Ethnography under constraint: Interlocutors and the social infrastructure of access in rural Ethiopia

This article examines how ethnographic fieldwork is made possible under conditions of limited transport, uneven mobility, and uncertain institutional access. Drawing on 12 months of fieldwork in rural hamlets in Kuyu District, Central Ethiopia, it develops the concept of social infrastructure of access to explain how existing relationships support and sustain ethnographic fieldwork over time. The findings show how a locally embedded schoolteacher acting as an interlocutor enabled the researcher to build trust, broaden participation, and gain access to people, institutions, and documentary materials that would have been difficult to reach through formal procedures alone. The study further demonstrates that ethnographic access develops through ongoing relationships, flexible field practices, and repeated engagement rather than a single moment of entry. The article contributes to methodological debates by conceptualizing access as a social infrastructure, sustained through interconnected relationships rather than a one-time event. More broadly, it shows how fieldwork under constraint can illuminate the relational conditions through which ethnographic access and knowledge production become possible.