Doing Ethnographic Research in Politically Charged Communities - Managing Relationships with Informants

This is indeed a dilemma, and one I don't have all the answers too, but here are my thoughts - they concern the assumptions behind this question as much as strategies for actually answering it... First and foremost, while I'm a believer in 'public sociology' and the simple idea of sticking to your moral values and principles as a researcher as in life, I don't think you have as much of an obligation as you suggest here to give something back to your informants in terms of "support."  Not exploiting people for research is a legitimate concern, but so is potential bias in your study, which would seem to me just as big a reason to avoid an "advocate role."

I don't believe any ethnographic researcher can be entirely without bias, and again it can absolutely be appropriate to write with an impassioned voice or call out rights and wrongs as you see them. BUT, especially when studying the likes of contentious local political struggles with complex or ambiguous motivations, you want to be able to take a critical (if not necessarily literally neutral) stance in your interpretations.

That supporting one group could jeopardize your relationship with another, as you imply, is only another reason to avoid outwardly supporting anyone. It could compromise the information you're getting and your analysis of it on both sides.

Furthermore, remember that some people study individuals or groups with which they may entirely disagree on a personal level. Take violent criminals as an example, or aggressively bigoted groups like white supremacists... clearly they are worthy of ethnographic study, but a researcher wouldn't need to provide them any sort of 'support' to feel ok about interviewing them with their permission.

Regardless of your feelings toward them, simply being transparent about your intentions, as you say above, would seem the most important - and arguably only - thing you really owe them beyond your thanks (and material compensation where required) for their time.

That said, the practical reality you are suggesting here is that almost regardless of your own ethical feelings about how to 'give back', your subjects themselves may actually essentially require some ideological 'support' in order to allow or feel comfortable with your studying them. This is different, and raises broader questions around compensation of research participants, but let's say it is a necessary condition of doing the research for reasons of your own ethics and morals or theirs. It seems to me then that you might show some support through the conversations you have, an expression of shared values where appropriate and an open interviewing style that allows you to empathize with their political sentiments on a personal level and be open (if delicate) about your own background and perspective on the issues.  Something like this should help you to seem less like an itinerant ethnographic strip-miner without having to turn up at their rallies or what have you. In cases where you really do support their aims, providing policy briefs or otherwise advocating for them more actively or publicly is justifiable and probably the 'right thing to do' - but best after your role as a researcher of the situation has concluded. In cases where you don't, but they are unwilling to talk to you without some sign of support, maybe do something material like making them cookies to show your appreciation without having to endorse their politics? At the most extreme I suppose one might go "undercover" to join or work for a group with which one does not actually agree, just in order to study them... but I shudder to think of the IRB protocol on that one...

Naomi, I was reading the comments and your note that "I am afraid I may be relying on public meetings, nagging for interviews, and primary source documents unless I can figure out how to make connections with people without lying or biasing the research" reminded me of the idea of a "key informant." It seems to me in classic anthro and soc ethnographies that this ends up being a technical term for a serendipitous and hard-to-build connection with an information that often comes after a serious struggle to get a food in the door within a community.

I think Venkatesh (Gang Leader for a Day) is an instance of this, where the author ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time and the local gang leader just "happens" to like him, and this opens the doors he needs to access other members of his study group. I'm failing to remember additional specific references, but I definitely have visions of the sympathetic mother who invistes the researcher to  dinner and then serves as a liaison to the neighborhood, or the case worker who has a beer with the researcher and then introduces the researcher to the homeless population, or the adolescent bully who takes a shine to the investigator and makes it "OK" to talk to this one adult.

I guess I'm trying to say that, while it might seem unproductive or frustrating, just "being around" and chatting with people until someone lets you in on a personal level and then serves as a social advocate is not a terrible strategy. In your situation, time itself may be what is needed to show parties you aren't on a side, you arent' leaving tomorrow, and that you have a steady, respectful interest in them as people as well as actors in your field of study.