Attending to issues of access in contemporary times: centring a significant side issue

Although methodological discussions abound in qualitative research, little time is devoted to access, arguably one of the most important methodological components of social research. Access has often been treated as a side issue by scholarly sources, receiving only cursory attention, generally in a way that reduces it to a mere strategy and severs it from the ‘real’ methodological work of a study. We argue herein that access to all research sites, particularly to elite research sites, is a neglected and under-appreciated, topic that deserves greater scholarly attention, both in academic literature and in the classroom. This inquiry-based article aims to initiate dialogue around the concept of access and the conditions that act to constrain it. In highlighting issues of access, we hope to demonstrate that access is an enduring methodological concern and is a topic in need of greater scholarly attention.