ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the discussion of theoretical level, a gap remains for discursive narratives of fieldwork experiences, demonstrates how relationships were formed and how the distance between researcher and participants was negotiated. It presents the discussion of theoretical context, addressing how domesticity and domestic situations provide a possibility of creating fruitful research encounters, the importance of rapport and reciprocity and, finally, how notions of Indigenous methodologies were influential. Like food, tea carries special socio-cultural significance as a social glue, and in Pacific communities, where tea consumption is widespread. The chapter examines the social distance between researchers and researched is one that is essentially rooted in domesticity. Domestic spaces and food are all shown to be influential in creating social spaces that facilitate successful research encounters. The chapter focuses on space, and on using tactics of domesticity to dissolve the social distance between collaborators, stems from broader methodological concerns in which notions of rapport is a key theme.
