Wading the Field with My Key Informant: Exploring Field Relations

Anne Ryen

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.4.3.06

Authors

Anne Ryen University of Agder, Norway

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.4.3.06

Keywords:

Key informant, Qualitative research, Membership categorisation device, Credibility, Cross-cultural research, East-Africa

Abstract

Entering and staying on in the field or rather avoiding being kicked out are the two classic ethnographic challenges. The rather positivist nature of textbook guidance on dos and don’ts in fieldwork in general and in delicate issues in particular (for researchers` dilemmas in the field see Ryen 2002), tend to recommend a gentle, middle-class (rather female) interactional style. This gaze suffers from being both researcher-focused (cf.Fine 1994 on “Othering”) and based on problematic pre-fixed identities nailing us to the role pair as researcher and key informant. As the introductory extract illustrates, it takes patience also to have an ethnographer “hanging around”. This article deals with the credibility of qualitative research when accounting for or exploring how we do staying in the cross-cultural field and it asks how can we credibly explore the stamina that takes us further? If we accept fieldwork as social interaction, we need to bring the social (or the “inter”) of it into the exploration of our puzzle. Membership categorisation device (MCD) offers to take us closer to understanding and piecing together our puzzle, but to better get at the events taking place in field interaction there is a need also to introduce the wider cultural context and the images available (or not) to members. In this way I recognise the ethnomethodological differentiation between topic and resource, but argue that when understandings and images are not necessarily culturally shared and collective, we also need to make problematic how members deal with the unavailability of shared images. In the conclusion I argue that the artful side of the local interpretive work in the field is closely entangled with whatever meanings or images are available for construction (in line with Gubrium and Holstein 1997:121). In cross-cultural contexts more than in others, this is particularly delicate because in such contexts images and experiences often do not connect and may lead to complications or even breakdown in communication (Ryen 2002). Mending or repair thus becomes another crucial phenomenon, itself complex, in the evolving field relations. The analysis thus pinpoints the artistry of members` local collaborative efforts accentuated when constrained by images or descriptions that do not connect across cultures. This makes stamina a joint effort, though itself an intricate, emergent phenomenon. Next I will briefly introduce a couple of classic works on working with key informants followed by a brief presentation of the analytic approaches to be applied to my data from East- Africa. Before concluding, I will comment on “wading the field” as reflected in the close exploration of the cross-cultural extracts.

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Author Biography

Anne Ryen, University of Agder, Norway

Anne Ryen is Associate Professor of Sociology at Agder University, Norway, President of the Research Network Qualitative Methods in the European Sociological Association and member of the Scientific Committee of RC33 Logic and Methodology in the International Sociological Association. She has been doing research in East-Africa for more than 15 years, and her focus is at fringe benefits in private business, ethnic economy and welfare. Her many publications include “Cross-cultural Interviewing” in Handbook of Interview Research (edited by J. F. Gubrium and J. A. Holstein 2002), ”Ethical Issues in Qualitative Research” in Qualitative Research Practice (edited by C. Seale et al 2004), “Ethnography: Constitutive Practice and Research Ethics” in Handbook of Social Science Research Ethics (edited by D. M. Mertens and P. Ginsberg 2008). Among others her books include The Qualitative Interview (2002) and How can fringe benefits become remuneration? (2005. In Norwegian with K. Knudsen).

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