Trustwork: A conceptual framework of trust building and maintenance in field research in illicit drug markets

BACKGROUND: While trust has been shown to be important in immersive drug market research, especially when working with hard-to-reach research participants, little in-depth discussion exists on the trust building process and the dynamics that facilitate or hinder this process. In this article, we advance a conceptual framework for understanding the trust building process in fieldwork in illicit drug markets. METHODS: To develop this framework and demonstrate its utility, we draw on ethnographic and interview-based research with criminalised cannabis market actors (e.g. farmers, transporters, traders) in South-West and South-South Nigeria, which was part of a long-term fieldwork-based research project. Based on extensive fieldnotes produced by this research and especially during four key fieldwork episodes, the article examines how trust relations between researchers and participants are built and maintained and occasionally break down. RESULTS: We show how trust develops gradually and relationally from initial familiarity and 'pre-existing trust' to long-term trust relationships. Trust is based on a shared understanding of the research situation, as well as an ongoing negotiation of the expectations on researchers and participants. As such, trust in drug market research is fragile and needs to be continuously negotiated. CONCLUSION: Our research underlines the role of 'trustwork', i.e. the ongoing negotiation and fulfilment of mutual expectations, in building and maintaining trust and rapport, especially important for immersive fieldwork in illicit drug markets in Nigeria as elsewhere. Our contribution is to foreground the fragility and negotiability of trust and the complex interplay of social, affective, material and spatio-temporal forces that shape the trust building process.