To Cook or not to Cook: Participant Observation as a Data Collection Technique

Abstract

As I sit here typing, I take a long, hard, registering look at my hands. I see them as someone else would: dirt embedded in cracked, dry, stained skin, with small cuts, some covered in bright blue waterproof plasters, others healing nicely. Hands that, as a child, I imagined belonged to the wicked witch of the west or hands a gardener or other craftsperson may be proud of…(Diary notes, 20 May 2002)

Citation

James, S. (2007), "To Cook or not to Cook: Participant Observation as a Data Collection Technique", Walford, G. (Ed.) Methodological Developments in Ethnography (Studies in Educational Ethnography, Vol. 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 35-50. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1529-210X(06)12003-3