The risk of ‘going observationalist’: negotiating the hidden dilemmas of being an insider participant observer
By Robert V. Labaree. 2002
517 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Based on a review of the literature and the author’s own experiences, this article develops a framework for understanding the hidden dilemmas of being an insider participant observer. A common assumption made about participant observation is that being an insider offers a distinct advantage in terms of accessing and understanding the culture. However, these advantages are not absolute and the insider must be aware of ethical and methodological dilemmas associated with entering the field, positioning and disclosure, shared relationships and disengagement. The article discusses these dilemmas and identifies issues that need more careful evaluation and analysis within the field of qualitative inquiry. The assumption that insiderness provides the researcher with greater access and deeper understanding is often true, but the degree of achieved insiderness is related to a number of critical factors that are determined by the circumstances of the moment.
Subfields: Education, Sociology and Political Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c5537dab14548daab7ed584e0a0ef5cb5c5db23b
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In Education
In Sociology and Political Science
Citations in the corpus
- Observation: A Complex Research Method (2006, unknown): “In addition, the sampling categories, such as those listed by Westbrook (as cited in Powell & Connaway, 2004; see also, Labaree, 2002), may be of some help to researchers.”
- Inside–out: analysis of the insider–outsider concept as a heuristic device to develop reflexivity in students doing qualitative research (2006, background): “In fact many contemporary researchers (see Labaree, 2002 ) would argue that you can simultaneously be to some extent an insider, and to some extent an outsider, if you're involved in qualitative research of this kind.”
- Emotion, empathy and exit: reflections on doing ethnographic qualitative research on sensitive topics (2008, background): “This will be followed by information about the study, drawing out both the variegated features of an insider researcher presence (Labaree, 2002) and the ongoing nature of the research to highlight the ‘preliminary’ character of the reflections recounted herein.”