Non-Participant & Direct Observation

Observation

Main types of observation:

• Non-participant observation, when the researcher remains an outsider, not taking part in the studied organization;

• Participant observation: when the researcher takes on an existing role in the field and studies it from that perspective.

Non-Participant Observation

Do not embrace any roles exisiting within the field

Avoid interpretation Avoid categorizations Never evaluate or judge! Focus Take notes Be interested in everything (even the „boring”

things) Remain an outsider

Non-Participant Observation

Observation as being attentive:

• The researcher endeavours to perceive reality as directly as possible, without the mediation of cultural meanings

• It is a conscious attempt to experience the here and now

Examples

• Michel de Certeau (1974/1988), walking in urban setting (flaneuring), observing every-day space and life.

The ordinary practitioners of the city live “down below,” below the thresholds at which visibility begins. They walk - an elementary form of this experience of the city; they are walkers, Wandersmanner, whose bodies follow the thicks and thins of the urban “text” they write without being able to read it. These practitioners make use of spaces that cannot be seen; their knowledge of

them is as blind as that of lovers in each other’s arms. The paths that correspond in this intertwining, unrecognized poems in which each body is an element signed by many others, elude legibility. It is as though the practices organizing a bustling city were characterized by their blindness. The Practice of Everyday Life, by Michel de Certeau Part 3 Spatial Practices, Chapter 7 Walking in the City

Examples

• Richard Rottenburg (2000), an observation of a liminal pub, located in the borderland between Poland and Germany

So, what do I believe I was seeing on this dance floor? A woman dressed as a bridesmaid, wearing a white bride's head-dress in her hair, as is the custom for prostitutes in the Balkans and Turkey, and dancing quite chastely in the expectation that she might find male company. Was she a prostitute? […]? Perhaps the young woman from Bulgaria too was a high-school girl back home from where she came only two weeks ago. In the same picture, a woman was dancing with her husband in a close embrace of stylish harmony.

Sitting in a Bar, by Richard Rottenburg (2000)

„Garfinkeling”

Harold Garfinkel (1967) – breaching norms (small everyday rules) in order to observe. Become an alien.

Direct Observation

• A kind of observation that allows keeping distance and taking part in the activities of the field at the same time.

• The researcher as a guest.

Direct Observation

An in-between method: in part non-participant (the researcher does not become an insider) and in part – participant (the researcher follows the customs in the field)

Direct Observation

• Describe and interpret!

• Use categories from within the field for interpretation of material;

• Do not take upon yourself any roles exisiting in the field (remain a researcher);

• Have an own schedule of attendance;

• Take notes.

Examples

Gideon Kunda, Engineering culture (1992) – a study of a big corporation famous for its „culture management” practices in the 1980s and early 1990s.

It’s not just work – it’s a celebration!

Is a company slogan one often

hearsfrom members attempting to

describe life at Tech. Less formally,

many refer to Tech as a :”song and

dance company”. And more

privately, some agreethat „you

have to do a lot of bullshitting in

groups”.

Engineering Culture, by Gideon

Kunda

Shadowing

• A kind of direct observation

• The researcher „shadows”, or very closely follows, the organizational activities of a participant

• Mobile observation

Examples

Barbara Czarniawska, A City Refraimed (2000), based in part on the shadowing of managers of the units involved in the adminsitration of Warsaw City.

FD seems to be reconclied to my presence and she promises to arrange an interbiew with the Deputy Mayor for me, which I had failed to do on my own. She calls his secretary and presents my business in great an incorrect detail, and sends me along there. It is next door. The secretary’s office/ waiting room is enormous. There are two people sitting there, the secretary and a manwhom I assume to be a bodyguard. The secretary talks on the phone while the guard asks me to state my business […] I produce my best smile [I was told afterwards by an honest respondent that I smiled far too much for the local custom]… Shadowing, by Barbara Czarniawska (2007)