Two of the most fundamental components of conducting successful field work are
gaining access to the field and establishing rapport with individuals and groups who have the
potential to serve as interviewees or informants. Gaining access and establishing rapport allow
researchers to enter a field of study, interview subjects, participate in the “living” of informants,
and observe the phenomena of interest in a scientific way. The “how to” literature on field work
is replete with the importance of gaining access and establishing rapport, though specific studies
on exactly how these can be achieved are less readily available (though see Coy 2001; Lin 2001:
186-194). It is our position that both gaining access and establishing rapport are dependent upon
the interplay between a researcher and her field setting.
This study looks at the ways in which gender and race can be negotiated by a researcher
working in the field.
We compare two field work experiences, one conducted in a low-income
work environment in an urban area of the United States, and the other conducted in two Latin
American countries. This comparison allows for examining how the characteristics and
expectations of the field environments influence how gender is negotiated when establishing the
rapport and trust vital for valid data collection. We argue that while the field work setting
dictates the confines of how gender can be employed, following the traditionally accepted
strategy of remaining a passive, objective recipient of what an informant has to impart should not
always be the goal of female field researchers. These tactics can actually undermine access,
rapport, and observational validity.
While we are both white women, and thus can only experience field work from a
perspective not relevant to all field workers, this study supports a more general assertion about
gaining access and establishing rapport regardless of one’s gender or racial attributes. We treat
“gaining access” and “rapport” as dependent variables in our analysis, arguing that there is not
one causal path or one set of variables which produce successful entry to the field. Rather, we
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Convention