Parag Deshpande wrote:
> Dear Chris,
>
> I am not claiming that participant observers are not valid in research. Not
> at all.
> While I agree with that observers influence that which they observe,
> researchers make conscious efforts to keep this influence at minimum
Hi Parag,
I recommend the opening section of "Watching the English" by Kate Fox in
which she describes herself deliberately working up the courage to
intervene in a way that disrupts a routine social exchange. She was
setting out to jump a queue, extremely shocking behaviour in an English pub.
Kate Fox set out to create an event that could not exist without her
intervention, in order to observe how people responded to this novel
situation. In some ways that's like the construction of an atom smasher,
only by interfering with nature can we understand it fully.
Designers do this in their own ways and we are still working on how to
be successful, with growing success, but I feel the characterisation in
your original posting was too restrictive and yes, you did say, in
effect, that participant observers are invalid. You may not have
intended to say that but I read your words quite carefully to be certain :o)
best wishes
Chris
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