Practising participant observation: an anthropologist's account

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide an anthropological viewpoint on the debate about the uses and abuses of the method of ethnography in the field of commercially‐motivated research.

Design/methodology/approach

The objective of the paper is to explore the method of ethnography from an anthropological perspective, focusing specifically on the field research method of participant observation. This is in order to examine what of value is being lost as ethnography transforms into a different kind of method outside of the academy.

Findings

The paper proposes further critical debate between academics and practitioners of ethnography in and outside the academy. It suggests that the Journal of Organisational Ethnography is an ideal location for this debate to take place. The paper argues that “observation research” might be a more accurate term to describe research that does not combine participant observation proper with a commitment to critical enquiry into the conditions of possibility of commercial and governmental organisations under the specific political and economic conditions of capitalism.

Originality/value

The originality of the paper is the imagination of what a crash‐course in ethnography would need to consist of, both for would‐be ethnographers to gain a sense of the specific value of the method and for students of anthropology to appreciate that doing ethnography is not a mystical rite of passage or vague process of “deep hanging out”, but rather a methodological technique that relies on a theory of learning, which must be elaborated in order to understand how to do ethnography well.

Citation

Evans, G. (2012), "Practising participant observation: an anthropologist's account", Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 96-106. https://doi.org/10.1108/20466741211220697