ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the discussion of the characteristics of participant observation, the methodologies of positivism, humanism, and postmodernism, as well as the related matters of values, politics, ethics, and representation. Participant observation is closely related to and often included as a part of field research, ethnography, and other qualitative methods of human study. Participant observation almost always results in qualitative data, many of them yielding “thick,” richly detailed information about human existence. Simply stated, positivism maintains that human existence can be investigated fruitfully by way of the more or less standardized procedures and techniques, comprising a scientific method, that are employed in studying the physical, material universe, notwithstanding possible differences between nature and humanity. Postmodernism shares with humanism its basic objections to positivism. It differs from humanism in disputing any authoritative source of truth and seeing truth instead as subjective. The chapter also presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book.
