Role Boundaries and Paying Back: 'Switching Hats' in Participant Observation

Participant observers encounter researcher role dilemmas when they conduct studies in settings where they also are employed. Focusing on the technique of role-switching as a practical field relationship tactic, this article describes how subjects may use the researcher's dual status during research. The author illustrates four instances of researcher role-switching in her relationships with subjects in a study of black students in a university where she also is a faculty member and an administrator. The relationship between researcher role management and the premise of reciprocity in field research is conceptualized from the author's perspective of role-taking in the participant observer's work site.