“Chameleonization” in the Folds of Culture: A Comparative Analysis of Cross-Cultural Qualitative Fieldwork

Abstract

This paper argues against a prevailing culture-free tendency in cross-cultural qualitative research that has been normalized by conventional qualitative research methodology to propose “chameleonization,” a culturally sensitive research process. First, I delineate the paradoxes encountered in comparative research of Sino-U.S. university partnerships by comparing five fieldwork elements: research ethics, access to fields, informed consent, informants’ recruitment, and interview environment and process. The comparison reveals that the seemingly “golden” rule of Western-centered qualitative research and procedure were both disturbing and paralyzing in non-Western fields. Subsequently, this work deciphers these paradoxes with Hofstede's cultural dimension theory as a main analytical framework, supplemented by theories from cultural theorists in the two cultures. These paradoxes can be resolved through a chameleonization process through which researchers attune to a postmodern cross-culturalness by navigating the “folds of culture,” as characterized by their cross-cultural qualitative fields. Tentative strategies for applying chameleonization to activate, solidify, and extend a “folding-unfolding-refolding” process are then proposed, followed by a discussion on the approach’s potential limitations.

Introduction

Conventional qualitative methodology, with its underlying epistemology rooted in the Enlightenment’s humanism description of the world, has become dominant as the English language, publishing industry, journals, university research courses and textbooks have overdetermined the qualitative research scene (Gobo, 2011; St. Pierre, 2014, 2015) since the late 19th century. Its institutionalization represents gradually achieved compatibility between ontology, epistemology, and methodology in a predominantly Western society. Its diffusion across the world with the accelerated development of globalization after the 1950s however, reflects “isomorphism” (Meyer & Rowan, 1977) of the system, which takes on a “culture-free” look and has been widely perceived as universal. Nevertheless, this claim has long been challenged by researchers who are concerned about issues of center-periphery (or Northern-Southern) binary (Guo & Chen, 2015) colonization (Gobo, 2011; Nicholls, 2009) and Westernization (or Americanization) of qualitative research methodology.

Such debate has been enormously complicated as post-modernity appeared in the late 20th century when Enlightenment notions of objective truth, reason and binary oppositions were severely challenged. Decentralized pluralism, relativism, fluidity and provisionality, as prominent post-modern features, have reshaped the qualitative research scenario. Mono-cultural (Western) methodology is not only unsuitable for “multicultural or non-Western societies” (p. 428) in Gobo’s (2011) sense, but is also incapable of accommodating a more complicated post-modern cross-culturalness in which intertwined cultural values and norms, paradoxical ethical principles, indeterminate research protocols and procedures, and provisional researcher/subject subjectivity reshape the conceptualization and practices of qualitative research methodology. The in-depth exploration of how post-modernity affects qualitative research methodology would help re-align a “stripped down methodology” (St. Pierre, 2015, p. 76) to epistemology and ontology. Such an attempt requires not only decolonial and glocal (Gobo, 2011; Hsiung, 2012) perspectives, but also a post-structuralist one.

This article aims to assume this post-structuralist perspective by reflecting on my fieldwork experiences involving cross-cultural case research on Sino-U.S. university partnerships. After briefly delineating my role as an “insider-outsider,” I outline the paradoxical concurrence of methodological competence in foreign culture and the paralysis in domestic culture that I encountered when I used a mono-cultural (Western) approach in fieldwork after comparing five fieldwork elements between the U.S. and China. Following that outline, the paradox is deciphered by using Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension theory as the main analytical framework supplemented by perspectives from various scholars, including Edward Hall and Xiaotong Fei. I then propose to resolve the paradox by moving from a dualist approach to a post-structuralist reconceptualization of post-modern cross-culturalness as “folds of culture,” in which a chameleonization process could be performed to help researchers accommodate postmodern reality of qualitative research. The strategies for applying the chameleonization process to activate, solidify and extend a “folding-unfolding-refolding” process, step by step, are then proposed. This is followed by a brief discussion on the approach’s potential limitations.

Being an “Insider-Outsider” Researching in Two Cultures

It is necessary to begin by reflecting on my role as an “insider-outsider” researching in two cultures (U.S. and Chinese) and university settings. My life experience orients me to take particular interest in Sino-U.S. university partnerships. I have been working as an international officer at a Chinese university for years, the experience of which familiarized me with perspectives and practices of Chinese universities in conducting Sino-U.S. university partnerships. However, this familiarity introduced the risk of imposing subjectivity during fieldwork and data analysis. Fortunately, my later experiences as a student assistant at a private U.S. university’s Center for Global Education, where I assisted with the planning and coordination of Sino-U.S. university partnerships, effectively bracketed me out of Chinese context. After this experience, I traveled to Hong Kong for my doctoral study on higher education, which naturally detached me from the U.S. university setting.

Therefore, I was both an insider and outsider to the two cultures as well as their higher education systems when I conducted my doctoral research—a qualitative cross-cultural case study on Sino-U.S. university partnerships in three U.S. cities (Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and Tulsa) and their three Chinese counterparts (Guangzhou, Chengdu and Beijing) over a period of a year and a half. My experience from the “insider-outsider” role has positioned me in the fields with a good balance of objectivity and subjectivity. Moreover, it has enabled me to be reflexive throughout the description and analysis of my personal experiences in this current study. Potential biases are minimized through the following four ways:

First, bracketing was implemented by shifting between cases from one culture to another. Consequently, biases could be identified and reduced effectively. By constantly comparing, I gained a full understanding of both synergies and contradictions of emergent patterns, which continuously engaged me in the process of bracketing.

Second, theory and data triangulations were used to increase the credibility of research findings. Theories from a wide range of academic disciplines were placed side by side to address the same research questions. Furthermore, I triangulated by data source through enlisting a relative wide range of research subjects involved in the partnerships. Thus, biases were reduced by comparing, examining, and combining data collected at separate times, places, and from different persons.

Third, insiders’ views were sought mostly through involving research subjects deeply in the research process. Ethnographical “grand-tour questions” (Spradley, 1979, p. 87) were asked to elicit respondents’ descriptions and elaborations. Data and interpretations were also validated through member checking.

Fourth, experts’ comments were sought to help further eliminate biases. Experienced cross-cultural researchers, as well as doctoral candidates in the two cultures were invited to verify and validate the descriptions and analyses.

Encountering Paradox: The Conventional Humanist Qualitative Methodology as a “Golden Rule,” or Paralyzer?

As a Chinese doctoral candidate with years of qualitative, western research training—the American style in particular—I have strived to be what classical western methodologists (e.g., Bogdan & Biklen, 2007; Creswell & Poth, 2018; Denzin, 1989; Denzin & Lincoln, 2013; Lincoln & Guba, 1985) have described as a “qualified” qualitative researcher—intuitive, amiable, serious, and ethical. I had no doubt that I could successfully conduct my doctoral research—comparative, qualitative research on the Sino-U.S. university partnership—if I could strictly follow a prescriptive procedure. I began with more challenging fieldwork in three U.S. universities in which I anticipated substantial linguistic and methodological barriers. I was not concerned with corresponding fieldwork in three Chinese universities, as all interviews would be conducted in my native Mandarin. Furthermore, I am familiar with the typical Chinese university setting after years of studying and working in that environment. Ironically, the experience was the opposite of what I had anticipated.

Surprisingly, my fieldwork in the three Chinese universities was obstructed by unanticipated factors, while the research proceeded smoothly in the three U.S. universities. It seemed that a researcher’s use of a western-centered qualitative methodology, which worked as miraculous “golden rule,” could definitely guide non-western researchers in unfamiliar western fields, or in the United States in my case. However, by strictly following this “golden rule,” a non-western researcher would likely find himself or herself paralyzed throughout fieldwork in his or her domestic culture. For instance, I found it difficult to escape my western training as well as my home culture, both of which intersected in a complicated or even conflicted manner, during my ongoing growth as a cross-cultural Chinese qualitative researcher. Methodologically, I became a “stranger in my own culture,” similar to St. Pierre’s (1997) description of a “stranger in my own language” (p. 178). An unexpected paradox—the concurrence of a methodological competence in one’s foreign culture and paralysis in the domestic culture—revealed the intricate relationships between ontology, epistemology, and methodology which were further complicated by the incremental impact of post-modernism; these could easily misalign if a singular rather than multiple qualitative methodology was adopted in a cross-cultural fieldwork.

To understand how such a paradox manifests, it is critical to delineate how the prescriptive mechanisms and procedures of a qualitative humanist methodology actually transpire in the two cultures. Fieldwork experiences were thereby broken down into five elements (research ethics, access to fields, informed consent, informants’ recruitment, and interview environment and process), along with which comparisons were conducted between the two cultures.

Research Ethics

The U.S. ethical code in social science, as systematically stated in National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1979) Belmont Report and operated largely through the Institutional Review Board (IRB), is based on three principles: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. The underlying ideology and its corresponding mechanism tightly parallels the U.S. culture’s typical emphasis on individualism and a “contract spirit.” Fieldwork protocols centering on this set of ethical principles serve to not only usher researchers into their research fields (as will be discussed in the Access to fields subsection), but also help them construct interviews and observations and negotiate acceptable researcher-subject relationships that replicate the wider social relationship (in the following Informed consent subsection).

Ethical codes are pivotal in U.S. qualitative research and remarkably contrast with the invisibility of ethical issues in Chinese research settings. On the one hand, the actual absence of western ethical protocols arises naturally from the strong Chinese cultural influences on qualitative fieldwork, and on the other hand inevitably conflicts with the western-dominant academic publishing industry. For example, U.S. journals typically require submitters to provide IRB documents; these pose a serious challenge to non-western researchers, who often cannot easily obtain both ethical approvals from the IRB and informed consent from institutions and individual participants.

Access to Fields

It is critical to identify and contact one or more gatekeepers to access various research fields, as these individuals typically occupy certain administrative position(s). Although gaining a “ticket” from the gatekeeper(s) is an important prerequisite for conducting fieldwork in the U.S. and China, this process proves to be completely different in the two cultures.

In communicating with gatekeepers in the three U.S. universities, I was asked to provide an official IRB approval letter as well as a complete package of ethical review documents, including my research proposal and informed consent forms. Ethics-related documents serve as proof of the research’s ethical qualifications, academic value, and feasibility, and are clearly a convenient ticket to U.S. fields. This mechanism was favorable as a trained student researcher whose professionalism could somehow be recognized despite my core identity as a doctoral candidate. Hence, the gatekeepers’ academic and moral judgment was crucial in constraining unqualified researchers. Research subjects’ support is another important factor that typically influences the gatekeeper’s favorable decision. This represents a typical western-styled participatory governance (Hughes, 1994; Welch, 1993), which corresponds to what Bogdan and Biklen (2007) called a “cooperative style” (p. 84) in qualitative research.

In contrast, ethical documents were not required in negotiating access to Chinese universities. Instead, the referee’s guanxi (relationship) with the gatekeeper was key. In one of the case universities, my referee had a decade-long friendship with the gatekeeper that not only allowed me to enter the field, but also provided me an office on campus. This generous assistance greatly promoted the efficient recruiting of informants and data collection. However, another case university required an intermediary who had close relationships with both my referee and the gatekeeper. Compared to the ethical documents required in the U.S. cases, the guanxi required in the Chinese cases was less academic than social. As it would be difficult to access Chinese research fields without solid guanxi, student researchers are at a disadvantage.

Informed Consent

Informed consent is required by the IRB and is the cornerstone of ethics in U.S. social science research. It aims to seek voluntary agreements regarding participants’ roles in research after they are fully informed of these roles, increasing their chance of becoming more involved in the study. Obtaining informed consent involves allowing participants to voluntarily decide whether and how to engage in the research, and how the information they provide will be collected, stored, used, and shared. However, informed consent is viewed and handled differently in the two cultures.

In the United States, it is normal for participants to ask about the research objectives and details. The informed consent form serves to satisfy participants by providing them with the general research information and ensures their rights throughout the research process. Nearly all participants in U.S. fields will agree to sign an informed consent form after carefully reading its content. It was also simple to gain informants’ approval to record and reveal their names upon publication, with the sole exception of a U.S. dean at the Confucius Institute, a Chinese expert who specialized in Mandarin and Chinese culture. He preferred to follow the Chinese mode of ethical principles based on his perception of my cultural identity as a Chinese researcher.

In contrast, Chinese participants were especially alert to the request to sign any form. It was obvious that typical Chinese mindset was very much at odds with the western IRB mechanism, the “creeping control” (St. Pierre, 2015, p. 76) of which bewildered Chinese participants with its “bizarre practices.” For example, western participants could sign several forms to ensure they fully understand the research procedures and agree to participate, while Chinese participants would consider their actual presence in the interview as already a clear signal that they are fully informed and agree to be involved. Far from unnecessary, informed consent often hinders the research process in Chinese culture, in which the western IRB mechanism is basically absent or rare. This absence arouses a general negligence of—and even resistance to—the informed consent mechanism and its related written documents. To encourage and ensure the Chinese participants’ involvement in the research, I had to change and even abandon the traditional informed consent mechanism, as orally introducing the research worked better than using written informed consent forms. The necessity and importance of a signature was also strategically downplayed to make participants feel more at ease. Additionally, Chinese participants would likely refuse to be recorded and prefer to remain anonymous during publication. It is noteworthy that the only exception was the dean of the International Office who was familiar with U.S. culture in particular and considered my research western-based.

Informant Recruitment

Combining maximum variation and snowball sampling, I recruited 33 U.S. and 22 Chinese informants, including university leaders, administrators, and faculty members for semi-structured interviews. This process revealed that in empirical research on higher education, and especially those focusing on administration, it was much more difficult to recruit informants in China than in the United States.

Following literature on western methodology, I invited U.S. informants through e-mail and by telephone several weeks or even months in advance, as these informants typically appreciate ample time to schedule interviews. Once they agreed to the invite, they would propose a fixed interview time and place. Any changes would be negotiated and agreed upon beforehand.

However, this seemingly typical U.S. protocol was not applicable in the Chinese context, primarily for two reasons: (1) the Chinese culture holds the firm belief that plans in advance cannot remain relevant in a changing situation, and the Chinese respondents would be reluctant to plan out interviews beforehand; and (2) Chinese university administrators and faculty are unlikely to reply to student researchers’ interview invitations unless they are strongly recommended. In planning my first phase of Chinese fieldwork, I did not anticipate the lack of response or rejections after e-mailing invitations to potential respondents. Fortunately, my work was hosted by the gatekeeper-director of the International Office, who suggested that I send phone calls from their office. This was highly effective, as the intended respondents would identify me as an “insider” given the International Office phone number. This tailored recruiting strategy was used in the following two Chinese universities with great success.

Another difference appeared in participants’ responses as to when to hold the interviews. Chinese respondents will typically suggest an immediate meeting time, or as soon as possible. Accordingly, I changed the previous recruiting procedure, which worked well in the United States; I no longer sent out invitations one or two months ahead, but instead called informants from within the university using an internal telephone system one or two days ahead of the intended interview time. In some cases, interviews were even scheduled and conducted right away.

In the meantime, the recruiting authorities in the Chinese universities—such as the university presidents—were much more difficult to work with as a student researcher than their U.S. counterparts. Even with strong recommendations at hand, it is nearly impossible for junior researchers to interview university presidents or other senior administrators, and in most situations, they provided no response at all. Lower-level administrators are sometimes assigned to represent these university leaders, and such representatives largely perform what Argyris (1952) called a “surface collaboration” (p. 25). Such a sharp difference is particularly noteworthy, and especially from a cultural perspective.

Interview Environment and Process

Qualitative data were collected through mainly semi-structured interviews (about 10 open questions) initiated from a grand-tour question: Would you recall the last time you met the delegation from the partner university? The questions were roughly scheduled and subject to change depending on how the interview actually proceeded.

The interview environment and process significantly differed between the two cultures. For example, all the U.S. university interviews were held in offices or meeting rooms. The informants would provide a complete period according to their scheduled arrangements to allow the interviews to proceed without much interference. Interviews lasted an average of 66 minutes. The longest interview lasted 2 hours and 52 minutes; the shortest interview was 20 minutes. Privacy was highly respected and protected, and these interviews were typically recorded with the informants’ consent.

In contrast, the Chinese interviews were held in more diverse environments, including offices and meeting rooms, but also cafeterias, coffee bars, and households, among others. Therefore, these interviews were often interrupted, or even abruptly ended, which inevitably affected the conversations’ continuity and depth. Interruptions extended interviews to an average of 1 hour and 23 minutes, with the longest interview (2 hours and 42 minutes) taking place in a coffee bar where the interview was more loosely structured. I needed to be flexible enough to either refocus the conversation or reschedule second or subsequent interviews.

Additionally, informants’ offices in the U.S. and China revealed varying organizational cultures that mirrored their respective societies. Literature has long accepted that researchers must build a rapport during interviews to reduce and even eliminate any defenses against the outsider (Argyris, 1952) while the interviewer aims to understand a native culture’s symbolic meanings, languages, and attitudes (Denzin, 1978). Private offices in American universities are most likely to reveal their hosts’ personal lives and attributes through photos, paintings, bookshelves, souvenirs, and other personal belongings. In one interview, I quickly established a rapport by initiating a conversation on an oil painting the informant created, a hand-made ceramic pot, and an archeological map on the wall.

However, this method of shortening the interviewer-informant distance through observing and discussing personal attributes and experiences was largely not applicable in Chinese universities. First, a majority of Chinese administrators and faculty members do not have personal offices, and those who do largely refrain from revealing personal information through their office layout and decor. Compared to the U.S. offices’ individually oriented decorative style, most Chinese offices are likely to be impersonal and constrained, and it would be relatively difficult to identify informants’ personal attributes in their office space. This difference is reflected in the interview conversations; Chinese informants are much more neutral and refrained in responding to interview questions compared to their U.S. counterparts. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to consider neutrality as a sign of a failed interview without considering the cultural factor. Instead, the phenomenon itself was most likely to demonstrate the unique organizational culture in Chinese universities, which is worth an in-depth cultural analysis.

Deciphering the Paradox: From the Culturalist Perspective

This paradox reveals a deep-rooted misalignment between the western-centered humanist qualitative methodology and what Foucault (1972) called a rule-forged “order of things” that is “ontological” (St. Pierre, 2014, p. 14). Irreconcilable conflicts arise when a singular methodology cannot ever adapt to multiple types of orders in a connected world that is characterized by growing decentralized pluralism, relativism, and fluidity. As an intermediary between ontology and methodology, epistemology is pivotal in deciphering such a paradox. Moreover, culture becomes a convenient lens through which the paradox can be approached and understood. When different cultures encounter rules from a conventional, qualitative, and humanist methodology, they can follow varying trajectories of mutual interaction that demonstrate a “provisional, reflexive, contingent, and emergent” (Woermann, 2013, p. 3) nature of qualitative fieldwork in the post-modern era. Theories from three culturalists (Geert Hofstede, Xiaotong Fei, and Edward Hall) can be used to analyze these trajectories by destabilizing the conventional qualitative methodology, the linear process of which has long been problematic (Young et al., 2022) and challenged by context-contingent generative models.

By positioning the variations identified in the current work’s U.S. and Chinese fields along the cultural dimensions framework developed by Hofstede et al. (2010), the paradox of methodological competence in western settings—concurrent with paralysis in non-western culture—can be further understood. Hofstede’s (1980) framework was derived from his research on IBM, but was criticized as lacking external validity (Graves, 1986; Olie, 1995; Søndergaard, 1994). Possible biases, misinterpretations, and inaccuracies would also arise from problems of methodological simplicity (Jones, 2007), including critical ethnocentric patterns and a single-disciplinary analysis approach. Therefore, this work uses Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions as a general open analytical framework supplemented by insights from cultural theorists in the two cultures. It integrates Chinese anthropologist and sociologist Xiaotong Fei’s theory of the differential mode of association (chaxugeju) and U.S. anthropologist Edward Hall’s time-orientation theory with Hofstede’s analytical framework. Multiple theoretical perspectives also provide a theoretical triangulation along five of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: the power distance, individualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, long-term versus short-term orientation, and indulgence versus restraint.

Power Distance

Fieldwork is largely contextualized, in a relative overt manner, by power relationships between researchers and informants, as well as among informants. Therefore, it is viable to capture the norms and procedures of qualitative research in various cultures by observing differentiated impacts of their specific power relationships in fields. Hofstede’s “power distance” serves as a useful tool for such an observation. Power distance is defined as “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally” (Hofstede et al., 2010, p. 61). Regarding Hofstede’s power distance index, the United States scored much lower than China, at 40 and 80, respectively. Countries with larger power distances, such as China, are likely to adopt a centralized and hierarchical social structure, while societies with a smaller power distance, such as the United States, typically have a more equal distribution of power. Accordingly, the structural and emotional distances between subordinates and their superiors are much smaller in small-power distance cultures, making it easier for subordinates to approach, question, and contradict their superiors.

The difference in power distance between China and the United States was clear given the two countries’ access to research fields and informant recruitment. The researcher’s role as student was not an issue among the U.S. universities, as the United States is characterized by a smaller power distance. Moreover, U.S. gatekeepers typically rely on the IRB’s approval rather than researchers’ social status in their decision-making. However, student researchers would find it extremely difficult to gain access to Chinese fields because of the relatively large power distance to gatekeepers.

Similarly, inviting such university leaders as presidents, provosts, and deans to interviews in U.S. fields was less difficult than the severe challenge to student researchers in Chinese fields. This difficulty directly led to a shortage of data in the current research, or what Mintzberg (1983) described as a “strategic apex.” In situations in which lower-ranked personnel were designated to represent leaders, they answered in a less direct—even an acquiescent—way. This echoes Gobo’s (2011) observation that Chinese interviewees tend to give “affirmative answers” (p. 425). Hence, the substantial power distance in Chinese culture posed a serious challenge for qualitative researchers—and especially those of junior status—in navigating the hierarchy in research fields.

Sizable differences in the power distance internalized by people engaged in cross-cultural qualitative studies, including researchers and interviewees, would also lead to unanticipated biases. One example was my discussion about the deans’ involvement in the university’s strategic planning. In this discussion, I used the word “required,” to delineate the relationship between the university and deans. My interviewee corrected me by clarifying the dean’s role in the U.S. higher education system and suggested that I use the word “encouraged.” This type of conversation helped me to identify my bias arising from culture-influenced pre-conceptions and thereby remain reflexive, which is required by today’s increasing pluralism.

Individualism Versus Collectivism

Qualitative researchers differ from those who are quantitative and immerse themselves in the fields that are constrained by various interpersonal and person-group relations. Hofstede et al.’s “individualism-collectivism” dimension, which reflects the degree to which individuals integrate into groups, could assist in explaining how those socio-culturally contextualized relations affect fieldwork. According to Hofstede, the individualism index (IDV) measures the degree of individualism in a country’s culture. In a high-IDV country, the “ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him- or herself and his or her immediate family only” (Hofstede et al., 2010, p. 519). Comparatively, a low-IDV culture features much closer relationships between individuals, families, and societal groups, among which group interests are considered the most important. The United States and China had IDV values of 91 and 20, respectively, indicating that the former is one of the most individual-focused societies, while China is among one of the most collectivist.

Such a difference in IDV was clearly demonstrated in the fieldwork conducted in the two cultures. In China, privacy was not as valued as in the United States, as demonstrated by the relatively large physical distance between individuals; for example, the sharing of offices is far from uncommon. However, individuals in the United States maintain a significant distance from one another. This could explain why the U.S. informants in this work were likely to choose their personal offices for interviews, as privacy could be well-protected. Chinese informants were unlikely to express concern that others were nearby during the interviews; this led to the tendency for them to withhold opinions and even yea-saying, especially when the questions verged toward sensitive topics.

The varying attitudes toward the right to privacy closely relate to how people in the two cultures encounter morality on a daily basis. The contrast between the United States’ strong emphasis on ethical protocols and a general overlook in Chinese fields could be explained by recalling the comparison by Fei et al. (1992) between the western organizational (tuantigeju) and Chinese differential modes of association (chaxugeju) in his renowned work From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society. From Fei’s perspective, morality in the organizational mode of association is built on the western pattern of relationships between individuals and the organization. Thus, the “concept of individual rights is inherently a part of [morality]” (p. 73). In contrast, the Chinese notion of a differential mode of association “does not allow for individual rights to be an issue at all” (p. 70). The unclear and ambiguous boundary between public and private spheres in Chinese culture prohibits the assertion of individual rights against the common will of organizations, traditionally symbolized by God, the state, or any other entities in the western world.

Therefore, a universally applicable ethical code as represented by the Belmont Report and its corresponding IRB mechanism prevails in the United States, the most individual society in the world. The ethical approval required for accessing any U.S. research fields fulfills a seemly universal moral standard that transcends personal relationships. However, Chinese culture lacks such a universal ethical standard in general, and especially in Chinese research fields. The U.S. ethical protocol’s ineffectiveness in the Chinese context operates concurrently to the strong impact of guanxi (relationships), which is characterized by a differential mode of association. Fei et al. (1992) explained that the Confucian concept of tui involved pushing or extending out from the centrality of the self into other circles of social relationships through self-cultivation. The elasticity of social relationships centering on the “self” predetermines the relativity of Chinese morality. Hence, the differential mode of association has granted researchers differential access to and efficiency in varying research fields. Guanxi, rather than the IRB’s approval, provided me with initial access to different Chinese fields and worked in varying ways and with different levels of efficiency depending on the “different relational ties” (Fei 2015, p. 24) connecting me with my referees and gatekeepers in each field. This trait would naturally orient researchers who work in Chinese culture to take a relativistic rather than a universalistic approach in dealing with relations in fieldwork.

Finally, my circles of social relationships developed from the centrality of the self, as a doctoral candidate could hardly forge such connections among university leaders during the fieldwork phase. Hence, a large power distance and a differential mode of association pose a significant challenge for student researchers when attempting to involve high-status participants in their research.

Comparisons reveal general features of individualism versus collectivism in the two cultures, which intersect in such a complicated way that cross-cultural qualitative researchers need to gauge the depth of complexity and adjust themselves strategically for a better self-position in fields.

Uncertainty Avoidance

Prescriptive rules and procedures of western-centered qualitative methodology, as rooted in the Enlightenment, reflects a humanistic call for rationality and certainty. However, this strong sentiment has historically been unfamiliar to non-Western societies. Such a variance, as well as its manifestation in fieldwork within the two cultures, could be explored by using the “uncertainty avoidance” dimension as an analytical instrument. Uncertainty avoidance is defined as “the extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations” and is expressed through “nervous stress and in a need for predictability” (Hofstede et al., 2010, p. 190). The uncertainty avoidance index (UAI) scores for the United States and China were 46 and 30, respectively; essentially, the two countries share the middle range among the 76 countries and areas in Hofstede’s research, demonstrating that both cultures welcome new ideas and change. The Chinese are more at ease with uncertainty and changes, and consequently, are more flexible, adaptable, practical, and adventurous. Comparatively, Americans are more likely to value strict policies, rules, procedures, and absolute freedom while experiencing anxiety toward uncertainty and ambiguity.

This difference was clearly demonstrated in my fieldwork, as my U.S. informants were inclined to plan detailed interview plans typically one to two months beforehand to decrease the possibility of encountering unexpected changes. Ethical approval and informed consent were highly valued, reflecting an overarching emphasis on contracts and written documents in U.S. culture. However, the Chinese are traditionally more tolerant of uncertainty, ambiguity, and flexibility, and many in Chinese culture would have no need for detailed appointments long before interviews. Invitations could be successfully sent just one or two days before the intended interviews, and some informants even preferred to be interviewed right away. The guanxi (relationship) played a predominant role in recruiting informants in Chinese research fields, and calling potential informants through internal telephones from an office on campus well proved my credibility and qualifications. Similarly, Fei et al. (1992) wisely observed that trust in traditional Chinese society is “based not on the importance of contracts but, rather, on the dependability of people, who are so enmeshed in customary norms that they cannot behave in any other way” (p. 43). My use of internal telephones quickly transformed me, an outsider, into a trustable insider who communicates through a channel available only to insiders. The guanxi in this instance helped me access this internal communication channel while weaving me into a web of social connections that was originally foreign to me. These observations of the two cultures echo Denzin’s (1978, p. 123) clarification between “civil-legal” (the U.S.) and “relational” (Chinese) forms of rule that direct the encounters between researchers and informants.

The importance placed on guanxi—and especially the coexistence with a general indifference to contracts—was clearly demonstrated in the Chinese research fields, in which ethical approval and informed consent were not required at all. In the Chinese cases, the IRB procedure was essentially inapplicable, and even counterproductive, because many Chinese informants did not share “western local tacit knowledge” (Gobo, 2011, p. 424) of privileging written culture over an oral one. Instead, they normally felt unwilling to and uncomfortable with written contracts. This finding echoes Ryen’s (2004) conceptualization of informed consent as a “token of the bureaucratization of Western societies” (p. 220) that is inappropriate in oral cultures. A rigid insistence on strictly following a western code of ethics actually silenced the Chinese informants. Fei et al. (1992) observed that the traditional Chinese indifference to contracts was a typical feature of an old agricultural society; as their lives were fixed and hardly changed, the Chinese would not normally fear forgetfulness, and are even comfortable with it (p. 57). This parallels Hofstede’s relatively low score of Chinese culture in the UAI. In particular, the Chinese informants’ unease with meticulous plans and packages of documents sharply contradicted with their U.S. counterparts’ inclination to ensure certainty, which is highly treasured in a rapidly changing and complicated industrial society.

Nevertheless, both Americans’ humanistic claim for certainty and Chinese’s being traditionally at ease with uncertainty have been challenged by the fact that the world is moving away from solid to liquid modernity (Bauman, 2000). Qualitative researchers in the West and East alike found themselves faced with a research scenario that is increasingly characterized by a cross-cultural environment, impermanent relations, ambiguous ethical principles, and provisional subjectivity.

Long-Term Versus Short-Term Orientation

Fieldwork, as a social interaction in nature, is structured largely by how people that are engaged in the research understand and approach time. The sense of time, being contextualized and shared by people in the same culture group, affects research procedures in a relative overt and undetectable way. To assist with this difficult task, I used Hofstede et al.’s dimension of long-term versus short-term orientation. While long-term orientation (LTO) means “the fostering of virtues oriented toward the future—in particular, perseverance and thrift,” the short-term orientation (STO) represents “the fostering of virtues related to the past and present—in particular, respect for tradition” (Hofstede et al., 2010, p. 239). The long- or short-term orientation reflects how a society addresses its present and future, as well as how it relates to its past. Also called “Confucian dynamism” (Hofstede & Bond, 1988), the LTO dimension is characterized by societies that value adaptability, occasionality, and pragmatism. In contrast, the STO dimension is featured in societies that are past- or present-oriented, respectful of tradition, and provide short-term benefits. The United States and China scored 26 and 87 in this dimension, respectively, demonstrating that the former is a typical STO society while the latter is LTO in nature.

Such a difference in time orientation corresponds with Hall’s (1959) distinction between monochronic and polychronic time. People in monochronic cultures divide time into units within which tasks can be carefully and individually planned. The consensus that one task should be finished in one unit of time resulted from the task-oriented industrial production in the 18th to 19th centuries. However, people with a polychronic sense of time, which was deeply rooted in agricultural culture, enjoy performing multiple tasks simultaneously rather than dividing time into small, clear-cut units. With a much more casual attitude toward time, they prefer to handle tasks according to their experiences and habits instead of strictly following a schedule.

My fieldwork clearly reflects the fact that the United States and China are comfortably “monochronic” and “polychronic” cultures, respectively. First, U.S. informants were used to dividing their time into different “appointments” and “compartments.” Within each previously scheduled compartment, they focused on only one thing. In contrast, Chinese informants were inclined to perform multiple tasks simultaneously, explaining why a majority of the Chinese informants preferred to schedule interviews in the subsequent one to two days, or even right away. It was simpler and more sensible for them to fit the interview into their original schedule by adding this new task to their other simultaneous tasks planned for the day, such as drinking coffee, feeding a baby, or finishing office chores. The lack of planning and preparation for the interview naturally led to interview processes that were likely to be interrupted, which would negatively affect not only the flow of the conversation, but also the privacy required for a productive interview in the U.S. sense. Therefore, how people in different cultures experience, understand, and handle time have intangible but tremendous influences on empirical research in general, and qualitative cross-cultural fieldwork in particular.

Indulgence Versus Restraint

Similarly overt is how people restrain themselves against the immediate daily social backdrop, which affects their projection of self to the broad outside world and to researchers in particular. Therefore, it remains as an important and severe task for qualitative researchers—especially those working cross-culturally—to accurately understand how and why people in fields project themselves in a particular way, and thereby react to such projection appropriately. The indulgence versus restraint (IVR) dimension serves as a useful instrument for me to handle this task.

Indulgence can be defined as “a tendency to allow relatively free gratification of basic and natural human desires related to enjoying life and having fun,” while restraint is “a conviction that such gratification needs to be curbed and regulated by strict social norms” (Hofstede et al., 2010, p. 281). In Hofstede’s framework, the IVR measurement reflects the degree to which people in a society intend to control their desires and impulses. China scored 24 on this dimension, much lower than the United States’ score of 68.

Such a difference was evident in how common people decorated their offices and behaved in the workplace. In the United States, a society that is relatively tolerant of personal enjoyment, a personal office was commonly considered as a private, enjoyable space and an extension of one’s life. In the meticulously decorated offices, family photos were displayed and music was played, which provided ample information about their hosts, enabling researchers to quickly discern informants’ attributes and establish a rapport.

In China, the philosophy that people need to cultivate themselves before they can extend outward (Fei et al., 1992, p. 70) orients Chinese culture to highly value self-restraint. The unclear and ambiguous boundaries between the public and private sphere further drive the Chinese to behave in a restrained manner in the workplace. As the office is typically considered a public sphere to conduct official business rather than experience enjoyment from daily life, a neutral, impersonal, and solemn office style is commonly employed. This essentially deterred researchers’ interpretations of the informants from their mostly shared office arrangements and decor.

The consensus was reached that qualitative researchers should remain highly sensitive to the setup and decoration of research settings in a particular culture. This conclusion was more relevant to researchers working in U.S. fields, in which rapport could be quickly and successfully established through conversations on how they enjoy their life. However, this strategy did not apply well in Chinese fields because their workplaces lacked any trace of a personal life. Additionally, they tended to restrain themselves, and especially at work, which compelled these informants to avoid displaying personal items or discussing themselves personally. Therefore, a rapport in the Chinese workplace was more easily established through respecting and following the cultural norm that “business is business.” It was noteworthy that we as researchers needed to abide by different rules of etiquette, which are deeply framed by culture, to establish a rapport with these informants.

Resolving the Paradox: Chameleonization in Folds of Cultures

The previously mentioned paradox encountered in research fields arose largely from cross-culturalness (Stepanyants, 1996; Zilberman, 1996), which was defined as a dialogue or pluralism of cultures. Through our effort to decipher two cultural perspectives, we came to an undisputed conclusion that no universal research protocol or rule exists between the two. The prevalence of a conventional, qualitative research methodology calls into question two issues: first, the conventional qualitative methodology—which is rooted in Western Enlightenment-based humanism—is hardly fit for a non-western ontology and epistemology; second, its humanistic essence and structure, or the very reason why it has gained worldwide popularity, is exactly what restrained researchers within the narrow scope of “representationalist logic” (Lather & St. Pierre, 2013). Representation implies a static subject-object relationship, the immediacy of which has long been taken for granted. However, Hegel (1977) criticized such an immediate perception as illusory, as it lacks the certainty of immediacy itself, which must be deferred until an experience is complete.

These two issues converge to create the paradox in qualitative fieldwork that has become highly complicated, both globally and locally, especially with post-modernity looming large in recent decades. It is well-accepted that once a qualitative researcher enters a field, he or she is committed to representing “the real out there” (St. Pierre, 2021, p. 4). Such representation requires meticulous abidance by “civil-legal,” “ceremonial,” and “relational” rules of encounter (Goffman, 1961) that should be specific to a particular field within a neatly defined and delimited culture. Such a peculiarity implies a pluralism of culture, but was standardized and simplified to a singular form of western culture that warrants a humanistic, qualitative methodology. The “3E” principle (efficacy, efficiency, and effectiveness), with its core in neo-liberalism, applies conveniently to the representationalist logic. The entire humanist, conventional, and qualitative methodology—as expressed strongly in such terms as “validity,” “credibility,” “reliability,” “sample size,” and “data saturation”—was subsequently legitimized and became widespread with a global surge in neo-liberalism. Such a worldwide prevalence upholds a rigid subject-object dichotomy, which justifies a static, cross-sectional representation of the presupposed concept of “real.” This leads to a methodology, from St. Pierre’s (2015) perspective, which is “stripped down” (p. 76) from both epistemology and ontology.

Realignment is difficult but worth the effort. Deconstructing “representationalist logic” could be a viable step toward a holistic, dynamic, and generative approach toward a qualitative research methodology that better conforms to the increasing cross-culturalness in our post-modern society. Conventional geocultural perspective rooted in representationalism could be deliberately destabilized by using Deleuze’s (1993) “fold” concept to re-conceptualize the complexity of cross-culturalness; the “folds of culture,” concept was coined in a post-structural sense, and could provide a powerful lens through which to view the multiplicity, transience, and generative nature of the interplay between different cultures that were traditionally and dualistically examined in research fields. The move from a dualist to a post-structuralist approach is instrumental in deconstructing both representational logic as well as the system that upholds it, spurring a reconstructive “chameleonization” process in the folds of culture.

To elaborate on the entire process, I will first explore the “folds of culture” and “chameleonization,” followed by my experiences in Sino-U.S. fields to illustrate how chameleonization could be incorporated to navigate and construct folds of culture.

Folds of Culture

The “folds of culture” concept departs sharply from the traditional conceptualization of culture, which is normally defined as a “collective phenomenon” (Hofstede et al., 2010, p. 6) consisting of both immaterial and material objects that are commonly shared by a group of people. Therefore, such terms as “geographical location,” “nationality,” and “ethnicity” are typically used to define culture, and normally in a static and dualistic manner. However, the culture encountered in modern life is actually plural, intertwined, and constantly changing, as evidenced by the use of “cross-culturalness,” the complexity of which can be explored by envisioning culture in folds. In the folds of culture, research settings and rules are constantly encountered, internalized, externalized, and re-encountered, revealing an ongoing flow of changes in cross-culturalness as perceived, and understood by those engaged in the research. This corresponds to what Deleuze (1993) called “folding-unfolding-refolding,” and lasts throughout the fieldwork process.

Folding

When I entered the Sino-U.S. research fields as a researcher, I brought my folded “inner pleats” (Deleuze, 1993, p. 23) of cross-culturalness, which represented an enclosed world of culture that was unique to me. My initial encounters with the research setting and informants helped to scan and fold cultural elements of the field into my original inner pleats. Newly folded cultural elements came into contact and interacted with the old through an internal action, called “internal deployment” (Deleuze, 1993, p. 23). For example, cultural elements in the specific U.S. fields clashed with my core cultural subjectivity as a Chinese national but responded to my subordinate identity as an overseas student, having studied and lived for years in the United States. Folding served to enclose the outside culture, thereby altering the composition and structure of my original cross-culturalness and preparing me for the upcoming research with more complicated and nuanced cultural elements at my disposal. Working in a similar way to chameleons, which deploy nanocrystals filled in iridophores to blend into their environment, I folded and deployed cultural elements to project a “cultural self” to fit into the research fields.

Unfolding

Strategic projection primarily occurs in the unfolding phase, which happens almost simultaneously during the folding process. Almost immediately, researchers unfold from within their inner pleats, in which a complexity of cultural components are continuously folded. Unfolding bridges and interacts with the folding to yield an innate disposition to constantly change and adjust one’s cross-culturalness to fit an external cultural environment. This folding-unfolding sequence and transition occurred with both researchers and informants, who co-construct folds of culture from within the specific research field.

Cultural subjectivity typically manifests as one’s cultural identity and is viewed through kaleidoscope lenses of cultural folds and strategically projected. Informants reacted differently to my presence as a researcher depending on how they perceived my projection of cultural identity and folded it into their inner pleats of cross-culturalness. Their actual behavior during the research was also a strategical projection from unfolding their cultural identity. Therefore, informants with the thickest pleats typically have more cultural elements at their disposal because they have folded more cultural elements in their years of cross-cultural experiences, which increases their chameleonization. Two informants I met in my Sino-U.S. fieldwork served as highly relevant examples of how chameleonization skillfully occurred through the folding-unfolding sequence and interaction.

The first was the previously mentioned U.S. dean of the Confucius Institute, as I deliberately projected myself as an overseas student studying the western tradition in general, and U.S. patterns in particular. This projection helped me blend in until I met this dean, who was definitely a Chinese expert. He clearly disregarded my deliberate projection and responded in a way more similar to the Chinese rather than his U.S. counterparts. He not only refused to be recorded, but also preferred to remain anonymous in publication. However, he displayed a typical U.S. pattern in silently and carefully reading an informed consent form before signing.

The second example was his compelling Chinese counterpart, a Chinese dean of International Education. My intentional projection of myself as a Chinese native with years of educational and vocational experience in local universities successfully connected me to a majority of the informants, and I communicated with them by following essentially Chinese rules of etiquette and research codes. Comparatively, none of the other Chinese informants considered or responded to my international background except this dean, who was more of an expert on the U.S. research culture. Unlike his Chinese peers, he agreed to be recorded and disclose his name in publication. He behaved more like a westerner, and especially an American, when provided with the consent form, which he quickly reviewed and signed without any hesitation. However, his behavior was typically Chinese when he spent less than 10 seconds scanning the form before signing it, but kept talking about my referee. It seemed that he cared much less about what was actually on the form than the guanxi (relationship) between me, my referee, and himself.

It was clear that abundant cross-cultural knowledge and experience oriented both deans to adopt an integrated rather than individualist mindset, which resulted largely from a complicated internal deployment of internal cultural elements. Their actual behavior in the field was a spontaneous and flexible unfolding of the integrated mindset while reacting to my unfolding of the research as well as myself as a researcher.

Refolding

The folding-unfolding sequence, interaction, and transition produces an innate disposition to shape and constantly change folds of culture. This serves to project and represent to the outside world the researcher’s folded cross-culturalness, which is thereby continuously refolded as a newly added component into the larger cross-culturalness of the field. In other words, each new encounter initiated by researchers would alter the entire field’s cross-culturalness and add to its overall multiplicity and complexity. The folds of culture can be understood as a topological structure forged by various pleats through folding, unfolding, and refolding; this interchange not only separates different cultural elements, but also connects them and shapes a post-modern duration of cross-culturalness.

Chameleonization

To minimize the complexity, uncertainty, or even risks that arise from cross-culturalness, both researchers and informants often behave in a way resembling chameleons, which change color to match their surroundings. As the clear line between external and internal factors becomes blurred by the folding concept, the inner pleats of cross-culturalness force the external and internal to interact. The enclosed cultural elements in these inner pleats act as pigments stored in a chameleon’s chromatophores, which expand or contract depending on a variety of factors: the surrounding background, or the chameleon’s physiological and emotional conditions. Similarly, researchers seek to comfortably match with their surroundings through folding, unfolding, and refolding their stored cultural elements depending on both internal factors (nationality or life and educational experiences) and external environmental factors (the cultural features of the setting and research subjects, or other communications).

Through the chameleonization process, acquired cultural elements are constantly transferred, mingled, disintegrated, and reintegrated in research fields. Researchers can navigate the folds of culture through which they blend and actively engage in the “duration” of cross-culturalness (Bergson, 2001). Just as Bergson (2001) conceptualized “pure heterogeneity” (p. 104) as the fundamental characteristic of duration, we can perceive the duration of cross-culturalness in research fields as a succession and continuity of qualitative changes in cultural elements. Outside (“other”) cultures can be encountered and folded in both researchers and informants’ inner pleats of cross-culturalness in a generative manner, followed by the processes of unfolding and refolding by both sides alike. Thus, the duration of cross-culturalness has become a post-modern reality, but has largely gone unnoticed.

Conclusion

Realigning a stripped down methodology to epistemology and ontology has long been an important and difficult task for qualitative researchers, including but not limited to researchers in non-western societies. Through reflexive comparisons of fieldwork experiences of a cross-cultural case study in the U.S. and China, this article illuminated how qualitative researchers using a mono-cultural (Western) methodology would encounter the paradoxical coexistence of methodological competence in one (Western) culture and paralysis in another (domestic) culture. Cultural analysis using Hofstede et al.’s (2010) cultural orientation framework explicitly revealed that such a paradox arises from an inherent incompatibility between a particular cultural-contextualized methodology and the epistemology-ontology of another culture. American culture, being characterized by low power distance, individualism, high uncertainty avoidance, short-term orientation, and indulgence, gives rise to a humanistic qualitative methodology that features universal ethical claims prescribed by the IRB mechanism, predetermined immutable and linear process, and a preference of written contract over oral communication in fieldwork. These render the “golden rule” of West-centered qualitative methodology ill-suited to Chinese culture that is remarkably different from U.S. culture when measured on the five cultural dimensions.

The comparison and analysis entail a traditional binary approach of decolonization and glocalization, which is useful in exploring the manifestation and roots of the paradox. However, to solve the paradox requires a shift to a post-structuralist reconceptualization of several critical issues. The most important issues are cultural environment, researcher subjectivity, and researcher-researched relationship in fieldwork.

In today’s fieldwork, what qualitative researchers actually experience is no longer clearly distinguished cultures in a traditional way, but fuzzy and changeable cross-culturalness in a post-modernistic sense. Such complexity, ambiguity, and fluidity of the cultural scene challenges qualitative researchers to destabilize the traditional static concept of culture and adopt a more dynamic approach. With the folds of culture as a useful conceptual tool, culture is perceived as a flow of changes in cross-culturalness as perceived, understood, and reacted to by those engaged in the research. Qualitative researchers must navigate the folds of culture with a sober postmodern sensitivity to the folding-unfolding-refolding process that occurs at any time or place in research fields, through which qualitative researchers (informants alike) can divide their “absolute interiority” from “infinite exteriority” (Deleuze, 1993, p. 28) and rejoin both.

Consequently, researchers’ cultural subjectivity—as well as their aggregated cross-culturalness, which belong comfortably to what Deleuze (1993) called an interior “metaphysical principle of life”—could be safely separated from and simultaneously connected to an exterior “physical law of phenomena” (p. 28), including research protocols or codes of ethics and norms, among others. Through fully engaging in the folding-unfolding-refolding process, researchers could retain a dynamic harmony with their outside surroundings and their informants.

This valuable harmony is made possible through a mechanism of chameleonization, which activates, solidifies, and extends the folding-unfolding-refolding process. Constant transference between interior-exterior detachment and re-connection as well as between researchers and informants is thereby observed, reflected upon, and managed. Fieldwork experiences reveals the possibility of performing such process by researchers and informants alike, mostly unconsciously. Therefore, an important and practical question is: can this also be applied consciously?

Despite the difficulty, the following section attempts to discuss tentative strategies for applying chameleonization to activate, solidify, and extend the “folding-unfolding-refolding” process step by step, based on fieldwork experiences as elaborated above.

Reconceptualization: Self as Chameleon

Qualitative researchers are advised to conceptualize themselves analogous to chameleons, who have expertise in distinguishing and accommodating different cultural environments that characterize the fields. Researchers should pay great attention to how the fields interact with their internal stored cultural elements as well as their major cultural subjectivity, and subsequently alter their pre-determined research principles and procedures. This is a useful way to engage researchers fully in the duration of cross-culturalness, which is a succession and continuity of qualitative changes in cultural elements. Researchers can thereby prepare themselves for the following steps.

Activation: Folding to Create a Dynamic and Differentiated Self

Researchers should be wary in their initial encounters with the research setting and the informants because it is the time when the folding process is activated. The cultural elements in the field begin to be folded into the researchers’ “inner pleats” of cross-culturalness and interact with their originally stored cultural elements. Detailed records of those initial encounters and their internal deployment of cultural elements would help them become reflexive. Researchers would probably experience a variety of psychological processes, including but not limited to compliance, clash, reconciliation, disintegration, and integration; this depends on how the newly folded cultural elements interact with the old ones. It is a phase when a researcher working in cross-cultural fields finds it helpful, even necessary, to replace the “monolithic self” (Woermann, 2013, p. 9) with the “image of a dynamic, differentiated self” (Seabright & Kurke, 1997, p. 99). Being reflexive in the folding process aids in creating such a self.

Solidification: Co-Constructing Folds of Culture via a Folding-Unfolding Interchange

When a researcher attempts to project their created self strategically in the field, they begin to unfold themselves almost simultaneously following the initial folding phase. They should observe how their projection is perceived and subsequently reciprocated by research subjects, who similarly fold the newly brought cultural elements by the researcher and thereby project themselves accordingly. Therefore, these dynamic and reciprocal projections between researchers and their subjects yield a disposition towards a continuous folding-unfolding interchange, the solidification of which allows folds of culture to gradually take shape and change constantly. Envisioning culture in folds impels researchers to break through limits of monocultural perspective and embrace a post-structuralist approach of chameleonization. As the folding-unfolding process evolves, researchers and research subjects both have more nuanced cultural elements enclosed and deployed internally, forging an integrated, rather than a mono-cultural mindset that is a prerequisite for chameleonization. “Power and processes that shape the structures of linear models of humanist research” (Young et al., 2022, p. 3) is thus disrupted and deconstructed, followed by a reconstruction of research protocols, procedures, and ethical codes in a contextual, collaborative, and generative manner. The field in which the researcher succeeds in blending is no longer static, permanent, and pre-determined. Instead, it is dynamically and provisionally co-created by the researcher and the research subjects.

Extension: Refolding for the Researcher to Synchronize With the Field

In the ongoing interchange of folding and unfolding, a researcher’s monolithic self is passed and penetrated by cultural folds which allow their interior metaphysical world to be simultaneously detached from, and re-attached to, the exterior physical and technical world. However, this exterior world is only partially presented and linked to the researcher because cultural elements flow between individuals through reciprocal projection in the folding-unfolding exchange. To synchronize with the field’s larger setting, the researcher should fully engage in the follow-up phase of refolding, in which the flow of newly brought cultural elements extends beyond individuals and adds to the field’s overall cross-culturalness. This requires the researcher to work closely with the institution in which the fieldwork is conducted. Both the researcher and institution should learn from the fieldwork experiences and develop the competence of dynamically accommodating different research norms, rules, procedures, and ethic codes. There is also a need for research institutions to loosen the control of IRB, which rigidifies and alienates both the researchers and research subjects with mono-cultural principles and rules. Instead, it is suggested to institutionalize a service (either within IRB or independently) that maintains records of its researchers’ research procedures, reflections, working strategies, and ethic codes generated from fieldwork and keeps its cross-culturalness updated. The focus should be on how ethics are formed, contested, and enacted, and how ethical subjectivity is forged (Clegg et al., 2007). It should also be responsible for collecting, analyzing, and spreading fieldwork experiences, as well as building a network of the institution’s researchers who could advise on how to research in a particular culture. With a goal of providing “sense-making tools and tools of analysis that can aid ethical decision-making” (Woermann, 2013, p. 4) in the post-modern era, IRB might shift its role from being a rule setter and monitor to a maintainer of institutions’ aggregated cross-culturalness and researcher network.

However, the approach has several potential limitations, as briefly discussed below:

First, this approach has a risk of orienting researchers towards epistemology/moral relativism. In an effort to attune to an unfamiliar field like a chameleon, a qualitative researcher might be over attentive to cultural pluralism while letting loose their pre-existing theoretical/ethical position derived from their native culture. Such an oversight might impede the development of the researchers’ self-reflexivity, which is paradoxically indispensable for the successful performance of chameleonization.

Second, chameleonization entails a position of rejecting a stable identity, which is replaced by a dynamic, provisional, and differentiated image of self throughout the fieldwork. Crafting “strategic self-presentations” (Gardner & Davis, 2013, p. 63) in fieldwork might cause researchers to have a sense of rootlessness and alienation, which impairs their self-identification, initiative, and productivity in research.

Third, the folding-unfolding-refolding process, which is activated, solidified, and extended through chameleonization, requires a close collaboration among researchers, research subjects, and the institutions in which the fieldwork is conducted and institutions where researchers belong. Failure to secure such a collaboration would probably lead to either ethnocentrism or eclecticism.

Finally, the approach could hardly reach large scale success unless a considerable number of researchers around the world have a high level of cross-cultural knowledge and competence. Consequently, it poses a severe challenge for the teaching of a qualitative research methodology to be culturally responsive in a globalized world. An enormous amount of work is required to change the curriculum, textbooks, and pedagogy.

Despite its limitations, chameleonization points to a promising future for qualitative researchers who could realign the “stripped-down methodology” (St. Pierre, 2015, p. 76) to epistemology and ontology in the duration of cross-culturalness characterized by post-modernism. This endeavor might serve as a positive response to theorists’ long-term concerns with the dominance of western-centric ideologies (Fei, 2015; Malinowski, 1946; Yang, 2019) in era of globalization. Fei (2015) had eloquently delineated the relationship between “cultural self-awareness” and “global integration” based on his account of the macro-level “interpenetration” and “blending” of cultures. However, there is a general lack of discussion on how such a macro-level account could be linked to and played out on an individual, daily level. Re-conceptualizing culture(s) within folds and duration in a post-structuralist sense could build the missing connection between a broader “cultural blending” and individual deployment of cultural elements. Thus, qualitative researchers would be able to “work the ruins” (St. Pierre & Pillow, 2000) of qualitative methodology to become active co-constructors, rather than a passive representation of the world, which has been “unremittingly accelerated” (Rosa, 2019) and diversified by modernity.