The challenges of reciprocity: Access, uncertainty, and politics

Ethnographers often engage in practices of reciprocity to ensure that research participants receive some benefit for their participation in research. However, practicing reciprocity involves a series of challenges. This article investigates how events during fieldwork that challenge our identities as researchers influence practices of reciprocity. The article argues that understandings and practices of reciprocity change and develop during research, and highlights that the limits of reciprocity are seldom clear. Drawing on examples from an ethnographic study of a social movement in Sweden, I argue that reciprocity requires constant negotiation, and that the choices we make in situations of identity conflict have direct impact on our analyses. The article concludes in noting that while ethnographers may find different balances between their identities as researchers and their other identities, all ethnographers should be explicit about their concrete ethical choices rather than their abstract principles, as these choices determine the research we produce.