Avoid being just a fly on the wall
Normally, whenever I go into a situation where I am observing someone or a group of people, I will say something to them along the lines of “It’s ok, you won’t even notice I am here, I will just be a fly on the wall.” Between our workshop, the work done by Matthew Engelke in A Problem of Presence, and my own personal experiences, this is an act that must be avoided during observations.
The role of the silent observer is a simple task where you just sit in the corner, listen, watch, and take notes. This is the easy way to go about observational research, but it is not actually helping anyone. The purpose of observations is, as stated in the handout from class, “to gain insight into cultural practices and phenomena.”
Being the fly on the wall, the only real insight you are gaining is at face value. Sure, you pick up a few things after a while, and more from conducting interviews, but you would learn even more from participating and interacting more in whatever is being observed. It also shows the subjects of your observation that you are genuinely interested in what they are doing and truly want to learn more.
If you simply sit off to the side and watch as events unfold, it might appear your interest is faked, which could then lead to a wall being accidentally built in between you and your subjects. This wall will make them less talkative and result in an inability to acquire great quotes about the subject at hand, and prevent yourself from gaining more insight and knowledge about your topic.
I have previously stood on one side of this wall, as in the past I was writing a paper on college students who played Dungeons and Dragons. This was the time I mentioned earlier where I told the subjects of my paper I would just be a “fly on the wall.” They were very hesitant about me doing this, and my presence had clearly made them feel a tad uncomfortable. They were also not very expressive when I later tried to ask them questions after the game about their experience.
In the moment I could feel that I had clearly approached this the wrong way. Perhaps if I asked to play the game with them, I would have learned more about their experience and made them more comfortable with me being there, and would have given my paper a new perspective.
These suspicions were confirmed when I read Engelke’s work in his ethnographic study. He makes several references throughout his book about working with the apostolics and church and would often ask questions during his interactions with them. During his time in Zimbabwe, he was about as active in the church as the church’s actual members, which made them more comfortable around him and more willing to accept him into their world. You can tell just how involved he became by the specificity of his book.
Whether it be the history of John the Baptist or the crucial role that sound plays in people’s worship and why that is. By being an active observer he acquired details that would not be as easy to come by if someone just stood off to the side and took notes on what they saw, smelled, felt, or heard. Although taking field notes is a crucial part of observations, if one is more concerned about taking notes than anything else, they are bound to miss something while they are concentrating that. Which is why they should wait until they have left the field site to actually begin their more expansive notes.
Although certain questions concerning validity may arise due to becoming so entrance into those you are observing, additional types of validity do arise, such as descriptive, interpretive, and theoretical (as described on page 186).
After all, there is only so much you can learn about a person while sitting to the side. Perhaps it is better to run the risk of being that annoying, pesky fly buzzing in people’s faces, since in that case, you’re bound to learn more about the person up close than from afar.
