Researcher’s social capital: Liaising with local actors for effective ethnographic research

Having a good relationship with a local NGO helped me participate in several events not strictly related to my research. Seen above, women dancing on Women\’s Day to kill time before the formal event began. They sang local songs, spun in giddy circles and all in all entertained everyone around!

The doing of research is something that is very close to my heart and a subject I have not adequately touched upon in this blog. In an interdisciplinary field like mine that draws upon rural development, natural resource management, and climate change science, I have experimented with and relied upon several methods for collecting data. During my PhD fieldwork, I drew on my experience working with an NGO, to gain access to and acceptance in the community I was conducting my research in. And I realised that just as in any other endeavour, building networks, investing in relationships beyond the strict confines dictated by professional boundaries, and collecting data like \’branches to build my nest\’ (in the words of my supervisor) helped tremendously.

In a post at LSE\’s Field Research Blog, I elaborate on some of these points and discuss how liaising with local actors can help build a researcher\’s social capital and thus facilitate effective ethnographic research.