Qualitative Inquiry· 2012Q1
Interviewing Elites
- 406citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2012year
Short summary
Preinterview preparation, specifically deep knowledge of an elite interviewee's life history and background, is crucial for gaining access, trust, and rapport, thereby reducing status imbalance.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Preinterview preparation is central to overcoming challenges in interviewing elites.
- Knowledge of an elite interviewee's life history and background enhances researcher positionality.
- Researcher positionality is dynamic and can be proactively influenced, not just an insider/outsider dichotomy.
- The research draws on experiences interviewing political and economic elites in Estonia.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
This article focuses on the methodological issues arising from interviewing elites, with an emphasis on gaining access, acquiring trust, and establishing rapport. I argue the central importance of preinterview preparation, which is essential to enhance the researcher’s knowledgeability. The success of interviewing elites hinges on the researcher’s knowledgeability of the interviewee’s life history and background. It enhances the researcher’s positionality and decreases the status imbalance between researcher and researched. The researcher’s positionality is dynamic; it shifts over the course of research. Moreover, positionality is not solely determined externally in the context of an insider/outsider dichotomy but is on a continuum that can be proactively influenced by the researcher. These issues are discussed with reference to recent research on postsocialist transition in Estonia, which involved interviews with political and economic elites. These experiences will be of interest to social scientists working on elites because it focuses on meeting the challenges of interviewing elites from establishing contact through to postinterview follow-up.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Qualitative Inquiry, 2012 · DOI ↗
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Field: General Social Sciences
General Social SciencesSocial Sciences