The fallacy of the instrumental gate? Contextualising the process of gaining access through gatekeepers

Drawing on ethnographic research concerned with the phenomenon of migrant prostitution in Italy, this article problematises the mechanistic model in social research that reduces the gatekeeper to a static and instrumental figure to be gotten past and the passage through the metaphorical gate as a matter of course. Moving beyond this, it suggests approaching gatekeepers as social actors embedded, participating in and influencing relations of power, and gaining access through gatekeepers as a dynamic process that is shaped by transformative encounters in the field.