The continuum of rapport: Ethical tensions in qualitative interviews with vulnerable participants

Abstract

Rapport is generally considered an essential component of successful interviewing, where participants are willing to share and divulge information. The present paper contributes to the research on rapport in qualitative interviewing by exploring ethical tensions that researchers may experience when conducting qualitative interviews with vulnerable participants. The analysis is based on semi-structured interviews with nine researchers from various fields within social sciences who had extensive experience in doing research with diverse vulnerable groups. We identified six ethical tensions related to building rapport with people in vulnerable life situations that cover issues concerning both too little and too much rapport. Findings illustrate that rapport as the ‘ideal’ for the researcher-participant relationship may need nuancing. The study concludes that researchers undertaking qualitative interviews on sensitive topics need to have a conscious awareness of ethical tensions that may arise when building rapport with their participants.