Researcher’s guilt: confessions from the darker side of ethnographic consumer research

ABSTRACT

A reflexive approach to qualitative research seeks to uncover structures of inequality in the research encounter. On the surface, it would seem that ethnographic methods provide the conditions to alleviate this methodological instrumentalism. By employing a confessional account, this paper demonstrates how the paradox of asymmetrical rapport prevents ethnographic work from reaching its collaborative potential. Drawing from insights in an ethnographic enquiry in an arts charity, the author narrates the guilty experiences that arise when researchers reproduce a culture of commodifying informants. This is exemplified through impression management tactics that generate an illusion of mutuality, alternating with more authentic instances of co-participation. The implications of this self-perceived moral violation are discussed for the researched, the researcher and ethnographies of consumption more broadly. The paper contributes to the methodological literature by explaining the potential of confessional accounts as a tool to operationalise reflexive, reciprocal practice, counteracting the demands of a knowledge economy.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnography
• confessional reflexivity
• researcher’s guilt
• asymmetrical rapport
• fieldwork instrumentalism
• research reciprocity
• ethics

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the special issue editors and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the manuscript, as well as participants in the “Dark Side of Consumer Research” session at the Interpretive Consumer Research workshop 2015, and Dr Elizabeth Nixon, for valuable thoughts on earlier versions of this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.