Participant Observation: The Ethnographer's Magic
Quick Reference Synopsis
There is a dilemma when an ethnographer is tasked with engaging and understanding the lives
of another. Consider how different ordinary people behave in the privacy of their own homes
from how they represent themselves under the public eye. Then, apply this concept to an entire
society. The ethnographer must somehow shatter this superficial representation of a people in
order to discover the truest essence of their lives. The participant observer possesses this luxury.
Even as a stranger, through effort and time he becomes a part of the community, working and
functioning among them as if he was a native. All the while that observer is carefully recording
every detail of the world around him. He becomes a fly on the wall, absorbing every action and
behavior that would have been hidden from his view as an outsider. In the midst of this merge
with the culture, the ethnographer may witness a breach of his own ethical or moral code or
even perform the breach himself. The information he gathers, while rich and detailed, may not be
universally significant to the society as a whole, but instead only applies to a particular
situation. These are the complications of participant observation, presenting hefty challenges for
anyone in the field of ethnography who wishes to understand a culture at the deepest possible
level.
Essay
“What is then this ethnographer’s magic, by which he is able to evoke the real spirit of
the natives, true picture of tribal life?” Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski resolved that
the answer to this question was that the ethnographer’s magic is not magic at all. In fact, the
magic is simply a method derived from meticulous and patient analysis along with total
immersion into the native realm (Malinowski 1983 p.6). The latter portion of his magic,
participant observation, allows the ethnographer to obtain more than just statistics and
conclusions drawn from the words of an informant. Participant observation entails direct
observation of a society, living among the research subjects rather than among the “white
people” in the case of Malinowski’s research of the Kula. It examines a culture by paying closer
attention to individuals, embracing everyday routines of the subjects in order gain greater
intuition and understanding. Malinowski remarked in Argonauts of Western Pacific that the
natives had come to tolerate him despite him consistently breaking etiquette because he had
come to be a “necessary evil” in their lives. He intruded in their lives on a daily basis without
them concealing the truth as they had done earlier in his research (Malinowski 1983 p.8).
This method eliminates complications of being an outsider to the culture one is studying,
but the practice of participant observation is not without its shortcomings. Some academics argue
that this direct observation brings the research too close to the individuals. The narrow scope and
specificity of analysis in participant observation pokes holes in the ethnography’s credibility as
some academics believe there to be greater value in data that accounts for a larger population.
There is also the question of bias, whether the proximity to the subject skews the ethnographer’s
ability to objectively observe despite the detail the researcher is endowed with. An interesting
moral ambiguity is encountered when researchers engage in activities along with their subjects
that would be frowned upon by the outside world, but facilitate their understanding of the
culture.
Participant observation grants the ethnographer the ability to gain access to an insular
society. As an ethnographer, Clifford Geertz encountered alienation and resistance from the
Balinese people. He even remarked that to them he “did not exist” (Geertz 1973p. 413). Not
until he attended the cockfight, thereby immersing himself into a raw element of their world, was
he accepted enough by the villagers to make strides in his field work (Geertz 1973 p. 416). The
moment Geertz encountered the Balinese police, it was almost as if he had become one of the
Balinese, fleeing and avoiding the police just as they did. The cockfights became a focus of his
observations and from that phenomenon he gleaned larger conclusions of Balinese society.
Geertz’s methodology entailed using the cockfight as a “collective text” of the Balinese culture
in that it provided the audience with a look at the themes of Balinese life “animal savagery, male
narcissism, opponent gambling, status rivalry, mass excitement, and blood sacrifice (Geertz 1973
p. 449).
Though Geertz’s participant observation bred a deeper understanding of Balinese society,
there are ethical and academic criticisms to be made with respect to his methodology. While
Geertz does not explicitly mention engaging in gambling during these illegal cockfights, he gives
a meticulously detailed synopsis of the system and uses the betting to reflect on status in
Balinese culture. He admits to having witnessed fifty-seven matches, all of which were illegal.
His involvement in criminal activity for the sake of academic curiosity leaves a difficult question
for the academic community to answer: Should ethnographer’s share responsibility for actions
they observe? And if so, would the limitations this imposes on ethnographers be detrimental to
the field as a whole. In Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day: a Rogue Sociologist Takes the
Streets, a dilemma quite similar to Geertz’s arose in Venkatesh’s witnessing of gang violence.
Venkatesh’s text introduces the debate within sociology between the direct observers and
the statisticians in the context of university life. The shortcomings of his participant observation
were addressed as criticisms of quantitative sociologists. These sociologists alleged that the
ethnographer’s approach “isn’t nearly scientific enough and that the answers may be relevant
only to the particular group under observation” (Venkatesh 2008 p. 4). Venkatesh even raises
questions on his own with his author’s note cautioning the reader to keep in mind that some of
the story is derived from memory (Venkatesh 2008). The qualitative data that emerges from
participant observation requires meticulous recording in order to be valid. Participant observers
must balance their active roles with their duties as ethnographers. Ethnographers who choose not
to participate have the luxury of having immediate access to recording resources while for
participant observers, being able to record the moment may not always be practical. Venkatesh
expressed this struggle as he initially hid his written field notes a secret from his subjects,
waiting until he returned home late at night to begin writing (Venkatesh 2008 p.51).
Similarly, Sudhir Venkatesh begins his ethnographic foray into participant observation
after becoming disillusioned and frustrated with the University of Chicago’s brand of sociology.
His use of his professor’s ineffective questionnaire elicited laughter and invective from the gang.
It became clear to him that the questions were poorly structured. Ironically, the less educated JT,
the leader of the gang, offers a more commonsensical and ultimately more effective approach:
“With people like us, you should hang out, get to know what they do, how they do it. No one is
going to answer questions like that. You need to understand how young people live in the
streets.” Unknowingly, JT had commanded Venkatesh to use participant observation (Venkatesh
2008 p. 21). Venkatesh’s rude awakening mirrors the conflict between the two schools of
sociology, the more academic and traditional mode where scientists “conduct widespread
surveys and then use complex mathematical methods to analyze the survey data,” and the school
of direct, participant observation that Venkatesh had aligned himself with in secret (Venkatesh
2008 p.3).
Participant observation places the ethnographer at the core of the subjects’ culture. The
walls that normally hinder deeper understanding of a culture due to the ethnographer’s status as
an outsider are swiftly broken as the observer becomes part of the native world. With this
immersion into the native world comes a price of ethical complication. As Venkatesh and Geertz
demonstrated in their respective ethnographies, the same proximity to the subject of an
ethnographer’s research that allows for the collection of priceless data also bares the risk of
compromising the research by bringing the ethnographer in contact with illegal activity or
narrowing the significance and scope of the conclusions. The ethnographer’s responsibility is
thus to balance his closeness to the subject with the priorities of research by way of meticulous
observation, mindfulness of ethics, and maintenance of an objective analysis. If the ethnography
can achieve this balance, the bounty of knowing a culture’s world as they see it will be attained.
Works Cited
Geertz, Clifford. "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight." The Interpretation of Cultures:
Selected
Essays. New York, NY: Basic, 1973. Print.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. "Subject, Method, and Scope." Argonauts of the Western Pacific: an
Account of
Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. Prospect
Heights, IL: Waveland, 1984. Print
Venkatesh, Sudhir A. Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets. New
York: Penguin
Press, 2008. Print.