讲座提要：Ethnographic research requires long residence (ideally a full year) and continuous contact, or intermittent contact over even longer periods of time. In most parts of the world, local people do not open up quickly to strangers, but offer them hospitality that may be both an act of generosity and a way of controlling an unknown presence. Anthropologists learn from experience how to be patient while gradually gaining their informants’ trust, and also to recognize signs – linguistic, gestural, and social – that this process of enhancing intimacy is progressing (or, in some cases, is failing – itself a useful form of insight, even if a distressing one!). As the relationship improves, so, too, the data usually become more reliable. The speaker will use examples from his field research in Greece, Italy, and Thailand, in order to show how there can be no short cuts and no substitute for the patient work of growing trust – a sensitive plant at the best of times – in the course of ethnographic research.
民族志研究需要长时间居住在田野（理想时间是一整年）并在未来更长的时间中与田野有更多持续或间断的联系。在世界大多数地方，当地人不会很快向陌生人敞开心扉，但会热情款待陌生人，这既是一个慷慨的举动，也是掌控未知局面的一种方式。人类学家从经历中学习耐心，学习如何逐渐赢得研究对象的信任，也逐渐习得各种符号—语言符号、手势符号、社会符号。人类学家经历文化亲密性的推进过程，即使有时会有让人倍感压力的失败，失败也是提供洞见的一种有用的形式。随着研究者与被研究者关系的深入，研究数据也会变得更可信。Herzfeld教授将用在希腊、意大利、泰国的田野研究案例来说明在田野研究过程中，信任的建立如同时间培育的敏感植物，是一个磨炼耐心的过程，没有捷径也无可取代。
