Key Informants

In your posts last week, many of mentioned a few key components of a productive relationship between an anthropologist and their key informants.  An important part of participant-observation is finding people who are willing to work with you, to help you interpret what you are observing and to tell you about aspects of the culture that you may not have an opportunity to observe.  Here are the primary concerns in identifying potential key informants.

Knowledge of the Culture

We tend to gravitate to people we like, but those that we like best may not make the best informants.  This is a trap that anthropologists have to work hard to avoid.  Informants are colleagues who may become friends, but should not necessarily start out as friends.  How do you know who is most knowledgeable, trustworthy and accurate?   One method anthropologists use to select informants is the “cultural consensus model.”  Those things that most informants agree on are probably cultural.  By asking a sample of informants the same questions about a particular cultural domain, you can establish things that appear to be cultural.  Those informants that give answers that closely match the cultural consensus are likely the most knowledgeable in that cultural domain.  Many anthropologists have found that those informants who are the most knowledgeable are not “typical” individuals.  Good informants are often somewhat marginal.   It is important to find knowledgeable informants, but also informants who are willing to work with you.  Marginal individuals are often more willing to work with the anthropologist.  However, this may cause some problems too.  A few of you mentioned ‘favoritism’ in your posts.  There is a saying about being known by the company you keep.  It is important for the anthropologist not to be seen as being too closely associated with any individual or group within the society.  Therefore, anthropologists will usually identify a few key informants that represent various groups within the society.  This provides them with a check on the information provided by any one informant, and it keeps them from being seen as too close to any one individual or group.

Trust

Trust is another important component of an anthropologist’s relationship with informants.  The informant must feel comfortable talking openly.  That requires that they know the anthropologist will not share the details of their conversations with others in the community.  Developing this kind of trust can take quite a long time, even years.  Anthropologists who return again and again to the same group often develop very close relationships with their informants. 

Respect

Many of you mentioned respect in your posts.  Respect is important generally in anthropological research.  To effectively carry out a study based on participant-observation, anthropologists must respect for the culture.  That means adopting, as much as possible, the ways of the group.  Two of the articles you read earlier (Lee and Chagnon) demonstrate just how difficult this can be when the culture being studied is so different from that of the anthropologist.

Remember that the Chapter 4 quiz is due by Sunday.