The following is a modified excerpt from Applied Qualitative Research Design: A Total Quality Framework Approach (Roller & Lavrakas, 2015, pp. 202-204), a qualitative methods text covering in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, ethnography, qualitative content analysis, case study, and narrative research.
Ethnographic research may require the researcher to explicitly gain access to and cooperation from participants. To do this, the researcher principally relies on two functionaries: gatekeepers and key informants. A summary of the roles each plays in gaining access and cooperation can be found in Roller & Lavrakas (2015, p. 203).
Gatekeepers are typically people who hold some type of authority or control over the access to one or more other individuals. A gatekeeper may be a receptionist or administrative assistant in an office environment, the director at a primary care facility, a community leader, a school principal, a manager at a coffee shop (Waxman, 2006), a college dean (Magolda, 2000), or the owner of a website (Paechter, 2013). Because the gatekeeper has the power to give or deny access to the population of interest, the ethnographer may need to make a concerted effort to develop a strong, positive relationship with any gatekeeper associated with the study participants. In contacting the gatekeeper, the researcher should introduce the purpose of the research as well as how the research will benefit the people or organization that the researcher is hoping to gain access to observe. For example, an ethnographer studying a community’s homeless population might contact the manager of the local shelter for permission to observe its patrons, emphasizing that the final outcome of the research is expected to help improve services for the homeless in the community and larger city.
Ethnographers conducting participant observation also rely heavily on key informants. These are generally people who are associated and involved with the research participants (e.g., a nurse in the maternity ward, a member of the local Al-Anon support group, or a union member at the manufacturing plant), and act as the ethnographer’s advisors and supporters throughout the study. As with gatekeepers, the researcher must work towards establishing a trusting relationship with key informants. However, unlike gatekeepers, who may or may not remain involved in the research once access is given, the ethnographer’s relationship with key informants may extend over a lengthy period of time and ultimately culminate in a researcher–informant collaboration on the analysis and actual write-up of the research. Because of their intimate association with study participants, key informants need to be assured of the researcher’s identity, the legitimacy of the research endeavor, and that the research will not result in any harm or otherwise negatively affect the participants.
Key informants can be particularly useful in covert observation and/or studies with deviant populations or subcultures. Adler (1990) and her husband depended heavily on key informants in their 6-year participant–observer ethnographic study of the drug trafficking trade. Their informants not only advised them on how to approach the group of drug dealers being observed, but also supported them when altercations erupted during observation and widened their set of contacts by letting them know “when someone we might be interested in was planning on dropping by, vouching for our reliability as friends who could be included in business conversations” (p. 102). This example illustrates many critical functions of key informants and the important role they play in gaining and maintaining participant cooperation. Regardless of whether the ethnography is overt or covert, key informants facilitate:
• The introduction to participants and other relevant individuals.
• The participants’ trust by assuring them of the ethnographer’s credentials, integrity, and legitimacy of the research effort (in overt observation).
• The cooperation among participants with words of encouragement and reasons why they should participate (in overt observation).
• The rapport between the ethnographer and participants by helping the participant–observer understand the group experience, and advising them on how to deal with particular situations.
Adler, P. (1990). Ethnographic research on hidden populations: Penetrating the drug world. The Collection and Interpretation of Data from Hidden Populations. National Institute on Drug Abuse Research Monograph, 98, 96–112.
Magolda, P. M. (2000). Accessing, waiting, plunging in, wondering, and writing: Retrospective sense-making of fieldwork. Field Methods, 12(3), 209–234. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X0001200303
Paechter, C. (2013). Researching sensitive issues online: Implications of a hybrid insider/outsider position in a retrospective ethnographic study. Qualitative Research, 13(1), 71–86.
Waxman, L. (2006). The coffee shop: Social and physical factors influencing place attachment. Journal of Interior Design, 31(3), 35–53.
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