The following four chapters explore different strategies for the collection of information about society, and we begin our discussion by talking about observations. Observations hold a special place in naturalistic inquiry. This follows directly from the ambition of naturalistic inquiry to minimally disturb, or frame, social life in a research situation, but instead to look at how it unfolds under ordinary conditions. Looking around us – at our fellow humans, at ‘society’, and so on – is something we do all the time and is an important part of everyday life. We therefore subscribe to a broad definition of observing, see Box 7. However, our tacit familiarity with observation in everyday life may at the same time stand in the way of using it as a tool for explicit understanding. Looking at society is neither a self-evident nor a straightforward enterprise. There are pitfalls to consider and mental and practical obstacles to overcome. This chapter tries to shed light on those, inviting you to make observation a prime source for telling about a society.

After briefly exploring the Enlightenment roots of observations in social science, the chapter discusses this in the context of positivism and naturalistic inquiry. It will be shown that the term ‘observation’ has a different meaning in these two traditions, and thus it results in different ways of practicing it. The chapter further explores how the ambition of naturalistic researchers to get close to the members of a society that they are studying has consequences for how and what they observe: if they participate in society, are their observations then not filtered through the position that the researchers acquire or are attributed? This refers to a problem usually referred to as ‘reflexivity’ in social research discourse. It will be shown how writing field notes has a key place in naturalistic researchers’ coming to terms with their role in the society that they are studying. In the concluding part of the chapter, that discussion is further developed into a series of more practical ‘how to’ considerations. The chapter elaborates a position known as focused observations, and it discusses the practical consequences of doing so for naturalistic inquiry.