Chapter 3- Abbey Dahl (forgot the title the first time)

An "ideal" relationship between an anthropologist and the key informants would be a relationship that based on respect. An anthropologist, whether doing fieldwork in another country or within their own culture, needs to respect the people they are doing research on. Also vise versa. The people who are being researched must have respect for the anthropologist because the studier is trying to find out more about their interesting culture. If one was studying their own culture/society it could be problematic because they have to potential in their research to be bias/ethnocentric. If one was studying an outside culture this relationship could be difficult because the people might be skeptical about the anthropologist. Although it would be pleasant to create friendships while in fieldwork, I feel as if it would complicate the objectiveness of the research. Getting too close to the informants might create a bias with the research so it could not be as reliable. An anthropologist must have a kind of trustful relationship with the society at hand because they want valuable and truthful information to write about. The anthropologist just cannot cross any boundaries that might affect how the society views him. An anthropologist would be able to minimize these issues by making sure their view is still objective because as an outsider they want their information to sound liable.