Abstract
The ideal of reciprocity in research relationships refers to a rather general notion of mutual exchange. It stands for the effort to overcome or mend the multifarious—and to some degree constitutive—inequalities in field relationships. Capturing the contradiction between mutuality and power asymmetry, the ideal of reciprocity touches upon fundamental tensions in anthropological research ethic. This renders reciprocity a challenging and emotionally charged topic for fieldworkers. The conceptual and practical details of this ideal, however, remain vague. On closer examination, the notion of reciprocity can refer to a whole range of approaches addressing different aspects of the asymmetry of research relationships: (1) redefining the research relation in an effort to reduce (or overcome) the inherent power gap researcher and researched; (2) reshaping the research constellations to reduce other power asymmetries by adjusting the positionalities of fieldworkers and their interlocutors; and (3) compensating for the inequality between researcher and researched by different ways of “giving back.”
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Notes
- 1.
This list was presented at the workshop “The Researchers’ Affects,” December 3–4, 2015, in Berlin. As former moderator of the working group, I owe thanks to the participants Patrick Keilbart, Mirjam Lücking, and Veronika Siegl for our joint discussions, which inspired the editing of this section and the writing of this introduction.
- 2.
By research relationship, I refer to relationships between the researcher and other people, while disregarding other forms of relating that constitute the anthropological field (Spencer 2010).
- 3.
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von Vacano, M. (2019). Reciprocity in Research Relationships: Introduction. In: Stodulka, T., Dinkelaker, S., Thajib, F. (eds) Affective Dimensions of Fieldwork and Ethnography. Theory and History in the Human and Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20831-8_7
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