Introduction

Field access and access to interviewees, understood as a dynamic and flexible process, is a fundamental stage in social research (Hammersley and Atkinson 1994; Goetz and LeCompte 1988; Descombe 1998; Feldman et al. 2003). Its features, dilemmas and challenges have been the object of methodological debates in different disciplines, such as anthropology, which deploy ethnographic studies. Attention to access has been less frequent in non-ethnographic qualitative studies. However, in this kind of study, access is also of paramount importance in order to establish good relationships with research participants and gatekeepers. This article analyzes the complex decision-making process that allowed me to interview Argentinean military officers of two military institutions in 2008.1 The two military institutions are the Military School (Colegio Militar de la Nación) and the Superior Teaching Institute of the Army (Instituto de Enseñanza Superior del Ejército). The following presentation is divided into three parts. First, I will define “access,” drawing upon theoretical and methodological literature. Second, I will briefly describe the complex set of interactions with key informants and potential gatekeepers over almost two years that preceded my final access to the military institutions. The result of this extended negotiation had implications for the development of the study. I will give an account of this process as a way to illustrate the credibility of the research work (Maxwell 1996; Whittemore et al. 2001; Cho and Trent 2006). In the last section, I will reflect upon the “false illusion” that access to an institution implies the cooperation of all of its members. The fieldwork experience with a group of military officers confronted me with this reality.