Abstract
This article examines the qualitative interview as a site for meetings between interviewers and interviewees from groups that are in conflict. It shows how interviewees who initially resisted participation and voiced what one called the ‘official story’ of her group moved beyond this position enabling the encounter to become a meaningful experience for both parties. This critical case analysis is based on three interviews from three different studies and follow-up interviews with interviewers and interviewees. The paper describes six phases of the encounters found in all the interviews (on guard, the ‘official story’, expert position, confrontation, looking for common grounds, and beyond the ‘official story’) and explores the conditions that brought about bidirectional communication and intimacy. The findings are discussed in light of current debates around reflexivity, positionality, and power relations in qualitative interviewing. The article highlights the importance of the historical and political contexts.
Researchers interviewing across cultural and political differences face barriers to gaining access to complex and context-specific attitudes of individuals and groups. This article is based on meetings between interviewers and interviewees from three groups that are in conflict. It depicts the situation of qualitative interviewers faced with what one interviewee described as the ‘official story’ of her group, an image expressed in a narrative that an interviewee projects in order to protect her group from negative stereotypes held by outsiders. This paper further explores ways in which the interview moved beyond this protective position and turned into an intimate encounter leading to a unique experience for both parties. In this article we argue for the need to move beyond a cross-cultural perspective that focuses on cultural differences toward a ‘context-informed’ perspective that takes into account a wider prism of historical and political contexts that affect power relations and create a complexity that challenges the interviewer–interviewee encounter and the data produced.
Numerous authors have recognized difficulties in cross-cultural interviewing, usually focusing on insider–outsider issues (e.g., Rubin and Rubin, 2012; Ryan, 2001). Today researchers problematize these binaries, demonstrating that insiders may differ over social class, age, or other categories, which can impede gaining acceptance (Dunbar, Rodriguez and Parker, 2001; Wolf, 1996).
Feminist researchers have played a leading role in these debates (Olesen, 2011). Responding to assumptions of neutrality, rationality, and objectivity in what was considered ideal social science research, they proposed that researchers engage in more complex thinking about power relations, positionality, and reflexivity as means to disrupt modernist assumptions (Wolf, 1996). Reflexivity and positionality are intimately connected ways of approaching research and power relations.
Power relations in interviewing
Power relations are often discussed in relation to the interview process, as the interviewer selects and asks the questions, resulting in asymmetrical and hierarchical relations (Hoffmann, 2007; Kvale, 2006). Interviewing is regarded as uni-directional and instrumental, with the interviewer having a monopoly over interpretation (Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009). On the other hand, interviewees have power in possessing knowledge that interviewers wish to acquire (Hoffmann, 2007) and can assert power by refusing to be interviewed or withholding information (Hall, 2004). They can employ counter-control strategies such as sidestepping the question or telling the interviewer what he/she seems to want to hear (Kvale, 2006). Apprehensive that an interviewer holds a stereotyped view of his/her community, an interviewee may seize control of the agenda and represent the community in positive terms (Jacobsson and Åkerström, 2012). In such cases, the interview situation may turn into an arena for mutual ‘Othering’ (Bott, 2010; Krumer-Nevo, 2002). Accordingly, the interview is bidirectional, with both participants serving as subjects and objects (Deutsch, 2004).
Despite bidirectionality, researchers encounter interviewees who are resistant. They may be put off by the location, cultural and racial differences, characteristics of the interviewer, the conduct of the interviewer, or verbal and nonverbal language differences that create misunderstandings (Adler and Adler, 2001; Ryan, 2001).
In order to create more balance in the interviewer–interviewee relationship, some researchers negotiate collaborative relationships with the interviewees (Merriam et al., 2001). Others argue that interviewing an individual from one’s own group leads to a more balanced view or to privileged information (Wolf, 1996). However, as suggested earlier, while such practices imply dealing with power differentials, they do not explicitly take account of them; rather, they essentialize insiders, rendering them homogenous entities (Bhavnani, 2004; Weston, 2004).
Another perspective on power relations is that the balance between the interviewer and interviewee may shift where one or the other has greater control (Anyan, 2013; Hall, 2004; Vähäsantanen and Saarinen, 2012). In this paper, we try to take into account the fluidity of the interview and the complexity of power relations in cases where interviewers belong to hegemonic groups and interviewees belong to minority groups with respect to national, religious, political, and racial or cultural affiliations.
Positionality
A concept related to power relations, also proposed by feminist researchers, is positionality (McCorkel and Myers, 2003). It refers to the interviewer’s social location (race, gender, class, religion, etc.) relative to the interviewee (Wolf, 1996). The interviewer’s positionality may be troubling to the interviewee. Researchers who are members of a privileged or dominant group may, wittingly or unwittingly, enact the role of the oppressor in cross-cultural interviewing. On the other hand, positionality can change in relation to the context of a study or within an interview (Merriam et al., 2001).
Even if one is a member of the same cultural group, positionality is neither assured nor stable. Takeda (2012) describes how he benefited from interviewing women from his own culture while he was disadvantaged by his status as an Asian male. Weiner-Levy and Queder (2012) found their positionalities fluctuated between belonging and not belonging, affinity and distance, and insider and outsider/foreigner axes.
Reflexivity
A number of feminist researchers recommend reflexivity in tandem with positionality and consideration of power relations as a means of understanding the research process, and as a protection against researcher bias (e.g., Finlay, 2002; Fonow and Cook, 1991; Wolf, 1996). Interpreted in a variety of ways (D’Cruz, Gillingham and Melendez, 2007), reflexivity is generally understood as the researcher’s ongoing process of examining and acknowledging her/his roles within and outside the research, as well as the intersubjective dynamics that may affect the research (Bott, 2010; Deutsch, 2004; Finlay, 2002). Berger (2013) examines the benefits and challenges to reflexivity under different types of researcher positions.
The term reflexivity is also understood as examining how knowledge is constructed, how power relations operate, and the role of emotions in this process (D’Cruz et al., 2007). In this regard, Pelias’ (2011) discussion of personal and public realization is relevant. Personal realization is a process of reflection in which researchers/writers put themselves in touch with their attitudes, beliefs, political investments, relational attachments, and identity. Public realization places the researchers in contact with the social or cultural sphere in which structural arrangements and institutional practices guide human behavior and control human desires, dictate entitlements, and support privileges and political injustice. Pelias (2011) notes that personal and public realizations are connected. In this paper we, too, see these two processes as interrelated.
Aside from feminists who have become aware of differences between their own ideology and that of interviewees, few researchers examine ideological differences (professional, religious, and political) between the researcher and the researched (Berger, 2013; Wasserfall, 1993). Walby (2010) observes that the respondent’s reflexivity is as important as the researcher’s in shaping the conversation to come. In this paper, we examine both ideological differences and the reflexive comments of both interviewers and interviewees.
Methods
This paper is based on an analysis of three critical cases of qualitative research interviews that took place in different parts of the world (United States of America, Israel, and the Palestinian territories). We consider these cases critical because they vividly illustrate interviewing across lines of culture, religion, race, and political standpoint (Patton, 2002). Each case comes from a separate interview-based qualitative research study. The studies’ contexts and purposes will be described below.
Case descriptions
Case 1: Aisha and Gail
The first case is an interview from a study conducted in the East coast of the USA in which we interviewed African American Christian mothers and their Muslim daughters with the purpose of learning how different family members cope with a daughter’s religious conversion (Roer-Strier, Sands and Bourjolly, 2009). This research was part of an international study of the impact of religious change on families. Mothers and daughters were asked to describe their religious upbringing, family reactions to the conversion, its effect on family life, and relationships. The interviewee, Aisha, an African American daughter, is 50 years old, married, the mother of a 14-year-old daughter, and a college graduate employed as a social worker. She grew up in a Christian family and converted to Islam 25 years prior to the interview. The interview was conducted by telephone by Gail, a white, 27-year-old social work graduate student who described herself as a feminist, her religious upbringing as Christian, and her current orientation as predominantly agnostic and sometimes Episcopalian.
Case 2: Elizabeth and Adena
This interview is from a study of Palestinian men married to American and European women that had the purpose of learning about the views of spouses regarding their cultural adaptation, family dynamics, and children’s socialization. The participants resided in the West Bank (Roer-Strier and Ben Ezra, 2006). The study was conducted during the second Intifada, an uprising of Palestinians against Israeli military occupation. In separate interviews, men and women were asked about how they met and the influence of their mixed cultures on the relationship, self and family perception, and the children’s cultural identity. Although the interviewees were not asked about the political situation, all of them raised this issue.
Elizabeth, the interviewee, 48 years old, was born in the UK to a Christian family. She met her husband at a university in England, converted to Islam, married him, and became fervently religious. A year after their marriage, they moved to the West Bank. Elizabeth holds an MA degree in business. In England, she worked in a bank but ceased working after she had emigrated. She is the mother of six daughters ages 8 to 22. The interview was conducted by telephone by Adena, a 27-year-old, Jewish, French-born social work graduate student at an Israeli university.
Case 3: Rachel and Shir
The third interview is from a study of the effects of house demolition on families. The study’s purpose was to learn about the views of family members coping with the loss of their home. This study was conducted in Israel by a team of Palestinian and Jewish researchers who studied different groups (e.g., Palestinians, Bedouins, Jewish settlers, immigrants). This interview is from a study of Jewish settlers whose homes were demolished by the Israeli authorities in 2005. Jewish residents (3,500 people) were forcefully evicted and all residential and community buildings were destroyed. Parents, adolescents, and young children were interviewed separately about their experience of losing their home and its impact upon themselves, the family, and the community; their coping strategies; and how they rebuild their lives.
Rachel, the interviewee, is a 45-year-old Israeli, right-wing political activist and religious woman whose house was demolished. She is a graduate student and the mother of four children. This interview was conducted at Rachel’s home by Shir, a 30-year-old Israeli, secular, left-wing activist social work graduate student.
The interviews
All three interviewers obtained access to the interviewees by snowball techniques. Aisha was referred by a fellow student, Elizabeth by another interviewee, and Rachel by a work colleague.
The three studies from which these interviews came used semi-structured interviews (Silverman, 2013) with interview guides consisting of open-ended questions and suggested probes. All the interviewers were graduate students working on the authors’ or their own projects, trained by the first author, who encouraged them to develop their own follow-up questions where relevant. The interviews took about 1.5 hours each. All were audiorecorded and transcribed by the interviewers or another person.
Follow-up interviews
For the purpose of a previous paper (Sands, Bourjolly and Roer-Strier, 2007 – Case 1) and the current paper (Cases 2 and 3), all interviewers and interviewees (except Elizabeth) had follow-up interviews about the dynamics of the encounter, challenges during the interview, and their feelings and interpretations. They were asked what motivated them to be interviewed (or to interview), their initial reactions, any shifts and changes in the interview, the challenges of the interview, how they managed these challenges, and their evaluation of the interview. The follow-up interviews took place one to two years after the initial interviews.
Data analysis
The first author reviewed all the transcripts and the second author reviewed the transcripts for Cases 1 and 2. Each interviewer reviewed her transcripts a few times, attending particularly to verbal and nonverbal indicators of the nature of the interviewer–interviewee relationship and changes in the interview over time. The authors and two of the interviewers independently divided the initial interviews into phases, characterized by changes in topic and tempo. Afterwards the authors compared, tried to reconcile, and came to an agreement on the phases of the three interviews also considering what they learned from the follow-up interviews.
Positionality
This analysis is affected by the knowledge and positionalities of the interviewers, the authors, and the interviewees. The interviewers bring their knowledge of prior interviews conducted in these studies but also personal experiences as hegemonic group members. The authors bring their personal experiences as white, American and Israeli Jewish women; professional experience; and cross-cultural understanding gained from clinical practice, multicultural education, and research with diverse groups. They also bring their previous social and professional interactions with Palestinian Muslims and African Americans.
The positionality of the interviewees is affected by their experiences of marginalization and oppression. In Case 1 (Aisha), interactions between African Americans and whites occur against a history of slavery, discrimination, and institutionalized racism in the USA. Following September 11, 2001, tension between non-Muslims and Muslims escalated. In Case 2, Elizabeth was interviewed by the ‘enemy’, an interviewer who is affiliated with the group which is at war with the Palestinian people she adopted and identified with. The study of which this interview was a part took place during the El-Aqsa Intifada, which started in 2000. Although both Rachel and Shir were social work graduate students, Rachel (Case 3) regarded Shir as a member of an ‘enemy’ group (left-wing activists) that supported the evacuation of the settlements resulting in Rachel’s losing her home.
In the first and second cases, the interviewees are converts to Islam who are interviewed by non-Muslim women who belong to the hegemonic oppressor group. In the third case, both the interviewer and interviewee are Jewish, but the interviewer belongs to the hegemonic group responsible for the demolition of the interviewee’s home. In all three interviews, the interviewer and interviewee had common positions, including gender (all were women) and education (all were college graduates).
Results
Our analysis revealed six phases in each of the interviews, which we titled with terms used by the participants: on guard, the ‘official story’ expert position, confrontation, looking for common grounds, and beyond the ‘official story’. In Table 1 we describe the feelings or actions of the interviewee and interviewer during these phases.
Six phases of the primary interviews.
Examples
On guard. In all three dyads, the initial phase of the interview is stilted and the interviewers and interviewees seem wary. Two of the interviewers read the questions verbatim from the interview guide; all the interviewees appeared uncomfortable but did not express this directly.
In the first case, Gail rigidly read the questions. Aisha struggled to understand them, asking for clarification, sighing frequently, and answering briefly. In the follow-up interview with an African American interviewer, Aisha confirmed that she was initially cautious because the interviewer was white. Moreover, Aisha said that she was taken aback by the early questions about her religious upbringing. When asked about the early part of the interview in the follow-up interview, Gail said, ‘The first five minutes of the interview were the low points’, and she was hoping Aisha would warm up. After reading the beginning section of the interview, Aisha told the interviewer, ‘I was a little resistant … that was my guarded phase, trying to size her up phase’.
In the second case, Elizabeth answered questions briefly with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and after providing some factual responses, asked, ‘What else do you want to know?’ She seemed not to understand some questions. The underlying attitude appeared to be one of caution. In the follow-up interview, Adena recalled being ‘on guard’ herself, sensing Elizabeth’s suspicions. ‘I thought, this is going to be a tough one – she was so much on guard’.
Similarly, in the third study, Rachel answered with short sentences. In her follow-up interview, she said, ‘It was hard for me to get into the interview in the first place. I asked myself why a secular girl that does not belong to our group wants to interview me’. Shir attested, ‘I was scared I am not going to get much out of this interview. It was so hard to schedule; she canceled it twice before … in the beginning you can see I was nervous’.
The ‘official story’
In the second phase in all three studies, the interviewee presents her group in a favorable light. She seems to be aware of the stereotypes directed toward her group and is concerned that the interviewer may hold similar views. The ‘official story’ is constructed to contest these views.
Aisha, in reaction to the perceived hegemonic group’s stereotype of Muslim women as subjugated, explained why Islam was meaningful, the opportunities it offers women, the positive roles available to women, and how empowering it is to have defined roles:
As a Christian woman, I wasn’t sure of what my role was … In Islam, you’re given your specific role. Then, you’re given the consequence of other roles if you so choose those roles … people who are outside the religion see it as restrictive but people inside the religion see it as empowering because you can make knowledgeable choices.
Gail reported that she continued to feel nervous while she tried to be ‘positive or neutral or encouraging’.
In the second case, Elizabeth talked about how her group is misperceived by the West during her first interaction with the interviewer:
It’s not really what the Western world thinks, you know – terrorism and women walking behind men … they think women are belittled in Islam. They had a wrong idea about Islam itself … it’s completely the opposite from that. You know, women have equal rights and everything.
A few pages later in the transcript, she explains how Islam protects family life: ‘In Islam, it teaches you to have a strong family unit. The mother–father the head, you know, to be respected; you have grandparents to look after … there’s a lot of um family bond and values and respect’.
In the follow-up interview, Adena shared that she was worried at the beginning about Elizabeth’s defensiveness about Islam and Muslim women. Adena also wondered if this interview may be biased by the interviewee’s objectifying the West.
In the third case, Rachel described her life in the Gaza Strip as a religious, ideological, and political mission. In the follow-up interview, when looking back at this part of the interview, she said:
I sit in classes at the university and these left-wing students are attacking the settlers and do not understand that we were devoted to the people of Israel going back to the lands of our ancestors. When we first got there, the left-wing government supported us; at the end, a right-wing government deported us … we felt betrayed … I needed her to know our official story …
Expert position
After the ‘official story’ phase, there is a shift on the part of the interviewers. Each seems to realize that she does not know much about the interviewee’s experiences and encourages her to teach her more about it. The interviewer probes, listens carefully, and says, ‘that is very interesting’, ‘please tell me more’, or ‘I did not know that’. Expressing curiosity and empathy and sometimes diverging from the interview guide, the interviewer enables the interviewee to assume an expert position regarding her unique experience or to provide specific information about her group.
In the first case, Gail departed from the interview guide to ask whether Aisha’s uncle was a Sunni Muslim and if ‘he ever had any interest in any other sects’. Assuming an expert position, Aisha educated Gail about the difference between the Nation of Islam and other sects. With Gail positioning herself as a learner, Aisha accepted Gail’s invitation to share her knowledge and dominated the interview from this point on. When asked in the follow-up interview about her becoming more talkative at this point, Aisha explained that when asked about Islam, she had ‘practical experience and knowledge’ that she felt competent to discuss.
In Case 2, Adena asked Elizabeth about her conversion and spiritual journey and how this changed her. At this point, Elizabeth stopped using terms like ‘the West’ or ‘they’ and discussed feeling victimized by the occupation and restrictions placed on the Palestinians. She described how the political conflict affected family relations and the children. ‘It was in October, that the Intifada started, and I got to England when my father was in the hospital dying, so I stayed there for a month. That was hard because the children were left here …’. Adena encouraged Elizabeth to share her experiences although this was not part of the interview. She later explained, ‘It was an opportunity for me to learn about their living conditions. Things happen in a context’.
For Rachel (Case 3), this phase was marked verbally by the interviewer, Shir, who said, ‘I know very little about your experience. I came to learn from you; I really want to hear from you how you experience things … you are the expert …’. At this point Rachel explained how the situation affected her children’s view of their parents. ‘If you really want to know what it is like here, I will tell you how we felt when our children protested [that] we did not give a bigger fight to protect our home. How kids at age 10 tried to talk to the soldiers and ask them not to obey their orders’. She then described how the disengagement from Gaza affected their family life and their crisis as parents. In the follow-up interview, Shir remarked on this shift. ‘It was amazing to see the change after I told her I knew nothing and that I really-really wanted to know’.
Confrontation
Following the shift to the expert position, the conversation flows more smoothly. The interviewee and interviewer appear to have warmed up and feel more comfortable with each other. There is humor and answers are lengthier. However, another shift now occurs: either direct or indirect confrontation.
In the first case, in response to Aisha’s general discussion about discrimination against Muslims, Gail asked Aisha whether she faced any specific challenges over being Muslim at work. Aisha responded by identifying challenges in both race and religion and discussed feeling unsafe making home visits in predominantly white neighborhoods:
… when I first started the job … it was a year after 9/11. And when I started … [my supervisor] wanted to assign me some cases in [white neighborhood]. … At that time, what was going on was that there were some people going around putting bombs in mailboxes. … And so, it was, you know, a scary place. So I told her [supervisor] that I didn’t want any clients in the [white neighborhood], and she said ‘why not?’ I said, ‘I’m Black and I’m Muslim’. ‘I’m not walking up to any of these folks’ houses, and they call police on me because I’m a stranger in their neighborhood’.
Through this response, Aisha acknowledged the issues of race and religion, indirectly confronting the white interviewer with their differences. Aisha’s discussion of how white neighborhoods are dangerous for her enabled Gail to tell Aisha that she felt frightened and unsafe when she initially came to interview (finding Aisha away) and three men followed her. Aisha responded by acknowledging that in segregated neighborhoods strangers stand out. The recognition of each other’s vulnerability seemed to help Aisha to reveal a painful past experience of being attacked in the late 1960s by white youth near her school:
When we tried to go back to the school, during the attack, we weren’t allowed back into the school … when our parents found out what happened, they took us back up to the school … and the nuns dismissed it and said, ‘This is not our problem’.
Through attentive listening, Gail expressed empathy and interest in Aisha’s dramatic story of racial discrimination.
In the second case, after more than two-thirds of the interview had passed, the underlying issue surfaced. Here the interviewee directly challenged the ‘enemy’ (the interviewer) to respond:
Have you studied Islam, or Judaism?
A little Islam, a little Christianity, a little Judaism. Well, not really.
What religion are you?
I’m Jewish.
Oh Jewish, oh, OK. But you are living in France, you said?
Yes, I was born there but I’ve been in Jerusalem for a few years now.
Oh, so what do you think about the situation here? Are you proud? Are you proud of what the soldiers do?
Proud? No!
I mean have you really realized what’s happening here?
Following this direct confrontation, they engaged in a long conversation regarding the political conflict in which Adena listened empathetically to Elizabeth’s painful experiences. At the end of this phase, Adena expressed wishes for better and peaceful times. In the follow-up interview, Adena admitted that:
It was so difficult for me to hear Elizabeth’s stories about their suffering. I was thinking … ‘I hope she does not ask if I am Jewish’. But now when I look back, this was a turning point. She confronted me, I gave an honest answer, and from then on she really warmed up. It was an experience, there was intimacy … I was surprised with what she shared with me. We really connected.
In the third case, Rachel shared a story related to one of her children’s posttraumatic condition and her quest for help. When she finished she asked Shir, ‘Is this too much for you? … Tell me, what motivates you to study us? Why would a secular, left-wing girl like you want to know about us?’ Prepared to answer this question, Shir replied: ‘I took this course with a professor that told me the settlers were upset that left-wing university people were not interested in them. I am truly interested’.
In her follow-up interview Shir remarked: It was this confrontation – I am glad – I thought it may happen and prepared what to say if she asks this question. I think that my calm reaction put her at ease. I felt that after that the interview really took off.
Looking for common grounds
The confrontation and the interviewer’s reaction created a space for greater openness, dialogue, and intimacy. The interviewer moves away from the research protocol and collaborates with the interviewee on topics she or the interviewee initiates. Toward the last part of the interviews, the interviewees seem to seek areas of similarity where they could connect with the interviewers.
In Case 1, Aisha and Gail, both social workers, seemed to connect on the value of social justice. They discussed ways of coping with racial and religious discrimination. Aisha described how she teaches her daughter and her African American clients how to deal with discrimination. Later in the interview they also connect as women and social workers. Gail asks a question that is not in the protocol:
Well, I guess I would want your opinion on what you would recommend a white social worker should recognize when working with African American Muslim families.
I did a paper last year for my job, part of our in-service training, basically the do’s and don’t’s of social workers working with Muslim families. (She proceeds to explain some of the do’s and don’t’s.)
In the second case, following the confrontation phase, the bonding between Adena and Elizabeth increased as well. According to Adena’s account in the follow-up interview, Elizabeth was curious and asked Adena questions about herself. Adena noted that Elizabeth was excited about several things they had in common. Elizabeth remarked that they both had a similar ‘good mixture’ of European and Middle Eastern affiliations. In addition, Elizabeth remarked that Adena has the same name as Elizabeth’s youngest daughter (Adeena), adding that it can be both an Arab and a Jewish name.
In Case 3, Rachel told the interviewer that her sister was studying social work, too. In the follow-up interview Rachel explained, ‘I realized she was someone who cared’. As Shir said, ‘After … I explained my motive [to interview her] she stopped the interview and offered me coffee, we took a break, and she told me I reminded her of her sister – a social worker like us’.
Beyond the ‘official story’
The interviewers’ active listening and acceptance, willingness to hear painful stories, and their taking a supportive stand, as well as the efforts to go ‘beyond the research protocol’, seemed to help the three interviewees to look for similarities and to move beyond their ‘official story’. It now seemed safe for all three of them to revisit questions they previously evaded and express criticism of the group they previously defended.
In the first case, Aisha disclosed problems over racism within the Muslim community and challenges facing Muslim women. Furthermore, Gail wrote in her transcript, ‘After I turned my recorder off and thanked her for the interview, she wanted to say more’:
I guess I didn’t tell you how bad off my uncle was. He’s a Vietnam vet. … He was such a nutcase when he came back. … Becoming Muslim seemed to calm his demons. … As for me … I was a model … I was a make-up artist, and I liked it. I traveled. … What I didn’t like was two things … I didn’t like how American women, I mean non-Muslims, were always sexually harassed. … Second thing, I did not like how I was treated as a woman.
Did that influence your decision to become Muslim?
Yes, that and my uncle.
In Case 2, Elizabeth’s ‘official story’ aimed to defend Muslim culture, religion, and lifestyle against ‘Western’ misconceptions and to prove its superiority. After bonding with Adena, she became critical of the Palestinian educational system, saying, ‘You know … the education system here … the way they teach, I think, a lot of it is memorization. … I’m not sure if in English they prepare them enough for university standards’.
This pattern was present in the third case as well. Rachel expressed criticism of her group. Departing from the ‘official story’ after the recorder was turned off, Rachel disclosed:
… we all agreed to leave the kids at home till the last moment but to tell you the truth it tore me … to this day I am not sure if it was right to have them see the soldiers forcefully taking the family out of the house. We had a lot of arguments about it.
Rachel also revisited the questions she did not answer. In the follow-up interview, she explained why she went back to address former questions:
At the beginning she asked me when and why we settled in Gush Katif and I did not give her the full answer. But then, after I realized she was not going to use this information against us, I did not want her to go home not having all the information she needed, so I went back and gave it to her.
When asked to reflect about the interview, both Aisha and Rachel offered their explanation of what helped them trust their interviewer. As Aisha explained:
I thought it went pretty good because she was able to listen … and she didn’t critique what I said, she didn’t interrupt it, I couldn’t tell whether she liked or disliked what I was saying which was what it should have been.
Similarly, Rachel said:
… there she was, this girl from ‘the other side’ … and she was listening and somehow I knew she was not going to use what I said against us … and this is what was special … to be able to cross the lines, to explain, to get her to document what we have been through. It was therapeutic …
Shir’s version was:
It was such a powerful interview. I do not know why she wanted to talk after the tape was turned and why she went back to the questions she did not answer. I think she wanted me to succeed in my job, which was to tell her story. I managed to put my politics aside and truly see her point.
Discussion
In this paper, we analyzed interviews from three distinct contexts. In all cases, the interviewers were part of a hegemonic group that implemented racist, oppressive and/or aggressive political policies. Our analysis revealed six similar phases in the three interviews, which we defined and illustrated in the results section.
In the beginning phase of all three interviews, the researchers encountered a common issue in cross-cultural and socio-political research, the reluctance and hesitation of the interviewee to participate in the interview (Adler and Adler, 2001). In follow-up interviews, the interviewees attributed their hesitancy to the fear of being misunderstood, stereotyped, and misrepresented. In response, the interviewees attempted initially to represent their communities in positive terms (Jacobsson and Åkerström, 2012).
In all cases, the interviews were fluid, complex, context-specific, and collaborative (Merriam et al., 2001). We found periods in which the balance between the interviewer and interviewee shifted so that one or the other had greater control over the interview (Anyan, 2013; Hall, 2004; Vähäsantanen and Saarinen, 2012). Like Deutsch (2004), we found that the interview process is bidirectional, with both interviewer and interviewee serving as subject and object. The interviewers became the object in the confrontation phase when they were challenged by the interviewees. The direct and honest responses of the interviewers seemed to diffuse the interviewees’ defensiveness, making it safe for them to change their position in the final phases from being the ‘ambassador’ of their group (Jacobsson and Åkerström, 2012) as they were in the ‘official story’ phase to one in which they were critical of their own group.
The analysis of the interviews made us realize that although all the interviewees came from non-hegemonic groups, in the context of the interview, they became more powerful by using counter-control methods (Kvale, 2006; Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009). We would like to stress the possible differentiation between control and power in the interview encounter. While interviewers were in control in the initial phase, setting the stage for the interview and reading the questions, the interviewees had the power to withhold information (Hall, 2004; Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009), which can be seen as a form of agency and resistance. During the ‘expert position’ phase, interviewers transfer control to the interviewees who now display power accruing from knowledge that the interviewers wished to acquire (Hoffmann, 2007). Confrontation is another example of the differentiation between power and control. Here, the interviewee takes control but she could either gain or lose power depending on the interviewer’s response. In the final phase, interviewees again take control, revisiting and providing answers to questions that they had previously avoided. In that they confer power to the interviewers.
While the content of the interviews touched on situations in which the interviewees were severely victimized, discriminated against, or traumatized, the interview provided both parties with an opportunity to construct a space in which interviewee could ‘gain power’ by challenging the interviewer as a representative of the oppressing group. As Takeda (2012) and Weiner-Levy and Queder (2012) suggest, positionality may shift and is neither assured nor stable.
The interviewers played an important role in the process of creating the space for the interviewees to shift positions and stands. The analysis reveals that in two phases they stimulated the change. The first was by encouraging the expert position. As noted by scholars of research interviewing (Rubin and Rubin, 2012) and ethnography (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007), our interviewers positioned themselves as outsiders who had to be taught, facilitating the interviewees’ assumption of the expert position. The second was that by acknowledging and empathizing with the interviewees’ pain during the confrontation phase, they seemed to prevent the interview from turning into an arena for mutual ‘Othering’ (Bott, 2010; Krumer-Nevo, 2002) and to reconstruct it as an arena for mutual recognition. The interviewers recognized the interviewees’ right of ownership to their version of the studied phenomenon and the interviewees recognized the right of the interviewer to document their story with both its official and non-official components. The creation of a safe space and a ‘home for pain’ enabled an intimate environment in which the parties were able to talk about the pain caused by ‘the other’. An interviewer’s recognition of the pain caused by her group was regarded by one of the interviewees not only as an act of acceptance but even as a ‘therapeutic experience’. When interviewers acknowledged oppression, racism, and political conflicts, a new space opened for the partners to realize their common humanity and bond on the characteristics such as caring, sensitivity, and hope for social and political change.
In the follow-up interviews, we tried to incorporate reflexivity on power relations and positionality as a means to gain additional insight into the dynamics of the interviews (e.g., Altheide and Johnson, 2011). Reflexivity demands ‘uncomfortable assessment about the inter-personal interstitial knowledge-producing dynamics of qualitative research’ (Olesen, 2011: 135). Pelias’ (2011) concepts of personal and public realization surfaced from the analysis of the interviewers’ and interviewees’ reflections. Personal realization was witnessed in the ability of all the participants to explore their attitudes, beliefs, political stands, emotional reactions, and identity. Public realization was evident when all parties demonstrated awareness of racial and political injustice in the social and cultural spheres.
Accordingly, our analysis encourages us to call for a move beyond the insider–outsider debates. Although the interviewers began as outsiders from a hegemonic group, they were able to relinquish control and engage in a bidirectional conversation between members of groups in conflict.
In addition to moving away from the insider–outsider dichotomy, we would also like to move beyond a possible analysis of ‘cultural differences’ to a perspective of ‘context-informed’ differences, joining those who claim that ‘cultural sensitivity is not enough’ (Baum, 2007; Davis and Craven, 2011). The context-informed perspective offers an additional lens for the analysis of culture and traditions by taking into account the effects of history, politics, hegemonic power relations, oppression, globalization, and other conditions. In Case 1, the racial context and in Cases 2 and 3, the political context of ongoing conflict between the groups to which interviewer and interviewee belong seem to directly influence the interviewer–interviewee relationship as well as the contents of the interviews. In all interviews the interviewer’s position as a member of an oppressor group was central to the dynamics of the interview.
In the follow-up interviews, interviewees conveyed the belief that the interviewers understood them. Furthermore, the interview seemed to have had a long-term effect on the participants. At the time of the follow-up interviews, Aisha had returned to school to get a master’s degree; Gail, who had had no previous connections with Muslims, was studying Arabic and Muslim culture in Eastern Europe; and Adena volunteered in a women’s peace group monitoring the checkpoints, which she regards as one of the effects of her participation in this study. The encounters and reflexivity that this research inspired seemed to evoke interest, compassion, personal involvement, and commitment outside of the research arena.
Nevertheless, our analysis has several limitations. The sample consists of only three interviews from three different studies. The phases we found in these examples need to be further assessed in interviews in other national, ethnic, and political contexts. Additionally, differences in race, religion, culture, and political orientation do not always surface in interviews. When they do, they may or may not be overcome. If they are overcome, the phases may not occur in the sequence we found, or, as was the case with Elizabeth and Adena, the first two phases occurred concurrently. Furthermore, we acknowledge that fundamental ideological differences cannot be overcome in a single interview.
All told, however, our article demonstrates that the interview is a fluid and dynamic arena in which both parties influence each other. The analysis supports a context-informed perspective in which acknowledgment of political and other power dynamics and recognition of ‘the other’s’ situation enable interviewees to feel visible and free to voice previously unspoken narratives. We were impressed by the ability of interviewers and interviewees from groups in conflict to achieve some modicum of understanding and intimacy in the space of an interview. This understanding enabled participants to reconstruct what began as unequal or hierarchical power relations to one of mutuality. We invite other qualitative researchers from diverse backgrounds to further our understanding of how to go beyond the ‘official story’ through rigorous and reciprocal reflexive research.
Footnotes
Funding
Case 1 was from a study that received a small grant from the Research Foundation, University of Pennsylvania. The other studies received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.