Pragmatic post-structuralism (I): Participant observation and discourse inevaluating violence intervention

This paper discusses the process and merits of a post-structuralist approac h to participant observation and describes the use of this research strateg y in evaluating a community based 'stopping violence' programme. While the participant observation research strategy is commonly employed as a 'proces s evaluation' method (Rossi and Freeman, 1993) it's role within a distinctl y post-structuralist programme is a novel application of a well-established research strategy. This has significant implications for how social scient ists may approach both participant observation and evaluation in the future . Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.