title: Beyond the unobtrusive observer: reflections on researcher-informant relationships in urban ethnography.
abstract: Ethnographic research involves the creation and ongoing renegotiations of relationships between researchers and informants. Prolonged engagement contributes to the complexity as relationships deepen and shift over time and participants accumulate a substantial reservoir of shared experiences. Reflections about the relationships we have co-constructed with informants in several research projects have contributed to our identification of several critical aspects of building and maintaining researcher-informant relationships in cross-cultural research. Aspects of relationship work specifically related to conducting ethnography with children, within the communities in which researchers live, and within the practice of occupational therapy are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles 90033, USA.
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Lawlor
authors.forename: C F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Mattingly
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural / Q000379:methods*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005007:Ethnology / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008297:Male; D019370:Observation; D009788:Occupational Therapy / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D012107:Research Design; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014505:Urban Population