ABSTRACT
Despite that feeling, a last fieldwork experience towards the end of the year 2008, the application of a self-administered survey to a group of chief and subaltern officers (students in the Superior War College and the Technical College), confronted me with the false illusion that to access is always to co-operate. The fourth informant of the Superior Teaching Institute of the Army put me in touch with an active Colonel, the Academic Secretary of the Superior War College. He was in charge of gathering all the officer students to hand out the survey and wait for them to complete it.8 When I arrived, I presented my institutional affiliation, the aims of the project and myself. The situation was tense. I made it very clear that the survey was voluntary and anonymous and that the treatment of the information would be strictly academic. Nobody refused to answer it, but showed opposition when they left several questions blank. I felt very uncomfortable. The situation became even worse with the arrival of the Secretary of Evaluation. This officer had not been informed of my visit and was very annoyed and aggressive, overruling the quality of my work. Once the survey was finished, I could not ask respondents to deepen their responses. I considered that for an exploratory phase, and given the lack of studies of that type, it was a good start. After that experience, I decided not to repeat the survey with the other cohort. This experience illuminated the real dimension of access, which is much more complex than the achievement of a good rapport with the informants. Also, my “self ” and personal characteristics (abilities or inabilities) to negotiate with the actors were present, as were the power relations to which, at times, I felt at a disadvantage.
