A confrontation on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands: interviewing, local language, and rapport in anthropological fieldwork

Researching how the Australian state relates to the Muslim Malay community on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands (an Australian territory), Herriman and Winarnita provide an example of rapport with a potential research participant going wrong. They see this experience as providing insightful and important data. In this example, Herriman is following a suggestion to interview a new participant when, by chance, he meets with Ifti. Ifti immediately accuses Herriman of wishing to do a study that would enrich Herriman, making him a millionaire (after the study had been published as a book). In addition to providing another example that questions the very possibility of rapport, Herriman and Winarnita analyze this “Ifti moment” as an expression of Ifti’s ideology. Namely, Ifti saw Herriman’s government-funded academic research as merely a continuation of the profits and the historical exploitation of Muslim Malays of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, the majority of whom are receiving government benefits for unemployment, pensions, and so on.