Into the dark heart of ethnography: The lived ethics and inequality of intimate field relationships

Abstract

In this paper, I reflect on some of the debates regarding intimacy and exploitation by examining my relationship with my key informant. I trace the way that, despite my attempts to follow the existing ethical guides, I reinforced several larger inequalities in my intimate stance. I argue that our discussions of intimate methods and immersion in the field have failed to accurately note how we reinforce or resist structure in our research endeavours. Viewing ourselves as “doing structure” in the field would lead us to stop debating whether intimacy is better than objectivity, celibacy is better than sex, disclosure is better than silence, or conventional behaviour is better than deviance in the field. Instead, we should locate how our behaviours, research roles, or discursive choices enact structures and the effect this enactment has on the people who we research.