Gaining access and building relationship 69

To build relationships with the group of people within the Club, I acted as a regular member: paying my contribution to be there, drinking coffee, engaging in conversation, and playing bingo. Over time, I gradually built up relationships with the community members, talking with almost every guest on each visit before and between the games.

I tried to take part in the group as much as possible, learning the codes of behavior, which I struggled with at the beginning but served to gain me access deeper into the community. For example, the first time I attended the Club, I thought I could avoid playing bingo and just be there, observing. However, they involved me in the game, and I understood that they perceived somebody who didn’t play as ‘weird’. Some highlighted this, by asking me if I didn’t feel well, or if I didn’t have enough money. Some, supposing that I wasn’t able to understand the numbers in English, suggested that I could read these, as they would be displayed on the board. Some others, approaching my table, offered their help in spotting the numbers on the papers,

19 From September 2017 to May 2018, as part of a student AWARD, I conducted a film as a project of public engagement Figure 19. This aimed to promote social aspects of the environment from an older migrant population perspective.

teaching me the ‘tricks’ of the game, which consist of reading the numbers vertically. Some highlighted the practical advantage of me playing: ‘you can win, but also you have to play, so we will win your money too!’ In one way or another, I was welcomed into the setting, but I couldn’t attend as only an observer; I was warmly invited to participate. This was a clear example of how participation was complementary to observation in my ethnographic practice.

After a while, I came to the realization that participating in their game informed my understanding of the meaning the event held according to my participants’ perspectives; I was able to collect a vast amount of observational data; it helped us to create a common ground to share the experience of having interrupted conversations during every breaks, laugh together at the funny comments that were shouted out when the numbers were announced; and this became an important part of building field relationships.

The initial hour spent in conversation with everyone, provided me with rich information about the group of people I researched with. Therefore, while everybody else played and were concentrating on their piece of paper, sometimes I only pretended to play. I took advantage of the general silence, to reflect on what I was seeing or had heard during the informal conversation of the hour before, writing down some notes on the back of the bingo tickets. These notes became useful additions to my fieldwork diary that I generally updated following the meetings.

Writing notes during the game was not always possible without raising suspicion: one day, the people I shared the table with noticed that I used the paper to do something else, and recalled my attention to the game by stating forcefully that ‘I should pay attention, if I wanted to win’. I needed to become one of them, paying attention to what was important to them; therefore I focused on the game while I was there. Soon I realized that ‘winning’ was not necessarily to my advantage. Once, during my first few times attending, I won. While some were genuinely happy, other were not. One lady, remarked that ‘I have been wasting money here for years, and now you just came here and won!’ On that occasion, I smiled and I appreciated the humor. However, later on, I reflected on how important winning was for them in a bingo game. Even if the amount of money is on average about £1-£2 – depending on the number of participants – winning can ‘make their day’. In fact, I realized that some recalled the following week exactly who had won the previous matches, and how

many times the same person won a game during the previous few weeks. It was apparent that it was of great importance to them, as it obviously wasn’t for me. Therefore, during the next times, ceding to altruism, I decided that I should leave this pleasure to them.

Participating in the game, and learning from their reaction to my behaviors, helped to deepen my understanding of the community and how it was experienced. As explained in greater details above, the process of learning the internal rules of the setting and strategically acting according to these, took some time. I thus set myself a specific code of behavior in order to gain access and build relationships. Those who attended had known each other for a long time. I needed to be accepted as a researcher and as a person.

In order to be accepted as a researcher, I used to talk to participants about myself, my project and my research interests. To build relationships of trust, I often talked about my professional experiences, as well as the ethical consideration I had to negotiate involving them as research participants20. I wanted them to know that I was truly interested in their opinions and in their stories; thus, I used to memorize their names and some events they described in their lives – practicing ‘active listening’ while they were talking. When I asked questions, I often showed my curiosity but I always tried to avoid ‘pushing’ some topics, when I perceived that the questions were not welcomed. I wanted them to know I was happy to listen, but that I also respected their silences.

In order to be accepted as a person, I used to talk about myself and what was important to me outside of the project. Trying to be myself, being open about conversations about my ‘world’ and establishing a reciprocal process of knowledge exchange, has helped me to build trust and relationships with my research participants. An example of this was when my family members were in town, and introduced them to my research participants (my mother in late August 2015, my brother in October 2015, and both my mother and father in April 2016, Easter time). Since my research participants welcomed me into their family settings (houses, friendship, kinship), I wanted them to also know something about me: where I come

20 _{I have been a member of the Italian Psychological Society (Ordine Nazionale Psicologi Italiani- Albo}

A) since 2012. When I shared this information with research participants, it helped to establish trust in my deontological practice.

from, who I care most about. It was a way to ‘reciprocate’ their kindness, trust and inclusion. These relationship were in many instances nascent friendship.

Over time, my data collection became of increasing interest to my research participants due, amongst other things, to the relationship we established during the previous months. This resulted in different factors changing since the beginning of my research: I became an established member of the community; my knowledge and understanding of the participants and study group increased; and the more we became familiar, the more we communicated with each other with a high level of intimacy. Therefore, one of the main strengths of my study has arisen due to the rapport built with each research participant, which has facilitated the great richness of the data collected.

In this respect, it is important to mention that the relationships I built during the course of my fieldwork were really challenging to interrupt at the end of my data collection. Officially, my fieldwork needed to end in June 2016. However, being immersed in the field for such a long time, and having participated in several social events, I was invited after June to different meetings (i.e., a 25th anniversary of marriage of a member of the Club). I decided to extend the data collection for this purpose. Being away from the city during summer 2016, enabled me to decline invitations without threatening the relationships I had built. Moreover, in the following months (from September 2016 to September 2017) although my data collection ended, I remained in contact with my participants, since it was equally important for me not to simply disappear in the eyes of the community group. I used to phone some of them, and asked for information about others. When I could, I continued to participate in meetings and fundraising events – generally on a monthly basis21_.