Ch. 10: Observing People in Natural Settings

1. Ch. 10: Observing People in Natural Settings Neumann, pp. 263-289.

2. WHAT IS FIELD RESEARCH? • Field researchers directly observe and participate in natural social settings • Examine social world “up close” • Field researchers work w/ qualitative data • There are several kinds: • Ethnography • Participant observation • Informal “depth” interviews • Focus groups

3. Ethnography • ethno: people or folk • graphy: to describe something • ethnography: a detailed description of insider meanings and cultural knowledge of living cultures in natural settings

4. Cultural knowledge • Cultural knowledge includes assumptions, symbols, songs, saying, facts, ways of behaving, and objects (e.g., furniture, electronics, etc.) • It has two parts: explicit and tacit • tacit knowledge: unspoken cultural norms, revealed when they are breeched

5. STUDYING PEOPLE IN THE FIELD • Field researchers use a variety of techniques, but share common principles: • naturalism: the principle that we learn best by observing ordinary events in natural setting, not in a contrived, invented or researcher-created setting • flexibility: field research is less structured than quantitative research and follows a nonlinear path

6. 8 Stages of a Field Research Study • Preparing • Starting the research project • Being in the field • Developing strategies for success in the field • Observing and taking field notes • Conducting field interviews • Leaving the field • Writing the field research report

7. 1. Preparing for a field study • Increase self-awareness • Conduct background investigation • Practice observing and writing

8. 2. Starting the research project • Get organized • Select a field site • Gain access • Enter the field

9.  Entering the field • Presentation of self • Amount of disclosure • Selecting a social role • field site: any location or set of locations in which field research takes place. It usually has ongoing social interaction and a shared culture. • gatekeeper: someone with the formal or informal authority to control access to a field site.

10. 3. Being in the field • Learn the ropes • Build rapport • Negotiate continuously • Decide on a degree of involvement

11. 3. Being in the field (cont’d) • While “learning the ropes,” you learn how to “normalize” the social research • normalize: how a field researcher helps field site members redefine social research from unknown and potentially threatening to something normal, comfortable and familiar • “Degree of involvement” ranges from detachment to “going native” • going native: when a field researcher drops a professional researcher role and loses all detachment to become fully involved as a full field site member

12. 4. Strategies for Success in the Field • Build relationships • Perform small favors • Appear interested and exercise selective inattention • Be an earnest novice • Avoid conflict • Adopt an attitude of strangeness

13. 4. Strategies for Success in the Field (cont’d) • Learn to “act,” and maintain an “appearance of interest” • appearance of interest: a micro strategy to build or maintain relationships in a field setting in which a researcher acts interested even when he or she is actually bored and uninterested • Adopt an “attitude of strangeness” • attitude of strangeness: a perspective in which the field researcher questions and notices ordinary details by looking through the eyes of a stranger

14. 5. Observing and collecting data • Researcher is data collection instrument, who observes: • The physical setting • People and their behavior • Sometimes “nothing” • Researcher “samples” by focusing attention on different kinds of people or events: • Routine • Special • Unanticipated

15. 6. Interviewing in field research • Types of questions in field interviews: • Descriptive questions • Structural questions • Contrast questions • informant: a member in a field site with whom a researcher develops a relationship and who tells the researcher many details about life in the field site.

16. 7. Leaving the field • Plan for and anticipate the disengaging and exiting process • Exit process depends on field setting and nature of relationships • A small ritual – a party or handshake – helps to signal the social break • Anticipate the effect exiting may have on members

17. 8. Writing the field research report • More than in other reports, a field research report depends on the researcher’s writing skill to convey the feeling of the field site, to describe the people in the field, and to recount events in proper depth