Moniteur sportif et sociologue: Récit d’une observation participante clandestine

Abstract

Sports Instructor and Sociologist: A Covert Participant Observation: This paper describes the change of status and viewpoint inherent in the shift from a sports instructor job to the implementation of a participant observation. The latter was undertaken to grasp the stakes and difficulties of a sports facility delegated management. Beside the results of this investigation, we also intend to relate a peculiar process, including the combination of multiple and varying roles, as well as a dynamic relation to the fieldwork and its participants. As the observation remained concealed, this role duplicity had many consequences: beyond personal and psychological ones, the effects are also professional, relational, methodological, heuristic and ethical.