Doing participant observation
Reflections on embodied research and digital ethnography
Since November, I’ve been collaborating with two colleagues, Chloe and Don, who I met through my work as manager of the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership (CRP) five years ago. Chloe Dragon Smith is a young woman born and raised in Somba K’é (Yellowknife), Denendeh (Northwest Territories). She is of German, Dënesųłiné, Métis, and French heritage, and Chloe grew up close to her Indigenous cultural values, learning traditional skills for living on the land. She is the co-founder of an outdoor learning initiative called Bushkids, located in Yellowknife, and she explores Indigenous-led conservation in many forms. Chloe and her partner Robert, who is Mikisew Cree, are the only Indigenous peoples living in Wood Buffalo National Park, land which was part of their traditional territories before all Dene and Cree peoples were displaced from that land to make way for the park. Don Carruthers Den Hoed (he/him) is a settler Research Associate at the University of British Columbia where he leads the Canadian Parks Collective for Innovation and Leadership (CPCIL), a pan-Canadian parks and protected areas leadership and research network aimed at revealing, connecting, and transforming an inclusive community of park leaders, academics, and Indigenous knowledge-holders. We have wanted to collaborate to offer training for conservation leaders connected to the CRP for several years. When that collaboration started to move forward through my work with the CRP, my Ph.D. committee agreed that it was too good an opportunity to pass up. They directed me to collect data through participant observation and archive it until I am further along in my program and am able to do the analysis.
Since November, we have been offering a pilot workshop series for five non-Indigenous national-scale conservation organizations in Canada at no cost to the organizations. The purpose is to support these organizations in deepening their commitments to supporting Indigenous-led conservation and enacting reconciliatory and decolonial change. Don and Chloe have been designing and facilitating the workshops, and we frequently meet as a team to discuss potential approaches to the content and workshop design. Don and Chloe always make final decisions and to date, they have been delivering the content and guiding discussion during the workshops. I have been doing administrative labour to organize participants and schedule the sessions, and I document all the conversations that take place as part of the research process. We have been working with twelve participants (2-3 from each organization), many of whom are senior leaders within their organizations. The participants are mainly white and are almost all settlers; there are two self-identified Indigenous participants in the program. As of early April, the program has consisted of:
A one hour pre-meet with participants from each organization to discuss program goals and objectives
A four-day virtual residency in November. Each day was a four-hour workshop
Several individual and/or organizational 1:1 check-ins between participants and the facilitators
A four-hour workshop on the third Friday of each month in January, February and March.
We do not yet have an end date for the program. It is being co-created with participants through a learner-centered, relational, and emergent process. We are working towards a land-based retreat in Fall 2024.
Embodied experience as researcher
When I reflect on my experiences doing participant observation to date, what first comes to mind is the relationship between my embodied self as researcher and the work of doing participant observation. Grasseni (2022) argues that “as ethnographers, our tools are first and foremost our eyes, our bodies, our senses. We observe while we participate” (pg. 13). In the following short reflection, I will contemplate some of what I am learning through the embodied experience of research observation and some emerging questions I have as I grow and learn as a becoming researcher.
First, it is important to note that several workshop participants asked me not to video or audio record the virtual workshops. They worried that, as senior leaders within their organizations, they would self-censor to avoid potential reputational risk to their organizations should the recording be leaked in some way. Consequently, I have had to rely on my ability to capture data in the moment, which has proven challenging in a virtual environment for many reasons. I have come to realize that when people participate in a virtual workshop, the experience is overwhelmingly one of verbal exchange. People don’t take a lot of pauses when they are speaking like they would in conversation with someone in person. Spontaneous interruptions from others participating in the discussion don’t often occur either. Instead, the workshops are like one monologue after another, repeatedly for hours at a time. In a virtual setting people use the chat function in Zoom to reflect and respond to what is being shared verbally. This happens most often when someone says something that resonates with another participant, when someone says something vulnerable and other participants offer their support and encouragement, or when someone offers an observation that creates a new insight for another participant. This is important data that needs to be documented alongside and in relationship with what is being spoken aloud.
Photo of my left forearm and hand, fingers extended against a white background. I am wearing a grey wrist brace.
I have found it very difficult to stay ‘on top of’ all the data that is being generated during these exchanges. The sheer volume is overwhelming, and I find myself feeling anxious about not being able to document everything. While I know I will miss some things, I do try to capture as much of what is shared verbally as I can. Once something is uttered, the conversation moves on very quickly. I worry that I will miss the next important or interesting data point because I’m still thinking about or trying to capture the last thing I heard. It feels like I’m standing in fast-moving water, trying to document a precise moment when everything is changing second by second. When I experiment with taking notes more slowly, pausing to assess and listen for what feels important, there is a disconnect between my brain and my body. My fingers can’t transition from being still to typing quickly enough. Before I know it, that important moment passes and I’m no longer deeply listening. Instead, I’m focusing my attention on typing. This takes me out of the moment in a way that is jarring and disorienting.
So instead, I type everything I can. The consistent tap-tap-tap helps me to keep my fingers moving and it becomes something my body does on autopilot, like breathing. This enables me to dissociate from the physicality of typing so I can focus my mind more on listening. While this data collection strategy has had some benefits, it has also had consequences for my body. I have developed carpal tunnel syndrome from all the repetitive moments and lack of breaks. My hands, fingers, and arms go numb. My grip strength has been impacted – I can barely lift a plate from the cupboard and I am less able to do things I enjoy, like strength training, gardening, or playing hockey. The workshops are ongoing, so I need to manage my symptoms. I wear braces at night, and I’ve readjusted my workspace to optimize the ergonomic setup. However, I am concerned about the physical toll this process is having on my body.
Affect, emotion, and the virtual environment
The pressure I feel to document all the verbal communication that takes place in these workshops means I am less attentive to other kinds of data. In particular, I am less attentive to affect and physical cues that would help me trace the way affect is moving through the group and influencing their learning. This is challenging because affect is an important part of anti- and decolonial pedagogies (Zembylas, 2018; Ragan, 2011).
I keep Zoom open and in gallery view on a second monitor while I am doing the live transcription of the workshops. This helps me quickly scan and see everyone from time to time. I can notice where they are, whether they are experiencing disruptions from family or work, and their general body language. However, I am not able to closely watch how participants respond to one another as they are speaking and to see if and how those physical cues are different between the participants. While I am a bit distracted due to the notetaking, I think part of why I am focusing so much verbal communication is that I am finding it very difficult to read people’s physical cues and sense emotion in the virtual environment. I haven’t met any of the people participating in the research in person yet, so I lack context for their body language and movement. This is even true for my collaborators, the workshop facilitators. Only occasionally do a make note if someone looks uncomfortable (shifting in seat, looking off in the distance away from the screen, or down instead of attempting to make eye contact). Most often, I will pause my notetaking if someone speaks with thick emotion in their voice or if they verbally indicate that they are challenged by an idea or are feeling emotional. Otherwise, emotion feels disconnected and distant.
I know that the workshop participants feel connected to one another. In one-on-one conversations, most of the participants expressed feeling surprised by the strength of the relationships they have cultivated with one another in a virtual environment. Most have also expressed gratitude for the cohort and view the workshop as a “safe space” where they can share their vulnerabilities with trusted colleagues. Curiously, I feel emotionally disconnected from the group. This is unusual for me because I am usually someone who very easily feels deep emotional connections to people – even people I haven’t met in person before. I wonder if the disconnect I am experiencing is because I am playing the role of researcher - I am both ‘in’ the experience and outside of it – documenting it and listening in a different way (Spradley, 1980). I try to stay connected to my body but it’s hard in a virtual space. I am pulled more into my head than my heart. I am also curious about the way the numbness in my hands mirrors the affective numbness I am experiencing and I am troubled by my lack of attention to affect in my participant observation practice.
Why is affect important for decolonial pedagogies? Rice et al. (2022) draw on Sara Ahmed’s political economy of emotion to explain how “knowledge and ignorance bind white settler social bodies together through emotion and how, given their embodiment, these affects are difficult to disrupt” (Rice et al., 2022, pg. 5). Ahmed’s (2004) work also shows how we “become invested in particular structures such that their demise is felt as a kind of living death” (pg. 12). Even when we challenge our emotional investments, we can become stuck and must be vigilant to the ways in which this can happen (Ahmed, 2004, pg. 19). Similarly, Michalinos Zembylas (2018) theorizes white discomfort as a social and political affect that produces colonial structures and practices and advocates for pedagogies of discomfort, which encourage learners to engage in critical inquiry to interrogate cherished values and beliefs. Through this interrogation, discomforting feelings can be engaged to challenge assumptions and practices that perpetuate systemic inequities (pg. 93). Finally, the work of Athabascan scholar Dian Million (2009) shows how ‘felt knowledge’ of settler colonialism is often communicated through stories as a practice which either “reifies settler colonial structures or offer an ‘otherwise’ as a powerful tool for social change” (Million, 2014, pg. 72). As explained by Rice et al. (2022) Million’s work shows how the embodied testimonies of Indigenous women, who embody the intersections of heteropatriarchy and settler colonialism, “carry the potential to move settlers’ psyches and worldviews” (pg. 5). While I am finding it difficult to be aware of affect while I am doing participant observation, it is undoubtedly important for my research objectives. I will need to try to be more attentive of affect and the ways in which it can affect can reify and/or unsettle settler subjectivities.
Co-creating and documenting digital worlds
As previously mentioned, the workshops are very focused on verbal communication; however, the participants and facilitators have also been busy co-creating rich digital worlds. Click on the audio files below to hear descriptions of some of what the participants have created:
Starting the conversation – introducing organizational ‘roses, buds and thorns’ from the perspective of each participant
All this content is data because it is part of the participant’s learning experience, and part of a collective sense-making experience. In a virtual workshop series like the one I am studying, these digital worlds the participants create are an important source of connection. They help provide a sense of who we are in relationship with. They help share the places, people, and more-than-human kin we love with each other. We’ve met each other’s dogs, chickens, children. We’ve seen each other visit ancient cedar forests, sweeping grasslands, ocean bays, and urban parks. The digital worlds we are co-creating help us communicate our stories with each other, provide context for our journeys, and position ourselves in relation to one another and our work. They help us make sense of ourselves and each other as we move through the often-disorienting work of unsettling. The digital content also provides an anchor, somewhere to return to when we inevitably feel unmoored and uncomfortable, or uncertain about where we are going in our journey together.
During one of the workshops, each participant opened an envelope containing a card and gifts sent by me and the workshop facilitators. The gift included teas made from herbs harvested locally from an Indigenous-owned company near where Don, one of the workshop facilitators, lives in British Columbia. On our first break we were all encouraged to make tea and to smell the steeped tea together at the same time before we took our first sip. It was a way of trying to connect us viscerally across digital space and time. The gift also contained a beaver fur cellphone cozy harvested by Chloe’s Mom. Chloe is the other workshop facilitator and Chloe and her Mom are both Dënesųłinë́ women from the Fort Smith area. Chloe provided a teaching about the beaver fur, explaining that the beaver is an important source of warmth in the winter, and asked each participant to place their hand on the fur for a few minutes. We all noticed how the fur warmed our palms within a matter of seconds. Chloe shared that beaver is sometimes used to help people ground themselves when they have something to do that might make them anxious or feel uncertain. She encouraged the participants to engage with the beaver to find comfort and strength. Both the tea and the fur are a way of connecting with one another across time and place, and also provide a way of connecting with more-than-human kin (plants, animals) and the humans who care for them. Both the digital worlds and gift-giving are ways of creating relationality with one another.
The experience of opening the gifts together in a virtual environment made me think of ethnographic practices and the importance of engaging the senses. Grasseni talks about needing to learn to use the body in order to “sense and make sense...in ways that are relevant and apprenticed to particular communities of users, practitioners, co-seers, co-listeners, and co-sensers". (Grasseni, 2022). To do so, we must become attuned to how technology and the body mediate both perception and understanding – and this is a learned skill (Ibid.).
Image of beaver fur on paper with the words “Aurora Heat, cellphone cozy” and “Wild beaver fur handcrafted in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories” on it. The beaver fur is in the middle of the image and is a large circle. It is dark and light brown.
Image of brochure that explains where the fur came from, the relational connections to people, place and more-than human kin that guide the harvesting practices of Brenda as a Dënesųłinë́ woman. The paper has text in small font and two photos: one of a young child dressed warmly in fur and synethic snowsuit in the cold northern winter. The other photo is of Chloe’s grandmother and grandfather on a boat together with the Athabasca river delta behind them.
Concluding thoughts and emerging questions
Through this reflective exercise, I have deepened my understanding of how my body is responding to and influencing the research process. I’ve considered how my experience of the virtual workshops is influencing my approach to data collection and the impact that process is having on my body. I have also considered my approach to writing field notes and how challenging it is to create detailed written notes at the moment while also attending to affect and the effects of emotion on opening or foreclosing possibilities for a decolonial shift within workshop participants. Finally, I have reflected on the importance of digital world making and place-making in creating a relational learning process within a digital learning environment with decolonial goals.
I conclude with a few questions that I will continue to consider and engage with as I conclude the coursework for the PhD program and move towards proposal writing.
How can I strengthen my ability to engage my senses in ethnographic practice?
What strategies can I deploy to help focus my attention on affect and emotion during the virtual workshops?
How does my/our bodies affect our attempts to unsettle conservation?
I look forward to deepening my research practice, and further developing my research skills as I transition from coursework into the research phase of my doctoral experience.
Works Cited
Ahmed, S. (2004). The cultural politics of emotion, second edition. Edinburgh University Press.
Grasseni, C., (2022). Learning to see. In Barendregt, B., de Maaker, E., De Musso, F., Littlejohn, A., Maeckelbergh, M., Postma, M., & Westmoreland, M. R. Audiovisual and Digital Ethnography: A Practical and Theoretical Guide (1st ed., Vol 1). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003132417
Million, D. (2009). Felt theory: An Indigenous feminist approach to affect and history. Wicazo Sa Review, 24(2), 52-76. http://doi.org/10.1353./wic.0.0043
Million, D. (2014). There is a river in me: Theory from life. In A. Simpson & A. Smith. (Eds.), Theorizing Native studies. Duke University Press.
Ragan, P. (2011). Unsettling the settler within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada. UBC Press.
Rice, C., Dion, S.D., Fowlie, H. & Breen, A. (2022). Identifying and working through settler ignorance. Critical Studies in Education, 63:1, 15-30, http://10.1080/17508487.2020.1830818
Spradley, J. (1980). Participant observation. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Zembylas, M. (2018) Affect, race, and white discomfort in schooling: Decolonial strategies for ‘pedagogies of discomfort’. Ethics and Education, 13(1), 86-104. http://10.1080/17449642.2018.14287