From Participant Observation to the Observation of Participation: The Emergence of Narrative Ethnography

Beginning in the 1970s there has been a shift in cultural anthropological methodology from participant observation toward the observation of participation. During participant observation ethnographers attempt to be both emotionally engaged participants and coolly dispassionate observers of the lives of others. In the observation of participation, ethnographers both experience and observe their own and others' coparticipation within the ethnographic encounter. The shift from the one methodology to the other entails a representational transformation in which, instead of a choice between writing an ethnographic memoir centering on the Self or a standard monograph centering on the Other, both the Self and Other are presented together within a single narrative ethnography, focused on the character and process of the ethnographic dialogue.