Toolkit 9 Researching Through Observation Amd Partipatroy Methods

Question 1

What does ethnography involve?

Answer 1

Involves participant observation plus textual, digital, interview, numbers

Question 2

What does participant observation include?

Answer 2

Being there, stepping into others shoes , empathising
Participating in and observing social life
Conveying a vivid sense of being there

Question 3

What does observing a community?

Answer 3

Sitting back and watching activities unfold, recording impressions of these activities

Question 4

What is the three stage process of participant observation?

Answer 4

1) gain access to a particular community
2) live/ work among the people under study to make sense of their world views and ways of life
3) travel back the academy and write up an account of the community and their practice

Question 5

How do you ensure validity?

Answer 5

Setting the conditions for transferability rather than demonstrating it- depth nor generalisation
Recognising own positionality- reflexivity

Question 6

Why is access important?

Answer 6

Labour process you’re involved with through part time or holiday work
Involvement in communities based around various kinds of localities
Sustained work over over several months
Intense participation for a few days
An in depth journey through a landscape

Question 7

When thinking about your role in conducting a participant observation what needs to be considered?

Answer 7

How you are positioned by others in that community and how that affects what you see, do and Learn. What influence you have over that role and what emotions are involved.what are the pros and cons of the insider/outsider status and how this all affects my understandings

Question 8

What is ethnographic research?

Answer 8

Has developed out of a concern to understand the world views and the ways of life of actual people from the ‘inside’ , in the context of their everyday lives, lived experiences (cook 1997)
It is a thick description