ABSTRACT

This chapter explains the need for making collaboration work to the benefit of the research process and its outcomes. It outlines some of the contingencies imposed on anthropologically informed research by virtue of the settings in which it is undertaken. For anthropologically informed HSR, each team member's participation should include both data collection and analysis. This chapter focuses on the implications that local-level contingencies have on particular project plans. The downside of research conducted in clinical settings is that patients who would be participants are generally sick or impaired. In addition to what in health services research (HSR) parlance is sometimes referred to as respondent burden, getting involved in HSR entails a modicum of researcher burden beyond what is standard in anthropological or social science research undertaken in academic settings. Distancing tactics can be part and parcel of the employee mentality cultivated in some HSR organizations.