Intimacy and Care in the Field: Introduction

More Than “Crumbs”: Emotional Entanglements and Situated Ethical Strategies in Qualitative Research

“…Among others Gorelick (1991) suggests that relationships developed in the field are never truly egalitarian and warns about their "potential deceptiveness" (p. 469), while Acker et al (1983, p. 424) argue that "given that the power differences between researcher and researched cannot be completely eliminated, attempting to create a more equal relationship can paradoxically become exploitation." In opposition to a perspective that stress the similarities between friendship and research, this point of view is shared by a series of contemporary scholars (Funk & Thajib, 2019;Irwin, 2006;Parvez, 2018) who argue that everyday life and fieldwork are distinct social worlds and that research can only simulate the everyday context. While scholars can work to make interactions between them and the participants mutually beneficial, these relationships are still based on an asymmetrical and one-sided flow of information with one party asking the questions and the other answering.…”

“…Postmodern approaches to qualitative research have progressively departed from the traditional (positivist) paradigm that advocated a strict separation of researcher and participant to embrace the idea that involvement and detachment—both in the field and in subsequent relationships with research participants—are at the heart of any ethical qualitative inquiry (Alley, 2018; Funk & Thajib, 2019). This awareness led to increasing interest in elaborating strategies to deal with the emotional bonds that emerged during fieldwork (Alley, 2018).…”

“…and the multiple forms of inequalities they produce remain in place both when we maintain a distance and when we engage in intimate relationships with our study participants. However, in the latter case, researchers might have the illusion to have reduced power inequalities and might become even less aware of reinforcing structure during their research endeavors (Funk & Thajib, 2019; Manning, 2022).…”

“…Research has widely demonstrated that the risk of getting too close increases under certain conditions such as when the researchers are (or are perceived as) insiders in the studied communities, when they share similar socio-demographic characteristics with the participants or when they have spent so much time in the field that their presence has become natural and unnoticeable (Funk & Thjib, 2019). Specific methodological tools also increase risks, depending on the researchers’ personality, including their capacity for empathy as well as their tendency to people-please (Alley, 2018).…”

“…The development of emotional bonds with others implies and increases a person’s obligation to the other person as it fosters a deeper recognition of others as human beings. Applied to fieldwork, this idea has inspired many scholars (Shokooh Valle, 2021) to argue that intimacy with participants can potentially extend and increase researchers’ ethical sensitivity beyond a moment in the field: illuminating the participant’s existence beyond the limited time and space of the fieldwork, emotional bonds in research would encourage scholars to reciprocate what they have received by giving back something of what they have studied to participants (Ellis, 2007; Funk & Thajib, 2019). Nonetheless, also in research entailing strong emotional entanglements, this giving back rarely occurs as an integral part of the research and rarely targets the participants who are directly involved in the study.…”