Being at the Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Rethinking Trust in Qualitative Inquiry

N 1994, I COMPLETED AN 18-MONTH ethnographic study to understand a particular residential college's quest for community.' Each day I interacted with students in their residence hall rooms, seminars, and dining hall. As is the case with most ethnographic studies, I utilized three data collection methods: participant-observing students in their natural setting (Adler & Adler, 1994; Sanger, 1996), conducting open-ended interviews (Fontana & Frey, 1994; Spradley, 1979), and analyzing written and audiovisual documents (Hodder, 1994; Jorgensen, 1989). These three distinct yet complementary fieldwork methods helped me collect volumes of data. The technical aspects of my fieldwork satisfied me. I was organized (e.g., I drafted a comprehensive proposal that pleased the college's gatekeepers), diligent (e.g., I spent a few hours per day on site), and systematic (e.g., I wrote, transcribed, and analyzed my fieldnotes). Yet I remained uneasy and uncertain. A gnawing conceptual question persisted, Were the data I gathered any good? Inevitably, the rapport2 between my respondents and me ended up at the epicenter of my response to this question. In this article I first recount a short confessional tale (Van Maanen, 1988) based on a 20minute data collection segment of my 18-month field study. This tale highlights the importance of and the tensions surrounding trust in qualitative