“You can stay now, you are trusted”: navigating qualitative fieldwork in sport coaching

The study tells my story [Harley-Jean] as an ethnographic researcher,  addressing the complexities within qualitative coaching fieldwork. I  story how, during a season-long ethnographic study on basketball  coaches’ decision-making, I negotiated the space as a researcher and  became an integral and trusted member of their coaching context. Drawing  on my arts-based reflective diary, I reflect on how I navigated my  interactions with the coaches and negotiated the research space. My  story contains three central plots: (1) “Who is [Harley-Jean]?”  highlights how I started my journey in my selected research field. (2)  “Passing Coach’s test” illustrates how I presented my worth within the  Basketball context and negotiated trust, and (3) “You are trusted now,  you can stay” captures how I became a trusted member of the team. The  stories artfully convey the interactions and messiness of negotiating  the position of a researcher and how building trusting relationships is  central to high-quality fieldwork.