An investigation into the phenomena and practices of spiritual ...

3.5 Problems of participant and non-participant observation and interviewsIn this type of field study of religious behaviour, unless one anonymously observes apublic church service without introducing or announcing oneself, strictly non-participantobservation is difficult: and even then one will usually stand up and sit down wheneveryone else does. In general observation of religious phenomena is difficult to dowithout first becoming a participant and becoming aware of the norms and statuses of thefield being studied. In some situations where the gatekeeper makes decisions to protect theinterest of the participants, the researcher may be required to be a participant to gain accessto the field to be researched through the gatekeeper. It is an ethical and practicalrequirement that the subjects, prior to the commencement of the study establish trust andconfidence in the researcher and the topic being researched. This trust should be betweenthe actors such as the gatekeeper, (the minister) the members of his church and alsovisitors.How the respondents from the two different churches related individually and in groups, toa new person, and also how they related to „an academic‟ was assessed. It is difficult toascertain what is really going on with the relationship between me as a researcher, me as aBlack person and me as a Christian person. To get a real feel of this would require me toseparate the three relationships and examine each one in more depth. Some of thechallenges are related to ethnographic research, feminist research and other research intocultural similarities and differences within the Christian Community. Another disadvantageof participant observation means that; partiality in the interpretation of the data can distortperceptions of exactly what is happening according to Ahmad (1993) and Kelleher (1996).To this end the interpretation of the data also represent my perception of spiritual healing,72