Dear Katja,

Thank you for your interesting comments, and for guiding my attention in the direction of cultural probing. I definitely think that a combination of observations, interviews, and the tools of cultural probing, such as personal diaries, video documentation, etc would be interesting to try out. And I have to check that paper of yours out! Thank you!

"But it is not always possible for the researcher to engage in the environment he/she wishes to study, for instance when you set out to study elite performers' learning processes but does not have the skills and expertise that enables you to participate in these processes."

Being a participant observer is not contingent of your ability to perform the actions that the participants perform. Adler & and Adler (1987) give a schemata to view membership roles that may be more useful for ethnographic information through observation. I use ethnographic techniques to research youth sport teams. I am an adult male, obviously I cannot go practice with high school football players. But I can position myself as a complete member of the group/team by serving in roles that put me in proximity for participant observations to be useful (and perhaps closer to "doing sensory ethnography").

That being said, I would be careful about making claims of "doing" ethnography in any form. There is much contention to what constitutes ethnography. Perhaps if we frame the discussion around "using" research techniques without claims of "doing" it may free us of dogmatic notions of allegiance to any one way of research.

An alternative is to give the camera to your informants and ask them to describe his/her experience through the camera.

Dear Jordan,

Thank you for your interesting comment. Can you tell a little more about (and exemplify) how you "position myself as a complete member of the group/team by serving in roles that put me in proximity for participant observations to be useful"?

Dear Delphine,

Do you have experience with handing over the camera to informants, and publiced material on this?

Ole,

Apologies for the delay in response.

Previously, I noted that you could potentially, "position myself as a complete member of the group/team by serving in roles that put me in proximity for participant observations to be useful." I positioned myself by gaining entry to the group as a coach. While I could not practice the game of football I could gain proximity by virtue of my role in the group. This goes beyond mere participant observations and allows access to a more complete narrative. Essentially, "their" story turns into "our" story- one I was qualified to tell. It evolves into a situation where I am a part of the group but I still retain my role as researcher (for those who are nervous about going native).

Reuben A Bufford May (Sociology Professor at Texas A&M) wrote a book using this method. Living through the Hoop: High school basketball, race, and the American dream.

Ole,

You could have a look at that paper: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10253866.2011.574834#.U4mMqSiVss0

I hope it will be useful.

Thank you, delphine. Looks very interesting!

Dear Ole

Thank you for such an interesting question. I do think it is possible to undertake some forms of sensory ethnography even if we ourselves as researchers do not participate fully in the embodied activities we are studying.  As a researcher who engages with sociological phenomenology, I would never claim that we can 'know' another's experience, but I do think we can empathically 'enter into' another's lifeworld, at least partially.  If our participants provide rich, detailed and grounded descriptions of the sensory dimensions of their experience, I think some excellent ethnographic work is possible.  Having the autoethnographic or autophenomenographic dimension is of course a huge advantage, but being positioned a little further toward the 'outsider' end of the spectrum can have its advantages also.

By the way, I really enjoyed your article with Susanne R and Mette K C on jumping together.

Kind regards, Jaqui

Thank you, Jacquelyn, for this very interesting comment and perspective on my question. I sympathize with your view and think that even though I didn't participated in the jumpers training (in the 'jumping together'-article that you mention) or for that matter the rowers training (cf. the 'joining the rhythm'-article), I got some sense of the athletes' practice and how it made sense to them. One of the keys is - as you mention - to emphathise with and enact with curiousity towards your informants life worlds. It would be interesting to combine such field work methods with a more actively engagement of the athletes in the research proces, for instance by having them make notes about their experiences and feeling during the training etc.

Thank you for the nice words about article. I really enjoy reading much of your stuff too. It is really inspiring.

Best regrads,

Ole

Look at this publication: https://www.academia.edu/8128766/Pink_S._and_J._Morgan_2013_Short_term_ethnography_intense_routes_to_knowing_Symbolic_Interaction_36_3_351-361

Dear Ole,

You could have a look at Jean Rouch work and his concept of participant camera. I recommend his film on the lion hunt. I like the way he explains how he tried to immerse himself into the field and how he collaborated with informants to shoot that film.

Best,

Delphine

Hi Ole - many thanks for the link to the Pink & Morgan article in SI, look forward to reading.  Hope all's well with you.  Best wishes, Jaqui

I'd like to share the research I work on as another example that may resonate with this captivating question, with Pink's sensory ethnography concept, cultural probe and - what Carroll calls 'alongsider' role in ethnography. Carroll's article is: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.5172/mra.3.3.246

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