‘What’s in it for me?’: Negotiations of asymmetries, concerns and interests between the researcher and research subjects

Abstract

Pre-interview interactions between qualitative researchers and research subjects are characterized by two-way sense-making processes, through which research subjects attempt to make sense of researchers’ intentions, and what they themselves stand to gain or lose from participating in a given research. Based on a reflexive account of my ethnographic fieldwork experiences in Kenya’s South Coast region, among men known as ‘beach boys’ and as participants of ‘female sex tourism’, I illustrate how the concerns and interests of my target interviewees were generated and negotiated during the pre-interview phase. I do so by analysing our pre-interview interactions, drawing links between my assigned identities, asymmetries between us and the concerns and interests that were generated, as the men considered their participation or non-participation in the research.