Reading Luker this week, particularly the section on participant observation, I felt like she largely breezed past the significance of how the mere presence of the researcher can have an impact on the findings. Luker talked about how to build trust, and different approaches to take to try and make sure that the data is as accurate as possible, but the truth is that there is no way to ever be sure that the same things a researcher observes would occur without the presence of the researcher.
In truth, I've felt like this has been something that, throughout the readings, Knight has seemed much more concerned with than Luker, who focusses more on the positive sides of research tools than the negative sides. And maybe the reason Luker does not worry about this is that this process is meant to build theory, not prove it. Certainly she suggests as much for interviews and focus groups. If the presence of researcher has an impact on the data from which the researcher builds a theory, well-crafted attempts to prove the theory should fail. However, I still can't help but feel like any impact of the researcher needs to be accounted for, and that any theory crafted without that will lead to flawed research, and so I'm disappointed that Luker did not really address it.
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