ABSTRACT
In the introduction to Making It Crazy, an ethnography of discharged mentally ill patients, Sue Estroff explains participant observation, the methodological tradition of ethnography, as an attempt by an anthropologist ‘to learn and reach understanding through asking, doing, watching, testing, and experiencing for herself the same activities, rituals, rules and meanings as the subjects. Our subjects become the experts, the instructors, and we become the students’ (Estroff, 1981:20). She concludes by cautioning that ‘we are restricted in reaching optimal levels of experience and participation in the subjects’ world if we are to remain sane’ (1981:20).
