking world. AAA members wrote up articles opposing it, for example. This merits development. KSRolph (talk) 02:40, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

== This wikipage is, for the most part, an overview of how anthropology uses participant observation. There is a lack of information on the actual methodology needed to conduct good participant observation regardless of the field one's discipline. The information needs to be less specific to any one field of research (i.e. anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc.) and more detailed on "how" to conduct Participant Observation. This page is also missing the general overview of the different types of Participant Observation techniques. The page can do with some much needed expansion. I will be deleting the second paragraph of the introduction. The bit about anthropology just seems to "float". Besides that information being out of place, the information about "overt" and "covert" participant observation techniques merits a section of its own; if that is not a good option it can also be included in the "Methods and Practices" section. This also brings to another point of fault with this page. The "Methods and Practice" section is very sparse and does not get into the core of how to conduct Participant Observation. Lastly, you may have noticed that I tweaked the layout of the page. I switched the "History and Development" and "Methods and Practice" sections around. I felt that the previous layout was confusing. I did not like the fact that one was presented with the "Methods and Practice" before the "History and Development". (M.devia.psych. (talk) 20:38, 18 September 2012 (UTC))

I understand that this article falls under anthropology, but participant observation isn't limited to that field. It would be nice to see some information on how participant observation is utilized in other disciplines such as sociology.Zakdavid18 (talk) 20:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

This is a thick read, my critique to you would be to break up the information with some bullet points and indentations. Organization or really just presentation of information can greatly increase the appeal of the article. Perhaps even a picture or graph, something to give they eyes a break from all the useful data and information. Otherwise, it's looking good. Anbingham (Anbingham (talk) 21:19, 4 October 2012 (UTC))

Thank you for your feedback. I added a chart to help break up the large amount of text. I hope this helps! M.devia.psych. (talk) 21:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

== I did some minor edits to the Type of Participant Observation section. I added a reference and fleshed out the existing paragraph. I will be adding content under the different types of participant observation. (M.devia.psych. (talk) 22:12, 3 October 2012 (UTC))

== I added content under each type of participant observation and tweaked the layout under Types of Participant Observation. I also added the second paragraph in Method and Pracitce, and I am continuing to work on expanding the ideas in the second paragraph. (M.devia.psych. (talk) 01:05, 4 October 2012 (UTC))

Reworded some sentences and deleted extra words for added clarity. I also linked to other wiki pages and added a new link to the See Also section. M.devia.psych. (talk) 02:25, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Added a reference and reworded a couple of sentences in the Method and Practice section; minor edit M.devia.psych. (talk) 17:12, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I think your additions regarding types of participant observation are good and provide information that the page was lacking. (Anson1492 (talk) 06:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC))

== I really like how you expanded the history and development section. As I mentioned above, I would be interested in the history of participant observation in fields other than anthropology. I know that it was very common in the early 20th century in sociology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zakdavid18 (talk • contribs) 20:39, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

== I will be adding the content that was previously removed from the Types of Participant observation. As suggested by the person that removed the content, each paragraph is now clearly referenced. I am adding back the material because I feel that the chart I have provided does not have enough detail to be useful for any viewer wanting more information about different types of participant observations. If anyone has any other suggestions, please add your feedback on this talk page. Thank you. M.devia.psych. (talk) 23:34, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I have also added a table/chart to the Method and Practice Section. Please add your feed back on this talk page. Thank you. M.devia.psych. (talk) 14:38, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

You need to learn to gain agreement before editing the article when things are disputed. Its still excessive. I will go through it shortly and reduce it. If you don;t like that then lets go back to the last stable version and get agreement here before moving on----Snowded ^TALK 14:39, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

OK done - you are also over dependent on one source. I'm tempted to tag it as such. There are others who engage and write about this field and our job is not to just take one person (in this case Spradley) and treat them uncritically. I would expect at least mention of people such as Czarniawska-Joerges and others, and more critical material. Too much of the recently inserted text sounds like sales material or apologia. The issue of impact of involvement is not treated, if anything its glossed over. I realise you guys are on a student project, but wikipedia is NOT a place for you to draft an essay together - try and use sandboxes more and bring stuff here when its complete and (critically) balanced). ----Snowded ^TALK 15:12, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

It looks like you making some good progress here and receiving a nice amount of feedback. Overall, I was able to clearly follow what you have here. My points for further work with this article are: 1) Follow up on the source suggested by Snowded. I know that you have some more sources that you have not cited here, so bring them in as well. 2) Tying in with Snowded's request for a more critical approach, I would like to see your tables expanded to include columns addressing the strengths and weakness of each approach & each method of data collection. You will need to negotiate these additions with Snowded, as he was concerned that some of the material was excessive. I suggest that you contact him and find out whether he would prefer to look at the revisions in your sandbox and give feedback there or discuss it further on this talk page and work from there. 3) You also need to follow up on Snowded's comment about impact of involvement. 4) The people you are observing are not passive, even in the approach where you do not interact with them at all. They will be observing you and making their own assessments of what you are doing there and the act on those. You need to address this 4) As discussed in class, due to the prolonged researcher presence in the field, unique ethical issues can arise. How does the researcher's presence impact the community they are observing? You may also want to address complications that may arise in terms of how the data or final report may be used. Look back that the materials we discussed during our conversations about ethics Heather Adams (talk) 18:46, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Very happy to help out as needed. Its important to remember that things like listing strengths and weaknesses need to come from reliable third party sources----Snowded ^TALK 20:57, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I am currently going through Czarniawska-Joerges' book "Shadowing: and other techniques for doing field work in modern societies", if there is a particular work by Czarniawska-Joerges that you had in mind I would appreciate knowing that information. I am also in the process of changing the paragraphs for each type of participant observation into bullet point format in my sandbox. This would cut down on the thick amount of text, but still retain information that in my opinion is necessary. The table with the brief descriptions about each type of participant observation is not enough information. I would appreciate any feedback you may have as I get ready to post to the live session on Monday October 15 by 5pm EST. Thank you. M.devia.psych. (talk) 14:17, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

If you enable email on your account I can send you an article with a whole set of references. I gave Czarniawska as one example, there are others such as Boje etc. You can't just take one persons view, ideally you want a source which summarises the field. I suggest if there is essential information you place it in the table ----Snowded ^TALK 14:42, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. I have enabled the email setting so that I may receive your suggested references and see how to best incorporate the material with my own information. I will take into advisement your suggestion about the table. M.devia.psych. (talk) 01:35, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

==

I edited the Participant Observation Chart (added limitations to chart) and added limitations to all types of participant observation. M.devia.psych. (talk) 16:06, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Impact of Researcher Involvement section was added to the page. This is to address the suggestion of addressing this issue. M.devia.psych. (talk) 17:23, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Edited Phases Chart by adding important information in the respective phases.M.devia.psych. (talk) 17:40, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I have added a section dealing with Ethical Concerns. I felt this was a necessary section to have on this page, and it addresses previous suggestions about this topic. M.devia.psych. (talk) 17:47, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I did some minor edits to the charts. I moved existing sentences into phases chart to improve the aesthetic quality, and I added a few lines of introductory text to the already exiting sentence in Types of Participant observation. I also broke up the text in Ethical concerns into two smaller paragraphs as suggested. M.devia.psych. (talk) 20:56, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest breaking the article up into something as minor as smaller paragraphs. I feel as thought the reading is rather dense and may deter some readers from continuing on. I enjoyed the simplicity of your charts coupled with their functionalism works great in the article. (Jlmahan (talk) 15:07, 15 October 2012 (UTC))

I have edited the Researcher Impact section by linking member checking and triangulation to already existing Wikipedia pages. These pages highlight the strengths and limitations of these two forms of data checking to further extent than what is done on this page's section. [[M.devia.psych. (talk) 16:55, 14 December 2012 (UTC)]]

I added more citations to content. (M.devia.psych. (talk) 17:41, 14 December 2012 (UTC))

Gobble-de-goop

Some statements here need simplification and clarification. There is a method for describing this topic. KSRolph (talk) 00:58, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Synonymous with Field Research?

A recent edit was made to the lede sentence of the Field Research article, which suggested that Participant observation is synonymous with Field Research. Is this a verifiable and widely accepted statement? If so, would it be reasonable to merge both articles? danielkueh (talk) 23:45, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely not. There are hundreds of kind of field research (such as the ones done by geologists, biologists, etc.), participant observation is only one of them and is only used in certain social sciences working in the anthropological tradition. The statement in the Field research article is simply erroneous.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:04, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Maunus, I have been waiting for a while. :) danielkueh (talk) 22:07, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Instructor Notes

Overall good work! you have done a good job of addressing the participants as active entities who are coming to their own conclusions about what you are doing there, what you are trying to find, etc. You also have great tables! Well laid out and concise info. A couple of ares you need to work on:

1. You need to include citations for some of your statements and whenever possible, multiple sources for a statement.
2. I suggest you add in a few brief examples to highlight triangulation and observations, along with common ethical concerns. Look for already existing Wikipedia pages that address such issues and link to them.
3. I am not clear why the reflexivity journal links to field notes
4. respond to critiques by other reviewers

Heather Adams (talk) 23:33, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

All this and no clear definition?

We need a one or two liner definition that is to the point. This is an encyclopaedia not an academic lecture. Gagarine (talk) 21:25, 30 October 2021 (UTC)