Participant Observation

Geographers understand participant observation as another component of conducting research, or fieldwork (Che, 2005 ). Contrary to anthropologists, Geographers have mobilized the methodological tool of participant observation to not necessarily embed the researcher within the group and become part of the community, but to participate and observe with members of the situations being studied. For example, when Che studied Appalachian prisons, she did not work at the prison where she conducted participant observation, but she did spend time with inmates and prison employees. I am attracted to participant observation as a method

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because it enables me to learn about processes going on in my research sites that I would not learn from the archive or conducting interviews. Participant observation is the second link in my triangulated methodology.

As a ‘participant observer’ the researcher not only physically comes close to members of the group or community being studied, but also allows the group to go about the rituals of their daily lives, and is open to critique, input and participation from group members while never pretending to become a ‘member’ of the

community being studied. Through participant observation I was able to learn about the processes and practices of everyday geographies in the hybrid setting of México City. Participant observation, together with archival work and semi-structured interviews, allowed for a multiplicity of voices to come through in the study of socio-spatial changes in México City.

Geographers interpret participant observation as a component of

ethnography. As the Dictionary of Human Geography (Johnston et al., 2000) states,

“originating in anthropological research on so-called ‘traditional’ societies, participant observation is one of the principal qualitative methods for conducting ethnography” (p. 573). More geographers are implementing participant observation as a research technique to study cities (Johnston et al., 2000). I, therefore, follow in the footsteps of many researchers who recognize and attempt to come to terms with issues concerning power, multiple voices, and positionality in regards to socio-economic status, geographical positioning, ethnicity, and gender.

Kearns states that participant observation is an investigative technique that allows the researcher to gather intricate details and descriptions about the everyday geographies of peoples’ lives (Kearns, 2002). Each space in the Centro Histórico has a horizon of use, as well as an expectation of use for the site, by those who occupy the space and those who think more conceptually about the space. Participant

observation allowed me to get at those spaces.

In anthropology, researchers initially engaged in participant observation within the context of “primitive exotic communities” (Guha, 1989). However, because participant observation allows the researcher to observe and learn from many people

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in multiple disconnected groups at once in a spontaneous atmosphere (Kearns, 2002), it is an excellent research technique to employ in an urban, hybrid environment such as México City. Indeed, Jackson (1983) and later Nast et al. (1997) and Dowler (2001) discuss the advantages of employing participant observation in an urban setting because the method allows for the gathering of information in a hectic site replete with multiple non-interconnected scenarios.

Choosing to conduct participant observation at multiple sites allowed me to conceptualize the different degrees of cultural, economic and political gradation that each site represents. Moreover, I did not feel confined by space as I moved from one set of offices to another – and onto the Zócalo and Plaza Santo Domingo—as I might have if I had only worked in limited spaces. Participant observation is an

investigative technique that provides the opportunity of the always-existent, wild contingency that anything is about to happen, anything is possible – the spontaneity of conducting participant observation is never bounded by rules. In the case of

conducting participant observation in the streets and plazas of the Centro Histórico, I physically moved about with agents from each site and was not bounded by space (Appadurai, 1996). This unlimited physical movement allowed for an unfolding interdeterminancy, similar to everyday life, where anything could happen at any moment. Participant observation provided me the opportunity as a researcher to experience the triangulation with multiple encounters of positionality and different social scenes that are somehow connected yet separate. I am interested in how different processes play themselves out in distinct sites in the Centro Histórico to understand how gentrification emerges and functions within the Global South.

Therefore, participant observation not only allowed me to learn about the everyday geographies of peoples’ lives, but by framing the observation in institutions and particular sites, I was able to learn about the processes that flow through and contribute to the production of these sites, and in turn, how these sites help

contribute to the production of the interactions of the actors in these sites: the socio-spatial dialectic (Soja, 1980).

Participant observation allowed me to move beyond the romantic notion of

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ethnography where the good intentioned anthropologist believes she can conduct ethnography of a group or community by completely embedding herself in the community (see more below on the crisis of representation in anthropology vis-à-vis participant observation). I understand that it is not possible for me to become a member of the community that I am studying, while never negating the realization that I am directly impacting the group or community that I study (see more on positionality below). However, participant observation is a method that allows for proximity to members of the groups that I wish to study while simultaneously allowing the members to conduct their ‘daily rituals’. A post-structuralist understanding of participant observation facilitates a realization of ‘in between-ness’, where the researcher can attempt to breakdown the inside-outside binary and contextualize the study from a space of in between-ness (Katz, 2001a; Kobayashi, 2001; Nast, 2001).

Ironically, some of the strengths of participant observation can also be theorized as weaknesses. Conducting in-depth participant observation is time-consuming and therefore the researcher cannot engage with a large sample size. The triangulation of methods, through extensive archival research and interviewing, is an effort to compensate for some of the perceived weaknesses of participant

observation.