Qualitative Research in Practice : Stories From the Field - Blogs Unpad

Qualitative research in practice
Viewing interviews in this way requires attention to the interview
process and context as well as the content of what is said, to the
hows as well as the whats. Nevertheless, Holstein and Gubrium
caution against being so concerned with interview process that
what is actually said is lost.
While the emphasis on process has sharpened concern with, and
debate over, the epistemological status of interview data, it is
important not to lose track of what is being asked about in interviews
and, in turn, what is being conveyed by respondents. A narrow focus
on how tends to displace the significant whats—the meanings—that
serve as the relevant grounds for asking and answering questions
(1997, p. 115).
In-depth interviews are particularly useful when the phenomena
under investigation cannot be observed directly (Taylor & Bogdan,
1998). Thus they are an excellent means of finding out how people
think or feel in relation to a given topic. They also enable us to talk
with people about events that happened in the past and those that
are yet to happen. These retrospective and anticipatory elements
open up a world of experience that is not accessible via methods
such as observation. Other than through diaries or other records
made at the time, interviews in the present are the only way to
access a person’s perceptions of past events. Even then, we are as
reliant on what the reporter chose to write down at the time as we
are on what interview respondents choose to tell us.
It is important not to let this ability to talk with others about past
experiences lead to a false sense of access to the past. The only
perspective that can be obtained is that of the present, no matter that
the events, thoughts and feelings being reported have already
occurred. We can find out how someone feels now about what
happened in the past, even what they say now about how they felt
then, but this does not give us access to the past. Interviews also
happen at a cross-section in time and, just as events have inevitably
been reconstructed at the time of the interview, further reconstructions
are undoubtedly to come. Participants’ perspectives can only
be presented in the context of lives as they are being lived (Langness
& Frank, 1981). The process of telling their stories about the past in
the present, and particularly in the interview context, will itself
impact on participants’ subsequent organisation and understanding
of their experience (Kleinman, 1988). As Bruner states:
50