Interviewing in Social Science Research: A Relational Approach

Description

What is interviewing and when is this method useful? What does it mean to select rather than sample interviewees? Once the researcher has found people to interview, how does she build a working relationship with her interviewees? What should the dynamics of talking and listening in interviews be? How do researchers begin to analyze the narrative data generated through interviews? Lee Ann Fujii explores the answers to these inquiries in Interviewing in Social Science Research, the latest entry in the Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods. This short, highly readable book explores an interpretive approach to interviewing for purposes of social science research. Using an interpretive methodology, the book examines interviewing as a relational enterprise. As a relational undertaking, interviewing is more akin to a two-way dialogue than a one-way interrogation. Fujii examines the methodological foundations for a relational approach to interviewing, while at the same time covering many of the practical nuts and bolts of relational interviewing. Examples come from the author’s experiences conducting interviews in Bosnia, Rwanda, and the United States, and from relevant literatures across a variety of social scientific disciplines. Appendices to the book contain specific tips and suggestions for relational interviewing in addition to interview excerpts that give readers a sense of how relational interviews unfold. This book will be of great value to graduate students and researchers from across the social sciences who are considering or planning to use interviews in their research, and can be easily used by academics for teaching courses or workshops in social science methods. Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 2 Title Page......Page 6 Copyright Page......Page 7 Dedication......Page 8 Table of Contents......Page 10 Series Editors’ Foreword......Page 12 Preface......Page 14 Acknowledgments......Page 19 1 What is Relational Interviewing?......Page 22 Methodological Underpinnings......Page 23 Active Listening......Page 24 Acquiring New Lexicons......Page 25 Learning through Missteps......Page 26 Treating People with Dignity and Respect......Page 27 Comparison to Other Approaches......Page 28 Suitable Projects......Page 30 The Limits of Rapport......Page 33 The Promise and Pitfalls of Positionality......Page 36 Structural Power and Privilege......Page 37 Individual Attributes and Background......Page 38 Social and Theoretical Vantage Points......Page 39 Insiders v. Outsiders......Page 40 Elites v. Non-Elites......Page 41 Minimizing Harm through Meaningful Protections......Page 43 Becoming Mindful of Local Norms and Hierarchies......Page 45 Respecting Participants’ Knowledge and Boundaries......Page 46 Learning from Relationships That Do Not Work......Page 49 Working with Research Assistants and Interpreters......Page 50 3 Selecting, Finding, and Approaching Interviewees......Page 56 Selecting Instead of Sampling......Page 58 Working through Interlocutors......Page 61 Funnel Method and Other Strategies of Access......Page 65 Navigating Dangers and Risks......Page 68 Treating Mistakes as Gifts......Page 69 Learning from Interviews That Do Not Happen......Page 71 4 Strategies for Conducting Interviews......Page 74 Interview Locations and Timing......Page 75 Greetings, Introductions, and Permissions......Page 76 Listening With or Without a Recorder......Page 78 Questions and Prompts......Page 81 Ways to Start an Interview......Page 82 Ways to Probe Meanings and Logics......Page 85 Ways Out of Impasses or Dead-Ends......Page 88 Talking to More Than One Person at a Time......Page 90 Interpretivist and Positivist Approaches to Analysis......Page 94 Looking for Patterns......Page 96 Making Sense of Different Kinds of Truths......Page 99 Decoding Causal Logics......Page 102 Analyzing Positionality and Ethics......Page 103 6 The Ethos of Relational Interviewing......Page 111 1. Man with the Black Notebook in Rwanda......Page 114 2. “Old Timer” in Maryland......Page 116 3. Clergyman in Northern Ireland......Page 118 4. Sex Worker in California......Page 120 References......Page 123 Index......Page 132