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BILLIE R. DEWALTwith CORAL B. WAYLAND

KATHLEEN M. DEWALT j

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Participant Observation

IntroductionParticipant observation is accepted almost universally as the central and definingmethod of research in cultural anthropology. Despite this, there is no single agreedon definition for what constitutes participant observation. For writers such asSpradley (1980), Van Maanen (1988), and Agar (l996), participant observationsubsumes the bulk of what we call fieldwork. Spradley (1980) used the term“participant observation” to refer to the general approach of fieldwork inethnographic research, and Agar (1996) used it as a cover term for all of the observation and formal and informal interviewing in which anthropologists engage.‘

We take a narrower view here. For us, participant observation is one among anumber of methods that are used in anthropological fieldwork. We take this positionbecause, while much of what we call fieldwork includes participating and observingthe people and communities with whom we are working, the method of participantobservation includes the explicit use in behavioral analysis and recording of theinfonnation gained from participating and observing. That is, all humans areparticipants and observers in all of their everyday interactions, but few individualsactually engage in the systematic use of this information for social scientificpurposes. We argue below that the method of participant observation requires aparticular approach to recording observations (in field notes), and that theinformation the ethnographer gains through participation is as critical to socialscientific analysis as more fonnal research techniques like interviewing, structuredobservation, and the use of questionnaires and formal elicitation techniques.

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Here, participant observation is a method in which an observer takes part in thedaily activities, rituals, interactions, and events of the people being studied as oneof the means of leaming the explicit and tacit aspects of their culture. “Explicit culture makes up part of what we know, a level of knowledge people can communicateabout with relative ease” (Spradley 198027). Tacit aspects of culture largely remainoutside our awareness or consciousness. It is the feeling of discomfort we have, forexample, when someone stands too close to us or touches us in a way that seemstoo familiar.’ Participant observation is a way to collect data in a relativelyunstructured manner in naturalistic settings by ethnographers who observe and/ortake part in the common and uncommon activities of the people being studied.

While anthropologists had done ethnographic fieldwork before him, Malinowski(1922, 1935) is usually credited with developing“something novel” (Stocking 1983;Sanjek l990b)——an approach to fieldwork that gradually became known as themethod of participant observation. Malinowski’s discussion of his approach is stillthe fundamental description of the method of participant observation:

Soon after I had established myself in Omarkana Trobriand Islands, I began to takepart, in a way, in the village life, to look forward to the important or festive events,to take personal interest in the gossip and the developments of the village occurrences;to wake up every morning to a new day, presenting itselfto me more or less as it doesto the natives. I would get out from under my mosquito net, to find around me thevillage life beginning to stir, or the people well advanced in their working dayaccording to the hour or also the season, for they get up and begin their labors earlyor late, as work presses. As I went on my morning walk through the village, I couldsee intimate details of family life, of toilet, cooking, taking of meals; I could see thearrangements for the day’s work, people starting on their errands, or groups of menand women busy at some manufacturing tasks. Quarrels, jokes, family scenes, eventsusually trivial, sometimes dramatic but always significant, form the atmosphere of mydaily life, as well as of theirs. It must be remembered that the natives saw meconstantly every day, they ceased to be interested or alarmed, or made self consciousby my presence, and I ceased to be a disturbing element in the tribal life which I wasto study, altering it by my very approach, as always happens with a newcomer to everysavage community. In fact, as they knew that l would thrust my nose into everything,even where a well mannered native would not dream of intruding, they finished byregarding me as a part and parcel oftheir life, a necessary evil or nuisance, mitigatedby donations of tobacco. (192217 8)’Malinowski’s approach was distinguished from earlier forms of fieldwork in that

it included an emphasis on everyday interactions and observations rather than onusing directed inquiries into specific behaviors. And, Sanjek notes, following others(Fortes 1957; Leach 1957), “As he observed, he also listened” (l990b:2l 1).

i Writing more than 70 years later, Bourgois, who lived for more than 4 years inthe neighborhoods in which he worked, described his approach to research in a morecontemporary context in similar terms: _

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l spent hundreds of nights on the street and in crack houses observing dealers andaddicts. I regularly tape recorded their conversations and life histories. Perhaps moreimportant, l also visited their families, attending parties and intimate reunions—fromThanksgiving dinners to New Years Eve celebrations. I interviewed and in many casesbefriended, the spouses, lovers, siblings, mothers, grandmoihers and whenpossible~— the fathers and stepfathers of the crack dealers featured in these pages.(l995:l3)

I To differing ‘extents, each of these ethnographers practiced the method by livingin the community, taking part in usual and unusual activities, “hanging out,” andconversing (as compared with interviewing) while consciously observing andultimately recording what was observed. The participating observer seeks opportunities to spend time With. and carry out activities with members of communitiesin which she or he is working. Because enculturation takes place at the same time(it is hard to avoid), we believe that tacit understanding is also being developed. Itis an understanding that is not easily articulated or recorded, but that can bemobilized in subsequent analysis.

In addition to one of the first explicit descriptions of participant observation,another of i\./iflilI1‘0WSi(l’S major contributions to anthropology was the developmentof the fiinctionalisttheoretical perspective that assumed “that the total field of dataunder the observation of the field worker must somehow fit together and makesense. . . (Leach 19571120). Whether one feels that Malinowski’s particularapproach to fieldwork resulted in the development of a particular theoretical perspective (Sanjek 1990b), or that his theoretical perspective influenced his methodof collecting information (Holy 1984), at its beginning, participant observation waslinked with functionalist theory.Obs\;l;li/Qlte;olliiiilS<e:c(l:rlti2iisrigglly vg'itth_functilonalist theory, the method of participantbeenthe Cam! f y ie oit any onger. Participantobservation has, in fact,

yst or the development of a number of theoretical perspectives. Whatseems common across theories, however, are the expectations that: (l) We can leamfrom observation (keeping in mind that the observer becomes a part of what isbemg 9556"/Ed); (2) Being actively engaged in the lives of people brings theZggligtflpher closer to understanding the participants’ point of view; and (3)

D ving understanding of people and their behaviors is possible. As Picchi (1992)points out: “Participantobservation . . . disallows selective leaming about a people.Adjusting to a new culture provides on a daily basis many different types ofexperiences that prevent anthropologists from concentrating too assiduously on anyone aspect of people’s traditions” (p. 44).

bT|16 approach that 'etl1.nograp.he.rs use in their field research and in participant0 servation is highly individualistic. Their field research is affected by a complex

£f“tl£eirpersonal characteristics, their theoretical approach, and the contextich they work. But we can use the experiences of other ethnographers to

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learn more systematically how to craft our own individual approaches. Becauseparticipant observation is one of the key techniques anthropologists use for learningsubstantial amounts about the people they study, as well as themselves, it IS ourview that a much more systematic examination of ii‘llS method may be the baitmeans of improving anthropological field research. In this chapter, we examine emethod of participant observation and how it has been used by a variety ofethnographers. Our purpose is to show how we can leam from and build on ‘theexperiences of others in order to improve this most essential of anthropologicalmethods.

Participation and ObservationRecent years have seen a much more self reflexive examination of participantobservation among anthropologists, and it is to issues raised in theseexarninationsto which we now tum. The first issue relates to the degree of “participation andof “observation” that are utilized. Benjamin Paul anticipated some of the currentdebates when he noted that: “Participation implies emotional involvement;observation requires detachment. It is a strain to try to sympathize with Others andat the same time strive for scientific objectivity (l953:69).” Bernard (1995)distinguished participant observation from both pure observation and from pureparticipation. Pure observation, as used by some sociologists and psychologists (seeTonkin 1984; Adler and Adler I994), seeks, to the maximum extent possible, toremove the researcher from the actions and behaviors so that they are unable t0influence them.‘ Pure participation has been described as “going native and“becoming the phenomenon” (see Jorgenson l989:62). _ “

Spradley identified what he described as a continuum in the degree ofparticipation” (l980:58—62), although his categories confound degree of participation with the degree of an ethnographer’s emotional involvement in thecommunity. We believe that these two dimensions require separation so that wehave modified his categories to focus only on the aspect of pal’t1Clpall0I1..

“Nonparticipation” is when cultural knowledge is acquiredlby watching television, reading newspapers, or reading diaries or novels. Much information can biacquired in this way even though no active interaction with people is required.“Moderate participation” is when the ethnographer is present at the scene of theaction but doesn't actively participate or interact, or only occasionally interacts, withpeople in it. Many anthropologists, for example, will live in their own house orperhaps even in a larger community. They essentially “commute” to_the_ field_toquestion informants or to participate in only certain of the everyday activities of thecommunity.‘ _'

“Active participation” is when the ethnographer actually engages in almosteverything that other people are doing as a means of trying to learn the Cllllllffll

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rules for behavior. Good, for example, talks about his decision to move into theshapono (large, circular communal houses) of the Yanomama as an important stepin learning about them. I Ie reports: “Yanomama nights were an event, that firstnight and every night afterward. It wasn’t as ifthe communityjust went to sleep,then woke up the next moming. No, a Yanomama night was like another day. Allsorts of things went on” (Good l99l:67). In a house in which 75 people weresleeping together, babies cried, men laid plans for a hunt, shaman took drugs andchanted, Big Men made speeches, all without regard to the others who weresleeping. At first, this was difficult for Good: “When something got me up, I wasup. I’d lie in the hammock for an hour trying to get back to sleep among all thenighttime noises of the shapono. Eventually I got used to this, too. Like theYanomama, I’d spend eleven hours in my hammock at night to get seven or eighthours of actual sleep" (Good 199l:68—69).7 Good has no doubt that the insightderived from living in the shapono was superior.

Finally, in “complete participation,” the ethnographer is or becomes a memberof the group that is being studied. Examples of this include ethnographers who areand study jazz musicians or anthropologists who become hobos or cab drivers fora time (see Riemer 1977).

Other researchers have focused more on the dimension of emotional involvementin participant observation. Geertz (1995) commented about the process of leamingthrough participant observation in this way: “You don’t exactly penetrate anotherculture, as the masculinist image would have it. You put yourself in its way and itbodies forth and eiimeshes you.” Behar drew on this metaphorto note: “Yes, indeed.But just how far do you let that other culture enmesh you?” (199615). Behar notedthat participant observation is an oxymoron, a paradox (see Tonkin 1984). While thefocus on a term that is, at its root, paradoxical can be seen as adding to themystification‘ of the work of ethnography, it also highlights what we believe to bethe creative tension between the goal of documented observation and the criticalgoal of understanding the situated observer. Participant observation is a paradoxbecause the ethnographer seeks to understand the native’s viewpoint, but NOT “gonative.“ When the grant runs out, we go back to our desks. But, as Behar argues,the ethnographer as researcher and writer must be a “vulnerable observer,” ready toinclude all ofher pain and wounds in research and writing, because it’s part of whathe or she brings to the relationship.

While not all of us are ready to adopt the path of vulnerable observation,participating allows the ethnographer to “know” in a unique way because theobserver becomes a participant in what is observed. At the same time, however, ourattempts to remain observers of actions and behaviors maintains a certain distancebetween us and the people we want to “know.”

Barbara Tedlock has argued that exploring the dynamic tension betweenparticipation and observation is critically important. She noted that, in the past,

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many ethnographers wrote personalistic accounts of their field research underpseudonyms so as to maintain their reputations as professional ethnographers. Fromher perspective however, these accounts should be part of the data of anthropology.She argues that we should engage in the “observation of participation, an approaghthat she temis narrative ethnography. Narrative ethnography. combines t eapproaches of writing a standard monograph about the people being studied (the_Other) with an ethnographic memoir centering 011 the hhth1'°P°l°g15t (the Self)(Tedlock 199l'69) What is most valuable in the kinds of accounts that she isadvocating is that they g0 8 10112 Wait toward de1hY5tif)/lhg the Process °f doingthno ra h That is by examining how other anthropologists have dealt with the

idegrge sf barticipation” problem and with their emotional involvement, studentscan better appreciate the circumstances, emotions, and reactions they are likely toexperience when they begin their own field research.

Why Participant Observation Is Important

We believe that, irrespective of the degree of involvement or of participation,_thepractice of participant observation provides two main advantages to research. First,it enhances the quality of the data obtained during fieldwork. Secolpd, E eghslgfithe quality of the interpretation of data. Participant observation is t us ocollection and an analytic tool. _ . _ _ d ean to

What does attempting to participate in the events and lives aroun I one mdata collection and analysis? Living with, working with, laughing with the peoplethat one is trying to understand provides a sense of the self and th: gflitir tlggfnoéeasily put into words. It is a tacit understanding that informs fo f etbn andresearch,the specifictechniques of data collection, the recording 0 in orma 1 .the subsequent interpretation of materials collected.

In studying Yolmo healing, Robert _Desjarlais (1992) trained to bCC0l;1n6d€;1(:apprentice shaman. To do so, he found it necessary to leam how to_move _experience his body as a Yolmo. He argues that much of the leaming regardingpeoples’ lives is tacit and at the level of the body. He notes ‘that as_he gainedcultural knowledge, learned how to sip tea, caught the meaning of jokes, Pal‘ticipated in the practice of everyday life, these interactions shaped. his under;standing of local values, pattems of actions, ways of being, moving, feeling(Desjarlais 1992226). Desjarlais argues that his body incorporated the meanings andgave a greater understanding of the images he experienced in trances as part of histraining as a shaman.

l Through time, experiencing the body in this manner (includiiig tth: resiflutglgintermingling effect it had on how I stepped through a village, ‘c im e‘ ah I 3approached others) influenced my understanding of Yolmo experiences; it hinted at

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new styles of behavior, ways of being and moving through space that I did notpreviously have access to. By using the body in different ways, l stumbled on (butnever fully assimilated) practices distinct from my own. Touching head to heartmerged thinking and feeling (two acts unsegregated in Yolmo society); a sense ofthebody as a vessel dynamically compact led me to see Yolmo forms as vital plenums oforgan and icon; and my loose assemblage of bent knees andjointed bones contributedto the springboard technology that gradually brought some force and ease to myshamanic “shaking.” (1992127)

The process by which this might take place, while difficult to convey in words,comes as the result of sharing the lives of people over a significant amount of time.Part of what we know about life in rural Mexico is tacit. It is embodied in the waywe walk, move and talk (imperfectly translated, of course, because everyone stillknows we aren’t Mexicans). We note that the timbre of our voices changes inSpanish to approximate that of Temascalcingo voices and that we are much moreanimated in our speech and bodily gestures. This embodiment of tacit cultural fonnalso informs interpretation of meaning. Most obviously, it allows us to understandnonverbal communication, to anticipate and understand responses. It shapes how weinteract with others and, more fundamentally, it shapes how we interpret what weobserve.

Desjarlais is one ofmany ethnographers who have apprenticedthemselves in thefield in order to gain new perspectives. Coy (1989) argued that the apprenticeshipexperience results in “ways of knowing” and “leaming to see” that are distinct fromless participatory approaches. He argues, like Desjarlais, that these ways ofknowingare connected to the physical performance of the duties required in the role beingexamined. Tedlock (199 l :71) argues that successful formal and informal apprenticeships are ways of undergoing intensive enculturation.The field worker who doesn’ttry to experiencethe world of the observed through participant observation will findit much harder to critically examine research assumptions and beliefs and themselves(see Clifford 1997:91).

Now that we have considered these definitional issues conceming participation,observation, and the like, we would like to tum to a discussion of how one actuallydoes participant observation. This isn’t a mystical procedure; it’s one with whichall of us have had experience.

Doing Participant ObservationChildren learn their own culture through participant observation. As infants andtoddlers, we leamed a great deal by observing parents, relatives, and others. As ourability to communicate through language improved, this leaming process wasenhanced. Observing the behavior of others around us and participating in oursociety led to our knowledge of con'ect and incorrect behavior; the forms that we

Participant Observation 26266 DEWALT / DEWALT

are to use to express or hide emotions; appropriate facial, hand, and bodily gestures,and all the other tacit and explicit aspects of our culture.

As ethnographers, we are, in a sense, retuming to those awkward first attempt;to learn a culture—but with some advantages and disadvantages. ‘In termlst oadvantages, we are adults and have gone through the process of learning a cu ll1I'6and have acquired a lifetime of experience living within a culture. These arel a scédisadvantages because we bring a series of preconceptions, biases, and deve opepersonal characteristicsto the enterprise. Being ethnographers, we also °XP°°t h1°"°of our participant observation. That is, we are not just interested in how we can getby" in the culture we are leaming, we also want to Clet/61°F 3 hwre 53/Stemansunderstanding of that other c:ltured—an understanding that we can analYZ° ahinte ret for our colleagues an stu ents. _

A ii additional advantage is that we should have profited from the experiences ofother ethnographers. Unfortunately, the method of doing participant obsewagogfindeed, of doing anthropological field research—has for too long been shro; B H1mystery. Many anthropologists have sent students to the field to. see if t ey ca:survive." The implication here is that some individuals are constitutionally siijteldto boom no ethnographers; those who can’t will discover that duringtheir first 1; texperience and presumably choose another profession. Aside from being a somew aibarbaric approach to teaching, we reject this attitude because believethailgooethnographers are not bom that way; most reasonable, sensitive and lfllifidlfgfiilgindividuals can be trained and educated to be good participant 0b5el'V6f$ ah 1°researchers. _ _ _ th as, three

Having been involved in a variety of field research projects during e pdecades, and having read many accounts of hundreds pf Other eXP°"ehc_e5> webelieve that the following are the basic elements and attitudes that are required todo participant observation.

1. The ethnographer has to approach participating and observing any particullarsituation with an open mind and a nonjudgmental attitude. That_is, while I _eactivities in which the ethnographer is taking part may bp extraordinarily exotlfior mundane, a good field researcher must react to the goings on with sensitivityand discretion. _ _ .th

2_ Almost all people love to tell their story and to share their CXp6t'l 611865 W1those who take an interest in them. While we should be sensitive aboutintruding into situations where we are not wanted or welcome, If flhethnographer shows genuine interest in learning more about behaviors, thoughtsand feelings, he or she will be a welcome guest at most activities. _ _

3. It is normal to feel awkward and unsure when observing and participating in anew situation. The feeling of “culture shock" (Bock 1970) ‘“/_h¢h Y9" fireconfronted with a wide variety of new behaviors and stimuli is somethingalmost all ethnographers have experienced. Both of us have often felt Iveryintimidated and anxious about what we were supposed to do on many occasions,

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but these are probably the times in which we were learning the most about thepeople and places we were studying. As one learns more, they also begin to feelmuch more comfortable and confident.

4. Everyone will make mistakes, but most ofthese can be overcome with time andpatience. As Whyte has emphasized: “It is important to recognize thatexplorations in the field are bound to confront one with confusing situations andconflicting pressures, so that some errors are almost inevitable, but few errorsare serious enough to abort a project” (198411 1). Bourgois (1995: 19 20) makesa similar point.

5. It’s important to be a careful observer. This is a skill that can be enhancedthrough practice. We remember our first experience in the field inTemascalcingo, Mexico when we only had a rudimentary knowledge ofSpanish.One of our mentors, Pertti J. Pelto, suggested that we could still learn a lot bydoing a census ofthe different kinds ofstalls in the open air Sunday market, bycounting the numbers of people at the market with bare feet and the numberwearing shoes or boots, by making maps of the houses in the villages, and bymaking charts of where people sat in meetings. These tasks served the purposeof attuning us to nonverbal cues, got us out and about in the community wherewe began interacting with people, and taught us that a lot can be learned justby being careful observers.

6. It's important to be a good listener (Leach 1957; Sanjek l990b:2l 1). Throughlanguage we rapidly acquire a substantial amount of information in a short time.If we listen, we will learn much more quickly.’

7. We should be open to being surprised and to learning the unexpected. This isperhaps the strength of participant observation as a method. In contrast to socialscience research that uses structured techniques in order to test hypotheses(Picchi calls this selective learning [1992: 144]), participant observation puts theresearcher into situations in which he or she is acquiring information in anopen ended fashion. The insights gained from this method often can and shouldbe used later on to be verified and substantiated through more structuredtechniques.

These general attitudes and elements are guidelines for those who are beginningto use participant observation as one of the tools in conducting ethnographicresearch. Those individuals who develop or use these attributes can generally expectto achieve sufficient rapport with people to make participant observation a usefiilethnographic tool.

Establishing Rapport/Becoming a Participantas Well as an Observer

The establishment of “rapport “ is ofien talked about as both an essential elementin using participant observation as a tool as well as the goal of participantobservation. Villa Rojas (1979), writing about his and his collaborators’ field

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esearch in the Mayan region of Mexico says, “Our close contact with local peoplerhas always led to excellent rapport, the only basis on which really reliable. . . rt' f ation can be obtained” (p 59) The definition of what constitutes rappo ,in onn . .however, is an elusive one. In our own thinking, we have often used a definition for' ' chievedwhich we can no longer find the citation. In this fonnulation, rapport is awhen the participants come to share the same goals, at least to some extent——that

' ” ' t hen each isi when both the “informant and the researcher come to the porn w5:

committed to help the other achieve his or her goal, when informants participate in' ' ” d h the researcherroviding information for “the book or the study, an w enP

approaches the interaction in a respectful and thoughtful way that allows the' d one sided view.informant to tell his or her story. Nader (I986) suggeste a more

She (I986) wrote: “Rapport, pure and simple, consists of establishing lines of' d r for thecommunication between the anthropologist and his informants in or eformer to collect data that then allows him to understand the culture under study"(p. ll3).'° V

f Id workers find that they can point to a single event or moment whenMany iethe groundwork for the development of true rapport and participation in the setting

l' h d (for exam le, Whyte and Whyte 1984 Nader I986; Stack I996;was estab is e p ,Sterk 1996289; Whyte I996). Clifford Geertz (I973) elegantly describes the event

ll d him and his wife to begin to establish rapport in the Balinese villagethat a owein which they worked. The Geertzes had been in the village for about a month,d ' hich time the villagers treated them as though they were not there. Theyuring wwere rarely greeted, people seemed to look right through them, some people would

awa when they approached It was truly an anthropologist’s nightmare.move y .Their breakthrough came as a result of a police raid on an illegal cockfight theyd ted

were observing. Although the Geertzes could have stood their ground an presenthe police with their credentials and permissions, they chose to run away with therest of the villagers when the cockfight was raided. In Geertz’s words:

h st blished anthropological principle, “When in Rome,” my wife and I decided,Ont e e aonly slightly less instantaneously than everyone else, that the thing to do was run too.. 1. .We ran down the main village street, northward, away from where we were iving.. . . About halfway down another fugitive ducked suddenly into a compound——his ownit turned out—and we, seeing nothing ahead of us but rice fields, open country and a. . . dvery high volcano, followed him. As the three of us came tumbling into the courtyar ,

h h d arentl been through this sort of thing before, whipped out ahis wife, w o a app ytable, a tablecloth, three chairs, and three cups of tea, and we all, without any explicitcommunication whatsoever, sat down, commenced to sip tea and sought to composeourselves. (p. 415)

When moments later the police arrived, the Geertzes’ adopted host was able toprovide a lengthy and accurate description of who they were, what they were doingd the Geertzes

' in the village, and what permissions they had. In addition, he note ,,

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had been in this compound all ft ' 'cockfight. The bewildered policg lt:fimf5?ft1ei'li)li)2ii1gtlic:aGan(:tknew nothing ?b°“‘ theinctlrporated into the community, = Be zes were enthusiastically

n even more dramatic acc t f ' _of rapport is provided by KOmg;Jl?m0(l3;gI;gl:he;/cart thatllegid to the establishment

, B5 Ca e on to stand with “h' "EYPSY family when they were attacked b ' ' lsy Serbians in their cam o t ‘d 'a moment of crisis he became one of them H p U SI e Pm 15' In. . ’ lates that it r lt d'change in his relationshi with th G ' C fa es.“ e m a Subtlethan with disdain. P 6 )’P5l¢$ He was then viewed with respect rather

We found in our work in T 'were receiving improved after Z:l1:'5eii1l:_<‘3]lttirg()(;:h2:l:htIl:1e6equalt); of thehinfonnation we

to renew our visas and take a break fi'om field wée Hp to t e Umted Statesk. Until that 0' tto be unsure of our interest in them and ' Y‘/or P m ’ people Seemedtheir lives The fact th t h ' 'own culture and families but had returned I a we ad vmted our= to renew our sta ' M 'skated our commitment to the _ _ I y in exico, demonpeople in this Mexican communit Ewent, people said “Que milagro" (what a mi V31’)/Wh€I'B Wfi'1'acle) and reeted 'warmth and affection than the ' g Us with greater_ y had previous to our break S dd l 'questions about sensitive sub'ects l'k ' ' U an ii’ our prewousrather than tossed off and evaiied 1 e witchcraft were answered m great detail

In a number of these cases th i b, k 'anthropologists showed that their? reijifiotfigliiupglcvifiirflijpon was afhleved when theand serious; when they demonstrateda e community was important

. more than passin com ‘t"")’ We retumed to Puerto de las Pied ‘ g ml memto a commwras against the ex ectatio f 'members who had assumed we would no ' P “S O commumty. _ t. Clifford and H'll GBalinesevillagers when the couldh ' ~ I My gem acmd hkerisked violence to stand wifih the pegpfeawtiisii/1: pnglleged foreigners‘ Komblumdramatic examples are more vivid om e was working. While these

. . = 1'3PP0l'l e ll ' 'by continuing to live with and interact witlf angi Zn: :)Sf‘:;:?,i:h€d slowly’ slmplyThis discussion of the roce f d ' '

in a community begs the guestfgnoof 22301213: irtapplgvrt iand cgiming to be accepteddepends on the abmt _ _ a es o ac ieve. In reality a loty, characteristics and experience of th ,

‘ . . ’ hno ra her thcircumstances and characteristics of the ' C fit g P ’ C. group being studied and th k‘information that one wants to bt ‘ ’ e mds of

rapid appraisals (Kumar I993) icfiinz/iliilchvfii:el:b‘_iiic(f'fien" for fyxainple, participated inof farming techniques a _ ive is 0 0 tainaquick impression, gricultural problems or significant k' d f ' 'community. In these situations the ethno , h in s o illnesses in a

. » has to ach' “' =»that is sufficient to ' grap fir ‘eve Instant raPP°nput infomiants t .the other hand, in our initial t_lelc;iw‘ i;il:6i:‘O';i‘I2IS11W6fil;€.qll6S€lOi'lS being asked. OnDewa1t1933) we were unable to _ 35°“ cmgo B. DeWalt 1979' K._ > obtain much informati t ll ' ’witchcraft or traditional curin ‘ on a a on toplcs such asg practices until we had s t 'field (see discussion below on th ' pen over SIX months m the6 nogfflpher bias). In some situations in which the

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people being studied are for some reason (for example, harsh exploitation byoutsiders, situations of violence or deprivation, extreme isolation) very suspicious,it may never be possible to achieve a substantial amount of rapport. It has becomerelatively standard in ethnographic inquiries to think of a minimum of a year offieldwork as necessary to gain sufficient insight from participant observation, butthis is only a general guideline.

A Note on Notes

A whole chapter should be devoted to discussing strategies for writing, managing,and analyzing field notes. Space limitations make this impossible, but severalimportant issues about field notes should be addressed here. Field notes are theprimary method of capturing data from participant observation. Researchers canaudio or videotape more formal interviews and events to record words andbehaviors for later analysis and record more formally the results of response toformal elicitation, time allocation, input and output of energy, etc., but writing fieldnotes is virtually the only way for researchers to record the observation of day today events and behavior, overheard conversations, and casual interviews that are theprimary materials of participant observation. A useful maxim that we have alwaysused in training students is that: “If you didn’t write it down in your field notes,then it didn’t happen” (at least so far as being data for analysis).

Until recently, relatively little had been written about the nature of field notesand how anthropologists record observation. The sixth edition ofNotes and Queries(Seligman 1951), for example, devotes only 1.5 pages to a discussion of “descriptivenotes” as one of four essential types of documentation. (The other three are: maps,plans and diagrams; texts; and genealogical and census data.)

Notes and Queries suggests three kinds of n_otes, which are still relevant today:(1) records of events observed and information given (in which the researcher takestime to interview or converse with participants as events take place); (2) records ofprolonged activities and ceremonies (in which interview is not feasible); and (3)following the practice of contemporary ethnographers, aset of chronological, dailynotes, which the committee called ajoumal, (but that is distinct from the personaldiary which a number of ethnographers keep [for example, Malinowski 1967]).Pelto (1970) and Pelto and Pelto (1978) provide approximately two pages ofdiscussion of field notes in each edition of their book on Anthropological Research.Most of this space is devoted to examples of the level of detail (high) that they seeas desirable in recording field notes. More books about field notes are coming outall the time (for example, Sanjek 1990c; Bernard 1994).

Sanjek (l990c) addresses issues about field notes in more detail. In this volume,Jean Jackson (1990) summarizes the responses of a sample of 70 field workers,mostly anthropologists, to a series of questions about their relationships with their

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field notes. SanJek(1990a) reviews the historical changes in the nature ofparticipantobservation and field notes.

Experience and the literature suggest that there are several important points aboutfield notes and their relationship to the participant observation method. The first isthat observations are not data unless they are recorded in some fashion for furtheranalysis. Even though it seems after a few months in the field that common eventsand their yariations will remain indelibly etched in the researchers mind for all time,?emdory'ils unfortunately more fleeting and less trustworthy than that. We lose theine etai ‘of observations and conversation all too quickly. The admonition in Notes

and Queries that “It is unwise to trust to memory; notes should be written as soonas possible” (Seligman 1951:45) is still relevant today.

Participant observation is an iterative process, and, as we have noted part ofwhat occurs is the development of a tacit understanding of meanings, events and;‘;:lt;7:)ljv:£’i :1lfdFi?;::j¢lil(¢r Saigek (r1990b) notes that pioneering researchers likesearching for thin S theneggdt list hay contgnually read and reread field notes,

incomplete infomiition (livhat A0 un ferstan , 0: on which fihey felt they haddirect the flow of subse uent cogar re ‘Us to 3'5 brfiiakdowns H9861)’ S 0 as Klrecorded b th b _q , nversations or interviews. Mead and Malinowski

o 0 servations and reflections on their fieldwork experience in fieldnotes and personal diaries. If the researcher’s daily reactions to events and contextsare not recorded, it will be virtually impossible to reconstruct the development of$215123‘: Scfljglfilgtltfisalnil to be able to review the growing relationshiplbetween the

y participants in a manner that allows for reflexivity at the endof the process.we I1l;t;rsetc1:1<;i:1:l}p§i;n;:,Lthgtbflegtdenotes Frle simultaneously data and analysis. By thisinformal interview carried out on care tli) rejcord of observation, conversation, andtime field notes are a mduct 8 tfly yg bay basis by the researcher. At the same

dictibn embodied in fielld note , Fonsrtmlftii y th'e réseawherl This Inherent comraof anthropological in ui an5 1:: pith 0 t econtinuing discussions about the nature

really ever believed lcllifllrlllléif Ob 6 mtlgraphy. We biiheve that few ainh.ropl)logl.stswas even possible or desirab 11; serva ionshwere unbiased, or that eliminating biasdecades have made this Dim evin researc I.’ However, debates over the last twostep removed from OHBCEV6 Obsepn piorehsa ltiltli. Field_notes are at least one moreare a construction ofjthe flhno raV8hlOl1 £111! enonob_|ective observation itselfand

of .lackson’s (1990) res ondentf Pd elban {Elm Oflhlitlarocess of analysl§' AS oneit is a dialectic The intgbrmant ‘sat ta out ield notes._ Each anthropologist knowstremendous sen Se of res nSibT§6fl‘€S ll, you ‘create it together. Theremust be aversion” (P 14) Accordpo t E jillyfindit, t at is, a sense of political history, oneinScription’;_th at is ng 0 .1 or (1990), the view of the field note as “pure

_ , pure recording—cannot be sustained. Speaking of description(thick or otherwise), he writes: “Ethnography cannot, in practice, maintain 3

272 DEWALT / DEWALT

constant descriptive relationship to cultural phenomena. It fan maintain such Erelationship only to what is produced in field notes. . . (p. 6§) Amwuhganthropologists once deposited copies of their field notes in libraries for ot erresearchers to consult, this practice is unfortunately being lost.

Whether public note taking, either of “scratch notes (Sanjek. l99C(:c()n2E:“jottings” (Bemard 1994) or longer more transcriptual notes, has apimpa mber offlow of participant observation is a question that has been answere in a nu _different ways by researchers. With respect to the impact of note taking duringevents, Notes and Queries on Anthropology suggests: The investigator must seniethe native attitude to note taking in public. Many peoples do not 0b_]8Ct to it, simp yregarding it as one of the European’s unaccountable habits” (Seligman 1951:45).

On the other hand, they note that some people may become suspiccipus Whelileslziethnographer takes notes, and a few people who are Oll1€l'W1S:lfI'l6lill y mag/erg shetolerate the practice." Jackson (1990) reports that a number of t e et nograp fonableinterviewed found that taking field notes in front of participants Lvas unpomwere notand objectifying. Others found that participants were insulted w en nofis cordtaken, suggesting that what they had to say was not important enoug ore I .

Whyte (Whyte and Whyte 1984) went to relatively great lengths to avoid takingnotes in front of participants in his research in Comerville. To gain accurate mapsof interaction in a men’s club, he went home or to the bathroom in order to recordevents. Bourgois (1995, 1996), on the other hand, openly taped both interviews andconversations as he hung out with crack dealers in El Barrio in East Harlem.Participants in his study even joked about “how the book was coming (1995.27),an experience many of us have had with participants, who may even be anxious tosee the finished work. _ _ _ t ful

A final note on field notes: Participant observation can be a_very s ressexperience (we often call this culture shock). It’s sometimes comforting and helpfulin assuaging guilt on days when we just need to be out of the scene to say toourselves: “Well, today I MUST stay in and catch up on my ‘field notes. ‘And, B5it is almost always true, it is the perfect excuse. However, it is for _]\.lSlZ this reasonthat Agar (1996) is critical of time spent in recording field notes, which he sees asmore profitably spent in interviewing.

Ethical Concerns

Of all the methods usually applied in the field by anthropologists‘;palrtiiipzgobservation raises the greatest numberof ethical questions. Wlplen in tlvl lua S arebeing interviewed by structured interview schedules or. when t _eir in erviewbeing recorded in some way, most understand that the information resulting fromthese activities will be used in the research carried out by the field workerHowever, the activities carried out during participant observation are less clearly so.

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The field worker is traveling alongside community members, paiticipating in events,work, leisure activities, hanging out. Community companions will probably not beaware that the field worker will faithfully record an account of these events as soonas possible, and that this will form a data core for analysis. Even if field workersmake it clear that they will “write a book” or report on their experiences, informantsmay not realize that what they share as “gossip” during informal conversations willform part of this report. Field workers rarely recite their infonned consent scriptduring aftemoon conversations can'ied out while swinging in hammocks, whiledrinking a beer in the bar after a day’s work, or while in bed with a lover. In fact,if informants were always consciously aware of our activities as ethnographers, theinformation we acquire would be less rich. We want them to forget, for a time atleast, that we are outsiders. We want to develop sufficient rapport and to have thembecome so comfortable with us as community participants that they will shareinsights and infonnation that only insiders would know. We regard this as thestrength of our method.

Therefore, as Punch (1994) points out, quoting Ditton (1977), participant observation is inevitably unethical “by virtue of being interactionally deceitful” (Ditton1977110). That is, it is by its nature deceptive. We have all been impressed by thedegree to which our informants will suspend a conversation or interaction to remindus that the topic about which they are speaking is important, and to make sure thatwe will put it “in the book.” But it is more often the case that the informants“forget” that casual interactions may fOl'lTl part of the data to be used in analysis.

What are our responsibilities under these circumstances? We have ofien taken theposition that providing anonymity for communities and individuals is sufficient toprotect our infonnants. However, in the modem world, it is increasingly difficultto even suggest that the identities of communities will remain hidden. Punch recommends that we carry out research with this powerful method, but “think a bit first”(1994195). While this is probably good advice, the responsibility “to do no harm toour informants” (AAA 1997) is great. It is the ethnographer’s responsibility not onlyto think a bit first, but to make conscious decisions on what to report and what todecline to' report, based on careful consideration of the ethical dimensions of theimpact of information on those who provide it, and the goals of research. Whyte(Whyte and Whyte 1984) reminds us that much of our work can be put tounintended use.

It’s important to emphasize that ethical questions surround not only the publishedinformation we provide but also relate to our field notes. We would like tocomment on two issues.

The first is the ethical question about taking notes publicly. Doing so, at leastpart of the time, reinforces for participants that what is being done is research. Theparticipants in Bourgois’s crack research knew he was writing a book, and when heopenly taped interviews and conversations on the street, it was clear to participants

274 DEWALT / DEWALT

what was on the record and off. In fact, they sometimes suggested that he tum onhis recorder when he tumed it off. For us, taking notes or taping events openlyalleviates some of the concem that participants lose awareness that they areparticipating in research.

The second issue has to do with preserving anonymity for participants identifiedin field notes. Not only is there the potential that field notes can be subpoenaed;govemmental funding organizations such as NSF and NIH are becoming increasingly concemed with research integrity and falsification of data in funded research.They are demanding that primary data be available for review by others. Universities are developing policies concerning research integrity of nonfunded and fundedresearch in which data, including field notes, would be available for inspection byreview boards should allegations of a breach of research integrity be alleged.

On occasion, anthropologists have gone to jail to protect the identities of theirinformants. However, some concem with the protection of the identity of informantsin field notes can help alleviate these problems. While most internal review boardsfor the use of human subjects require that all questionnaires and transcribedinterview data be stored without names, field notes have always constituted a grayarea. With computerization, however, it becomes relatively easy to assign codenames or numbers to participants and use these from the outset or use the globalsearch and replace facilities of word processing programs to expurgate real namesfrom field notes. The research integrity policy statement for the University ofPittsburgh, for example, now suggests that real names be expurgated from fieldnotes against the possibility that they will be requested by others.

Another important ethical issue is about maintaining relationships developed inthe field. Ethnographers actively try to develop close relationships and to identifywith the group they are studying. These relationships, though, are almost alwaystransient (Punch 1994). While many infomiants become true friends, such friendships are difficult to maintain when the anthropologist is thousands of miles away.

Anthropologists need to be aware of the implications of relationships andobligations that they incur in the field. Two field researchers we knewjoined ritualdance groups in a Mexican village in which they were doing research. Thecommitments into which they entered were for several years. Both ethnographersdanced for two years during which they were in the field, but were unable to fulfilltheir commitments for the full tenns of their appointments. Fortunately for them,because there was a lot of out migration, the community was used to individualswho could not get back in time for key festivals in which dancing was required. Itwas possible for them to send money to the community to fulfill their commitmentsin those years when they could not get to the field to dance but this could havecaused substantial problems.

Many anthropologists enter into fictive kinship relationships in order to find aplace in a community. Catherine Lutz (I988) became a “daughter” to fit into lfaluksociety. She discussed the benefits and costs to her research of this relationship.

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Assuming this kind of relationship has a number of implications and adds a seriesof_re_spon_sibi'lities for the anthropologists that should be carefully considered beforethe identity is accepted. Becky Ross, whose story forms one of the ethical casestudies published by the AAA (Cassell and Jacobs 1997), was “adopted” into afamily as a daughter and granddaughter. When it became necessary to assume theresponsibilities of a true granddaughter and care for an elderly “grandfather” she didit, at personal expense (loss of precious field time), until the biological grandchildren were available to take over.

Even when the relationship is not intimate or familial, it may present ethicaldilemmas. As part of research with older adults in rural settings in Kentucky, oneof the places Kathleen and her collaborators “hung out” to get a better understanding of the problems facing older adults was the Senior Citizens’ Centers. Herethey chatted with the program participants, rode the transportation vans, and ate themeals provided by the centers. All the participants and the program staff knew thatthe researchers were studying food and nutrition problems in the communities.

When the regional senior picnic was planned for a recreation area near CentralCounty, the researcherswere invited to attend and arrived with the participants fromthe Central County Senior Center. They ate box lunches, participated in the auctionfor such goodies as fried apple pies and home canned vegetables and pickles. Muchof the afternoon was spent in competitions among senior citizens, including walkingraces, baking contests, etc. One of the contests was an extemporaneous speakingcontest. Judging was to focus on originality and eloquence of individuals who weregiven a topic on which to speak. However, there were no obviously unbiasedpotential judges. Most of the people at the picnic were participants or staff ofindividual centers.

Kathleen and one of her collaborators were asked to be judges. Althoughprotesting that they might be biased toward the contestant from Central County, theyagreed. During the introduction of judges, the Central County Senior Centerl)irector introduced Kathleen and her co researcher by saying: “I would like tolI1lil‘OdL1Cf two people to whom we have become very close over the past fewmonths. Kathleen’s heart sank because she realized that the project was nearing itsend and that she was not prepared to maintain a long temi relationship with thecenter and participants atter the project was over. Realizing the implied commitmentto the community in the director’s words, she began to develop a plan to put moredistance between herself and the residents of the center.

Over the years, we have developed strong personal relationships in differentplaces and with different people. While we have tried to retum as ofien as possibleto communities we have studied to let individuals know we still think of them, thishas not always been possible. Good intentions to correspond have rarely beenpossible to maintain. The message is that while the field worker is almost alwaystransient, we must recognize that this transience may not be the expectation of thoseindividuals who become our infonnants.

Z76 DEWALT / DEWALT Participant Observation 277

A final ethical issue relates to what we might call “limits to participation.”Because this is one of the most important questions with which most ethnographerseventually have to contend, we dedicate a special section to it.

Limits to Participation?

There are some dramatic cases of the need to establish limits to participationbecause engaging in these behaviors may be illegal, dangerous to the personal healthof the ethnographer, or both. Obvious examples include situations in which ethnographers study shamanistic use of hallucinogens or other drugs (for example,Castaneda 1972), drug cultures, prisons, or high risk sexual practices. Bourgois(I995, I996), for example, became quite involved with the drug dealers with whomhe was working, although he abhorred the violence and other activities in whichthey engaged. There are also many accounts of ethnographers being confronted withwhether to engage in romantic and/or sexual involvements with members of communities they study (see below).

On a less dramatic level, there are experiences like those of Bill in Temascalcingo. When we began research there, Bill decided the town cantina would be agood place to find out what was going on in the community. All was going welluntil one of the increasingly inebriated patrons asked Bill what we were doingthere. Bill’s explanation that we were there to study the local culture led his newcompanion to pull a very large pistol out of his belt and to state: “The Indiansaround here only understand one thing and that’s this. I’ll help you find out aboutthe culture of those fucking Indians. Tomorrow we’ll go up in the hills to talkto them.” The next moming (not very early), the man showed up at our house,pistol at the ready, to assume the role of research assistant to the anthropologist.Bill faced a very difficult situation in getting rid.of his new found friend withoutinsulting him, patiently explaining that we were not there to study only “Indians”and that we would feel much better about using our own methods for gettingpeople to talk with us. Bill decided that, in the future, there were probably bettervenues than the cantina for finding out what was going on in the community.

Deciding how much to participate or not to participate in the life of the peoplebeing studied is not easy to decide. There are also ofien occasions during which theethnographer faces a difficult decision about whether or not to intervene in asituation. Kenneth Good gave a particularly wrenching example of this. During hisresearch with the Yanomama of South America, he came across a situation in whicha group of teenage boys and three older women were engaged in a tug of war. Awoman whom he had befriended earlier was in the middle. Good ascertained thatthe teenagers were trying to drag the woman off to rape her while the old womenwere trying to protect her. He described his dilemma as the young boys succeededin pulling her off into the bushes: , 4

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I stood there, my heart pounding. I had no doubt I could scare these kids away. Theywere half afraid of me anyway, and if I picked up a stick and gave a good loudthreatening yell, they’d scatter like the wind. On the other hand I was arianthropologist, not a policeman. I wasn’t supposed to take sides and ‘make valuejudgments and direct their behavior. This kind of thing went on. Ifa woman left hervillage and showed up somewhere else unattached, chances were she’d be raped Sheknew it, they knew it. It was expected behavior. What was I supposed to do I thoughttry to inject my own standards of morality‘? I hadn’t come down here to change thesepleggielpébpggiiise I thought I'd love everything they did; I’d come to study them.

Good decided to do nothing but wrote that this was a tuming point in hisintegration into the community. A month later, he did intervene in a similar situation (I99l:l04—105).d'ftl§V€]l;y elthnclrgrapher sooner or later faces dilemmas like these that become

I1 icu et ica issues (see Rynkiewich and Spradley [I976] for a useful compilation). We may appeal to “cultural relativism" or to the role of “objective observer”to avoid intervention in situations like those faced by Good However when we seetllgnpeogle with whom we are working beingexploited, subject to violence or

age in some other way, it s increasingly difficult to justify not intervening.Nash concluded that the world should not be seen as simply a laboratory in

‘\iVl'1lCl‘l carry out our observations but rather a community in which we arecoparticipants with our infomiants” (1976:l64). She used this as an argument for

working to try to help the tin miners she was studying in Bolivia fight for theirrights. Scheper Hughes (1996) argues even more strongly that the role of the ethnographer includes activism. She describes how she chose to intervene in thepunishment of several young boys caught stealing in a South African village. Shegllinfziltledttphtallie ajn accused boy to the hospital to save his life afier his pun

a e an ls of villagers, even though her research was, in part, oneoutcome of popular justice.

To a large extent, the establishment of our own limits to participation dependsgreatly on our own background and the circumstances of the people we study Ourpersonal characteristics as individuals—our ethnic identity class sex religion andf I i I I I ! I 1 ,Sf;1l:igl1ll€’nStfi;USth uplllldetermine how we interact with and report on the people we arewhigh n e 0 lowing sections, we discuss some of the most important ways invaflon e (persona characteristics of the ethnographer affect participant obser

—an ow these personal characteristics often results in limits toparticipation.

Gender Issues in Participant ObservationQ . . .defiidof fihe trmporltant contributions of theoretical discussions over the past two

es as eent e axiomatic acceptance of the ethnographer as a gendered, raced,

278 DEWALT / DEWALT

classed, etc. individual, rather than as a neutral research tool. Being a man orwoman may be the most significant social fact conceming an individual andobviously should have an impact on participant observation.

The gender of the ethnographer has an impact on several areas of the ethnographic enterprise. A quite important infiuence relates to the experiences of theethnographer during the field research. Women in the field have often been harassedand have become victims of violence in ways different from men (Warren I988).Just as men are often barred from situations in which they can know the intimateworlds of women, women ethnographers are sometimes barred from important partsof the worlds of men.

The reports of ethnographers, however, suggest that women may find it easierto gain accessto some aspects of men’s lives than male ethnographers find it to gainaccess to the worlds of women (Nader I986). Other researchers have argued that,in general, women make naturally better field workers because they are moresensitive and open than are men (Nader I986; Warren I988). Some feminist andethnic writers argue that true rapport and accurate portrayal of the voice of theparticipant can only be achieved by researchers who come close to matching theinfomiants in gender, race, and class (hooks I989, 1990).

Differential access to the lives of women has resulted in generations of predominantly male biased ethnography, which has often paid little heed to the livesand concems of women. Several classic ethnographic debates are at least partly theresult of the different vantage point of the ethnographer. For example, the view ofeconomic exchange in the Trobriand Islands that Malinowski (I922) presented isenlarged and enhanced by the work of Weiner (1988), who focused more of herwork on exchanges involving women. (A contrasting case, however, is that of thediscrepancies in the reports of Mead [1923] and Freeman [1983] conceming thesexual lives of Samoan girls. Freeman, a male, claims that his data about premaritalsexual behavior are more detailed and accurate than Mead’s because he spokeSamoan fluently and she did not.)

Catherine Lutz (1988) has written about the experience of being a woman inIfaluk. She noted that the lives of men and women on Ifaluk are sharply divided.Men and women, husbands and wives may spend very little time together. This isnot tosay that women do not have high social status in many domains of life onIfaluk. It is a matrilineal society, in which women contribute strongly to the economy through control of agricultural production, but that world is highly gendered.Lutz, however, had anticipated that she would be able to achieve the “genderless”or “generalized gender” status that a number of women ethnographers reported inother settings (see Fluehr Lobban 1986; Jackson I986; Lederman 1986; WarrenI988). In fact, she found that she could not achieve this, but was required toconform to the gender expectations of the community around her. Lutz recorded theevent that finally convinced her to abandon the hope that she could create a roleoutside of the Ifaluk system of expectations. She wrote: . '

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On the first evening, Tamalkar [her fictive “father"] and my “mother ” Ilefagomargave me a first elementary primer on what I should and should not dd' I should saysiro (respect or excuse me) when passing a group of seated people; I should use thetag mawesh (sweetheart) when addressing someone; I should crouch down rather thanremain standing if others were sitting; and Tamalekar emphasized I should not gointo t e island store ifthere were more than two men inside. I was to consider myselfthe" daughter: “WY 531d. flfld Tfimelakar would from then on refer to me befor thas his daughter. A week later, a toi, or “mass meeting " ofthe island’s men wa 6 01165?on hearing this, I said that I would like to see it and was brought over to the ilcfiafllileilg’'t b ' .;le°an};dflo:1SllddL\¢s:§:d‘pG;1: from the village. Tamelakar was already there. Seeing me,

displeased “Yhm heir“ d I9“? aft? You going? and looked both uncomfortable andear_ was interested in observing the meeting. As direct requests

are rarely refused, he did not respond, but waved me to sit off to the side b h'relatives. With this and subsequent encounters, such all male occasions soon lostihei:interest for me, and I spent the great ma'o 't f ' ' 'gardens and birth houses. (l988:36—37) I H y 0 my time with women m cook huts’

L ._ utz expected to be able to choose the role that she would adopt in Ifaluk andanticipated that she would “allow” (1988233) herself to be socialized in arenas in

h' h ' . .av ic she was interested. If onle is to be successful as a participant observer,owever, that is not always p0ss1blg_

J ' .to tF1:"sl:i1sgf%F;t(i:;3?)€_v;';¥; ng;/telr ab‘: rtltio laioppthe role of kapluna (white) daughterive u I sa ingmiut “family.” A5 3 1;, h

reports months of stymied research in which community members recibntirillsishunned her because she couldn't k Ii rUtkuhiksalingmiut woman. eep er emper and act hke an

A .roles Iglzng/i1::nW;f1t1;_n, however, have successfully stepped outside the prescribed

with research on a rlicnllta ‘lamcciJlar'culmral settmg. W0 men have been involvedmen and women gni lqt ura pro uction, or other economic activities in which bothAllen (1988) for e g lwor , but the spheres of men and women are different.her Penman, rese Xfllglp q, gvas able to study the tasks ofboth men and women incommunit W arqi Lat ough she notes thatlher original entrance into the

some (yf “as ease ecause she was accompanied by a male colleague.men and w0m¢;I:l1(;S/it Sl1l:C6SSfi.ll and fascinating fieldwork is done by teams ofsociet that was 1 "PP Y_ and Murphy (1974) showed a view of Mundurucuthe is ectives afmost unique for its time in the way it placed in counterpointhad gimgltan o men and women. The Murphys could do this because they

eous access to different events and to different infomiants during thesame events.

H ' ' .ofienfizlgg 3?; perspective and/or assistance of a member of the opposite sex canMoms mild Kat:'?P°l'tSI1l In research lI1.I'Ul'i1l Kentucky, Sara Quandt, Beverlyadults ,(Quandt teeln 1;;/alt were investigating the nutritional strategies of older

'th e a ._ 7). After a number of months of in depth interviewingwi samples of key informants in each of two counties, they had heard virtually

280 DEWALT / DEWALT

nothing about alcohol use or production of moonshine. Even carefully wordedand rather oblique interviewing about alcohol, however, was met with flatdenials.

One day the research team traveled to Central County with Jorge Uquillas,an Ecuadorian sociologist who had expressed an interest in visiting the Kentuckyfield sites. One of the informants they visited was Mr. B, a natural .storytellerwho had spoken at length about life of the poor during the past 60 years.Although he had been a great source of information about use of wild foodsand recipes for cooking game he had never spoken of drinking or moonshineproduction. Within a few minutes of entering his home on this day, he lookedat Uquillas, and said “Are you a drinking man?” (Beverly whipped out the taperecorder and switched it on.") Over the next hour or so, Mr. B talked aboutcommunity values conceming alcohol use, the problems of drunks and how theywere dealt with in the community, and provided a number of stories aboutmoonshine in Central County. The presence of another man gave Mr. B theopportunity to talk about issues he found’ interesting, but felt would have beeninappropriate to discuss with women.

Men and women have access to different settings, people, and bodies ofknowledge. Our own experience has been that having a man and woman involvedin fieldwork at the same time has provided a more balanced view of communitylife, of key relationships, and of the interaction of households and families thanwe would have had if we had worked alone. We base this on not only ourexperience in working with one another in a number of projects, but also onother projects in which we have worked with larger teams involving men andwomen. Fortunately, for many decades, men and women have been about equallyrepresented among students entering cultural anthropology programs. For thisreason, it is much more likely that collaboration by males and females in fieldresearch can occur. '

At the same time, we would not claim that working as a couple has given us any“special” insight into the communities and people we have studied. Any ethnographer brings their own special perspective to the field. Single ethnographers withcharacteristicsthat differ from our own would not have discovered some things thatwe noted, but at the same time, there are other behaviors that our own perspectivedid not allow us to see. Kathleen’s interests in medical and nutritional topics, andBill’s interests in economic and agricultural issues, resulted in rich data on thoseaspects of life (B. DeWalt I979; K. DeWalt I983). On the other hand, we havemuch less data on issues like kinship, sexuality, symbolism, and ethnohistory.

' Up Close and Personal: Sex in the Field A

As several recent writers have noted (Caplan I993; Kulick I995; Lewin and Leapl996a), even in the climate of reflexivity, the sexuality of the field worker hasn’t

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been much discussed by ethnographers, either in their monographs or methodological notes. Nor was a discussion of sex in the field part of the methodologicalor theoretical training of many anthropologists. Esther Newton (I996) has writtenthat she leamed in graduate school “because it was never mentioned—that eroticinterest between field worker and informant didn’t exist; would be inappropriate;or couldn’t be mentioned. . .” (p. 213). She had no idea which.

Kulick and Willson (I995) find the taboo on discussing sex and the sexuality ofthe ethnographers somewhat curious, as ethnographers haven’t hesitated to discussthe sexuality of the people they have studied. Some well known exceptions to thelong silence about sex and sexuality in the field include references in Malinowski’sdiaries (I967), Rabinow’s (1977) discussion of an affair in Morocco, Tumbull’s( 198(5) mention of his Mbuti lover, and fi'om one of the very few women to speakof this, Cesara's (I982) reflections on her fieldwork experience among the Lenda.

Good s account is less about sex and sexuality, but describes his relationship witha Yamomama woman. He first agreed to become betrothed to Yarima when she wasless than I2 years old. Although his initial agreement to this arrangement was madealmost casually in a conversation with a village headman, Good became moreattachedto'Yarima during several years of retuming to South America. He describeshis increasing emotional involvement, the eventual consummation of their relationship after she began menstruating, how he dealt with his rage and jealousy afterYarima was raped by another Yanomama, and their eventual marriage and movingto the United States. The book also includes observations from Yarima’s perspective(Good I991). An engaging and personal account, Good makes no claims that thisrelationship enhanced or hindered his understanding of the Yanomama.I Jean Gfiaring (I995), however, describes how she became attracted to her “bestlIlf0I'll'l3lIlZ. on the island of St. Vincent, became his “girlfriend” and eventuallyit/tamed. him. She argues persuasively i that her romantic relationship with a

incentian, which was V1€W6Cl.flS appropriate by the community, not only increasedher acceptancein the community, but opened up the opportunity to gain significantinsight into Vincentian life, both through a shifting in her relationships with othersand with her husband as an informant.

In the introduction to one of several recent volumes on sex and sexuality in thefield, Kulick (l995).l'6Vl.6WS some of the factors implicated in the lack of discussionof ' sex and sexuality in fieldwork. He includes among these: the supposedobjectivity of the observer (Dwyer I982), that sexuality should not make a difference in the objective recording and analysis of the customs and habits of otherpeople; the general disdain (until recently) in the discipline for personal narratives(Pratt 1986); and more general cultural taboos about discussing sex, or at least ourown sexuality (Kulick 199513). Kulick suggests as well, following Newton (I993),that silence about sexuality has served the purpose of “for tifying male heterosexuality by keeping above the bounds of critical inquiry and of silencing womenand gays" (l995:4). _

282 DEWALT / DEWALT

In recent years, several volumes of essays have been published that deal moredirectly with the issues of sex and sexuality in the field (Whitehead and ConawayI986; Bell et al. I993; Kulick and Willson I995; Lewin and Leap 1996a). Severalfactors have contributed to this increased attention. The first is the contemporaryemphasis on reflexivity which suggests that the ethnographer is situated sexually aswell as with respect to, gender, class, race, etc. (Caplan I993; Altork I995; KulickI995; Lewin and Leap I996). Discussions of sexuality, then, become part of theprocess of reflexivity. A second trend is the increase in research on gay and lesbiancommunities by gay and lesbian ethnographers; this has resulted in a number ofaccounts of the experience of being a “native ethnographer.” Finally, there isincreasing acceptance of the discussions conceming sexual relationships in the fieldfor all researchers.

h h have written about the impact on their research of a fullerSeveral et nograp ersparticipatory involvement in the community itself, both the effect of being acceptedas a “native” and the information they gain as a result of sexual activity (CesaraI982; Bolton 1995, I996; Gearing 1995; Leap I996; Mui ray*l996; Lewin and Leap1996b; Newton I996). Bolton (I995, 1996), for example, discusses not only theways in which his homosexuality influenced his examination of gay communitiesin the “years of the plague” [AIDS] but also how his sexual activity became “data.”

Murray (1991, I996) has written several thoughtful essays on the use of information gained during sexual activity as data in research. For Murray, having sexualrelationships with other gay men in Guatemala became fieldwork on eliciting termsrelating to homosexuality in Central America only in retrospect. His primarymotivation for having sex with Guatemalans was not to recruit informants, althoughhe admits to having thought about the “representativeness” of his “sample” at onepoint. In the one instance in which he reports that he went with a man out of curiosity, rather than attraction, they ended up not having sex. However, Murray arguesthat “Having sex with the natives is not a royal road to insight about alien sexualities” (1996250). Further, he is concemed that “conclusions based on sexual participation are distorted by confusing the intimacies possible with strangers withnative’s everyday intimate lives” (p. 242). Coming from a more textually orientedtheoretical and methodological approach, he suspects that even behavior under thesecircumstances is adjusted to fit what the participants believe the researchers wantto know. He prefers “native documents not elicited by foreigners” as data (p. 250).Even this conclusion, however, is, in part, the result of his juxtaposing “experiencenear” data from participant observation with interviews and other research materials.

To summarize, then, sexual relationships in the field raise two issues that arequite important to review here. One has to do with observation. Increased attentionto reflexivity suggests that sexuality is a key characteristic of the observer, apartfrom gender (although obviously these two cannot be separated). As Kulick (I995)puts it, it is time to ask: “What are the implications of the anthropologist as a sexually cognizant knower?” (p. 6). The answer to this question, provided by a number

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of contributors to his and several other volumes is that there are b f. . _ I 3 aimplications and recognizing the observer as a sexually situated o[bl;l:nrv?r(iimportant both in the writing of ethnography and the reading of the ethnographys

The second iss e h t . . . . 'Hi _ t_ _ u as o do with participation. As several writers have noted,pa cipa ion in sexual relationships may be important to aticeptangejn a C .and the development of rapport (Tumbull I986) More com I ommunitywho discuss these issues argue that intimate relationshi s rovrlzlon y, ethnographerstion that might not have been available otherwise (GeF.:1riPii ll99:5éc1fi/fssto Informa

Intimate relationships however raise several ethical ijuesto u\r£/E; jy H96)‘’ > i ns. 'potential for sexual exploitation of research participants es eciall ab is the

ethnographer is a white, heterosexual male from a developed COil.l t QYDW (in tgefeeling of man ethno h ' n ry' espltet ef Y _ gT3P "5 (especially new researchers) that they are dazed,con used, and relatively powerless differences in race class d dethnographers in a mo r _ _ , an gen er put mostwhich they work Ge::ié3lf3\£/ief_l;_l;1: lelj;(:):;llr(rJll; thanttlqje citizens of the communities in

' no 'reseamhefs, but class and ethnic differenceb, are stiil liitkblyute tiff ‘gay and lesbian

What are the implications for the ' ' O e important’f 'encounters as “data”? As we noted earligfepgnibliggilifbbfi gzflned “hm mg SexualOfethicalquesfions’ ri _ H _ I tva ion raises a numberis conducting researfh Igilvpzuydbipfnqsphgtqlpot always clear when the ethnograPher

coqtexg of intimate relationships. ls potential would be magnified m thent is vein the matter f‘ f .

in research involving humgnlgubjiig bzlbbent, which ls iwcommg more Important. _ mes ex reme y relevant Sh Id bdeveloping infomied consent scri ’ ' ou we 6pts that can be whispered at a 'moment? This is not an idle question We have n appmpnate. developed elaborate uid l' fensuring that the people we study are _ g e mes orgiven a full explanation of the u fresearch, and we stress that we should alwa ' ' p rpows O the_ ys ask permission when makin dor photographic recordings It seems a g sou“. _ pparent that h "required conceming the ethics of sexuality as a researcrlltjlltf I greater dlscussmn lsdoing field research. O or as a component of

Another disturbing question that aris 'es for us is: What will be th 'sexual relationshi s o th ' ' e ‘lnpact ofethnography? Sevgalwgmesrgégigggfifi if subsequent researchers in doing

enced reluctance and even hostility from er nlwl/’ Kathie?“ mcmded’ have experitheir expectation that “U S women“ Po entia women infomiants as a result offemale graduate Students ha we found mg: oilit after their husbands.’ Several of ourth€ perception among some Latin America5rfI:'1€:1l:1hz?:rVal.ill/Vlfijfg situations because of

ii as

In part, these problems were the results of previous experienbeiwvitiiljfgsleziifeh 1005;.did have intimate relati I 1' ' . . C ersw °community. ‘ms 1P5 Wlth me" (lmillldlng married individuals) in the

Finally, to whatextentd ' 'at risk for Sexual assault? ggfhspxial activity place researchers, especially women,men and men may be at risk for sexual assault

284 DEWALT / DEWALT

in the field, but the risk for women is higher (Warren I988; Lee I995). Rape of theresearcher in the field is not often talked about, but several cases are personallyknown to us. In the literature, Eva Moreno (I995) discusses how a combination ofambivalence and inattention to sexual cues resulted in her rape by a male researchassistant. Howell (1990) reports that 7% of a sample of women anthropologistsreported rape or attempted rape in the field, noting at the same time that thisprobably is a significant underreporting of rape.

Some women attempt to assume a “sexless” identity to help protect againstassault. Others have, or invent, burly husbands and boyfriends, who, even in theirabsence, can serve as male protectors. An interesting byproduct of the discussion ofsex in the field provided by Murray (1996) is his suggestion that his beginningsexual activity with other men in Guatemala may have compromised the positionof his woman companion. She had been using him as a foil against other men, astrategy that became much less effective when he became sexually active.

Like many other anthropologists, we have always strongly advised students thatsexual relationships with infomants or other individuals in communities in whichwe were working should be avoided. Bernard (1995) notes this advice as commonfor beginning anthropologists. The risks —ethical, personal, and to the researchenterprise—have always seemed too high to us. The narratives of researchers whohave developed intimate relationships in the field, though, suggest that the risksare not always great and a “blanket prohibition” is not only impossible(ethnographers are, after all, human) but perhaps not even desirable. Our ownadvice to graduate students has often been ignored, although the results of theseencounters has further reinforced our contention thatsex and fieldwork is not agood combination.

Participating and Parenting: Children and Field Research" i

Fieldwork is traditionally portrayed as a solitary endeavor, but, in reality, manyanthropologists bring their families, including their children, to the field with them.The presence of children in the field shapes the research experience in a number ofdistinct ways. Children can help ease the loneliness and isolation characteristic offieldwork in foreign cultures. However, they also present a number of challengesto anthropologists in the field. As part of the trend to demystify anthropologicalfieldwork, a number of anthropologists have written about their experiences withchildren in the field. While each fieldwork experience is unique, a number ofthemes emerge regarding the effect of children on paiticipant observation.

Many anthropologists repoit that their children had a positive impact on participant observation. Bringing children to a field site can lead to increased rapportwith the research community. A solitary anthropologist showing up in a remote areato live alone for a period of a year or more may seem extremely bizarre in many

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cultures" In most cases’ the P@°Pl@ Who are being studied are able to relate moreeasily to an anthropologist living with his or her family. Mimi and Mark Nichter(Nichter and Nichter 1987) believed that the presence of their young son made iteasier for villagers to relate to them during their research in a rural Indian villageBourgois (I995) describes how his son’s cerebral palsy was diagnosed in a gliniéin El Barrio, and that his son’s ability to negotiate the neighborhood rollin hiswalker over trash and crack vials in the streets of E1 Barrio helped estailishBourgois as a community member. '

A150, the presence of children accompanying a researcher can signify his or heradult status. In many cultures a childless adult, especially a married childless adultmay be viewed as strange, dangerous, or the object of pity. During our first fieldexperience in Temascalcingo, it was a concem for many people that w¢ had beenE:Xi;riedr£oi;1?<:r€ than! a yt ;<3I‘ without having a child and without signs of Kathleen

g.p g _ n see a so, lass and Solomon Klass 1987). During their first fieldexperience in the Sudan, Carolyn Fluehr—Lobban and Richard Lobban (Fluehr;Z2]l:aZSaQ‘:nl;°Pb:" 193l5,bl987), reported that people had trouble accepting theirh h me °°"P if ecause they had no children. Many Sudanese doubted

t at t ey were truly marr.ied, but their retum to the field ten years later with theirdaughter Josina reassured their friends and acquaintancesthe aT;1li1E)1gO;>‘g11:€¢II1/Iinttra the field can also open up new ‘areas of information to

_ P g ~ °5 “Searchers who bring young children in the field oftenreceive a constant stream of advice about child care from friends and nei hborWhile an overabundance of friendly advice can be exasperating it can alsi teacslianthropologists about ‘the culture they are working in. Mimi and Mark Nichterreported that they gained valuable insights into niral Indian ideas about childd I , ' 1 4:evelopment from villagers comments made about their son s constitution”(Nichter and Nichter I987). This advice can also challenge the anthropologist’s:}T:;3l7é:;T;1lI;TgeCl;:lIUr3g biases alpd assumptions. Renate Femandez (I 987) leamed that

' _ ‘ p g a one in t eir own room was viewed as a type of social deprivation in rural Spain.

A ’ _childIIlE;F0‘[;)}l1(;fil?ISfC3D also leam about a culture from the way people react to theiramhm 610 ist as 0It'IIl1'1t.S are enculturating children, they are also teaching thefieldwigrk ii PH till tneir culture. During Biane Michalski Turner’s (I987)her two‘ ear_o{d,d 6 is agers with whom she lived devoted a lot of time teachingwim her)/dau ht gel; t; become Fljlfifl. By watching how villagers interactedF___ 8 er, ic a s i Turner was able to leam not only how one becomes

I_]laI1, but also about Westem/Fijian power relationships.A ' . . . _(198pd children can help gather data that is inaccessibleto adults. G. E. Huntington

) TBPOFIS that her nine year old daughter was an invaluable source of' f . , . .Eaglrgidflfignv fiwotpt Hungrite children s. infonnal culture. As a result, Huntington

u erite c ildren engage in very different behaviors when they are in

286 DEWALT / DEWALT

front of adults and when they are among other children participating in their ownculture.

Bringing children into the field, however, has its disadvantages. Some anthropologists report that the responsibilities of child care forced them to miss out oncertain oppoitunities. Reflecting on her research in Jamaica, Joan Cassell (I987)relates how she frequently missed nighttime events because she felt compelled tostay home with her two children. Young, unruly children can also disrupt meetingsand interviews. Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of bringing children to the fieldis the amount of time that researchers devote to child care (and hence lose to thefieldwork). Many anthropologists, especially those solely responsible for child care,report that the presence of children severely curtailed the amount of time they coulddevote to fieldwork. Melanie Dreher, who brought three children to rural Jamaicato conduct postdoctoral research with her, states,”l suspect it took me twice the timeto accomplish half the work that I would have normally accomplished” (Dreherl987:165). During fieldwork among an indigenous tribe in the northwest Amazon,Christine and Stephen Hugh Jones (Hugh Jones 1987) had to devise altematingfieldwork schedules so that one of them would always be available to supervisetheir two children.

Our personal experiences with children in the field have been generally quitepositive. Our two fair haired children were an instant magnet everywhere we havetraveled in Latin America and opened many doors for us. We also found that, earlyin our careers when we were relatively poor graduate students or assistant professors, we could more easily afford child care in Mexico or Honduras than wecould in the United States. As our children moved into their teens and began tohave obligations and wishes of their own, it became more difficult for us to takethem to the field. During these years, we began to schedule our time in the fieldseparately so that one of us stayed in the United States with the children, while theother was engaged in doing field research. _

Whether children help or hinder paiticipant observation depends on a number offactors. It seems that there is a significant effect depending on whether the anthropologist is retuming to a site or arriving for the first time. Most anthropologists whoarrive at a field site for the first time with their children seem to experience moreproblems than veteran field workers (Cassell 1987; Michalski Tumer I987). The ageof the children also shapes the field experience. Very young children, while needingmore care, adapt more readily and experience less severe culture shock (FluehrLobban and Lobban I987; Nichter and Nichter I987). Older children seem to havea more difficult time adapting to new and foreign cultures (Scheper Hughes I987).The field situation itself also shapes the experience with the children. Bringingchildren to a field site where they already speak the language is easier on both thechildren and the parent than introducing them to a culture where they are only ableto communicate with their family (Cassell I987; Hugh Jones 1987). The presenceof another parent to share child care responsibilities certainly facilitates a field

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worker’s time in the field with his or her children (Fluehr Lobban and LobbanI987; Scheper Hughes I987).

Ethnographer Bias

Because participant observation is perhaps the quintessential qualitative method, thequestion of reliability is critically important. As the above discussions of the effectsof gender, sexuality, and the field worker’s family situation suggest, it’s quiteapparent that these personal attributes can substantially affectparticipant observationin field research. Postmodemist writers particularly emphasizethat the observer andhis or her circumstances and biases cannot be separated from the accounts that theywrite.

In addition, ethnographers surely differ in terms of their abilities and qualifications. Until recently, however, it has been rare for the accuracy of field reportsto be questioned. This is so despite an increasing number of controversies comingto light in which the data collected by different anthropologists who have workedin the same area differ substantially (for example, Redfield [I 930] and Lewis [I951]conceming Tepoztlan in Mexico; Mead [1923] and Freeman [1983] on Samoa; andBenedict [1934] and Bamouw [I963] on the Zuni). This acceptanceofthe reliabilityof data contrasts markedly with the controversies embroiling anthropology and othersocial science disciplines conceming the interpretation or theory built with the data.

Building theory, of course, depends on having reliable data, so it’s lamentablethat so little attention has been given to the issues of reliability and validity of theinfonnation collected. The relatively small amount of formal examination of ethnographer bias in anthropology is evidence that these issues merit much moreattention than they have previously received.19;l;)l;evl§I’:(>)n|::l':1ng Work On Ztlgnographer bias was done by Raoul Naroll (I962;affectgdb S SteIl:116tC.I0l'lC6l'l'l6. t alt his cross cultural research results may have beenNam“ (156588 82 ic errors in et nographic reporting. In the most striking finding,

_ i . — ) found that the incidence of witchcraft reported in particularsocieties was related to the amount of time the ethnographer spent in the field. Heshowed that ethnographers who spent more than a year in the field were significantly more likely to repoit the presence of witchcraft beliefs among thesocieties they studied than those who spent shorter amounts of time in the field.NaS>I]1l1',£e:.eaiplg in Temascalcingo provided a striking personal confimiation offirst six mon1thg._ fltzvefvi/1; regened to leaving the field for three weeks after ourtimes about m s in e ie _. efore our brief hiatus, we had asked people many

agical and witchcraft beliefs, particularly because these topics wereslp relevant to Kathleen’s medical anthropological research. Everyone had deniedt at there were any such beliefs in the community. Almost the very day of ourretum, however, one of our key infomiants began regaling us with a recounting of

288 DEWALT / DEWALT

a conflict that had occurred during our absence. The conflict included accusationsby one of the paities that witchcraft was being used against them. During theremaining months in the field, witchcraft was a common theme of our conversationswith people who had denied its existence before. We are convinced that the willingness of people to talk with us about such themes reflected a breakthrough in theirlevel of confidence and comfort with us. Thus, as Naroll (I962) and we can attest,the length of time that a person spends engaged in participant observation doesmake a very large difference in the kind of findings that may be reported.

Controlling for sources of ethnographer bias has become increasingly commonin cross cultural research since Naroll’s early work. Another example of theimportance of ethnographer bias comes from the work of Rohner et al. (1973).Their work focused on the effects of bias in reporting about parental acceptancerejection and its importance in personality development in children and adults. Onestriking finding of these analyses was that ethnographers who use multiple verification efforts repoit more parental rejection and other “negative” personality traitsamong the people they study. Rohner et al. reported that this seems to be linked toa “bias of romanticism” among anthropologists. Unless ethnographers use methodsother than just participant observation, they are unlikely to repoit the negativeaspects of their subjects’ personalities and lives. They quoted Lévi Strauss(I961 :38l), who observed that “At home the anthropologist may be a natural subversive, a convinced opponent of traditional usage; but no sooner has he in focusa society different from his own than he becomes respectful of even the mostconservative practices.” This argues for a mix of methods in which participantobservation is just one of the tools that anthropologists use to find out the behaviorof the people they study.

The “quality” of participant observation will vary depending on the personalcharacteristics of ethnographers (for example, gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicaffiliation), their training and experience (for example, language ability, quality oftraining, etc.), and perhaps their theoretical orientation. As interpretive anthropologymakes clear, all of us bring biases, predispositions, and hang ups to the field withus, and we cannot completely escape these as we view other cultures. Our reporting,however, should attempt to make these biases as explicit as possible so that othersmay use these in judging our work. What is also apparent, however, is that byutilizing more formal methods of data collection in conjunction with participantobservation, we may improve the quality and consistency of our reporting.

Much of the recent trend in postmodemist writing in anthropology explicitly aimstoward presenting both “the Self and Other . . . within a single narrative

_ ethnography” (Tedlock 1991169). The point is ofien made that “objectivity” is notpossible in the study of human behavior. While we can agree with this position, wedon’t accept the corollary that is often drawn that therefore we should not strive toimprove our observational skills or search for explanatory theoriesconceminghuman behavior. Understanding ourselves and our reactions to field research and the

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individuals we study should be a beginning point, not the final product ofethnography. Indeed, psychoanalysis was commonly used by anthropologists likeCora DuBois, Abram Kardiner, Ruth Benedict, and others both as a method ofstudying other cultures as well as a personal means for coming to terms with theirown reactions to their research. They then went about the business of trying toconstnict social scientific explanations of peoples’ behavior through ethnography.Our perspective is that we should go beyond the individual postmodem musings thatare too common in contemporary anthropology to more systematically examine howthe anthropologist’s race, gender, sexual preferences, and other factors affect theirobservations. The work of Naroll and others who followed his lead are suggestiveof how informative such studies can be.

Beyond the Reflexivity Frontier

Participant observation as a technique of fieldwork has been a hallmark ofanthropological research since the beginning of the twentieth century and has beena distinguishingcharacteristic for anthropology compared with other social sciences.It may be constitutive—that is, it may be essential to anthropology. Although tiedto functionalist theoretical approaches early in the century, the reliance onparticipant observation and the recording of chronologically oriented descriptivefield notes, which also include the incorporation of the ethnographer’s thoughts andreactions, laid the groundwork for much of the theoretical development autochthonous to anthropology. That the descriptions of the research enterprise providedby Malinowski in I922 and Bourgois (among many others) in I995 can appear so:»i1g1(1jllti(\)r,aSl;l_‘gE§?‘tI:halt method,hwhile_not atheoretical (no method is) is so closelybasis for a wide fin 6 ophlgéigg tteolrgtical core in anthropology as to provide the

The movement info more efl ‘C? evhe opulent‘ arming that core.mm increase in ma numb r rf exive et nographic writing has resulted in a quanethnographers from a mmelbp atczopéits of the fieldwork experience presented bybelieve isacominuin dam to ti eriipt theoretical approaches. The result, wewriting, Makin ex lit this i ica IOI; ‘O the process offieldwork and ethnographicbetter d gd p _ process 0 participant observation allows the reader to

un erstan the infonnation presented by the ethnographer. Narrative ethI1ography(Tedlock 1991) and personal accounts of field experience also provide theopportunity for new researchers to begin to anticipate problems, identify altemativestraltegies and begin to craft their personal approaches to participant observationear y in the fieldwork experience.The approach to training in ethnography commona generation ago held that each new ethnographer should go out and reinventzlgfilxppllggyhmethopologically and sink orswim on their own ability to do so. Wehear _ '1 is is a orm of intellectualelitism. And, although we still occasionally

simi ar sentiments from some of our colleagues in anthropology, the increasing

290 DEWALT / DEWALT

number ofmonographs and textbooks addressing issues in ethnographic methods andthe number of fonrial courses in methods available in our universities suggest thatwe have gone beyond that time.

Approaches that emphasize the “observation of participation” are quite useful andimportant (especially for training budding anthropologists), but we see these ascomplementary to the use of participant observation as a means of collectingverifiable, reliable data conceming human behavior. We accept that none of us canbecome completely objective measuring devices. We can, however, use participantobservation in conjunction with other methods to serve anthropology as a scientificpursuit.

That is, we see reflexivity as a beginning point rather than as an end to ethnography. We need to be aware of who we are, understand our biases as much aswe can, and to understand and interpret our interactions with the people we study.Once we have done that, we can strive to determine whether there are regularitiesin human behavior.

From a personal point of view, what is heartening to us is that much previousanthropological and other social scientific research can be quite useful in buildinggeneralizations. Both of us have engaged in comparative work in which we haveutilized the work of other anthropologists and other social scientists. An exampleof Kathleen’s work is her evaluation of research on the relationship between cashcropping and human nutrition. One hypothesis that was very common in theliterature was that as people switched from semisubsistence crops to cash crops theirnutritional status became worse. Summarizing studies from around the world, shewas able to show that there is not a simple relationship between these twophenomena. When people switched from semisubsistence crops to cash cropping,there has not been a necessary improvement or decline in human nutrition. Otherfactors, some of which are specified in her work, are also involved and must bestudied (DeWalt 1993). p ’

In a similar vein, Bill has looked at the literature on agrarian refomi communities in Mexico (DeWalt and Rees 1994) and on development_in indigenouscommunities in Latin America (Roper et al. 1996). In both cases, he and his collaborators were able to find common pattems in the data presented by individualsworking at many different times, places, and with different theoretical perspectives.It was possible, on the basis of comparative analysis of the ethnographic materials,to draw important policy conclusions.

Our experience has been that, despite differences in theoretical perspectives,gender, ethnicity, and other personal factors, the broad brush observations of individual researchers conceming human behavior are relatively consistent. Certainly,if we look at the fine detail or if we look for consonance in theoretical conclusions,we will find many differences. Rather than using the latter asjustification for givingup on making participant observation and other anthropological methods moreverifiable and reliable, we believe it’s more productive to focus on the irmwn

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generalizations that can be derived from such data. The aim should then be toimprove our methodological skills to work toward building generalizations that areeven stronger.

ConclusionsParticipant observation is the hallmark of anthropological methods. The activeengagement of an ethnographer in the lives of the people being studied—whetherthey are a group from halfway around the world, an exotic subculture of our ownsociety, or people who don’t look or act much differently from ourselves—is anessential tool. There is no substitute for gaining tacit and implicit knowledge ofcultural behavior than living among people and sharing their lives. We believe thatthe practice of participant observation has been one of the catalysts for theoreticaldevelopment in anthropology.

Participant observation raises many important ethical issues for ethnographers.These issues include the problem of establishing “limits to participation"——shouldethnographers engage in illegal behaviors, should they establish sexual relationshipswith infomiants, and should they take up the causes held dear by the people westudy? Another ethical issue on which we touched was finding the proper mixbetween participation and observation. In addition, there is the problem of maintaining the anonymity of the people whom we study, often for their own protection.There. are no easy answers to these ethical issues; like the processes of doingparticipant observation and fieldwork, these problems require discussion in methodsclasses. Our own view is that, as a starting point, our responsibility as ethnographersis to try to ensure that the people we study are not harmed by our personalinvolvements with them and are not negatively affected by the information wecollect and write about them.bmljlnggyérvyéracknolilvledge thaipvery one who chooses to use this method willha ind Wm facqw: iasgs, pr? ihections, and personal characteristics with him orfocused on the mo tnum qr; o cfallenges and choices. ln this chapter, we haveI df s impo ant 0 these and have tried to convey what we haveeame rom our own personal experiences and those of other anthropologists. The

primary message is that, while we should be aware of our own identities and howthese may affect our field research, we should continue to work toward scientificgbstervations of people and their cult.ure's..The objective of ethnography should notle 0 earn more about ourselves as individuals (although that will happen), but toeam more about others. Systematic study of the effects of biases, predilections, and

personal characteristics on the research enterprise is a valid social scientificendeavor and requires further development.

292 DEWALT / DEWALT

NOTES

L F°"ABfiY. the interview is more important than the participation, and observation servesas 5°u'°° Qf questions about which to interview. However, he sees participant observation asproviding the context for the rest of the enterprise.

2 We ma)’ find it difficult to articulate what it is that makes us feel uncomfortablebecause 31°56 aspects of cultural knowledge remain outside of our general consciousness. Itis participation in the context around us that allows us to gain insight into the tacit.’ 3. Malinowski further cautions against living in compounds apart from the people under"“’¢5"ga\i0n like other “white men” do and insists on the need to live in the community.

4 M05! anthropologists, however, would argue that the range of behaviors that areSusceptibh t° Pure observation or can be understood through pure 0bS61'Vfiii°" I5 Small

5. Postmodern anthropologists may base their analyses on “texts” that can be written or5P°k¢n materials. In the former case, no face to face interaction with informants is required.

6 We have carried out fieldwork in an essentially “commuting” situation and as residentsof communities. There is no doubt for us that greater understanding comes from living in thecommunity.

7' G°°d “Ports that it was this experience that contributed to his increasing divergencefrom his then adviser‘s portrayal of the Yanomama as “the fierce people” (Chagnon I983).Alth°“Eh G°0d saw the violence in their culture, he also saw a substantial amount ofhamwny aad 8F0l1p cohesion.

8 T°dl°¢|< discusses a number of cases of anthropologists who are candidates for having“game "ati"° " AS she points out, however, in each case the individual continued to publish°‘h“°g"*Phi¢ 3¢¢0unts (1991 :70).

9' This brings to mind a well known joke in anthropological circles about a “postmodernamh'°P°i°Eist.” Postmodern anthropologists are very concerned about documenting their°“’" P°F_$0nflI responses to what the people they study are telling them. This ethnographer is°°“d"°""g an interview with a “native” that stretches on for many hours. Finally, the nativeb¢°°m65 restless and says to the ethnographer: “Excuse me, but we’ve talked enough aboutyou‘ Ca“ we "OW talk about me for a while!” '

10 Nader also quotes Robin Fox as commenting after a trip to the Southwest: “ThereW9"? all the anthropologists, and there were all the tourists. The tourists were asking theIndians an Ihfi questions that the anthropologists wanted to ask, but didn’t because they wereafraid of tuming rapport (Nader I986:I 13).” Building rapport often involves not directlyaddressing Certain issues or asking pointed questions, but allowing these to emerge out of theflow °f °"°I')'da)l conversation.

H‘ During this research project, the ethnographers had asked permission and recordedmany of their conversations with informants. In terms of ethics, it is important thatethnographers always explain how recordings will be used and ask permission before tapingor wdcotapmg any interview or conversation.

12 This section was prepared with the assistance of Coral B. Wayland.

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