Some of the first, and potentially most important, steps that researchers must take
in the field are those related to rapport development with their participants. Both
novice and experienced field researchers negotiate the difficulties and mysteries of
establishing and maintaining this rapport. In this research, it was our intention to
disentangle the often puzzling rapport-building process. We contacted 16 field
researchers with varying degrees of experience and asked them to detail their
relational turning points with select participants. Using the Retrospective
Interview Technique (RIT) as a narrative prompt we uncovered a pattern of
rapport-building that took the shape of five semipermeable phases of
researcher—participant rapport: Other-Orientation, Self-in-Relation to
Other, Self-and-Other Linking, Interpersonal Connection, and Partnership. In this
article we propose a preliminary stage model of rapport-building trajectories, and
offer implications such a model might have for field researchers.
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