Observant participation with people who inject drugs in street-based settings: reflections on a method used during applied ethnographic research

Abstract

This empirically informed ‘opinion paper’ reflects upon the use of observant participant as a qualitative research method during an applied, multilocal, ethnographic study of street-based injecting drug use (conducted throughout the south of England during 2006–2011). Throughout these studies, participant observation took place with frontline service personnel and observant participation occurred with people who inject drugs. As participant observation typically involves the acquisition of a new role in an unfamiliar setting for a given person, observant participation prioritises existing roles in order to conduct research within familiar/unfamiliar settings. In this study, the method of observant participation is compared and contrasted with participant observation as both methods were conducted in the aforementioned ethnographic study of street-based injecting drug use. This experience-based comparison is followed by a discussion that offers a theoretically informed explanation for the various success and outcomes attached to the study (and, specifically, to those obtained from the applied use of observant participation with people who inject drugs). The paper concludes that observant participation may be best used as a ‘synergising’ component within a wider qualitative research toolkit especially when dedicated to inquiries of sensitive issues or ‘hard-to-reach’ populations (such as those affected by drug dependence). In addition, the synergistic effect of observant participation may contribute towards a combined understanding of social problems that is perhaps greater than the sum of findings obtained from separate, disconnected methods of social research.

Keywords:

• Observant participation
• participant observation
• ethnography
• street-based injecting drug use
• applied qualitative research
• harm reduction

Disclosure statement

The views, opinions and academic content within in this paper are those solely of the author. These views, opinions and interpretations should not necessarily be associated with any previous/current body/people previously associated with the research described throughout this text. In addition, these views and opinions are not necessarily shared or held by any institution to which the author has been previously or currently attached (especially those associated with the author’s current position at the University of Oxford).

The author continues to acknowledge the various funders and commissioners that were involved in the studies described above during 2006–2012.

Notes

1 During the course of the 5-year ethnographic project (involving 14 months of fieldwork), a total of 169 frontline service personnel were interviewed regarding their experiences of managing street-based injecting. Similarly, a total of 71 people with experience of injecting drugs within a street-based setting (‘in the last month’) were interviewed (predominantly within NSP settings). A total of 8 individuals (from 3 different cities) agreed to participate in field visits to street-based injecting environments. In addition, throughout the entire project, the author attended over 400 street-based injecting environments, accompanied by frontline service personnel and/or PWID. These visits generated over 1000 photographs of injecting environments and over one-hour of video material as part of a ‘visual methods’ component also attached to the project. More detailed accounts of the above (including epistemology, ontology and other methodological issues) are documented in the relevant texts (Parkin 2013, 2014).

2 ‘Rough sleeping’ is a term used in the UK for rooflessness and sleeping in makeshift street-based locations