Workshop: Trust and Trust-Making in Fieldwork. Intercultural, Interregional, and Interdisciplinary Explorations

 Hybrid workshop, Friday 13 November 2026, Leiden, the Netherlands, and online

 

Organisation: The collaborative research group Africa’s Global Connections (ASCL), research cluster Regional Dialogues (dept of Anthropology Leiden University) and the Trilateral Laboratory for Global Fieldwork  (an international collaboration set up by IESM Shanghai University, Massey University New Zealand, and ASCL Leiden University, in cooperation with their global partners). 

 

Aim of the workshop is 1) to explore together how trust, distrust and trust-making play a role in our fieldwork, in our relations with our research participants, and within our research teams,  and from there, 2) to develop a more conceptual/theoretical reflection on what (dis)trust is, what it does, and how it forms, and 3) whether and how it could/should be integrated in  our analyses. 

The workshop will be closed by a public presentation of the Trilateral Laboratory for Global Fieldwork and the joint PhD programme agreement between Shanghai University and Leiden University, followed by festive drinks.

 

In this workshop, we will take our own experiences with trust, distrust, and trust-making in the field as a point of departure for a more in-depth reflection on the nature of (dis)trust, its processes and workings, what it does, how it is formed and can be undone. What are cultural aspects of trust-building? How do we assess if someone is trustworthy, and how do we try to be trustworthy ourselves? How is this informed by our positionality and disciplinary background? What are the signs and criteria for trustworthiness in the communities we engage with in the field? What kinds of tensions/frictions may emerge in situations in which one has to deal with a variety stakeholders/audiences having different views on what trustworthy is?  How does power relate to trust, distrust, and trust-making? And how can we capture this in our analysis?  The fact that the workshop brings together senior and junior researchers from Asia, Africa, Latin-America, Oceania and Europe with varied cultural and disciplinary backgrounds and with varied fieldwork experiences in terms of themes and localities, promises a rich base for exchange and reflection. 

 

 

Provisional programme (in CET/UCT+1 time)

 

10:00: Welcome by Mayke Kaag (ASCL) and Yan Jun (IESM)

 

Three presentations of 10 minutes as a preparation to an exchange among the workshop participants

 

11:30-11:45: coffee/tea break

 

Three presentations of 10 minutes as a preparation to an exchange among the workshop participants

 

13:00-13:45: Lunch break

 

Three presentations of 10 minutes as a preparation of an exchange among the workshop participants

 

15:15- 15.30: coffee/tea break

 

 

16:00 – 16:30: Public presentation of the Trilateral Laboratory of Global Fieldwork and Joint PhD programme Agreement Leiden University and Shanghai University.

 

16:30- 17: 30: Drinks