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Qualitative Social Work
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Trust in Cross-Cultural Research

The Puzzle of Epistemology, Research Ethics and Context

Anne Ryen

Agder University, Norway, Anne.Ryen{at}uia.no

The complexity of social relations in ethnographic fieldwork makes us rightly wonder how do we come to see what is ethical or not? Trust in cross-cultural research works well to explore this issue. I will compare two different treatments of the same linguistic practice from interaction with my main informant, an Asian in East-Africa, and argue that it is important to see the action-orientation of utterances designed to achieve particular interactional ends. Failure to do so may result in analytic claims based on incomplete understanding of data. Treating the informant's utterances as a passive medium for transmission of information, makes us vulnerable to the non-western criticism of western research in non-western contexts. Rather, the action orientation offers an alternative way that makes us see talk as designed to perform sequentially relevant actions. This approach safeguards us against premature interpretations of trust in cross-cultural research practice.

Key Words: context • cross-cultural research • East-Africa • epistemology • research ethics • trust

Qualitative Social Work, Vol. 7, No. 4, 448-465 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1473325008097140
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