4. Understanding Rapport Through Scalar Reflexivity

Drawing on a long tradition of work on reflexivity in anthropology, especially as it relates to rapport, and an equally long tradition of work on semiotics, scale and narrative, this paper looks at the scalar nature of the reflexive processes that I went through as I sought to understand an interview. After bringing together work on reflexivity, rapport, scale, semiosis, and narrative, I describe how my interpretation of this interview with a civil servant from a government office in Indonesia required me to regularly jump scale (both in terms of timespace and participation framework) between interview data and two other data sets that provided insights into chronotopic configurations found within bureaucratic and ethnic register formations. I will refer to this type of reflexivity as “scalar reflexivity”. I point out that this type of reflexivity is useful for understanding how instance of represented speech in an interview can be related to the concept of rapport.