Field Research in Minority Communities: Ethical, Methodological and Political Observations by an Insider

This paper reviews issues in field research in minority communities. The general question, Where shall minority research come from? is posed, then considerable attention is focused on the insider-outsider controversy—especially its importance for Chicanos in the social sciences. It is argued that minority researchers have cer-tain empirical and methodological advantages in conducting field research, but also face unique problems in simultaneously addressing ethical, methodological and polifical concerns. The authors field research experience among Chicano families is then drawn on for general implications for insider research in minority communities. In the past decade the social science literature on minority research has expanded greatly. Much of it is critical of earlier findings and of the relationships between researchers and minority peoples. The first critique is conceptual, emphasizing that inappropriate assumptions and frameworks have produced distorted accounts of minority group life. The second is political, stressing that the relationship between social researchers and the people they study has been un-equal at best and exploitative at worst: researchers take information and eventually receive pro-fessional advancement, but the minority people receive nothing for the time and information they