Interviewing in Social Science Research: A Relational Approach

by Lee Ann Fujii

What is interviewing and when is this method useful? What does it mean to select rather than sample interviewees? Once the researcher has found people to interview, how does she build a working relationship with her interviewees? What should the dynamics of talking and listening in interviews be? How do researchers begin to analyze the narrative data generated through interviews?

Lee Ann Fujii explores the answers to these inquiries in Interviewing in Social Science Research, the latest entry in the Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods. This short, highly readable book explores an interpretive approach to interviewing for purposes of social science research. Using an interpretive methodology, the book examines interviewing as a relational enterprise. As a relational undertaking, interviewing is more akin to a two-way dialogue than a one-way interrogation. Fujii examines the methodological foundations for a relational approach to interviewing, while at the same time covering many of the practical nuts and bolts of relational interviewing. Examples come from the author’s experiences conducting interviews in Bosnia, Rwanda, and the United States, and from relevant literatures across a variety of social scientific disciplines. Appendices to the book contain specific tips and suggestions for relational interviewing in addition to interview excerpts that give readers a sense of how relational interviews unfold.

This book will be of great value to graduate students and researchers from across the social sciences who are considering or planning to use interviews in their research, and can be easily used by academics for teaching courses or workshops in social science methods.

Genres: Research Methods, Political Science

132 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 28, 2017

Reviews

[m]

the book was good and interesting, but the class that made me read it, makes me want to die a little, so minus points for that.

not at all dense and the author knows how to get the audience into the topics that are being presented, some of which can become a bit repetitive after a while. i thought that including examples interviews made the book much more dynamic. still, if you are looking for a guide book for Interviewing, this may not be for you as it is very vague in terms of methodology, choosing instead to recommend to the researcher to find what works for them.

[Kaitlyn Kline Voz]

A clear, brief, and easy-to-understand guide to relational interviewing as a method. Fujii describes the method well, with useful examples and clear distinctions from other forms of interviews. She details how relational interviewing differs from other types of interviews at each stage of research- from research design, to ethics, starting the interview, to analysis.

[Zachary]

Very useful guidebook for interpretivist/relational methods