By Yunshan Li and Georgia Hanson

Participant observation is the foundational method of ethnographic research. It requires the researcher to immerse themselves in the field site to gain insights into a culture. However, in the case of our research in Student Life, we were limited from such immersion, barred from participation, and limited to a partial observer role. 

Georgia’s research at the Innovation Hub (iHub) aimed to answer the question—What is “design thinking” and how is it carried out in practice?  Before she could start, she had to sign the “Fall-Winter Innovation Hub Charter—For Anthropology Course Research.” The iHub prioritizes participant consent and privacy over research. Having to sign first is understandable, as the Charter coincides with anthropological ethical standards.

However, the limitation to the research highlighted in the Charter states that participant data or information not on the iHub website may not be published in any form. Georgia observed meetings, conducted interviews, and was granted access to one restricted kind of participation observation: she virtually participated in a 1:1 feedback session, usually done with a group, intended to gather insight into student desires and needs in relation to university space and services. Georgia could participate and observe in some cases but cannot utilize her participant data in the final report. 

Yunshan had a similar experience while doing research. She was invited to join an internal SL department meeting but was not allowed to participate, ie speak or ask questions during the meeting, which risked disrupting the usual working process. She was only allowed to enter the second half of the meeting, which made her feel lost due to missing the information covered in the first half. The exclusion made her feel like an outsider which indeed she was due to the internal essence of the meeting. 

In our research efforts, we did not expect to meet such institutional barriers, as we are also students at the University of Toronto. We reflected on the reason that the institution blocked us from full participation observation. Firstly, it is important to protect students’ privacy. Student Life wants to create a safe space for students to express themselves. Secondly, as researchers, we wore “two hats” of both participant and researcher. The double role seemed to SL staff to present a particular risk to “normal” students attending workshops and feedback sessions who did not expect to be observed. This concern led Student Life staff to place the students’ confidentiality above our research. 

We appreciated the opportunity to conduct research at Student Life. No doubt the barriers we encountered were learning experiences but they were frustrating: in Yunshan’s case she had to guess what had happened in the first half of a meeting; Georgia had a 1-1 feedback session that was surely not the same as the “normal” feedback session designed for students to express their views as a group.   It seems that the core method of ethnography – participant observation – is denied to students when they attempt to conduct research in their own university.