Chapter 2 – Participant Observation

Observation as a method of data collection is considered one of the most used and used, which is not surprising. Why? Because ethnographic work can be obtained with a large amount of useful and content-rich data that can help the researcher with understanding of the problem it seeks to address.

Observation is a useful method already in the process of getting to know each other’s context and circumstances of the research. When a researcher wants to gain insight to the (physical, social, cultural) environment that he is interested in and represents research context, the use of observation makes sense because it can gain a good initial outline and understanding of circumstances, relationships between people, groups etc. Through observation, which is initially without participation, the researcher gets to know the community in which the research takes place.