Unsettling Engagements: On the Ends of Rapport in Critical Ethnography

Abstract

The authors attempt to frame the essays in this issue of Qualitative Inquiry by arguing that an increasing emphasis on forms of “critical ethnography” in a variety of ethnographically informed disciplines has significantly complicated the notion of ethnographic rapport. Rapport, as a methodological trope and relational strategy of the ethnographic habitus, has, in some circles, already been undergoing reconsideration and revision. But too often, it has simply been ignored. This refusal to locate rapport has been particularly problematic for ethnographers informed by technologies of critical theory. Critical ethnographers, including the contributors to this issue, inscribe a range of contrasting perspectives variously regarding the (im)possibility, desirability, ambiguity, and legitimacy of rapport. This issue allows ethnographers of human practice and meaning to seriously ponder the suggestion that they must indeed “forget” rapport.