REFLEXIVITY, ETHNOGRAPHY AND THE PROFESSIONS (COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE)- WATCHING YOU WATCHING ME WATCHING YOU (AND WRITING ABOUT BOTH OF US)

That reflexivity is a characteristic of high modernity is now a truism , but its ethical and practical implications for field research have n ot been explored. The article is based on research conducted among com plementary medical practitioners, focusing on issues of professionalis ation. This research revealed the problematic and permeable nature of boundaries in ethnographic work. For example, in the course of intervi ews and observation therapists vouchsafed information to us which seem ed controversial, even indiscreet. Was this a matter of their own naiv ety, their failure to demonstrate the mature 'professionalism' to whic h they aspired? Or was it a conscious strategy, conducted in the expec tation that we would make such material public without attributing it to them by name? We were obliged to reflect on the nature of our own ' professionalism' as researchers, the ways in which private and public selves interact in the course of research. The confessional nature of some ethnographic writing raises further issues about trust, privacy a nd the preservation of professional boundaries between researcher and researched. We conclude that social scientists are entitled to critiqu e 'professionalism' as a historically situated 'folk' concept whose rh etoric often obscures material interests, but they would do well not t o abandon it themselves if they are to claim a responsible and ethical form of practice.