“You can stay now, you are trusted”: navigating qualitative fieldwork in sport coaching

The study tells my story [Harley-Jean] as an ethnographic researcher, addressing the complexities within qualitative coaching fieldwork. I story how, during a season-long ethnographic study on basketball coaches’ decision-making, I negotiated the space as a researcher and became an integral and trusted member of their coaching context. Drawing on my arts-based reflective diary, I reflect on how I navigated my interactions with the coaches and negotiated the research space. My story contains three central plots: (1) “Who is [Harley-Jean]?” highlights how I started my journey in my selected research field. (2) “Passing Coach’s test” illustrates how I presented my worth within the Basketball context and negotiated trust, and (3) “You are trusted now, you can stay” captures how I became a trusted member of the team. The stories artfully convey the interactions and messiness of negotiating the position of a researcher and how building trusting relationships is central to high-quality fieldwork.