All or Nothing: Demystifying the "What," "When," and "How" of Participant Observation in Critical Ethnography

• In Event: Witnessing From/Within Intimately Critical Perspectives

Abstract

Despite the popularity of participant observation (PO), lacking are close accounts of research practice that offer insight into the complexities of engaging as participant observer within a critical ethnographic design framework. Drawing upon two concurrent critical ethnographic projects this paper discusses how the co-authors successfully engaged in PO in ways that defied traditional conceptions, and the subsequent analytical, relational, and pedagogical opportunities that opened up as a result. In demystifying, and perhaps reconceptualizing, PO in critical ethnographic work, the authors assert that a justice-oriented approach to ethnographic research requires scholars to complicate the binary of practitioner, researcher, and political agent, and move towards conceptualizations that recognize and embrace the simultaneity of the three.

Authors

• Natalie R. Davis, Georgia State University

• Alaina Neal-Jackson, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor