Trust, Access and Sensitive Boundaries between ‘Public’ and ‘Private’: A Returning Insider's Experience of Research in Bulgaria

Abstract

The article argues that social researchers need a critical, locally situated and historically informed understanding of the categories of ‘public’ and ‘private’, in particular when carrying out research in post-socialist Eastern Europe. Drawing on an ethnographic study of the working lives of Bulgarian maritime workers, the article discusses a range of ethical fieldwork dilemmas encountered while negotiating field access, maintaining relations with gatekeepers, recruiting participants, establishing rapport, interviewing, gaining access to documentary evidence and exiting the field. The analysis focuses on the conceptual and practical boundaries between the ‘public’ and the ‘private’ and highlights the entanglement of the public and private spheres. The notion of ‘returning insider’ is developed and the implications of the returning insider's positionality are discussed in Bulgarian post-socialist context.