When is disguise justified? Alternatives to covert participant observation

Abstract

The ethical and practical merits of disguised, secret, or covert participant observation continue to be debated. This article suggests the need to recognize a wider variety of observational research strategies than are captured by this "either/or" debate. Such strategies include retrospective participant observation, "experience recollected in academic tranquility" the native as stranger, in which participants observe milieux with which they have long familiarity; adoption of the role of "covert outsider," occupying a nonresearch position in an organization in order to do research; and the "overt insider," deliberately adopting a particular occupational role, and undergoing training in it, to gain research access to otherwise closed research settings. Such alternative possibilities suggest that the need for covert observational strategies may be exaggerated.