‘Episodic participant observation’: Critiquing the ideal and offering an inclusive version of participant observation as a supplementary method in qualitative studies

Abstract

This article argues that one specific way of conducting participant observation is idealized in the qualitative research community. This ideal is the traditional version which has been and continues to be long-term fieldwork of participant observation far from home. Unfortunate effects of this idealization are the production of one ideal ethnographer as well as systematic exclusion of some groups of academics and their knowledges and perspectives, for instance (some) disabled researchers. To increase accessibility, an inclusive version of the method is introduced under the term ‘episodic participant observation’. It opens for a flexible and pragmatic use of participant observation which in this version may be conducted ‘episodic’, meaning for shorter or longer timespans, planned or spontaneously, and at any location. Two empirical examples are used to illustrate the potential scientific value of ‘episodic participant observation’ as a supplementary method in qualitative studies.

Introduction

I vividly remember the first day I went to my master class in social anthropology. Some of the professors were introducing participant observation by sharing their own experiences with this unique method. Together, they were unpacking smells, sounds, and flavours I had never known myself and which stunned me. The atmosphere – thick of curious attention and suppressed eagerness – suggested that my classmates felt the same way.

The room was deep quiet as the class was listening intently when one professor described the feeling of falling asleep on the first night in the jungle. ‘I was filled with a void of loneliness and excitement simultaneously’, the professor explained and continued: ‘It was because I was far away from everything and everyone familiar yet in the biggest fairy-tale of my life’. Another explained the disturbing experience of being presented to food that looked disgusting and eating it anyway to avoid upsetting the host due to the complex system of reciprocity in the area. Yet another shared pictures from an island where the inhabitants were dancing in colourful clothes at a ceremony. Just wow! I have never seen red as red as that. Taken in by the magic of it all, I felt deep within myself that I was at the right course. ‘This is my place’, I thought to myself. In the middle of these amazing adventures and analytically oriented people it felt like I had come home.

When the presentations were finished, I went to speak to one of the attending professors. For years, he had been researching a topic I was interested in exploring myself. Enthusiastically, I told him of my research plan. He listened and nodded, visibly interested.

‘Awesome’, he said eagerly. ‘Good choice of subject! We need more people on this. And where will you be going for the fieldwork’?

I told him that I would do ethnography in the nearby city.

‘Oh’, he said, unable to suppress a mix of surprise and disappointment. ‘So… you will be doing the project here…? in Norway…?’

‘I will’, I confirmed. ‘I guess the main method will have to be interviews in my case. But I will take concrete steps to do participant observations as well, this is important to me’.

‘I see…’, he said slowly, his eyes darting away. Already he was scanning the room for someone with a more interesting ethnographic future to speak to. Soon, he excused himself and was gone. While I did end up working in the same research area as him, we never spoke about my research again. (Memories re-visited and textualized for this article, Svendby)

In this paper, I present the argument that one specific way of conducting participant observation is idealized in the qualitative research community with the production of one ideal ethnographer as well as systematic exclusion of some groups of academics and their knowledges and perspectives as unfortunate effects. The ideal I am referring to is the traditional understanding of participant observation (which I will describe in the next sub-chapter). The characteristics of this way of ‘doing’ leaks into the research discourse – as exemplified in the excerpt above – also a point I will return to in more depth later.

Idealization of one traditional understanding of participant observation has several problematic consequences due to its marginalization of some groups and ways of thinking. It hinders creative re-thinking – as well as pragmatic use – of participant observation which would have supported researchers of all kinds to explore the method and its benefits. To be explicit, the idealization produces disabling barriers which leads certain groups of academics (e.g., some disabled researchers and single parents) to miss out of the method's rewards. Moreover, academia and the society lose the representation of, and in turn knowledge produced by, these groups of academics as they are nudged to abandon – or straight out prevented from using – the research method participant observation altogether.

The critique I present in this paper comes from the position – and in turn insights – of an ‘Other’. Having fallen temporarily ill at the time of the fieldwork meant that my original plan – heading off to a remote village in the jungle for months – was no longer attainable. To me, an untamed master student in social anthropology, this was merely a situation in which the framing of how to conduct participant observation needed creative rethinking. It was not until I had repeatedly encountered and gotten familiar with the hegemonic discourse about The Ethnographer and The Method that it became apparent to me that ‘Other’ ways of ‘being’ and producing data were subordinate – indeed, to the point where it might be disregarded altogether. Facing this ‘truth’ about ethnography – and consequently the startling lack of recognition of the value of diversity in the ethnographer population – inspired me to delve into the past and examine the golden standard of participant observation closely – with this paper as the result.

In the following, I will unpack the argument outlined above and offer an alternative version of the method which I term ‘episodic participant observation’. This version is strategically inclusive to counter the discriminatory effects of the method's traditional and idealized framing. ‘Episodic participant observation’ is offered as a pragmatic alternative of the method to any academic who might want to explore participant observation. I will start by defining participant observation and unpacking the idealization of one version of this method.

Unpacking the ideal version of participant observation

Ethnography entails using your personality and body as the main instrument when you are doing fieldwork, that is, conducting participant observation (Goffman, 1989; Musante, 2015; Stewart, 1998). In the traditional sense, participant observation means that one ‘takes part in the daily activities, rituals, interactions, and events of a group of people as one of the means of learning both the explicit and tacit aspects of their life routines and culture’ (Musante, 2015: 251). To Goffman, it is a ‘technique’ in which

you are close to them [the people under study] while they are responding to what life does to them. I feel that the way this is done is not, of course, just listen to what they talk about, but to pick up on their minor grunts and groans as they respond to their situation (Goffman, 1989: 125).

The method thus means that one spends time with people attentively, strategically seeking to understand them. The ethnographer is consciously aware of her surroundings, using her senses and concentration to absorb details, dynamics, body language, atmospheres and so on (Glesne, 2006). Justesen and Mik-Meyer (2012) emphasize the method's major benefit as that of allowing the researcher to observe real-life, real-time interaction: ‘This makes it possible to analyse the impact on human actions and attitudes, thereby gaining a deeper understanding of the phenomenon studied’ (Justesen and Mik-Meyer, 2012: 97). The result from the ethnographer's attentive presence is data – usually a lot of it – documented as textual products by the researcher in field diaries and field notes. Producing data this way was developed as a technique by renowned anthropologists including Malinowski, Boas and Mead and has been recognized as an important research tool since the early 1900 (Ottenberg, 1990). In anthropology, a much-used concept is that of ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973a) which refers to full descriptions that includes context to enable a more complex understanding of a phenomena. During the research process, the data will be systematized, analyzed, and published as findings in books and academic articles by the researcher. Iconic examples of studies conducted by traditional participant observation includes ¹ Malinowski's study of the trobrianders at Papua New Guinea (1922), Radcliffe-Brown's study of society in the Andaman Islands (1922), Barth's study of the nomads in Persia (1961) and Geertz’ study of the Balinese cockfight (1973b).

While there may be many alternatives of how one might spend time with people and attentively observe them, the presentations of ethnographic studies at the introductory seminar (as outlined in the start of this article) discursively emphasizes and reproduces one specific and taken-for-granted idea of how participant observation ought to be conducted. The implicit premise presented to us – the students – is that to do participant observation ‘right’ one must remain loyal to the traditional understanding of the concept. We learn to understand that the golden standard in social anthropology – which is in line with how it was originally established – is fieldwork lasting for at least one year and undertaken in a remote place – preferably a village – far away from the ethnographer's birth location. Notably, this idealized version of participant observation was originally developed at a time when ethnographers with some exceptions ² consisted of an exclusive group of men who had the opportunity to spend years of their lives studying abroad. Indeed, time is a central issue. It has always been a scarce resource, cultivated freely first and foremost by the privileged. Related to ethnography, this aspect of power seems surprisingly under-developed for such a reflexive field of research. In addition, there is a tendency to uncritically promote the use of time as if the amount of it progressively increases the quality of the data. Why is immersing oneself in long-term fieldwork presented – implicitly or explicitly – as necessary to conduct the method appropriately? What seems to be lacking is a recognition of time as first and foremost a neutral element – a potential – in the context of conducting fieldwork. Surely, massive amounts of time may be used badly by an ethnographer. Time elapsed – no matter the span – is not in itself a proof of quality or rigor in a qualitative study.

While it is fair to say that an elite group (of white men) ruled the discipline for some decades, ‘Others’ have entered over time. For example, women are now a natural part of the profession of social anthropology in many Western countries. Female anthropologists that have made an impact on the discipline and its direction(s) include but are not limited to Douglas with her original analysis of taboo and classifications of dirt and purity (1966), Rosaldo's uncovering of systematic undermining of women in (men's) ethnographic research (1974), Weiner's extensive report from the trobriand island which includes an informed analysis of women’s realities (1988) and Rubin's critical perspectives on gendered hierarchies and discourses of female subordination (2006). Another example of a field that has emerged over time and made an impact is anthropological disability studies. While disabled people have historically been silenced and ‘Othered’ (Campbell, 2009; Garland-Thomson, 2005; Goffman, 1990 [1963]), disability scholars have entered the academic scene and introduced thought-provoking theories and elaborate studies of the body through the lens of disability (Ahlvik-Harju 2016; Couser, 2005; Hendriks, 2012). Important contributions include for instance the work by Shuttleworth on sexual intimacy among men with cerebral palsy (2000) and Garland-Thomson's introduction of staring as a productive interaction between the starer and the staree (2009).

While time has passed and previously excluded groups have joined with invaluable contributions, however, it seems that one idea persists: That ‘true’ and ‘real’ participant observation can only really exist as mimicry of the traditional way of doing it. This ideal was repeated often enough by the professors at the institute when I graduated. Also – as is the nature of hegemonic discourses – it was leaking into the literature. For example, the renowned Norwegian anthropologist Eriksen has written an introductory book in social anthropology. Here, he describes the fieldwork of Malinowski on the trobriand island – lasting for 2 years – as ‘et forbilde for senere generasjoner av etnografer’ [exemplary for later generations of ethnographers] (Eriksen, 2010: 28, my translation). In the third edition from 2010 fieldwork is described as follows:

‘Et feltarbeid kan vare fra noen måneder til to år eller lenger (…) det [er] bred enighet om at antropologen bør oppholde seg i felten så lenge at hennes tilstedeværelse synes tilnærmet naturlig for de fastboende’. [A fieldwork can last from a few months to two years or longer (…) there [is] broad consensus that the anthropologist should stay in the field for so long that her presence seems almost natural to the permanent residents] (Eriksen, 2010: 36, my translation)

In the revised version of the book published in 2021, the understanding of fieldwork has not been altered. Hence, readers still learn that fieldwork must go on for at least ‘a few months’ (Eriksen, 2021: 37). Also, while Eriksen acknowledges that fieldwork may be conducted ‘at home’ (Eriksen, 2010: 39–40), which unfortunately is a somewhat radical statement in this most traditional terrain, it is evident from the use of examples, pictures and overall approach in his books that ‘exotic’ studies abroad are much preferred. In sum, the ideal has been and continues to be long-term fieldwork of participant observation far from home.

The problem of idealizing the traditional understanding of participant observation

The problems of facts are that they are not – and the truth about ideals is that they are merely suggestions, at least in a social constructionist perspective. In disciplines occupied with stigmatization and discriminatory practices, for instance disability studies and feminist research, it is paramount to ask in relation to scientific methods; ‘Whose knowledges? Where and how obtained, by whom, from whom, and for what purposes?’ (Olesen, 2018: 152). These questions are relevant to ask in relation to participant observation as well. Who benefits from the status quo and who is excluded by it? I have already suggested that the ideal suited its founders well – that is, a group of elite men with time to spare. More interestingly, does the traditional version of participant observation – and the men that promoted it – deserve their idealized status? Undoubtedly, the status of deceased male ethnographers and their publications have survived the uncovering of serious flaws and weaknesses in their research. These issues do not disappear simply because we choose to ignore them.

Feminist anthropologists have pointed out the androcentric characteristics of the ethnographic canon. In fact, the works of Malinowski and other early ethnographers suffer greatly from lack of elements that are paramount in feminist research (as well as hallmarks of quality on a general basis in much qualitative research), such as reflexivity, the tracking of bias, representation, transparency, and accountability (Olesen, 2018; Ramazanoğlu and Holland, 2002). Weiner (1988), who followed the tracks of Malinowski, found that his work has underestimated the impact of women in the society, reproducing instead the ideas and ‘truths’ of trobriander men and their gendered views as universal facts. The revelation that male anthropologists had often accessed men only ‒ and promoted their analysis of societies as universal when in fact they have only talked to, observed, and spent time with males, while studying females and gender through the males, decreases the credibility of their research results radically. To exemplify such a case in another context, Eriksen reveals that since both the researchers and the study participants were (mainly) male, and the participants talked much of hunting which was their interest, there has been a faulty understanding that among the yanomamö and fulanis, hunting was the main food source. However, examinations of their diet have later revealed that most of it consisted of nutrition gathered by the women while meat was more of a supplement to the diet (Eriksen, 2010: 129). Revelations such as these prove two significant points. Firstly, it illustrates that the traditional version of the method participant observation is far from perfect. Instead, it has weaknesses that must be admitted and flaws that should be addressed. Such flaws and weaknesses are perfectly understandable and unsurprising considering when the research was conducted. The surprise, in fact, lies in the continuing idealization of the method despite these revelations – and the continuing resistance towards creative exploration of the method when undoubtedly, in terms of rigor and validity, the research method did not function optimally in its original (yet still celebrated) shape. Secondly, it demonstrates the value of representation and the validity it adds to ethnographic research. For instance, the female ethnographer was needed to uncover taken-for-granted ‘facts’ such as the startling point that for decades, research that has been presented as universal facts of men and women was instead male-oriented versions of ideas about men and women produced by and from the male point of view. Moreover, the female anthropologist is needed to access the lived experiences, thoughts, dreams, bodies, and ideas of women around the world – it is needed to enrich and add nuances to the ethnographer's world views. This is probably true of all representations. For instance, in the same manner as the female ethnographer, the disabled ethnographer has a unique point of departure for observing, analyzing, and accessing the embodied and lived realities of people with functional variation from another standpoint – not to say ‘sit-point’ (Garland-Thomson, 2005) – than that of the ‘One’ ethnographer. To illustrate, the embodied and radical understandings of disability that were presented to the reader in The Body Silent (Murphy, 1987) could never have been developed by a non-disabled – ‘ideal’ – anthropologist. Taking this point seriously, moreover, presumes that one must acknowledge the value and necessity of ‘Other’ versions of participant observation as well as critically examine and question taken-for-granted ideas about the ‘ideal’ ethnographer. I will outline and exemplify this point below.

I have stated that the traditional understanding and idealization of one form of participant observation is problematic in the sense that it results in (unnecessary) exclusion of certain groups of researchers (and the researched). Previously, one consequence of such a situation has been identified and investigated as androcentrism. But, what about other groups than women? To disabled researchers, for example, traveling abroad and visiting locations with limited access to health service and lack of universal design in the public sphere might be impossible. Novel insights produced by these members of the academic community in encounter with participant observation might be lost to ethnography due to the disabling barriers they face. Spending long periods in the field might be difficult or impossible also for people who need to tend to certain obligations. For example, single parents caring for a child or others caring for other family members may be forced to abandon the method of participant observation in its idealized form. Such obligations will often be tightly associated with other parameters such as ethnicity, gender, age and so on, which increases the probability of systematic patterns of exclusion. Time, health, relationships, economy, research interests – indeed, life itself – may easily get in the way for the traditional version of participant observation to be either attainable or desirable for certain groups. If some groups are systematically prevented or discouraged from using the method, one will miss out on representation from these groups, including their unique perspectives, interpretations, and knowledges. This, I argue, is an unacceptable loss to academic knowledge production. Academia risks cementing hegemonic ideas by implicitly but structurally facilitating one homogeneous group – that is, the One body – to conduct participant observation which is deeply problematic – yet not uncommon. We have been there before, and it is a place from which lack of nuances and navel gazing are produced. Can we, for example, trust that non-disabled researchers will be able to abandon ‘the non-disabled stare’ (Garland-Thomson, 2009) and see the world through the eyes of disabled people? Will non-disabled researchers present universal ideas of humans, but in fact ignore disabled people or reduce their worldviews to that of non-disabled people in similar ways as the gendered ignorance of males towards females in social anthropology? How about perspectives that we do not even know of – and never will – because the researcher holding its knowledge is prevented from conducting the method? It is important to be critically aware that the idealized version of participant observation produces the ideal ethnographer. This is one homogenous ideal, in most cases a fully functioning person with few responsibilities, that is, in most cases a young, white, non-disabled male that moves free of obligations or restrictions, gendered or otherwise. Producing knowledge from this perspective – and only this perspective – is both a loss for ‘Other’ researchers and for academia – which will systematically miss out on certain types of knowledges and continue producing the truths and worldviews of the privileged.

Participant observation as a method offers unique insights into people's lived life and meaning making. It would be unfortunate if the method got rejected by potential users due to strict and limited ideas of how it ‘should’ be done to qualify as a ‘properly’ conducted research method. After all, the ethnographer describes the approach used in line with standard research guidelines anyways. Hence, the rigor and transparency of the research is intact, there will be no issues of confusion around how and where the research was conducted. Why, then, should participant observation be framed in a way that in consequence limits its circulation? Instead of making implicit or explicit restrictions, this method should be framed in a way that makes it more, not less, accessible, widening its use. With this as my ambition, I present one study context followed by two empirical examples to illustrate the value of an alternative version of participant observation. This version, which I term ‘episodic participant observation’ will be defined in the discussion following the examples.

An alternative version of participant observation in practice

Context

The context used to elucidate the value of the argument presented in this article is my doctoral study in medical anthropology ³ (Svendby, 2019). I will use it to illustrate potential rewards of supplementing interview studies with ‘episodic participant observation’.

During the study period, I interviewed 14 subjects who each had been the driver and sustained injuries in a road traffic accident in Norway. In addition to interviews, I systematically used opportunities in which I could conduct participant observation of the same subjects. The aim of the study was to explore how the study participants experienced their everyday lives in the aftermath of their accidents. This included an exploration of their realities and meaning making in a disability perspective, for instance their experiences of the rehabilitation process, of social encounters with people in their surroundings, and of living in their bodies (Svendby, 2019: 14). Most of the study participants were recruited through the hospital in which they received rehabilitation services. The recruitment process was complex and involved ethical considerations made by medical staff at the hospital. All the study participants contacted the researcher on their own initiative after receiving a formal document with information about the study's purpose, methods, topics under study, and more. The process of securing informed consent followed the regulations of the Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) and the Privacy Ombudsman for Research, who manages ethical considerations and approval regarding research at the rehabilitation hospital. Both had approved the conduct of the study prior to the fieldwork. A detailed overview regarding the recruitment process, ethical considerations and more is outlined in my dissertation (Svendby, 2019).

The original plan was to use participant observation as the main method and conduct the fieldwork in a rehabilitation hospital. When it came to the actualization of this plan, however, reality interfered. The main obstacle was that some time needed to have passed between the accidents and participation in the study. Time would have allowed the participants both to have settled in their new situations and to have gained some experiences and reflections of their new realities – which was essential to investigate the research questions. However, I had not taken into consideration when outlining the study design that most subjects were stationed at the hospital first and foremost in the initial period after their accidents. Later, when it was relevant for them to participate, most had moved home. Thus, the study participants were spread all around the country at the time of participation. This situation was less than ideal for participant observation. In fact, I met only one of the subjects in a hospital setting and had to travel, sometimes long distances, to meet the others, often in their homes and only for a few hours at the time (Svendby, 2019). With this reality revealed early in the project period, it was clear that I would not get the opportunity to conduct a traditional ethnographic study. Instead, I had to adjust the methodological decisions according to the new realities and went from a study rooted in participant observation to one where qualitative interviewing was the main method.

As an anthropologist trained to regard traditional participant observation as ‘The Method’ in qualitative research, the change of methods was quite the blow. The observant reader will remember that I had already missed one opportunity to conduct ‘real’ ethnographic research in my master project. I was not willing to abandon the idea. I therefore ended up with a hybrid solution, actively seizing opportunities to conduct participant observation in settings involving the same people I was going to interview. The best opportunities occurred before and after interview settings. For example, I would meet the study participants when I arrived at the station, and we might go for a walk in their neighbourhood, take a drive together if they picked me up with their cars, eat together at a café or go to the store. While these situations were far from the long-term visits at exotic locations promoted by the (all white, male and a few female, middle-aged, heterosexual, ethnic Norwegian) professors at my institute, they proved to be valuable on their own terms. I will illustrate their value in the next section by unpacking empirical cases from this untraditional anthropological fieldwork to illustrate the rigor of the argument under examination.

Example 1 of ‘episodic participant observation’: The stroll

An episode of participant observation that came to matter in the production of knowledge occurred in the first real-life meeting between me and the study participant I have named Vidar (for anonymity). I was openly debating with him whether I should arrive at his place by car or by using public transportation. I was nudged to do the latter because Vidar suggested that it would give me more of an idea of his lived realities after the accident than if I came by car. He wrote in an e-mail: ‘Using public transportation will give you an insight in how I have been for 14 years with that time-pressure and how the times never quite fit’. Having kids and responsibility to deliver and pick them up every day I could not – as a childfree woman at the time – even begin to imagine his efforts. The least I could do was reflecting on the matter on the train, I thought, as I ordered the tickets.

The first interview with Vidar took place at his home. I remember being puzzled when he came to mention during our conversation that he owned a car that stood in the garage. I knew that he had taken his driver's license at the first possible convenience – the day after he turned 18. He was that keen to get it! The reason why he had not done it at his actual birthday was that it had not been possible to get the test that day. However, I also knew that since his accident soon after, he had not been able to drive a car. This was 14 years ago at the time of our interview. So why would he own a car? When I asked, Vidar explained that since the accident, he had regularly done the mandatory tests he needed to pass to get his driver’s license back. He had failed the tests due to lack of necessary functional abilities. Nevertheless, a car was – and had been for years – waiting in the garage until his goal of getting his license back was achieved. For now, he drove the car in and out of the garage from time to time. It was not legal, but neither was it too dangerous, he established. And this was what he had the opportunity to do car-wise for the time being, so he did it. Also, he explained, he was soon about to do his next shot at the driving test, and this time he was confident that he would pass the test.

‘It is important for you?’, I asked, superfluously.

‘Yes’, he said. ‘Because… then I can transport my kids to and from events. And also… it increases my freedom. I might go do some shopping when my kids are at school and in the kindergarten. I might go shopping without asking my parents or my in-laws. After all, it is incredibly far between everything… [he was living in a village] and then you have my kids’ classmates living all over the place, here and there.’ His explanations made sense. It was easy to understand that it would ease Vidar's everyday life if he could drive his kids to friends and events and do some shopping without having to ask anybody for help. The driving in and out of the garage was a little stranger. Also, owning a car with the ambition of getting a license – a costly and time-consuming business all things considered – seemed like a strange priority for someone who had failed to do so year after year. If I had not taken a stroll with Vidar, I might have left it at that – just registered some oddities that had been leaking into the conversation from a man who obviously had been very taken in by cars from an early age and seemed never to have let go of this interest. I would probably have interpreted the driving in and out of the garage as a symbol of him being a car enthusiast. The stroll, however, entirely changed my view of his everyday life and struggles.

The aim of the stroll was to pick up some groceries at the store and walk home to Vidar's house after. The road was paved and both steep and winding. We were walking downhill on the left-hand side and had to walk over to the other side of the road to get to the side of the store which sat a few hundred meters further down. This task took much effort. Vidar needed a lot of space due to all his movements. He was shaking violently while walking; his body was all over the place. I asked him at one point how he experienced walking. He said: ‘My brake motor skills and some stuff like that are destroyed’. I answered: ‘Oh’. On the inside I was shocked by the extent of his injuries. It was very unfamiliar walking beside Vidar. Firstly, I felt that we were making a spectacle of ourselves and that the attention from people in our surroundings was somewhat embarrassing. However, I stopped focusing on that egocentric aspect of the situation rather soon. Perhaps it was because I got used to it, or accepted it, almost immediately – or perhaps it was because there was so much else that took my concentration in the setting since secondly, it was physically demanding walking by his side. I had to be ready at any time to jump or run to the side, avoiding his body smashing into mine. Sometimes, we had to change places so that Vidar could follow his plan on how to use the terrain to control his body without my presence interfering. ‘Here, we need to switch places before we keep going’, he would yell hastily at one of his target locations. By this he was not only controlling his own body, but also guiding me on how I should maneuver my body in relation to his. I was stunned by his art of walking. As his brake skills did not work, his legs would run faster and faster down any hillside. So, he had developed a technique using a zig-zag movement pattern to slow his body down when necessary, skillfully using up- and down hills to adjust the tempo of his legs. His moving pattern was some kind of a sideways pendulum-walk. I adjusted my body as well as I managed; following his pace, keeping the right distance to my best abilities, and jumping away to avoid a collision if he seemed to have picked up too much of a momentum in my direction.

In one sense, we did not walk far, but it took its time. In addition to the extra energy Vidar invested in moving forward and avoiding falling, the distance he walked was much farther than the distance I had walked due to his movement pattern. When we arrived at the grocery store, Vidar's shirt was soaked with sweat, and his forehead was dripping wet. Despite what the stroll obviously had cost him physically – as well as what it would take socially – Vidar was in a good mood as we entered the store. While inside, he was joking with the staff and taking the time to assure that I was good, even wondering if there was anything he could help me with.

While the stroll took no longer than perhaps an hour altogether, I felt in my heart that what I had experienced would stay with me for the rest of my life. I was stunned by the strength and attitude I was witnessing. Also, my view of Vidar's practice of driving in and out of the garage had changed in the past hour – as had my understanding of his insistence on owning a car. It was much more complex than I had grasped in our conversation. Later, engaging in a reflexive practice where I was re-visiting the data and writing down my thoughts and observations from my encounter with Vidar, I stopped when I came to a point in the interview where he had spoken of the car in association with freedom. I could only imagine what it would mean for the everyday life of this man to be able to drive to get his kids from kindergarten, drive to the store, drive altogether as an alternative to the astronomical task it must be for him, physically and mentally as well as socially, every time he leaves his house and engages – again – in what for most others comes automatically with no strain at all: the work of walking. I had not even been able to view walking this way – as work – before I went on the stroll and learnt what it might take for another human being to move his body around.

Example 2 of ‘episodic participant observation’: The pizza gathering

The second episode of participant observation I will describe to illuminate its potential value as a supplementary method in interview studies occurred at an informal pizza gathering. The gathering came about because two of the study participants were present on the same day in the city where I lived. Recognizing this as a rare opportunity for participant observation, I seized the chance to invite them both to my place to eat together, socialize and talk. In the recruitment phase, the two men had given their consent to partake in settings involving participant observation. Practicing ‘process consent’ (Sparkes and Smith 2014: 214), the men were reminded of this before and at the gathering, both confirming that they agreed to being studied in this setting.

Beforehand, both had told me that this was the first time they were about to talk intimately to another person who had sustained and experienced life with similar injuries as themselves. Their similar yet different life stories – both had the same diagnosis from an accident in which they had been the driver, but one was working full time and had established himself with a family while the other was unemployed and described himself as alone and lonely – was one motivation for introducing them to each other. I was interested to see if ‘emic’ knowledge might occur in a setting where they were interacting on their own terms. The ‘emic’ level refers to life as it is experienced and described by the persons themselves, that is, the way things appear to them (Eriksen, 2010: 44).

I had positioned the two men at the same long-side of a table while I was sitting alone at the long-side opposite them. This positioning enabled me to move freely between the kitchen and the living room, checking on the pizza or simply discreetly withdrawing from the table at my convenience. Also, it allowed the men to face each other directly if they wanted to or keep some distance if they preferred. The gathering started by me introducing the men to each other. Here, I name them Ludvik and Even for anonymity. Then, I asked if they would like to tell each other something about their accidents since this was a common experience they had brought into the study. They nodded and Ludvik asked Even if he would like to start. Even agreed and started to tell his story. From this point on, my presence in the room was secondary.

The two men seemed curious of each other from the very beginning. Ludvik in particular had many questions which he launched into sporadically while Even told his story. Often, the questions were asked in a way which suggested that he related what was said to his own experience with the same issue. It seemed as if he was searching for his own experience in the experience of Even. For example, when Even talked about waking up from intubation (coma) after the accident, Ludvik asked:

Did you struggle with your articulation after waking up?

‘Yes,’ Even confirmed. ‘My right hand side was paralyzed and I had to train all muscles. I struggled speaking and people did not understand what I was saying.’ Here, Ludvik would follow up by telling about his own experience of waking up from intubation.

As the time passed, the men got more and more familiar with each other. At one point, they had turned their bodies towards each other and were comparing their bodies’ injuries in detail:

Ludvik is sitting in the chair facing Even. Ludvik is bending a little forward and pointing with both hands at different locations on his head, showing where he had sustained injuries in the accident. ‘There and there’.

Even bends forward too now, pointing at his own head and demonstrating his injuries: ‘I was damaged there and damaged there’.

Both are gesticulating and commenting on the injuries of the other.

‘Yeah, there. Yes!’ they comment while they are preoccupied showing the other the exact place of the injuries. Both are nodding and confirming with mm's while this is taking place. (From field diary, Svendby)

While observing how Ludvik and Even illustrated their injuries to each other, the difference between the situation unfolding before my eyes and how they had explained it to me in their interviews was striking. In their interviews they had both been somewhat formal and factual about the injuries, explaining these to me rather coolly and in medical terms. So, the emotionally potent and detailed elaborations that took place as they shared experiences with each other was something else completely. Clearly, the nature, effect and location of each injury was important to them, and much more so than I had gotten the impression of in the interviews where it had all been described rather superficially. Moreover – and probably relatedly – I was struck with how they talked about their experiences of meeting and talking to others after their accidents. They conveyed an experience of being alone, alone with the knowledge of what had occurred and how it was, alone with the grave, unfamiliar and frightening consequences of their injuries. It seemed they found that others could not relate to what they had and would be going through. While listening to them speaking about this it became clear to me that I was one of these others. As with friends and family members they understood that I came from a place of kindness. Nevertheless, I could not understand, not really, and any information conveyed to me had to be adjusted. The insight that this was true became clear due to the ‘emic’ knowledge, answers and not the least questions that seeped into the room due to the ways in which the men were talking and socializing. Increasingly, it dawned on me how precious this setting was; I was getting the contours on something that I would never have been able to detect at all had I not moved out of the formal frame of the pure interview setting. I would never have asked the questions Ludvik asked Even. I would never have invited either of them to discuss the same topics unfolding before my eyes because I did not have the prerequisite to formulate the points of departures for a conversation the way that they did. For example, in relation to his injuries, Ludvik talked with Even about things in a ‘fog’ and of not having control of himself. Even talked about involuntarily changing his persona due to the accident and how it felt to analytically be aware of it at some level while still not being able to control it. Here, Ludvik could relate and they got into an analysis of how people in their surroundings reacted to this, During the conversation they were completing and challenging each other's analytical points. When the men left my apartment, it felt like an eternity had passed. In reality, it was 2 h and 15 min. The insights I had gotten into their everyday lives during this gathering was invaluable and unlike anything that might have been produced in an interview with me alone with either of them.

Discussion: ‘Episodic participant observation’

The two empirical examples presented above demonstrate that it might be scientifically rewarding to conduct participant observation even when it occurs in an untraditional manner. This point is strengthened by experiences reported by other ethnographers as well. For example, Trigger et al. (2012) introduce the concept of ‘revelatory moments’ which may occur during fieldwork and demonstrate that valuable insights from the field may occur suddenly. The researchers explore how ‘intense subjective experiences on the part of the ethnographer can be instructive in their import for the results of projects – albeit at times in an initially confusing and ambiguous way’ (Trigger et al., 2012: 514). These are unpredictable, surprising situations that may or may not occur in the field, however, when they do occur they may have a big impact on the understanding of the phenomena under study. While arguing for the value of such moments, the researchers emphasize that for them ‘such moments have arisen from lengthy immersion, engagement and related periods of participant observation’ (Trigger et al., 2012: 514). In doing so, the researchers underscore the solidity of their work, leaning on the hegemonic ideal of ‘real’ participant observation. For the sake of the argument in this article, I remark that while the length of the fieldwork may increase the chance of ‘revelatory moments’ to occur, one may spend a long time in the field and not experience it, just as it may occur during brief fieldworks.

Previously, ethnographers have supported the instructive nature of surprises in the field (Hastrup, 1992; Strathern, 2000), insights gained from shorter fieldwork (Wood, 2007), and the importance of knowledge produced by mobile methods such as walking (Chang, 2017; Holgersson, 2018) and driving together (Kusenbach, 2003; Lynch, 2024). Fujii leans on such trends when she introduces the concept of ‘accidental ethnography’ (Fujii, 2015) which is based on the same idea as ‘revelatory moments’ but develops it further. The researcher presents the method as such:

What scholars have yet to theorize more fully is the productive potential of ‘accidental moments’ – those instances when the researcher is not engaged in an interview or archive, but in the mundane tasks not often specified in the research design, such as standing in line, drinking coffee, buying food, or talking to hotel staff. By paying attention to the conversations and scenes that play out in these moments, the researcher can deepen her understanding of the research context and gain local knowledge that can be vital to the larger project. I call this process ‘accidental ethnography’ (Fujii, 2015: 526).

The concept relates to situations that, in contrast to interviews, for example, where the researcher has planned what to ask and so on, moments of insight happen by chance: ‘The researcher cannot control the content or timing; she can only learn to observe and record her observations in more systematic fashion’ (Fujii, 2015: 527). The novelty in this idea lies in the acceptance of and potential of using it in shorter fieldworks. Also, the researcher critiques the insistence of the long-term immersion of fieldwork. Records of the ‘accidents’ are presented as a method including briefer periods of fieldwork.

Regarding my critique of the idealization of the traditional version of participant observation I introduce the concept of ‘Episodic participant observation’. While related to ‘revelatory moments’ and ‘accidental ethnography’ it differs from these methods particularly by representing a strategic method. It is a method in which the researcher systematically seeks opportunities to conduct participant observation, for example before or after an interview. The method, therefore, is not accidental, but planned and structured with the aim of gaining knowledge and insights into the phenomena under study. Therefore, the method will be introduced in the research design. In practice, ‘Episodic participant observation’ is a pragmatic use of participant observation where the ethnographer implements its techniques over a short time span, here unspecified as a period. A period may last for some minutes, hours, or days. ‘Episodic participant observation’ may be conducted one or several times during a study. Also, episodes of participant observation might be planned beforehand or occur spontaneously. It may involve few or many people. ‘Episodic participant observation’ might be implemented in any kind of study and occur at any location – abroad or in the researcher's own culture, in a village or in a city; anywhere. One main characteristic of ‘episodic participant observation’ is its flexibility. I present it as a practical approach aiming to make participant observation accessible and easy to implement as a supplementary research method in any study and regardless of the researcher's functional abilities or personal circumstances. It is a prerequisite, however, that participants must be aware of and consent to the use of participant observation before its use, and that the study follows ethical guidelines for qualitative research (see for example NESH: https://www.forskningsetikk.no/en/guidelines/social-sciences-and-humanities/guidelines-for-research-ethics-in-the-social-sciences-and-the-humanities/). In addition to representing an inclusive version of participant observation, it is also introduced as a critique – an alternative that challenges the hegemonic ideal of the traditional understanding of participant observation.

In the case of my doctoral project, which is used to concretize what ‘episodic participant observation’ may look like in practice, participant observation was not an obvious alternative. However, choosing to creatively explore new – and less than ideal – possibilities of how to conduct participant observation from my position as a non-ideal ethnographer according to the traditional viewpoint turned out to be fruitful. The main idea of using participant observation is that sometimes what is seen as ‘the mundane, taken-for-granted, and unremarkable (to participants) features of everyday life that the interviewees might not feel were worth commenting upon’ (Sparkes and Smith, 2014: 100) might spring to life as invaluable reveals. It might increase the researcher's capability to understand the complexity of data. In my case, this definitively happened. Experiencing Vidar's (art)work of walking with my own body – walking beside him, crashing into him, smelling his sweat, and listening to his increasingly heavy breathing – offered insights into the everyday life and struggles of this man that would never have come to the fore had I chosen to abandon the possibilities of using ‘episodic participant observation’. Also, had the conversations with Even and Ludvik been restricted to interview settings only, I would never have gotten the emic insights that were made available by spending time with them at the pizza gathering. While comparing their injuries, examining each other's bodies, and talking to each other about the experience of having to explain their situations to others, I got invaluable insights into their lived realities and understandings – and of myself as unknowledgeable from their viewpoints.

Considering my experience, I encourage researchers to consider using participant observation in studies where it is relevant – but where one might easily abandon it because one is not in a position to conduct it traditionally. I emphasize this point because even when conducted episodically within a short timeframe, participant observation might significantly enrich data in interview studies. This, I argue, is particularly true in disability studies and other research fields in which the materiality of the body is of importance. The reason for this is that participant observation brings materiality into the study in concrete ways. It holds the potential of learning of and about bodily experiences which is paramount for many disabled people. Indeed, some representatives of this group of humans have expertise on the materiality of the body – and prerequisites for conducting participant observation – which will be found nowhere else. It is my hope that introducing a pragmatic approach to participant observation will be useful for researchers who are interested in using this method but find it too ambitious in its traditional shape. ‘Episodic participant observation’ is offered as a more accessible and inclusive alternative.

Conclusions

In this article, I have argued that an idealization of a traditional understanding of participant observation is produced and maintained in the ethnographic research discourse. One consequence of such an idealization is that participant observation becomes an inaccessible research method for certain groups of academics. To specify: Establishing that ‘real’ fieldwork lasts for at least some months and in exotic locations will exclude some academics from engaging with ethnography. In effect of the idealization of participant observation – and in turn the production of the ideal ethnographer – therefore, some groups – such as (some) disabled researchers – will be systematically prevented from using the method. In consequence, these groups will miss the rewards of participant observation. Furthermore, the academic community will miss out on the representation, insights, and particular perspectives of the groups to which the method has been made inaccessible. This is both deeply problematic, questionable – and unnecessary. In response, I offer the method ‘episodic participant observation’ as a flexible and pragmatic alternative to the traditional understanding of ‘real’ participant observation. Lastly, I suggest that by rejecting alternatives and continuing to idealize the ‘One’ way of conducting participant observation, we simultaneously choose to forgive and forget the troubling issues that are at play (e.g., methodological weaknesses, straight-out flaws, and problems of representations) and maintain instead a problematic status quo. Considering our obligation to search for truths, rigor, and quality in research, and remembering that no ideal should be held above critical scrutiny, there is no excuse for avoiding questioning the legitimacy of any gold – and sometimes mainly old – standard. Moreover, we have a responsibility to welcome ‘Other’ ways of knowing, doing and being. These too must be subjected to critical examination but let us not forget to recognize their potential of contributing novel scientific insights – and their contributions already given.