FIELD RESEARCH AND FOCUS GROUP RESEARCHmembers drop their guard and overidentify with
members.^29 As Venkatesh (2008:176-177) remarked
about his Chicago gang study:I was starting to feel schizophrenic, as if I were one
person in the projects—sometimes I caught myself
even talking in a different way—and another back
in Hyde Park. Increasingly I found that I was angry
at the entire field of social science.... I felt
as though the other scholars were living in a
bubble... Rather than sharing my frustration with
my girlfriend, my roommates, and my friends—most
of whom were actually quite supportive—I just kept
my experiences to myself.... When I did try talking
about my fieldwork, I felt awkward. In fact, I some-
times came off as defending gangs and their violent
practices or as romanticizing the conditions of the
projects.... I was growing quieter and more soli-
tary. My fellow graduate students and even some
faculty members thought of me as unapproachable.
Rumors circulated that I was too ambitious, too
aloof, but I figured I’d just have to live with them.Some degree of emotional stress is inevitable
in field research. Instead of suppressing emotional
responses, remain sensitive to emotional reactions.
Some ways to help you cope in the field include
keeping a personal diary, emotional journal, or
written record of inner feelings or having a few
sympathetic people outside the field site in whom
you can confide.^30Step 4: Maintaining Relations in the Field.Yo u
need to use many social strategies and skills as you
work to maintain relations in the field.
Adjust and Adapt.With time, you develop and
modify social relationships. Members who are cool
at first may warm up later, or they may put on a front
of initial friendliness, and their fears and suspicions
surface only later. You are in a delicate position.
Early in a project when not yet fully aware of every-
thing about a field site, you should not rush to form
close relationships because circumstances may
change; yet if you develop close friends, they can
become allies who will defend your presence and
help you gain access.
You need to monitor how your actions or
appearance affects members. For example, a
physically attractive researcher who interacts with
members of the opposite sex may encounter
crushes, flirting, and jealousy. He or she develops
an awareness of these field relations and learns to
manage them.^31
In addition to developing social relationships,
you must be able to break or withdraw from rela-
tionships as well. You may have to break ties with
one member to forge new ties with others or to
explore other aspects of the setting. As with the end
of any friendly relationship, the emotional pain of
social withdrawal can affect both the researcher and
the member. You must balance social sensitivity
and the research goals.
Use Charm and Nurture Trust.You need social
skills and personal charm to build rapport. Trust,
friendly feelings, and being well liked facilitate
communication and can help you understand
the inner feelings of others. There is no magical way
to do this. Showing a genuine concern for and an
interest in others, being honest, and sharing feelings
are good strategies, but they are not foolproof and
depend on the specific setting and members. Your
demeanor should always be non-threatening, and if
possible and appropriate, warm and friendly.
Many factors affect trust and rapport: how you
present yourself; your role in the field; and the
events that encourage, limit, or make achieving
trust impossible. Trust is not gained once and for
all. It is a process built up over time through many
social nuances (e.g., sharing of personal experi-
ences, storytelling, gestures, hints, facial expres-
sions). Trust is constantly recreated and seems
easier to lose once it has been built than to gain
in the first place. Establishing trust is important,
but it does not ensure that all information will
be revealed. Trust may be limited to specific areas.
For example, it can be built regarding financial mat-
ters but not disclosure of intimate dating behavior.
Trust may have to be created anew in each area of
inquiry; it requires constant reaffirmation.
Some members may not be open and cooper-
ative. Freeze-outsare members who express an
uncooperative attitude or an overt unwillingness toFreeze-outs People studied in field research who
refuse to cooperate with the researcher or to become
involved in the study.