When cheap talk is not that cheap – interviewing the super-rich about illegal wildlife consumption

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. The published version of this Preprint is available: https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2021.1904117. This is version 1 of this Preprint.

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Authors

Hoai Nam Dang Vu

Abstract

Obtaining insights on the illicit consumption of endangered wildlife products is challenging, especially when the study objects are the super-rich. This research note draws upon my experience interviewing nearly 1,000 rhino horn consumers in Vietnam. Trust is crucial in such interactions. No interviews could have been conducted without good rapport between interviewers and respondents. Nonetheless, soliciting interviews requires skills that one cannot expect to teach enumerators in the short term. This includes a winning sense of humour, colourful life experience, and true grit. Once good rapport is established, the use of specialised questionning techniques or bias-mitigation tools becomes unnecessary. Instead I suggest a practical approach to study consumers of illegal and luxury wildlife products in an Asian context.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.32942/osf.io/3e5v7

Subjects

Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Keywords

Rhino horn; conspicuous consumption; cheap talk; sensitivity bias

Dates

Published: 2021-02-08 05:36

License

CC-By Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International