Abstract
Insights about the observer's self can prove useful for understanding others who are the subjects of sociological inquiry. This organizational sociologist studied a midwestern lesbian community using participant observation and in depth interviewing. Subsequent problems with preparing the findings led to development of an analytic technique for dealing with the data. The argument here is that we have much to learn from close examination of the interrelationship between observer and observed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Atkinson, Jane Monnig 1982 “Review essay: Anthropology.” Signs 8:232–258.
Bowles, Gloria and Renate Duelli Klein (eds.) 1983 Theories of Women's Studies. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Chodorow, Nancy 1978 The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender. Berkeley: University of California Press.
1980 “Fieldwork, reciprocity and the making of ethnographic texts: The example of Maurice Leenhardt.” Man 15:518–32.
1983 “On ethnographic authority.” Representations 1:118–46.
Gearing, Fred 1970 The Face of the Fox. Chicago: Aldine.
Gilligan, Carol 1982 In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Gould, Meredith 1980 “Review essay: The new sociology.” Signs 5:459–67.
Hochschild, Arlie Russell 1983 The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
1982 “Feminism and science.” Signs 7:589–602.
1983a “Feminism as an analytic tool for the study of science.” Academe 69, 5:15–21.
1983b A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.
1985 Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Krieger, Susan 1980 “The group as significant other: Strategies for definition of the self.” Unpublished paper given at the Annual Meetings of the Pacific Sociological Association.
1983 The Mirror Dance: Identity in a Women's Community. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Mahler, Margaret, Fred Pine and Anni Bergman 1975 The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant: Symbiosis and Individualtion. New York: Basic Books.
Meyerhoff, Barbara 1978 Number Our Days. New York: Dutton.
Millman, Marcia and Rosabeth Moss Kanter (eds.) 1975 Another Voice: Feminist Perspectives on Social Life and Social Science. New York: Anchor.
1977 Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. Berkeley: University of California Press.
1983 “‘Facts are a word of God’: An essay review of James Clifford's person and myth: Maurice Leenhardt in the Melanesian world.” In G. W. Stocking, ed., Observers Observed: History of Anthropology Vol. 1. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Reinharz, Shulamit 1979 On Becoming a Social Scientist: From Survey Research and Participant Observation to Experiential Analysis. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Reiter, Rayna R. (ed.) 1975 Toward an Anthropology of Women. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Roberts, Helen (ed.) 1981 Doing Feminist Research. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Rosaldo, M. Z. 1980 “The use and abuse of anthropology: reflections on feminism and cross-cultural understanding.” Signs 5:389–417.
Rosaldo, Michelle Zimbalist and Louise Lamphere (eds.) 1974 Woman, Culture, and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
1974 “Women's perspective as a radical critique of sociology.” Sociological Inquiry 44:7–13.
1979 “A sociology for women.” Pp. 135–187 in Julia A. Sherman and Evelyn Torton Beck (eds.), The Prism of Sex: Essays in the Sociology of Knowledge. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Stacey, Judith and Barrie Thorne 1984 “The missing feminist revolution in sociology.” Unpublished paper given at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association.
Strathern, Marilyn 1984 “Dislodging a world view: Challenge and counter-challenge in the relationship between feminism and anthropology.” Unpublished paper. Draft of a lecture given in the series, Changing Paradigms: The Impact of Feminist Theory Upon the World of Scholarship. Adelaide, Australia: Research Centre for Women's Studies.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
For their help in the preparation of this article, the author would like to thank Estelle Freedman, Marythelma Brainard, Nancy Chodorow, Meredith Gould, and Ann Swidler.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Krieger, S. Beyond “subjectivity”: The use of the self in social science. Qual Sociol 8, 309–324 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00988842
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00988842