Gustavo Vieira Soler

Rats, Researchers, and the Mousetrap Gaze: How Participant Observation Never Stopped Being a Trap

This independent theoretical article develops the concept of the “mousetrap gaze” to describe a structural asymmetry in participant observation, covert ethnography, and digital lurking. Drawing on Robert Cialdini’s concepts of the trigger feature and the “click, whirr” response,...