The emic view engages descriptions, dialogue and meanings identified by the participant that are important. In the discussion of terrorism, the emic view would be the view of the terrorist. This view may be opposed to the view of those who attempt to understand terrorism.
With terrorism the emic view is particularly important because there may be cultural differences between the terrorist and those who attempt to study terrorism. This difference is even larger is the researcher is from the West. Countries in the West view the actions of terrorists as inherently heinous and "evil." This view often does not give any credence to the meanings that terrorist give to their behavior. Thus the emic view or the insider view is critical to understanding and predicting patterns of terrorism. When the West is understood to the eyes of the "terrorist" existing behaviors and cultural norms are often seen as unacceptable or worse a violation of divine will.
When the researcher engages the emic position the researcher divests themselves of preconceived notions, theories and beliefs about the meaning of behaviors. The researcher allows the data that is collected from the respondent to inform them of what is the existing "reality." When the researcher does this, it permits the inherent patterns and themes within the data become obvious to the researcher. The emic view is central to the development...
With Grounded Theory the theory is built from the field. This approach allows the researcher to identify the context within which the phenomenon exists and to use the context as an explanatory tool.
The etic perspective is an outsider perspective. The etic perspective approaches research from a deductive posture. The outsider is often not aware of the nuance of meaning associated with specific behaviors. The outsider may believe that they are observing behaviors they have seen repeated over time and they may know what the behaviors mean. This view is therefore limited for certain types of research, since the starting point for understanding the phenomenon is the interpretations of the researcher.
The etic perspective allows the researcher to construct hypotheses and to test the underlying concepts as propositions within the theories. The etic perspective will not be useful for understanding terrorism because terrorism is not an adequately theorized phenomenon. The emic is more useful because the nature of the phenomenon is such that an exploratory framework is required to understand the phenomenon. Additionally, it would be near impossible to implement deductive approaches to terrorism. Thus the emic view provides the context for the behavior and allows the researcher to understand the meanings that are associated with terrorist actions.
