{"id":668,"date":"2015-07-14T14:50:45","date_gmt":"2015-07-14T14:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/ethnographicencounters\/?p=668"},"modified":"2015-07-14T14:50:45","modified_gmt":"2015-07-14T14:50:45","slug":"techniques-for-ethnographic-conversations-and-interviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/ethnographicencounters\/2015\/07\/14\/techniques-for-ethnographic-conversations-and-interviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Techniques for Ethnographic Conversations and Interviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"yan<\/a>The techniques described below are based largely on James P. Spradley\u2019s The Ethnographic Interview. This type of interviewing is particularly “kind” to interviewees, respects their rights, and attempts to see the world as they see it.<\/p>\n

Some General Assumptions<\/h4>\n

The aim of the interview is to get the informant to respond as fully and as freely as possible.\u00a0 Let them do the talking so that you can learn from them, through their language, about their concepts and experiences. This means:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Starting from ignorance i.e. not going in with any assumptions about informants and how they see their lives.\u00a0 This is difficult if you clearly share knowledge, background, and experience (although in other ways, this is obviously an advantage).\u00a0 Resist the temptation to want to appear knowledgeable.<\/li>\n
  2. Starting without hypotheses i.e. not going in with a set of questions for which you want the answers.\u00a0 Social Science descriptions tend to do this, e.g. if a study was being conducted of tramps, it is dangerous to get statistics on the ‘income’ and ’employment’ of tramps.\u00a0 These terms would not be used by the tramps themselves to define their status.<\/li>\n
  3. Focusing on description rather than evaluation, i.e. resist the temptation to ask a number of questions, particularly at the beginning, of the kind ‘What do you think of ….. ?’\u00a0 Instead ask them to describe and narrate.<\/li>\n
  4. Learning by building up a picture through the language of your informants, i.e. try not to let them ‘translate’ into the kind of language which they think you want to hear or which you would tend to use, e.g. analytical categories, majority value judgement terms.\u00a0 Try to find the ‘tacit relationships and patterns that exist in their utterances’.\u00a0 Tape or report as much as you can verbatim.<\/li>\n
  5. Asking as few questions as possible and letting them control the interview. Often a comment, a repeating back of a word, even silence can encourage the other to go on talking.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Skills in explaining and eliciting<\/h4>\n

    The interviewer has to be able to initiate the interview and ask appropriate questions.<\/p>\n

    Stating explicit purpose.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>Throughout the interview, and particularly in subsequent interviews, the informant may need to be reminded of the purpose of the interview.<\/p>\n

    Explaining.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Very often the informant will be more responsive if he\/she fully appreciates what the interviewer is doing at each stage of the conversation.\u00a0 There are two basic types of explanations:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • a) explaining the project (why you want to record, why you are asking certain questions etc);<\/li>\n
    • b) explaining the importance of eliciting the actual language people would use, e.g. \u2018if you were talking to X about Y, what would you say?\u00a0 It’s useful for me to know exactly what you would say\u2019.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Questioning<\/h4>\n

      Always avoid questions with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answers, or which have assumptions built into them, e.g. \u2018Is it difficult to get a job in X factory?\u2019 Use instead the following kinds of questions (in this instance the ethnographer wants to find out what it is like to be a worker in a particular factory):<\/p>\n

        \n
      • Descriptive e.g. \u2018Can you tell me what you do when you first come into the factory?\u2019<\/li>\n
      • Structural e.g. \u2018What are all the different stages of the discipline procedure?\u2019<\/li>\n
      • Contrast e.g. \u2018What’s the difference between the induction here and the induction at X Ltd?<\/li>\n
      • Hypothetical e.g. \u2018If you thought you’d been taxed too much, what would you do?\u2019<\/li>\n
      • Questions about questions e.g. \u2018When you clock on, what questions do you ask each other or the supervisor?\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        Listening and Responding in Interviewing<\/h4>\n

        The interviewer has an even more important function – to respond.\u00a0 These skills will include the following:<\/p>\n

        Listening.<\/span><\/strong> The best way of listening is ensure that the interview is not routine and predictable (start from ignorance). If the informant is given autonomy, he\/she is bound to tell you things that are new, unfamiliar, expressed in a different way etc.\u00a0 Creative listening is a constant process of picking up and building on what the speaker says.<\/p>\n

        Giving feedback.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0To encourage the informant to continue and give a friendly atmosphere, the interviewers need to:<\/p>\n

          \n
        • a) show interest – with phatic gestures, agreement etc. or by making comments;<\/li>\n
        • b) express ignorance, e.g. I don’t know anything about \u2026.;<\/li>\n
        • c) don’t be afraid of pauses, as long as you obviously seem interested.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

          Encouraging expansion and extension<\/span><\/strong> by…<\/p>\n

            \n
          • Repeating back the informant\u2019s words to them.<\/li>\n
          • Restating what the informant has said using his\/her own words e.g. \u2018So you feel English people \u201cdon’t know what’s inside your head\u201d?\u2019<\/li>\n
          • Incorporating informant’s words when formulating your own questions e.g. \u2018You say you have to \u201ctrim and flash\u201d, how often do you have to do this?\u2019<\/li>\n
          • If an informant uses an unfamiliar term or an unusual expression, try to find out how he\/she is using the term, i.e. don’t ask \u2018What do you mean by ….. ?\u2019, ask \u2018What would you do\/how would you feel if someone said …… to you?\u2019.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            The techniques described below are based largely on James P. Spradley\u2019s The Ethnographic Interview. This type of interviewing is particularly “kind” to interviewees, respects their rights, and attempts to see the world as they see it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-methodguides","category-how-to-ethnography","column","threecol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/ethnographicencounters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/ethnographicencounters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/ethnographicencounters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/ethnographicencounters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/813"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/ethnographicencounters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/ethnographicencounters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/ethnographicencounters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/ethnographicencounters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/ethnographicencounters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}