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The Meaning of "Participation" in Participant Observation

Sheffield Hallam University, British Psychological Society

Whether writers have a postmodernist orientation or a residual concern to defend the technique against positivist criticisms as providing unequivocal scientific data, theoretically systematic accounts of participant observation in terms of its nature as a social activity carried out by conscious human agents are missing from the literature of health research and the human sciences generally. In this article, the technique of participant observation, as a process of social interaction, is viewed in the context of a phenomenology of participation. Participation involves the following constituents: (a) attunement to the others' stock of knowledge at hand, (b) emotional and motivational attunement to the group's concerns, (c) taking for granted that one can contribute appropriately, and (d) being able to assume that one's identity is not under threat. It is shown that the features of participant observation, as a technique that first and foremost entails conscious social engagement, can be systematized in the light of the phenomenology of participation.

Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 5, No. 3, 366-387 (1995)
DOI: 10.1177/104973239500500307


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