Disengagement

Qualitative researchers are encouraged to become fully engaged and invested in their research site by immersing into the day-to-day routines of the group members being investigated and becoming familiar with their rituals and experiences. Ethnographers begin their [Page 225]research as investigators of a social phenomenon or query with the objective of developing and answering research questions once they gain entry to the field. In the same way as relationships must be initiated and developed to begin a research project, researchers must also negotiate the closure or end of the research project. Disengagement refers to the process and experience of leaving the field after a research project is completed. Disengagement marks the end of the research project and refers specifically to the closure that occurs once a research project has ended.

David Snow, a sociologist, was one of the first scholars to mark disengagement as an under-investigated process of participant observation research and a phenomenon of researcher–participant relationships. Researchers are often unprepared and untrained for the process of disengagement, which can sometimes be problematic when researchers experience anxiety about leaving the field or leaving the participants with whom they have developed relationships. It is also problematic when researchers question whether or not they have collected enough information during the duration of their research period.

The level of disengagement researchers will experience depends largely on the details and obligations of the study. The more time invested and spent in a community and with a group of research participants, the greater the intensity of personal relationships. The greater the intensity of personal relationships, the more difficult it is to leave the field and return to separate lives.

Research or field relationships are understood to be temporary relationships that will last only as long as the research project. Disengagement becomes necessary to mark the end of the researcher–participant relationship even if the researcher maintains a relationship that is established during research. Disengagement allows a transition from the researcher–participant relationship whereby the researcher is no longer investigating the “other.”

Disengagement refers specifically to the process of the researcher leaving the field but does not consider the process of being left in the field. Further research could determine how the process of disengagement affects the participants and community members who have been actively involved in the research project. Participants are equally likely to develop attachments and investments in the research project and researchers and, thus, to be affected when the relationship ends or changes.

The process of disengaging from the field, however, should not be abrupt. Researchers should take the time to confirm their information by conducting final analyses and should settle moral obligations with their participants.