Researching Global China often requires navigating politically sensitive environments to which access is restricted, where narratives are contested, and where researcher identity may shape fieldwork dynamics in unpredictable ways. As geopolitical tensions intensify, both research participants and audiences increasingly interpret Chinese entanglements abroad through the lens of great-power competition. Further, the projects, institutions, and other phenomena tied up with China’s global footprint frequently have profound political and economic ramifications at local scales that may be unknown to researchers who enter their field sites looking to study them. Fortunately, the unpredictability and ambiguity that many, if not all, researchers encounter during fieldwork need not be viewed as undesirable, or as a source of bias that could contaminate research results. Instead, scholars of Global China conducting fieldwork could benefit from the methodological lessons drawn out by interpretive research approaches, particularly as articulated within contemporary political science.

Interpretive approaches, or ‘interpretivism’, serve as a shorthand to distinguish a set of methodological commitments that emphasise reflexivity and the co-construction of meaning. While interpretive approaches are the norm in some social science disciplines, their position within political science, particularly in the United States, remains contested. Ongoing methodological debates within political science have led to a more explicit articulation of interpretivism. Although still a minority approach within the discipline, this increased clarity makes its contours more legible to scholars of Global China—regardless of whether they are trained as political scientists. This heightened visibility, born from the need to carve out a space for interpretivist approaches within the mainstream of political science, offers scholars a vocabulary and set of tools for navigating complex fieldwork environments where conventional neopositivist methodological ideals of researcher objectivity, replicability, and formal generalisability offer little guidance. By integrating approaches including active reflexivity, relational interviewing, and abductive research design, scholars of Global China can better understand how their work is shaped by the broader political and epistemological conditions in which it unfolds.

This essay will argue that interpretive methodologies offer critical tools for engaging with the challenges posed by Global China fieldwork. Rather than striving for detached objectivity, interpretivism foregrounds the ways in which knowledge is shaped by the researcher’s positionality. More specifically, I explore how interpretive approaches contribute to the study of Global China by drawing on my year-long ethnographic research in Ecuador on a politically charged infrastructure project. I reflect on how my identity and affiliations influenced how I was perceived, shaping opportunities for access and the kinds of insights informants were willing to share. Drawing from these experiences, I consider how insights from interpretivist methodologists provide avenues for scholars to engage our own positionality as a productive site of analysis rather than a roadblock to data collection. Further, interpretive methodologies can be particularly valuable for studying competing narratives surrounding Global China in a world where such narratives are increasingly polarised and polarising.

First, I set out the foundational principles of interpretivism and highlight several methodological concepts of relevance to the field-based study of Global China. I also consider examples of existing scholarship on Global China that take up interpretive approaches, even if they do not necessarily identify them explicitly as such. I then provide instances from my own fieldwork where these concepts helped me to process my experiences, concluding with the assertion that interpretivist methodologies not only help researchers navigate complex fieldwork conditions but also can enrich theoretical understandings of China’s evolving global presence.

Key Contributions of Interpretive Methodologies

While definitions of interpretivism vary, Schaffer (2016: 2) provides a useful starting point, stating that an interpretive approach ‘starts from the dual premises that there are no “real” social entities, only culturally mediated social facts, and that social science is always perspectival and entwined with the pursuit of moral or material goods’. In political science, interpretivism often emerges in contrast to the prevailing neopositivist paradigm, which prioritises methodological standards drawn from the natural sciences (Jackson 2016). This often includes scepticism towards the ideals of objectivity, generalisability, variables-based causality, hypothesis testing, and Popperian falsifiability. The conceptualisation of interpretivism was fomented in the discipline during and after the ‘Perestroika’ movement of the early 2000s, which challenged methodological orthodoxy (Monroe 2005). Interpretivism also has roots in longer-standing influences from anthropology, hermeneutics, and phenomenology. Despite its eclectic philosophical origins, the interpretive label has taken on a clear role as a framework through which scholars epistemologically justify their work—evident today in political science literature, syllabi, and scholarly networks (Harris and Radomski 2024).

As a starting point for thinking concretely about the contributions of interpretivism to Global China fieldwork, I briefly lay out three concepts drawn from influential interpretivist methodological texts by political scientists. These include abductive research design, active reflexivity, and relational interviewing. As I will discuss using my own field research as an example, each could prove useful for scholars planning or doing field research on Global China. An in-depth exploration of each of these complex conceptualisations and the debates surrounding them is outside the scope of this essay; rather, these summaries should be taken as entry points for scholars looking for guidance in approaching fieldwork through an interpretive lens.

Abductive research design presents a way of planning and describing the relationship between theory and empirical data collection, distinct from deduction (theory to hypothesis to testing) and induction (observation to generalisation) (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2011). Instead, abduction involves a ‘puzzling-out process’ in which the researcher ‘tacks continually, constantly, back and forth in an iterative–recursive fashion between what is puzzling and possible explanations for it, whether in other field situations … or research-relevant literature’ (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2011: 27). It is nonlinear, calling for researchers to move between data and theory to allow insights from the field to reshape their conceptual framing. Accordingly, an abductive design avoids predefining variables or expected outcomes, instead remaining open to emergent meanings during the research process. Rather than following a sequential process of defining a research question, theorising key concepts, and then collecting data to respond to the former, the researcher transparently embraces the idea that their conceptualisations emerge and evolve throughout fieldwork.

Soedirgo and Glas (2020) introduce the concept of active reflexivity, drawing on a fundamental presupposition that interpretivist research is ‘reflexive’, but strive to make its enactment more rigorous and transparent. Reflexivity is a continuous iterative process of reflecting on one’s own positionality, including demographic, biographical, or other personal qualities that are salient to how a researcher relates to their research setting (Schwartz-Shea 2014). Soedirgo and Glas (2020: 527) define a posture of active reflexivity as an ‘embodied disposition toward reflexivity as research is conducted—from design to data collection to interpretation’. They propose four practical strategies to implement this posture—namely: recording reflections about one’s positionality throughout the research process, systematising these reflections within one’s research routines, involving others including participants in discussions about positionality, and explicitly discussing reflexivity practice considerations in publications to enhance transparency and trustworthiness.

Relational interviewing, as developed by Lee Ann Fujii (2018), is a tool that can be employed during fieldwork that reframes interviews not as a neutral method for extracting information, but as a dynamic interaction shaped by the identities, emotions, and positionalities of both researcher and participant. Fujii emphasises that preparing for and analysing interview-based research can and should embrace these facets of the interview process. During relational interviewing, meaning is co-constructed rather than transferred unidirectionally from subject/participant to researcher and is ‘always rooted in a specific social context, formed in part by “who” the interviewer and interviewee are, both individually and in interaction’ (Fujii 2018: 3). This approach urges researchers to attend not only to what is said, but also to silences, affect, contradictions, and even untruths, treating these elements as meaningful data. Moreover, these subjective, inevitably social facets of the interview process need not be obscured and sanitised in final research products. Instead, in line with active reflexivity, they can be made transparent and incorporated into the analysis itself.

Interpretivism and Global China

Interpretivist methodological insights prove especially valuable when confronting the difficulties of dealing with sensitive topics and establishing research relationships across cultural and political divides. This approach therefore offers valuable tools for scholars studying Global China, where positionality within fieldwork can be both fraught and directly constitutive of the knowledge that is produced. Racial identity, nationality, and language skills shape research on Chinese overseas engagement in fundamental ways, rather than serving merely as methodological hurdles. These factors shape fieldwork by determining who will speak to the researcher, what information is shared with them, and how their questions are interpreted by our interlocutors (as will be explored below). Geopolitical tensions between the United States and China may amplify these tendencies, as researchers inadvertently embody larger political narratives that in turn have specific national and local-level implications. Interpretivism, however, reframes these challenges as substantive entry points for analysis. Rather than pursuing researcher neutrality or unattainable immersion, interpretivist approaches offer alternative paths to rigour through transparency about partial perspectives and the acknowledgement that positionality shapes not only which questions can be asked and to whom, but also the knowledge ultimately produced. As noted by Pachirat (2018: 19), ‘the more fraught the power relations in the field, the more accounting for these sorts of positionality matters to the quality of the research’.

To be sure, some scholars of Global China have already embraced interpretive approaches in their research, applying methods that foreground meaning-making, reflexivity, and context-specific analysis. These studies, unsurprisingly, are authored primarily by scholars within disciplines in which interpretive approaches are the norm rather than the exception—namely, anthropology and critical geography. Special issues of geography journals including Oliveira et al. (2020) and Klinger and Muldavin (2019) advance grounded, relational approaches to studying the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Chinese global integration more broadly (see also DiCarlo 2023; Cheng and Apostolopoulou 2023). At a theoretical level, Franceschini and Loubere (2022) argue that Global China ‘as method’ must be fundamentally relational, urging scholars to consider the mutual entanglements between China and the broader world instead of viewing China as unique and external. Such frameworks for thinking about Global China can be thought of as pairing well with fieldwork that is also relational, producing contextual, place-based understandings that do not paper over the positionality of the researcher or the contingency of the knowledge that is produced.

At a nuts-and-bolts level, however, how can these conceptualisations of Global China be practically applied to field research? Contemporary ethnography, which has a close relationship with interpretivism, often highlights the flexibility and attention to positionality called for by the interpretive concepts described above (Wedeen 2009). Indeed, works by ethnographers of Global China including Lee (2017), Driessen (2019), and DeHart (2021) are important examples wherein the authors locate themselves socially within their fieldwork and reflect on what this means for their research production. However, even scholars who do not seek to produce ethnography can take lessons from considering research as an abductive process, approaching interviews relationally, and practising active reflexivity throughout their fieldwork. These concepts assist researchers to become more comfortable with embracing flexibility during data collection (or co-generation, as it were), as well as bringing to the fore transparency about the ‘messiness’ of social science research (Law 2004).

Experiences from the Field

In this section, I apply interpretivist principles to my own experiences through reflection on my fieldwork in Ecuador from 2021 to 2022, which focused on the politics of the Chinese-built and financed Coca Codo Sinclair (CCS) hydroelectric project. During fieldwork, I was based in the largest town and political centre of the rural canton where the project’s primary installations are located. I also travelled frequently to the small towns throughout the project area and the capital city of Quito. As I reflect upon my fieldwork experiences and continue to work with the data generated, an interpretivist approach demands interrogation of how my presence actively constituted the field of inquiry and the resulting data. Drawing on the interpretivist methodological concepts outlined above, I discuss how my positionality created specific pathways of access, barriers, and interpretive lenses that fundamentally shaped my research. I share these experiences to illustrate the kinds of tensions that may arise during fieldwork on Global China, as well as to practise ‘active reflexivity’ even after fieldwork is completed.

Inevitably, my identity as a white American from a US university significantly shaped my experiences in Ecuador. This positioning on occasion facilitated remarkable access to elite Ecuadorian actors due to the perceived prestige of US academic institutions. Meanwhile, in rural Ecuador, the novelty of an unfamiliar gringa in a place that sees relatively few foreigners also opened doors. In several cases, my nationality and affiliation (with ‘the American University’ no less) even led interlocutors to attempt to recruit me in various ways to support their political endeavours at both national and local levels. These individuals explicitly told me that my endorsement or just visible association with them could play a legitimising role for their positions. For instance, one participant invited me to join a committee aimed at drawing public attention to the positive contribution of the Coca Codo Sinclair project that had been established in response to prevalent criticisms of the project in the Ecuadorian media. Although this individual knew little about my academic background or what I may (or may not) have been able to substantively contribute to the effort, he noted that the presence of an international expert would be useful (I declined this invitation). Active reflexivity was key here in my efforts to tread very carefully around creating false expectations—repeatedly emphasising my role as a student, rather than an activist or funder—and recognising that the potential power of my presence in certain spaces granted me access that would have been otherwise closed. Substantively, the evident social capital associated with US institutions also informed my understanding of the politics of expertise in Ecuador. This became particularly relevant when the US Army Corps of Engineers became involved in studying and designing projects to mitigate the environmental risks currently faced by the CCS dam (see Haring et al. 2024).

Conversely, my outsider status occasionally generated hesitancy among potential participants uncertain about my motivations or political alignment. The CCS project is highly politicised along national party lines in Ecuador, and occasionally participants were unsure of how to read my interest in the project in terms of the political spectrum. Over time in the field, and drawing on Fujii’s (2010, 2018) insights into silences and evasions in the practise of ‘relational interviewing’, I came to recognise these hesitancies and the sensitivities they implied as reflecting on the meanings associated with CCS. For example, in one instance I encountered reticence bordering on hostility from an individual who had been negatively impacted by the CCS project. During an initially tense conversation, this person shared that they had done previous interviews with reporters and academics that they felt had been extractive, taking their knowledge and providing little in return. The person felt national and international media reflected little about what was experienced by people in the physical project area. The way the politics of CCS translated across scales later became a key theme of my work, but in the moment, this interaction became an organic conversation about what they felt had been left out of the popular narrative, and a broader discussion about the role of interviewers in the field. The resulting interview was, I believe, a genuine co-production of knowledge that deeply shaped the way I thought about my research—even though I had abandoned my list of questions.

The most significant limitation related to my positionality, however, was that I had very limited access to Chinese perspectives during fieldwork. While I was able to conduct interviews with managers and former employees at Sinohydro, these were Ecuadorian employees of the company. Furthermore, during my fieldwork period (2021–22), construction of the project had concluded. Only about 20 Chinese Sinohydro employees remained at the CCS installations—individuals who lived and worked within a remote, fenced, and guarded camp, about a 30-minute drive from the nearest town, with minimal interaction with surrounding communities. Despite several attempts to arrange interviews through the Chinese Embassy, these efforts proved unsuccessful.

While this was due at least in part to the reticence of Chinese institutions to speak candidly about what had become recognised internationally as a problematic project (see Castro 2022), it was also doubtless a result of my lack of personal networks or language skills that could connect me to Chinese entities (notably, I learned of several other researchers who had been able to gain greater levels of access to Sinohydro by drawing on their social connections). The lack of access was a blow to my original fieldwork plan to engage with all key stakeholders involved in the project and create a comprehensive mapping of its politics from multiple angles. Here, abduction proved invaluable as the realities of the field forced me to rethink my research. Rather than drawing on original data from interactions with Chinese entities, I instead emphasised Ecuadorian perspectives of the project’s ‘Chinese-ness’ and how this was mapped onto domestic politics through association with the former president. I also leaned into the history of plans and studies for CCS long before Chinese entities became involved, exploring how Chinese infrastructure is both literally and figuratively built upon prior local development trajectories.

My positionality as a (relatively) young woman also presented both challenges and advantages. In combination with my self-identification as a student researcher, rather than assuming an expert role, being a young woman contributed to me being viewed as non-threatening and generally reduced interlocutor self-consciousness. The predominantly male composition of my research participants—reflecting the gendered nature of engineering, construction, and natural science professions—likely reinforced these assumptions. While some individuals with whom I spoke in the field may have taken me less seriously intellectually, I perceived that gender and age dynamics led interviewees to speak candidly and expansively about their perspectives on CCS as well as broader political issues. I found that participants tended to explain basic or ‘taken-for-granted’ knowledge in a way that gave me insight into their assumptions and world view. On more than one occasion during interviews with older male engineers, before I asked a single question, they shared with me an extensive explanation of CCS’s various controversies that made clear what they took to be obvious truths about the project’s contributions (or lack thereof) to Ecuadorian development. I found this to be helpful for understanding public perceptions of the project and its political associations. On the other hand, it is also entirely possible that a male and/or more senior researcher may have fallen more easily into discussions of technical engineering, financial, or legal details of the project that would have been helpful in other ways.

My intention is not to present these reflections as findings central to my research, but rather to offer examples of how interpretive approaches may help Global China scholars process their experiences before, during, and after fieldwork. Interpretive approaches acknowledge the researcher as a socially positioned actor whose identity and experiences unavoidably influence the research process. By interrogating these dynamics throughout the research process, I continue to consider how the insights I gained in the field are partial, situated, and shaped by the social relations within which they were produced.

Conclusion

Interpretivism as articulated within political science today offers a valuable methodological toolkit with which researchers can engage with the complexities of China’s global presence. Unlike approaches that strive for the neutrality of the researcher and a linear research process, interpretivism emphasises the co-construction of knowledge and the unexpected ways in which concepts evolve throughout fieldwork. A sustained engagement with questions of positionality is especially useful for scholars of Global China in considering how to navigate the social and political aspects of the researcher’s identity, which inevitably influences the data they create with informants. This is especially so for a topic that has reached a high level of public and political salience around the world, such that interlocutors may have strong ideas and opinions about what ‘Global China’ is and how it influences their lives. In such cases, fieldwork is about not merely extracting information but also paying careful attention to how our working relationships in the field shape our research and remaining transparent about these factors. In turn, our own research production may feed back into conversations ‘on the ground’, highlighting how researchers form a part of, and impact, the social worlds they study.