Turning Points and Rapport Development Across Time in Researcher-Participant Relationships

• In Event: Tension, Paradox, and Turning Points: Challenges We Face When We "Do" Ethnography

Abstract

Some of the first, and potentially most important, steps a researcher must take in the field are those related to rapport development with her/his participants. However, both novice and experienced field researchers continue to address the difficulties of establishing and maintaining this rapport. It was our intention to shed light on the rapport-building process. Thus, we contacted 16 established field researchers and asked them to detail their relational turning points with participants. Using the Retrospective Interview Technique (RIT) we uncovered a rapport-building trajectory pattern that took the shape of five semi-permeable phases of researcher-participant intimacy levels as they were related to rapport: Other-Orientation, Self-in-Relation to Other, Self-and-Other Linking, Interpersonal Connection, and Partnership. In this article we offer a model of potential rapport-building trajectories, as well the implications such a model might have for field researchers.

Authors

• Margaret J. Pitts, Penn State University

• Michelle Miller-Day, Penn State University