Trust and Complicity: Methodological Issues in Interviews with Elites
Michael Gilding, Swinburne University of Technology
There is a burgeoning stream of social science research that employs face-to-face techniques - that is, interviews and ethnography - in the study of elites. The literature offers unique insights into what the US anthropologist George Marcus describes as the ‘cultures and forms of life’ of elites. In turn, social scientists have reflected upon the distinctive challenges of such approaches. Yet they have barely addressed the construction of trust in the course of interviews and fieldwork. This paper explores why trust matters, how it is forged through 'reflexive complicity', and how it influences the presentation of results.
