Observation Methods

Barry Smart is Professor of Sociology at the University of Portsmouth and has longstanding research interests in the fields of social theory, political economy, and philosophy. His research interests include critical social research ethics; higher education; and collaborative work on veganism, ethics, lifestyle and environment. Kay Peggs is Professor of Sociology at Kingston University (UK), Fellow of the Oxford University Centre for Animal Ethics, and Visiting Fellow in Sociology at the University of Portsmouth (UK). Previously she has worked at the universities of Warwick, Surrey, Portsmouth and Winchester. Her publications include: Identity and Repartnering after Separation (Palgrave, 2007) with Richard Lampard, Animals and Sociology (Palgrave, 2012) and numerous essays and articles in journals such as Sociology, The British Journal of Sociology, and The Sociological Review. She is co-editor of Observation Methods (Sage, 2013) and is assistant editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics. Forthcoming publications include Experiments, Animal Bodies and Human Values (Routledge) and the co-authored book (Not) Consuming Animals: Ethics, Environment and Lifestyle Choices (Routledge), which is based on the research project she led on veganism, ethics and lifestyle.Joseph Burridge is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Portsmouth.  Joseph has considerable editorial experience having co-edited a special issue of the journal Social Semiotics (Vol 18, Issue 3, 2008), which was re-published as an edited book Analysing Media Discourse (Routledge, 2011).  He also organised and edited a special issue of the journal Food and Foodways (Vol 20, Issue 1, 2012).    Joseph teaches research methods across the Portsmouth curriculum, as well as offering a final year module in his area of specialist interest: the sociology of food.  While Joseph’s main research interests lie in the areas of food and culture, he is also interested in the sociology of culture more generally, along with rhetoric, argumentation, discursive methods, and media representations.

• VOLUME ONE: PART ONE: OBSERVATION: PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE AND ARTThe Bucket and the Searchlight - Karl PopperTwo Theories of KnowledgeRevolutions as Changes of World View - Thomas KuhnTechniques of the Observer - Jonathan CraryInterpretation - William ThompsonObserver EffectsSeeing and Knowing - Michel FoucaultRules for the Observation of Social Facts - Emile DurkheimWeber′s Verstehen and the History of Qualitative Research - Jennifer PlattThe Missing Link The Definitions of Sociology and of Social Action - Max WeberSocial Relationships between Contemporaries and Indirect Social Observation - Alfred Sch tzSome Basic Problems of Interpretive Sociology - Alfred Sch tz Unexpected Interactions - Matthias GrossGeorg Simmel and the Observation of NatureScopic Regimes of Modernity - Martin JayFoucault′s Art of Seeing - John RajchmanPART TWO: REFLECTIONS ON THE PRACTICE OF OBSERVATION Excerpt from The Observation of Savage Peoples - Joseph-Marie baron de GérandoRoles in Sociological Field Observation - Raymond Gold Performing Ethnography and Ethnography of Performance - Paul AtkinsonAccounts, Interviews and Observations - Robert DingwallObservational Fieldwork - Robert EmersonEverett C Hughes and the Development of Fieldwork in Sociology - Jean-Michel ChapoulieThe Chicago School and First-Hand Data - Jennifer PlattMass Observation - Penny SummerfieldSocial Research or Social Movement? VOLUME TWO: A Problem of Sociological Praxis - Michal BodemannThe Case for Interventive Observation in FieldworkBenefits of ′Observer Effects′ - Torin Monahan and Jill FisherLessons from the FieldCan There Be a Feminist Ethnography? - Judith StaceyOn Tricky Ground - Linda Tuhiwai SmithResearching the Native in the Age of Uncertainty Ethnographic Showcases, 1870-1930 - Raymond CorbeyWhy Look at Animals - John BergerPART ONE: ETHICS, RISK AND OBSERVATIONEthical Challenges in Participant Observation - Jun Li A Reflection on Ethnographic FieldworkThe Risk of ′Going Observationalist′ - Robert LabareeNegotiating the Hidden Dilemmas of Being an Insider Participant ObserverInformed Consent, Anticipatory Regulation and Ethnographic Practice - Elizabeth Murphy and Robert DingwallThe Art and Politics of Covert Research - David CalveyDoing ′Situated Ethics in the FieldCovert Participant Observation - Richard HilbertOn Its Nature and PracticeBetween Overt and Covert Research - Peter LugosiConcealment and Disclosure in an Ethnographic Study of a Commercial HospitalityEthical Covert Research - Paul SpickerLone Researchers at Sea - Helen Sampson and Michelle ThomasGender Risk and ResponsibilityWhen Is Disguise Justified? Alternatives to Covert Participation Observation - Martin BulmerA Comment on Disguised Observation in Sociology - Kai EriksonNew Jersey: Transaction - Laud HumphreysControversies Surrounding Laud Humphreys′ Tearoom Trade - Michael Lenza An Unsettling Example of Politics and Power in Methodological Critiques Working in Hostile Environments - Nigel FieldingDangerous Fieldwork Re-Examined - Pamela NilanThe Question of Researcher Subject PositionDoing Participant Observation in a Psychiatric Hospital - Christine Oeye, Anne Karen Bjelland and Aina SkorpenResearch Ethics ResumedThe Researcher as Hooligan - Geoff PearsonWhere ′Participant′ Observation Means Breaking the LawEthnographic Intimacy - Maria Pérez-y-Pérez and Tony StanleyThinking through the Ethics of Social Research in Sex WorldsVOLUME THREE PART ONE : PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION The Con Man as a Model Organism - Michael PettitThe Methodological Roots of Erving Goffman′s Dramaturgical SelfA Note on Participant Observation - Colin BellA Contribution to the Theory of Participant Observation - Jiri KolajaProblems of Inference and Proof in Participant Observation - Howard BeckerPart of the Action or ′Going Native′? Learning to Cope with the ′Politics of Integration′ - Duncan FullerThe Participant Observer and ′Over-Rapport′ - S. M. MillerRole Boundaries and Paying Back - Jacqueline Wade′Switching Hats′ in Participant ObservationDeep Play - Clifford Geertz Notes on the Balinese CockfightParticipant Observation as a Tool for Understanding the Field of Safety and Security - Frédéric DiazParticipant Observation in Prison - James JacobsA Spy, a Shill, a Go-Between or a Sociologist - Susan MurrayUnveiling the ′Observer′ in Participant ObserverPART TWO: INTERPRETATION AND PRESENTATION OF OBSERVATIONAL DATAOn Writing Fieldnotes - Nicholas WolfingerCollection Strategies and Background Expectancies Thick Description - Clifford GeertzToward an Interpretive Theory of CultureThinking through Fieldwork - Judith OkelyOn the Analysis of Observational Data - M. BloorA Discussion of the Worth and Uses of Inductive Techniques and Respondent ValidationThe Presentation of Everyday Life - Kenneth StoddartSome Textual Strategies for ′Adequate Ethnography′Representation, Legitimation and Auto-Ethnography - Nicholas HoltAn Auto-Ethnographic Writing StoryPART THREE: OBSERVATIONAL SCREENS: PHOTOGRAPHY, CCTV AND INTERNET Looking Emotionally - Mónica Moreno FigueroaPhotography, Racism and Intimacy in ResearchUsing CCTV to Study Visitors in the New Art Gallery, Walsall, U.K. - Ela BeaumontEthnographic Approaches to the Internet and Computer-Mediated Communication - Angela Garcia et alEthnography, the Internet, Youth Culture - Brian WilsonStrategies for Examining Social Resistance and ′Online-Offline′ RelationshipsVOLUME FOUR: PART ONE: OBSERVING WORKPLACES AND WORKERSSocial Access in the Workplace - Simon CarmelAre Ethnographers GossipsThe Sweat-Shop in Summer - Annie Marion MacleanOn Doctor Watching - Sandra DanzigerFieldwork in Medical SettingsTwo Weeks in Department Stores - Annie Marion MacleanAn Observational Study of Shoplifting - Abigail Buckle and David FarringtonGlimpses at the Mind of a Waitress - Amy TannerExtracts from Living the Kitchen Life and Appendix: Ethnography in the Kitchen - Gary Alan FinePART TWO: STUDYING UP: OBSERVING THE UNOBSERVEDUp the Anthropologist - Laura NaderPerspectives Gained from Studying upEthnography in/of the World System - George MarcusThe Emergence of Multisited EthnographyStudying up Revisited - Hugh GustersonAfter Method? Ethnography in the Knowledge Economy - David Mills and Richard RatcliffeFast Capitalism - Douglas Holmes and George MarcusPara-Ethnography and the Rise of the Symbolic AnalystAnthropology Goes to Wall Street - Karen HoResearching Police Deviance - Maurice PunchA Personal Encounter with the Limitations and Liabilities of FieldworkPotential Sources of Observer Bias in Police Observational Data - Richard SpanoObserving the Observers - Thomas Kemple and Laura HueyResearching Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance on ′Skid Row′Whistle-Blower Disclosures and Management Retaliation - Joyce Rothschild and Terence MietheThe Battle to Control Information about Organizational Corruption