Relationships, Trust and Accountability, and Critical Reflexivity: Developing Quality Data with the “Hard to Reach”

Understanding the realities of members of marginalized communities is central to the advancement of social and behavioral sciences. We argue that the development of data accurately representing the perspectives and experiences of such communities is fundamentally contingent on relationships of trust and accountability, and on researcher critical reflexivity. We showcase our methodology in three vignettes based on how we conduct research with communities that are “hard to reach” due to their societal marginalization. These vignettes include our reflections on the quality of data as a function of relationships, trust, accountability, and critical reflexivity. Our stories from the field highlight the importance of relational research with communities experiencing marginalization.