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Participant observation is one type of data collection method by practitioner-scholars typically used in qualitative research and ethnography.This type of methodology is employed in many disciplines, particularly anthropology (including cultural anthropology and ethnology), sociology (including sociology of culture and cultural criminology), communication studies, human geography, and social ...
As a form of inquiry, ethnography relies heavily on participant observation, where the researcher participates in the setting or with the people being studied, at least in some marginal role, and seeking to document, in detail, patterns of social interaction and the perspectives of participants, and to understand these in their local contexts ...
Participant observation has also raised ethical questions, since an anthropologist is in control of what they report about a culture. In terms of representation, an anthropologist has greater power than their subjects of study, and this has drawn criticism of participant observation in general. [ 27 ]
James P. Spradley (1933–1982) was a social scientist and a professor of anthropology at Macalester College. [1] Spradley wrote or edited 20 books on ethnography and qualitative research including The Cultural Experience: Ethnography in Complex Society (1972), Deaf Like Me (1979), The Ethnographic Interview (1979), and Participant Observation (1980).
He was ahead of his time as the first participant observer who entered into and participated in another culture, rather than studying and commenting on it as an outside observer. At the same time, Cushing's work also presents a series of ethical dilemmas that must be considered in tracing anthropology's relationship to Indigenous people.
Netnography uses these conversations as data. It is an interpretive research method that adapts the traditional, in-person participant observation techniques of anthropology to the study of interactions and experiences manifesting through digital communications (Kozinets 1998).
Participant observation hinges on a synthesis of subjective insider and outsider elements. Insider elements rely on the fieldworker to learn what behaviour means to the people. Outsider elements are gathered through observations and experiences drawing comparisons with internal cultural customs and behaviours with alternate cultures. [ 26 ]
Participant observation is one of the foundational methods of social and cultural anthropology. [31] Ethnology involves the systematic comparison of different cultures. The process of participant-observation can be especially helpful to understanding a culture from an emic (conceptual, vs. etic, or technical) point of view.