Inside Interviewing
New Lenses, New Concerns
- James Holstein - Marquette University, USA
- Jaber F. Gubrium - University of Missouri, USA
Interviewing (Qualitative Research)
Interview books typically stress the need for establishing rapport with respondents and asking questions that don't influence the responses. Until now, no text has seriously explored who the subjects are behind interview participants.
Inside Interviewing showcases the fluctuating and diverse moral worlds put into place during interview research when gender, race, culture, age, and other subject positions are brought narratively to the foreground. It explores the communicative contexts of respondents' thoughts, feelings, and actions, and how meaning is not merely elicited by apt questioning nor transported through clear respondent replies, but actively and socially assembled in the interview encounter, along with changing understandings of what it means to be a particular subject.
Topics explored include:
- The varied roles that interview participants play, alerting readers to the theoretical dimensions of subjectivity, and how this awareness can affect the interview process
- The interpretive challenges researchers face in analyzing data collected from interview respondents and their representational positions concerning the subject matter in question
- Methods for describing lives that incorporate the representational sensibilities of both interviewees and interview researchers
Inside Interviewing explores the representational complexities that emerge when research participation is scrutinized, as well as the technical concerns and analytic options that derive from new lenses for viewing the interview process. These new lenses provide readers with theoretically informed direction for figuring how interview participants relate to each other, how to elicit interview data, and how to select alternative ways of representing interview material.
This volume is comprised of chapters from the Handbook of Interview Research (Gubrium and Holstein, SAGE, 2001). The companion volume, Postmodern Interviewing (SAGE, 2003), is also comprised of chapters from the Handbook.
Marjorie L. DeVault and Liza McCoy
Marjorie L. DeVault and Liza McCoy
Charles L. Briggs
Charles L. Briggs
Charles L. Briggs
"The editors' introduction is excellent, providing a brief history of interiewing as a research technique and highlighting many of the issues that concern today's research interviewers...Inside Interviewing would be valuable for doctoral-level research methods classes, as well as for practicing researchers. It is an excellent starting point for examining specific issues, such as reflexivity."
A very useful text for those using interviews in research projects.
A very concise and precise insight into the important aspects of interviewing as a data collection method. This text explores interviews from a number of different perspectives and highlights the awareness in the reader that interviews cannot be approached or taken at face value. The text reminds the reader of the other essential elements associated with interviewing such as different ages, cultures, etc. I will be recommending this text to any of my students who are interested in using interviews as a data collection method.
Good additional reading for our RM modules
Interesting and useful. Useful for exploring various ways of interviewing e.g. e mail, telephone and computer assisted interviewing.
Provides an indepth evaluation of this research method. Useful to level 6 and postgraduate students.
this book is highly recommended to post graduate students- I found it easy to read and understand and practical which is exactly what students/researchers need.
This text explores the varied roles that interview participants play. It also covers the theoretical dimensions of subjectivity, and how this awareness can affect the interview process. Another important issue covered in this text is the interpretational challenges researchers face in the analysis of data collected.
Sage College Publishing
