week 3: Field Research (Observation and its Types, Participatory Rapid Appraisal

Field Research: 

Field research is appropriate when we want to learn about, understand, or describe a group of interacting people. It helps us answer research questions such as: How do people do Y in the social world? or What is the social world of X like? We can use field research to identify aspects of the world that are inaccessible using other methods (e.g., surveys, experiments) as studying street gangs or bridal showers.

Most field research studies focus on a particular location or setting. These range from a small group (twenty or thirty people) to entire communities. Beginning field researchers should start with a relatively small group who interact with each other on a regular basis in a fixed setting (e.g., a street corner, church, barroom, beauty salon, baseball field). Some researchers used amorphous social experiences that are not fixed in place but where intensive interviewing and observation are the only way we can gain access to the experience, for example, the feelings of a person who has been mugged or who is the widow of someone who committed suicide.1

To use consistent terminology, I will call the people studied in field setting members. They are insiders or natives in the field and belong to a group, subculture, or social setting that the outside field researcher wants to learn about.

Field researchers have explored a wide variety of social settings, subcultures, and aspects of social life2 (see Figure 1). Places, where my students have conducted successful short-term, small-scale field research studies, include a beauty salon, daycare center, bakery, bingo parlor, bowling alley, church, coffee shop, laundromat, police dispatch office, nursing home, strip club, tattoo parlor, and a weight room.