Severyn T. Bruyn: Studies of the Mundane by Participant Observation:

Participant observation is a method that can be used to study the mundane as a paradox. A paradox is created in the tension of human differences and in the pressure of opposing beliefs. We shall see shortly how the mundane is a paradox and studied in the midst of conflicting views, but let me first note how the method of observation is a paradox. This method stands with two opposite standpoints, both of which are true. The question is how that opposition gets resolved in a study of the mundane.

The method is based on the idea that truth is found inside one’s self and outside at the same time. It is a tension between two very different sources of truth.

We are personally involved inside a mundane world and simultaneously outside it. We are participants in the mundane, but equally separated from it as observers. We live in this tension of difference between involvement and detachment, constantly. We are between our identity with the world and our non-identity with it. The answer to what is mundane stands in the tension of such opposite standpoints. The question is how we can get to the truth about our subject. Journal of Mundane Behavior