Participant Observation In Qualitative Research

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Pages: 6

The qualitative methodology often more than any other, raises ethical questions, especially because of the close relation between researchers and researched. Although most researchers (particularly sociologists) devote little attention to this issue, an elaborate discussion - especially among anthropologists - attempts to address the problems of the otherness of the proximity between the two poles in the search situation. Particularly to the possible consequences for the lives of individuals, groups and cultures of the presence (and interference) of individuals with different political paradigms, knowledge, lifestyle and different culture. The presence of researchers often not disclosed or even disguised, may involve the observed, which may …show more content…
It is a collection of technical information which presupposes conviviality, sharing a common basis for communication and exchange of experiences with other(s) primarily through the human senses: look, speak, feel, experience... between researcher and the observed individual or individuals and the dynamic context of relations in which subjects live and that is by all built and re-built every time.
It consists in being and observe where the study takes place. And more: not just sitting and watching where the study takes place, but be partaker of it, focusing of the positive results deriving from the outcome of the study. This was the innovation introduced by Malinowski and further developed by subsequent generations of anthropologists: the promotion of direct interaction in dealing with otherness, that is, with the other, a good metaphor commonly used would be the mirror of
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Previous researches has shown that the analysis of everyday life made by sociology within the analysis of documents, presents a reality interpreted by men and subjectively endowed with meaning forming a coherent world. The experience of everyday life involves symbolic processes and thus significance of files relating to different realities that are subject to the interpretation of social actors, i.e. the social representation of meanings. The process of Document Analysis described relates to an interpretative view of the reality from the viewpoint of previous information gathered. This process has predominated in qualitative research, either by criteria of social representations theory or theory of action. Such theories seek to understand the reality of the information from a perspective declared by it. Such analysis facilitates the work of the researcher acting as a research driver of. Some of the steps in document analysis consists of data ownership to be collected from open questions, semi-structured interviews or other types of facilities such as libraries etc. In addition, questionnaires or other tools that the researcher finds necessary. After gathering the data and information, the