Investigating neorurals and squatters? lifestyles: personal and epistemological insights on participant observation and on the logic of ethnographic investigation

Abstract

In my PhD thesis in Environmental Science, I used fieldwork amongst "neorural" communities in the Iberian Pyrenees, and direct participation amongst "okupas" (squatters) in Barcelona, I reflect on the two methodologies (ethnographic investigation and participant observation) that I used, and I discuss their application with respect to the style and to the particular context of the investigation. The experience of living within the Barcelona squatting community predated the decision to do the rural fieldwork; so, I argue, the distinction between observer and observed is purely artificial. I discuss the epistemological implications.