Trust in Ethnographic Research
Episode Description
In this episode of Talking about Methods, Professor Linda Mulcahy talks to Dr. Allison Lindner about trust in ethnographic research. Allison walks us through the different roles trust played in her research with informal waste workers. She reflects on building and maintaining trust, ethical considerations, positionality, and different kinds of research output, such as writing and film.
Readings recommended by Allison Lindner
Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (2019) Ethnography: Principles in Practice. 4th edn. Routledge.
Massoud, M.F. (2022) ‘The price of positionality: assessing the benefits and burdens of self-identification in research methods’, Journal of Law and Society, 49 (S1)
Darian-Smith, E. and McCarty, P.C. (2017) The Global Turn: Theories, Research Designs, and Methods for Global Studies. University of California Press.
Paper authored by Allison Lindner
Allison Lindner (2026) A methodology for the study of an informal environmental economy, International Journal of Law in Context, FirstView, pp. 1-17.
About the Speaker
Allison Lindner
Dr Allison Lindner is a Lecturer in Law at UCL. She researches waste, the informal economy, and sustainable development in the Global South. Dr Lindner founded and runs a network of early and mid-career waste law researchers, the Waste Law Research Group. Dr Lindner is a member of the Academic Circle advising the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development on the fulfilment of his mandate until December 2027. Before transitioning to academia, she was a legal researcher for the Commonwealth Secretariat.