Contributions from European Symbolic Interactionists Reflections on Methods

AN OBSERVATION SITUATION:

WHEN THE RESEARCHER’S

SCENES INTERACT

Caroline De Man

ABSTRACT

In this paper I reflected on managing my emotions during a study I con-

ducted of the police in Brussels which consisted mainly in observation.

Emotions became problematic because on the one hand, I tried to restrict

my observer’s role and did not wish to intervene in the work of those I

observed. On the other hand, within my family, friends, or colleagues the

issue of police practices sparked emotionally tense discussions because of

negative experiences some of them had had with the police. How could I

maintain a distance from all the emotion “in” the field and “out” of the

field? How could I manage this uncomfortable situation? This paper is

based on material from an observation carried out between October 2010

and November 2011 in the context of my doctoral thesis:Police Officers

and Youth: the Social Organization of Interactions in Public Space.

This paper will not address questions about police officers because the

focus is my research experience while remaining relatively involved in my

daily social life as a young mixed-race woman in her thirties. I realized

that fieldwork consists in a learning-by-doing process and that I had to

Contributions from European Symbolic Interactionists: Reflections on Methods
Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 44, 43
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