The Craft of Interviewing
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51224/SRXIV.458Keywords:
qualitative research, interviewing, research methods, reflexivity, social science, philosophy of scienceAbstract
In this chapter we draw on our experience of doing and advising others to explore the craft of interviewing in qualitative research. We avoid providing a technical guide and instead favour examining the foundations and practical complexities of the method. Our argument moves beyond the notion of an interview being a ‘conversation with a purpose’, and instead frames it as a nuanced social activity involving emergent dialogue, embodied interactions, and material-discursive elements. One of our goals is to challenge the assumption that interviews can provide transparent insights into participants' inner selves or experiences. Instead, we provide various examples that can help understand them as mutually constructed social encounters that enact contextual realities. We consider notions of reliability and truth in qualitative interviewing, arguing for a shift from positivistic ideals towards cautiously and critically embracing interviewer and interviewee positionality and reflexivity. Our ‘theory of interviewing’ is grounded in ontological, epistemological, and axiological considerations – terms we define quite clearly. When understood in such ways we hope to provide a broad scaffold which you can use to develop your own skills and style. Our aim is to equip both developing and experienced researchers alike with the conceptual tools to produce robust, ethically-sound qualitative research and defend their methodological choices.
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