13 Making Ethnographic Observations
John Gauthier
Goals
After reading this article, you will be able to do the following:
- Describe the participant observer’s role.
- Identify and describe the different possible participation types in ethnographic research.
- Undertake a practice field observation.
Introduction
Participant observation is the central concept of ethnographic research. It consists of a researcher participating in the daily lives of a group of people as a means of learning both the explicit and implicit rules of their worldview and culture. It is one of the fundamental components of cultural anthropology and is also important to sociology and other fields in which qualitative and ethnographic research occur.
The Nature of Participant Observation
The question types that ethnographers ask and the contexts in which participant observation takes place have evolved over the past century as anthropologists and others have become more sensitive to the questions surrounding ethics, power, positionality, exploitation, and our study populations’ well-being. Nevertheless, participant observation’s fundamental nature has not changed. Participant observation is a uniquely powerful way to sympathetically and respectfully learn about other people’s worldviews.
The Difference Between Participant Observers and Ordinary Participants
Participant observers immerse themselves in the activities and daily lives of the people they are studying, participating in those activities as much as they can. For this reason, to all outward appearances, their behavior might resemble the culture-members’ behavior in which they are immersed. Despite these appearances, there are at least five major differences between participant observers and ordinary participants. This section examines these differences [the following are adapted from the anthropologist James P. Spradley’s work (1979, 1980). Similar participant-observer discussions can be found in McCall and Simmons (1969), Agar (1996), Grills (1998), Van Maanen, J. (2011), and Jorgensen (2020), among others].
Dual Purpose
Whereas ordinary participants generally have one purpose—to participate, participant observers approach social situations with the additional purpose of observing. Although this may seem self-evident from the term participant observation, the actual practice is anything but simple. The participant observer is concerned with observing as much detail about the activities, people, and physical aspects of an unfamiliar social situation as possible because otherwise, they might miss details that seem insignificant to them but that are important to the people whose culture they are studying. In other words, while an ordinary participant does not usually want to watch and record everything that happens in a given social situation, the participant observer must try to record as much as possible, or they risk missing crucial details.
Nevertheless, even the most careful and experienced ethnographer risks missing significant details.
Explicit Awareness
Ordinary participants tend to exclude much trivial or extraneous information from their conscious awareness while navigating everyday social life. People learn through experience the information that is extraneous in familiar situations so that they can focus only on unusual or especially relevant information.
For example, when you board a bus in a familiar city, you likely ignore most of what happens on the bus. You will probably not pay close attention to such details as the relative numbers of men and women on the bus, the number of people reading or using their cell phones, the number of people talking quietly with those seated near them, and numerous other details. You will, however, notice behavior that stands out to you as unusual, such as if a stranger sits next to you when other empty seats are available.
On the other hand, participant observers are immersed in an unfamiliar social scene. Because they are unfamiliar with the conduct rules, they must attempt to be as explicitly aware of as much detail as possible. This is not easy, even for experienced ethnographers. After all, if a person is unaware of a culture or social scene’s rules, they will not know which details are implicit to ordinary participants. Participant observers, therefore, must try to be aware of as much as possible. We can refer to this as observing with a wide-angle lens. Under normal circumstances, and in familiar settings, people tend to limit their observations to the narrow purpose of accomplishing some goal. Ethnographers, on the other hand, have a much broader perspective. A participant observer, therefore, must pay closer attention to detail and employ a wide-angle lens, which allows them to observe and process as much information as possible.
Practice
- Along with three or four classmates or friends, go somewhere on campus where people gather. Spend at least thirty minutes observing the same scene together, but do not speak to your other group members about what you are seeing.
- Once finished, compare notes.
- Reflect: Did everyone notice the same things, or did some of you notice details that others missed? Did you all place the same emphasis on the things you did notice in common? If not, why do you think some emphasized some things while others emphasized other things? Did you all interpret the things you saw in the same way? Again, if not, why do you think this is the case?
- What does this activity and your reflection-questions answers tell you about perspective and ethnographic observation’s nature?
The Insider/Outsider Experience
Ordinary participants tend to experience social situations subjectively. Not only do they notice only partly what goes on around them (ignoring implicit rules and extraneous information), but they filter what they notice through their own subjective experience. The meaning they attach to their experience while participating in a social scene is shaped by the fact that they are part of the situation. In other words, they are insiders.
Participant observers, on the other hand, attempt to experience social situations as both insiders and outsiders. Consider how the anthropologist George Gmelch describes the ethnographic work he and student J.J. Weiner conducted among professional baseball players.
We each brought different backgrounds and experiences to the research that undoubtedly influenced the kinds of questions we asked. I [Gmelch] am an anthropologist who was a professional baseball player during the 1960s (Detroit Tigers, minor leagues), while J. J. Weiner, an anthropology student, worked in and studied the front office of a minor league baseball team, the Birmingham Barons, and knew best the business side of baseball. Both of us had a prior interest in the anthropology of work. Conducting the interviews for this book has fundamentally altered our own perspective on baseball. Now when at the ballpark, we find ourselves paying as much attention to the workers off the playing field and their routines as to the game itself (Gmelch and Weiner, 1998: xii).
Gmelch and Weiner both approached their research as outsiders and insiders. Gmelch as an anthropologist and ex-baseball player, Weiner as an anthropology student and front-office worker. These combined roles gave Gmelch and Weiner unique perspectives that enhanced their ethnographic research. (For more on the distinction between the insider’s perspective and the outsider’s perspective, see the section Emic vs. Etic Perspectives in Essential Concepts in Ethnographic Research, Flanigan, this pressbook).
Introspection
Most people reflect more on unexpected or out-of-the-ordinary experiences than they do on the everyday or the mundane. For example, getting ready for school or work in the morning is not the experience type that tends to elicit deep introspection from most people. On the other hand, out-of-the-ordinary experiences such as getting ready for the first day of class or the first day of a new job will tend to cause most people to engage in more reflection. Some unusual events, such as getting a speeding ticket or doing poorly on an exam, will cause a great deal of after-the-fact introspection. The anthropologist Sverker Finnström (2008) puts it this way:
The Swedish anthropologist Kaj Århem (1994) describes anthropologists’ data collection as participant reflection rather than participant observation. As anthropologists, we do our best to participate in the works, questions, joys, and sorrows of our informants’ everyday life. Then, we take a few steps back to be able to reflect upon what we have learnt and experienced, again to step forward and participate. This we do daily in the fieldwork encounter … for me, it was an advantage to be able to participate and then to step back and seriously reflect, bearing in mind Århem’s concept of participant reflection. Ideally, in the anthropological enterprise, the [informants] are final judges and, more, coworkers (even co-writers) in the final textual representation of their lived realities (2008: 19-20; emphasis added).
This introspection type and reflection on ordinary activities contrasts sharply with an ordinary participant’s behavior who has internalized a social scene’s implicit rules and, therefore, takes the experience for granted. Introspection enhances and enriches the information that an ethnographer gathers through participant observation by filtering it through the etic analysis process.
For Reflection: Controlling Unconscious Bias
The simple act of observation always involves interpretation. As human beings, our personal and cultural biases affect our unconscious decisions about what things are important enough to notice and how we interpret those things once we notice them. [naturalized concepts, etc.] Anthropologists attempt to consciously control their own biases, but even they must sometimes learn about their own limitations by making mistakes when they do fieldwork in unfamiliar settings. Controlling our biases is even more challenging when the things we observe relate to our deeply felt moral or ethical beliefs.
Furthermore, it is commonplace among ethnographers that some of the beliefs that most profoundly influence the way we see the world around us are the ones of which we are least aware. After all, if some of our ideas and beliefs are so deeply ingrained that they are more gut feelings than conscious thoughts, we are probably not aware enough of them to be cognizant of the ways they affect our judgment, at least without much careful practice.
- How can an ethnographer control for biases due to their own ethical beliefs?
- How can an ethnographer increase their unconscious biases’ awareness that might influence what they notice and what they do not?
Record Keeping
This brings us to the final difference—record keeping. In contrast to most ordinary participants, participant observers keep detailed objective data records collected through participant observation and their subjective assessments arrived at through reflection. Some records are field notes that are recorded on the spot, while others are recorded later (see the article Exploring Field-Note Types and Principles in Ethnographic Research, Rojas-Alfaro, this pressbook). Ordinary participants rarely keep a daily-lives-mundane-details record, such as crossing streets, getting ready for work or school, boarding a bus, or shopping at the grocery store, etc. The article Exploring Field-Note Types and Principles in Ethnographic Research (Rojas-Alfaro, this pressbook) will expand on the ethnographic record-keeping process.
Conclusion
While the specific activities that you engage in as a participant observer vary depending on the specific social scene, some things remain constant. Each participant observer strives to maintain a dual purpose, simultaneously engaging as a participant and as an observer (of themselves and their informants). All participant observers attempt to remain explicitly aware of the implicit social-scene aspects that ordinary participants take for granted. This awareness requires approaching the social scene with a wide-angle lens, attempting to look beyond one’s immediate focus. This implies that the participant observer is simultaneously a situation’s insider and outsider. As an outsider and an ethnographer, it is important for the participant observer to engage in introspection. This expands and deepens the participant observer’s experiences. Finally, it is essential to keep a record of both one’s immediate experience of a social scene and one’s after-the-fact reflections on their meanings.
References
Agar, M. (1996). The professional stranger: An informal introduction to ethnography. (No Title).
Finnström, S. (2008). Living with bad surroundings: War, history, and everyday moments in northern Uganda. Duke University Press.
Flanigan, S. (2024). Essential concepts in ethnographic research. In R. Rojas-Alfaro (Ed.), Social Change Through Research and Writing. Pressbooks.
Gmelch, G., & Weiner, J. J. (2006). In the ballpark: The working lives of baseball people. U of Nebraska Press.
Grills, S. (Ed.). (1998). Doing ethnographic research: Fieldwork settings. Sage Publications.
Jorgensen, D. L. (2020). Principles, approaches, and issues in participant observation. Routledge.
McCall, G. J., & Simmons, J. L. (1969). Issues in participant observation: A text and reader. (No Title).
Rojas-Alfaro, R. (2024). Exploring field-note types and principles in ethnographic research. In R. Rojas-Alfaro (Ed.), Social Change Through Research and Writing. Pressbooks.
Spradley J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. Holt Rinehart and Winston.
Spradley J. P. (1980). Participant observation. Holt Rinehart and Winston.
Van Maanen, J. (2011). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. University of Chicago Press.
