1 Introduction This essay swings on the problems ... - Kinship Studies

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<strong>Introduction</strong>
<strong>This</strong> <strong>essay</strong> <strong>swings</strong> on the problems of the field research methodology,
its significance and perspectives. Observation, to apply Erving Goffman’s
terminology, is the front stage of the whole bulk of sociological methods, in
the big perspective, and of field work, in the narrow perspective.
Observation is a very accommodative term. It covers the whole range of
direct associations with the object of study a scholar may find himself in due
to his sight, hearing, touch, memory and feelings. The observer may stay at
the distance, come close, make himself visible or invisible for the object.
The main emphasis herein will be put on participant observation
which is
"both logically and temporally prior to the more formal and ritualised
techniques of investigation of social activities" (Wax R. H. 1968 : 239).
The participant observation methodology will be discussed not only
with regard to its instrumental and applied principles but also in the context
of theoretical and typological issues which it may rise or assist in eliciting.
The rapport of participant observation with theoretical endeavours sets it
apart from other methods and dwells not only in the discussion about it but
also in its practical implementation.
"Field observation differs from some other models of observation in that it is
not only a data-collecting activity. Frequently, perhaps typically, it is a theorygenerating
activity as well" (Babbie E. 1992 : 285).
Participant observation is found among the methods of those sciences
which at one or another angle monitor the totality of immediate human
experience as revealed in the situations of people’s co-presence. Psychology
is interested in the complexity of the subjective world of the individual,
anthropology focuses on the variety of socio-cultural contexts existing
around the globe, while sociology is mainly concerned with the relations
between individuals and groups within the limited context of modernity.
Participant observation is excluded for archaeology, history, linguistics,
economics; needless to say that it is unsuitable for natural and technical
sciences. In the case of archaeology and history, participation is impossible
since the objects of their studies are cut off the present and the truths about
them can be deduced only vicariously through material evidences and
streams of people’s memories. Economics and linguistics, although dealing
with human practices relevant for the present, examine particular spheres of
activity which possess clear structures, can be sequestered from the subject
and thus grasped “from afar” or learnt. Though, in the case of linguists, the
author will come on to show that their field work can be interpreted as a
specific type of participant observation.
Finally, participant observation associates with some group of people
who do not fall into the category of scholars at all: for instance, emissaries

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from private firms investigating the social situation in a country or district
before their firm installs its branch there, detectives, writers, journalists,
reporters etc. In the case of journalists, a good example is their activity in the
fronts during the World War II, when they had not only to take notes but to
hold arms as well.
Between Observation and Participation: A Methodological Rendition
of the Subject/Object Opposition
The problem of the relations between the subject and the object is
pivotal to every scientific project. However only social sciences are dealing
with rational and active objects which possess a highly unpredictable 'self'
and can destroy the whole set of methodological pre-conceptions and lead
the researcher into the cul-de-sac. Every community which falls into the
focus of sociological or anthropological study possesses knowledge of a
context, called by Robert Merton 'the insiders knowledge' (Merton R. K. 1972)
which is not given discursively to the researcher and which must be
unearthed. Detached observation as such, unlike, say, natural sciences, can
not be in this situation the only means of comprehension of the reality under
study.
Proceeding from these circumstances, methodology offers a special
approach which can help to resolve the main opposition and plough the way
towards a successive investigation into the now tamed object. Herbert
Blumer describes this taming strategy, which is aptly called participant
observation, as follows:
“To catch the process, the student must take the role of the acting unit whose
behaviour he is studying. Since the interpretation is being made by the acting unit in
the terms of objects designated and appraised, meanings acquired and decisions
made, the process has to be seen from the standpoint of the acting unit.... To try to
catch the interpretative process by remaining 'aloof' as a so-called 'objective'
observer and refusing to take the role of the acting unit is to risk the worst kind of
subjectivism - the objective observer is likely to fill in the process of interpretation
with his own surmises in place of catching the process as it occurs in the experience
of the acting unit … uses it” (Blumer H. 1969 : 86).
Failure to recognise the object as an acing unit has accompanied
anthropology for quite a long while. Having encountered with economically
backward societies, anthropologists began with the interpretation of the
blatant disparities between this bizarre reality and the "normal" European
society on the basis of values and concepts found in the latter. The picture
appeared to be even more queer that it had been initially.
Alternatively, the researcher can not afford getting swamped by the
community studied, as it will cause the lost of the scholarly vantage point
and the lapse into the conceptual framework of the object. Attachment to the
role of the acting unit should be injected with reasonable detachment from it

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which promises monitoring those features of life of the object which can not
be discerned from the inside.
The unity of standpoints is the most desirable and ideal situation
which, however, rarely can be set into being. Howard Becker is quite positive
on this matter:
"....We cannot construct a description of a situation or process that in some
way fuses the perceptions and interpretations made by both parties involved.... We
cannot describe a 'higher reality' that makes sense of both sets of views. We can
describe the perspectives of one group and see how they mesh with the perspectives
of the other group.... But we cannot understand the situation or process without
giving full weight to the differences between the perspectives of the two groups
involved" (Becker H. 1973 : 173).
Participant observation, then, implies a certain rite de passage which
aims at lowering the bar which separates the object of the study and the
researcher and gradual approximation of a scholar's standpoint to the
standpoint of the acting unit.
Observation and the Roles of the Observer
The spatial and temporal frame of the relations between the subject
and the object of field research can be used for building the continuum of the
observer's roles. Raymond Gold (Gold R. 1969 : 30-39) marked out four
distinctive roles: complete participant, participant-as-observer, observer-asparticipant
and complete participant.
The complete participant is a scholar who takes part in group activities
genuinely or through pretension. His student identity is either tantamount to
his identity as a casual person or unknown to the people he studies. A
situation from the author's anthropological field practice among the Erzya-
Mordvinian rural population in Samara Province, Russia, in 1995-1996 can be
cited as a typical example. The culture authorities in a Mordvinian village
were arranging the celebration of the commemoration day. Folk singers and
dancers (mostly, elderly people) had to be gathered from other villages. For
this purpose, a bus was needed. The bus could be provided only by the
village administrative authorities. The culture workers were far from being in
good terms with the administration and did not dare to meet them and spell
out their request. Needless to say, that the author himself was extremely
interested in the forthcoming event and he offered his help in making the
arrangements with the power. During the negotiations, which proved to be
successful, the author was acting, on one hand, as a complete participant
because his primary goal was not to study but to make arrangements for the
study. He was on equal terms with the collocutors and himself served as the
object of observation. On the other hand, he could perform the role of the
observer since he could draw information about the behaviour of the local
authorities toward the stranger. Such situations when a researcher lapses in
complete participation and his participational and observational modes of

ehaviour overlap are quite common though they happen by occasion and are
rarely sought for.
There is also another set of situations where the researcher inevitably
acts as a complete participant. It refers to the first contact with the group or
with an informant which often occurs unexpectedly for the latter. The field
worker being seen as a stranger and just as a stranger, it is too early to speak
about any particular method involved, except for the method of venturing
into the field work. <strong>This</strong> first encounter with the object has proved to be
highly interesting in the course of author's field research. Unexpectedness is
here very profiting and, being taken by surprise, a person may disclose some
patterns of behaviour which otherwise might have been hard to catch out.
The participant-as-observer always declares his interests as a scholar
but still tries to enjoy full participation in the social activities under study.
<strong>This</strong> situation happens when, for instance, the researcher makes friends with
some members of the population under study and participates in the regular
routines, such as parties or everyday meals. It often occurs when he comes to
live in a family belonging to the group observed. The observation runs
smoother in comparison with complete participation, because scholar's
attention is not deflected on the sort of routine, which asks for the efforts
unusual and unnecessary for the purpose of study, and is not undermined by
the exposure of the identity other than that of the scholar.
The observer-as-participant does not participate in the activities with
his personal identity involved. His association with the object's pursuits takes
form of an experiment which is in no way relevant to his regular activities
which are indifferent to the locality and situation. For example, studying the
funeral rites among the Mordvinians, the author chanced at taking part in the
wake and joined the members of the bereaving family in "drinking the
diseased over". <strong>This</strong> action was brought about by the wish to mingle and
understand the process through imitation.
The complete observer always stays aloof and monitors the events
without doing an attempt to share the experience with the object of his study.
One may come to the church and witness the sermon or prayer, attend the
football match and observe the behaviour of the players, come to the market
and record the actions of the customers and salesmen.
The aforementioned roles, which the observer normally takes, form a
scale based on the measure of spatial and behavioural proximity between the
researcher and the object. While complete participation involves the closest
attachment to the latter, complete observation presumes the other extreme,
that of the total detachment. Practical consequences of these
attachment/detachment routines lie in the extent to which the scholar affects
the surroundings he studies. Complete participation and complete
observation converge in this respect, since in both cases the scientist does not
act in the way which people can interpret as discrepant from their
expectations. Participation-as-observation and observation-as-participation
levels are most vulnerable in terms of influences exerted and most profiting in
terms of gains achieved.
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It seems reasonable to distinguish between practical and discursive
modes of participation which, while doing his study, the researcher may get
involved in. <strong>This</strong> distinction is important, as the character of data which the
observer thus gathers is drastically different and the influence of the speaking
observer and the acting observer on the surroundings is also different.
The participant-as-observer who enters into a conversation with the
object is likely to invoke information which is more clear and ready-made
than the information which he has to draw for a silent monitoring of the
reality. Alternatively, the other side of the coin is that he may draw special
attention to his personality and alter the normal behaviour of the object. For
instance, a scholar, who plays soccer and does a study in the behaviour of the
players in different games on the field, may give a verbal command to his
fellow-players to change their location or to pay more attention to a rival's
disturbing forward. <strong>This</strong> break in the game routine may be interpreted by the
players as something related not to the game itself but to the research interests
of the scholar. However, by active verbal intrusion into the course of the
game, the observer is likely to create many experimental situations fraught
with unusual information.
The significance of discursive participation grows high when the field
work in a foreign-language community is at stake. The participant who does
not speak the language of the community diminishes essentially his
opportunities both as the participant and as the observer. The work with an
interpreter may instantaneously remove the scholar from the position of the
participant to the position of the observer. Knowledge of the community's
language, conversely, opens up a wide range of research opportunities and
enhances researcher's involvement in the life of the object. In this respect,
linguists practice mostly this type of participant observation which may be
designated discursive participation-as-observation. As a distinct method,
discursive participation-as-observation is well expressed in the gamut of
ethnomethodological experiments. Without bringing his scientific identity to
the fore, a scholar may set in train a discussion, in which he would equally
participate, with the aim of getting information about the situation. A wellknown
example of this technique is following:
“On Friday night my husband and I were watching television. My husband
remarked that he was tired. I asked, ‘How are you tired Physically, mentally, or just
bored’ ”
(S) I don’t know, I guess physically, mainly.
(T) You mean that your muscles ache or your bones
(U) I guess so. Don’t be so technical.
(After more watching)
(S) All these old movies have the same kind of old iron bedstead in them.
(T) What do you mean Do you mean all old movies, or some of them, or just
the ones you have seen
(S) What the matter with you You know what I mean.
(T) I wish you would be more specific.
(S) You know what I mean. Drop dead! (Garfinkel H. 1994 : 43).

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In this perspective, the interview should be regarded as a distinct type
of observation which is best to call discursive observation-as-participation.
Methodologists not accidentally regard the interview "a special case of social
interaction between two persons" (Bailey K. D. 1994 : 176). The scholar
deliberately prompts a person to formulate discursively his experience for the
sole purpose of gathering data. Alongside of discursive participation-asobservation,
it is more subject to errors and biases on the part of the
researcher and to the deliberate deceit on the part of the informant. The
scholar is likely to face up with the overt hostility which proceeds from the
lack of his practical involvement with the respondent. Herbert Hyman reports
a situation when a respondent was
"instructed to be hostile, uncooperative, and suspicious of the entire situation.
He generally required considerable persuasion to answer many of the questions at all
and was on the whole quite vicious with the interviewer" (Bailey K. D. 1994 : 177).
Alternatively, the interview allows to construct right on the spot a
coherent picture of the social reality and to observe the subject's behaviour in
the specific and unexpected situation.
Along with those examples and techniques which were discussed
above in connection with Gold's typology, practical observation-as-participation
may include those situations where the researcher himself is the cause of an
event happening within the community studied. For instance, during author's
expedition to the Mordvinians in 1996, a local activist for the Mordvinian
national revival, on learning about the people who had come from St.
Petersburg to study traditional life and modern conditions of her community,
organised a home reception. <strong>This</strong> home reception turned to be a windowdressing
affair, since the woman wanted to convey the impression of the
Mordvinian having high national self-consciousness: she dressed her children
and grandchildren in fake traditional costumes, invited old people to sing
traditional songs and made her best to convince the guests that that was a
casual way of partying in the modern village. Furthermore, this event
disclosed certain structural regularities in the inter-village group relations,
since another group of people, who had not been invited to the reception, rose
up to a strong disapproval of the action and said that they had never before
supported the artificial endeavours of that woman's clique to squeeze the
traditionality out of the community. In this case, the researcher does not only
follow up the routines of the population under study but also, by its very
presence, sets in train unusual and experiment-like practical situations. A
scholar's two-fold - anthropological and sociological - interests may form a
useful bricolage: people concentrate on his anthropological identity and
provide him with a distorted information but feel free in other modes of
action which sociologists are particularly keen on.
At the extreme poles of the scale at stake here, the discursive and
practical modes of interaction between the researcher and the object tend to
converge. The complete participant is caught in the free current of experience

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where normally the discursive and practical behaviour are inseparable. The
complete observer, on the other hand, rarely reveals himself either practically
or discursively. In the first case, researcher's discursiveness and practicality
attain their climax, while in the last case they are brought to naught.
Thus, one may built the following scheme of distribution of
observational techniques which is, seemingly, more flexible and precise than
that introduced by Gold:
complete
observation
discursive
participation-as-observation
practical
participation-as-observation
discursive
observation-as- participation
practical
observation-as- participation
complete
participation
The roles which the researcher may take over are to be treated as the
integral and interwoven parts of a single investigation and as distinct
methodological strategies to which the whole process of field work can be
reduced. In some cases, the practical modes of interaction with the object are
preferable, in others the discursive modes are optimal. For example, the
observation of a religious service, naturally, excludes the discursive
participation, while in the profane sphere of people's behaviour it is more
than affordable.
Participant observation is the synthesis of all the aforementioned types
of the subject/object relationships. In the course of the XX century, it has been
the most popular and fruitful method of sociological and anthropological
investigation. Becker and others summarised its advantages in the following
way:
“Such a method afforded us the greatest opportunity to discover what things
were of importance to the people we were studying and to follow up the
interconnections of those phenomena” (Becker H., Geer B., Hughes E. C. Strauss A.
L. 1977 : 23).
The Recycling Observation: Towards the Appraisal of Complete
Participation
The simplest logic of scientific procedures implies that the research is
led in one direction, that is from the subject towards the object, from the
researcher towards the community under study, from observation to
participation. The researcher makes sense of various strategies described
above, namely complete participation, complete observation, discursive
participation-as-observation, discursive observation-as-participation, practical
observation-as-participation. practical participation-as-observation, and either
stepwise or at one go lays a bridge between the two poles of the continuum.

So far, it has been rarely mentioned that for social sciences, again in
view of the active position of the object, the procedure of investigation can be
inverted. Primarily, it concerns the cases when the researcher comes from an
ethnic milieu and undertakes a study based on his exclusive experience as a
member of this ethnic group. He acquires methodological skills in order to
understand the realities of his own group. In anthropology it is often the case
with the members of ethnic minorities or the indigenous people from, say,
Africa who come to the principal European and American universities to
conceptualise the aspects of life in their respective communities.
The research in these cases starts from participation, moves towards
observational skills obtained in the outsiders’ (in Merton’s sense of the word)
group and ends up with recycling of the native experience in terms of
scientific knowledge.
A similar situation sometimes can be observed among the outsiderscholars.
For instance, Becker did his analysis of the dance musician milieu on
the basis of his own adolescent experience as a professional musician. Strictly
speaking, Becker’s case bears some traits of casual participant observation,
since even at that time he was sociologically interested in the social relations
among the dance musicians, was making notes and did not disclose his
identity as a sociologist to his fellow-musicians (Becker H. 1973 : 84-85).
However his identity as a musician and his identity as a sociologist were at
least equally expressed and he did not have to scale down the latter in order
to get right understanding of the object.
Other scholars have also extensively used their own insiders’
knowledge. Goffman should be specially mentioned in this context. His books
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Goffman E. 1959), Interaction Ritual
(Goffman E. 1967), Behaviour in Public Places (Goffman E. 1963) and some
others, to a considerable extent, are based on the knowledge of social skills
which every member of Euro-American society acquires through
socialisation. Goffman had been in touch with the situations addressed in his
books even before he became a sociologist. Afterwards he, certainly, built to
this initial knowledge the information gathered by means of participant
observation.
Another example which may be included in the category discussed is
the book Homo Academicus by Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu P. 1990). Analysing
the structure and social relations within French academic system, he acts as a
complete participant who makes a bridge to a detached and objective vantage
point.
The author himself has recently undertaken a research in social
relations within the Indianist community in Russia (Dziebel G. V. 1997).
Indianists are the white people caught up with the American Indian culture
and perceiving the American Indian spiritual heritage as a core part of their
own life experience. From 1987 to 1991, while a secondary school pupil and
then a student of the Department of Anthropology of St. Petersburg State
University, the author was an active member of the Indianist community in
Russia and fully shared its values, goals and mood. It was a period of intense
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personal contacts, deep emotional involvement and a quest for the reasons
and grounds of the life-path which seemed as important for the people inside
the community, as it was considered strange and freakish by the outsiders.
The author was a complete participant in group’s activities and never figured
out that it could be studied.
The recycling observation reveals some significant advantages in
comparison to the casual participant observation (cf. (Bailey K. D. 1994 : 245-
246)).
First, the researcher possesses full insider’s knowledge of a community
and there can be no gaining entry problem which otherwise stands rather
sharply. The unity of standpoints, which, in the traditional view expressed by
Becker, is unattainable, here is in full play.
Second, this deep knowledge is gained without any adverse impact on
the research procedure and without any influence on the community which
in the case of participant observation is unavoidable.
Third, his point of view may be considered objective, since he not only
knows the subject matter from the inside but also combines it with an
aposteriori detached monitoring. The problem of reliability, which is rendered
as the lack of guarantees that another observer would produce the same
model (Becker H. 1968 : 236), is here out of question. Obviously, in order to
construct a model which would contest the reliability of the first one, another
researcher must have the same insider’s background.
Fourth, the sample size of the recycling observation is considerably
bigger than that of the casual participant observation, as the number of people
whom a member of a community contacts during his normal day-to-day
routine can not be surmounted by any field study.
Fifth, the recycling observation escapes from the opposition between
the advantages and disadvantages of natural environment and artificial
laboratory setting.
In all these cases, complete participation, to more or less extent, figures
as the starting point of investigation, from which the researcher gradually
moves towards a detached observation. The latter takes form of an extremely
detached approach exerted from the “cock-pit”. It is worth mentioning that
this inverted movement is an integral part of every sociological and
anthropological research, since the scholar, upon finishing up the field work,
comes back to his cabinet and afterwards presents his results in written
works, at the conferences or in private conversations. He appears now not as
an outsider but as an insider who is subject to participant or non-participant
observation on the part of his colleagues.
The recycling observation is most valuable for the study of deviant
communities, since usually it is there that the insider’s knowledge is highly in
need. However here lies the main disadvantage of the method of recycling
observation. The researcher rarely chances to have an old experience of living
in a deviant community and this objective obstacle inhibits it from becoming a
casual sociological practice. Also, the recycling observation asks for the
complete psychological detachment of the researcher, at the time of writing,
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from the milieu which he studies by recycling. In this respect, the gist of this
kind of observation is contrary to the essence of participant observation. The
case with the scholars from ethnic minorities shows that they rarely can cut
themselves off from their background and often go in for science with the sole
purpose to stay within their native milieus and get money for that (Medicin B.
1987 : 296). The third disadvantage of the recycling observation is the extent of
reliability of scholar’s memory which, contrary to participant observation,
may not be bolstered by making notes.
Along with those cases when the recycling observation is the ideal,
though exceptional, method of social research, its principles can be utilised for
the situations when researcher’s life had not provided him with such an
advantageous experience. The researcher, upon coming to the field, should consider
his experience there as significant primarily for his own life and secondarily for the
immediate goals of study. He should be active and not be afraid of spoiling the
otherwise unsullied reality. It is impossible not to infuse the observed reality
with researcher’s own attitudes and preconceptions and, perhaps, it is better
not to suppress it at all. A lay person who enters another milieu does not
disrupt it by his intrusion: his emergence there constitutes a part of the
normal life of the community. The researcher should be a free and active
participant in the field, to behave in the manner which would have been
suitable for him if he chanced to enter an alien circle without having
‘sociological thoughts’ behind him. Finally, he should train his memory
because the interaction without recording is a powerful means of integrating
into the community and, by relying upon his memory, the researcher would
behave in the most natural way - in the way which all the members of the
community follow. The path of natural and complete participation, which the
field researcher is advised to take, should go hand-in-hand with complete and
intensive observation. The field researcher is not the one who sees things in
the same way as the members of the community see them, he is the one who
sees them better.
Conclusion
An attempt has been made to put together different types of
relationship which exist between the subject and the object of field research.
The whole process of field research, in author’s opinion, should be taken as a
part of general framework of the scientific procedure from the data-gathering
to the self-presentation among the fellow-scholars, on one hand, and as a part
of the researcher’s personal life, on the other hand.
The recycling observation, which has not been so far specially
examined in literature, constitutes not only a distinct kind of field practice but
can give some clues for improving the technique of participant observation.
One of the perspectives of participant observation is seen in enhancing the
activity of the researcher in the field. Pre-occupation with the immediate goals
of the research programme inhibits his integration into the milieu under
study. The researcher should be different from the object not because he uses

special methods of interaction with the members of a community but because
he possesses a higher perception of the reality, which both he and the object
witness, and is more active in day-to-day routines, which he and the object
share. He should create his personal insider’s knowledge of the social context
which he chanced to enter. In author’s opinion, that is the only way to lift the
barrier between the subject and the object.
<strong>This</strong> perspective concerns first and foremost the sociological research
practice. Ethnographers and anthropologists which are more interested in the
past conditions, than in present, and in cultural aspects of a community’s life,
necessarily draw more on the interview method. Currently, the interview has
practically completely edged out other modes of ethnographical field-work,
as the traditions are immutably fading away. Be that as it may, the other side
of the coin comes now into play. By gathering material on the remnants of
tradition, the anthropologist deflects attention of the natives from their
current social relations. They start to behave easier in this respect, believing
that here they are not observed. <strong>This</strong> sort of bricolage was tested by the author
during his anthropological expeditions.
Despite those novelties which has been expressed in this <strong>essay</strong>, the
author deems the ethics of field research to be of paramount importance.
Moreover the ideas put hitherto may serve to improve the “ethical portrait of
the researcher” by reducing (or elevating) purely scientific morals to the
everyday and casual morality. By and large, the field researcher should be
less a scholar, than a normal person, but such a kind of normal person who is
more keen on the surroundings than others.
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