Toward Understanding in Postmodern Interview Analysis: Interpreting the Contradictory Remarks of a Research Participant

How is the qualitative research analyst to understand apparently contradictory remarks made by a research participant? Although social scientists in the positivist tradition rely on methods such as triangulation to find “truth,” interpretive social scientists listen beyond, between, and underneath participants’ words to understand the social conditions that produce apparent contradictions in their accounts. In this article, the author presents a case study of making sense of a research participant’s contradictory comments, using a theoretical framework to understand the participant’s “logic of practice.” Through interpretive listening and reflexivity during the data analysis, she came to understand the participant’s contradictory remarks in a way that illuminated the contradictions, as well as a significant process in the participant’s life at the time: the transformation from carefree daughter to responsible mother. Such an interpretive analysis does not produce “truth” as positivist social scientists require but offers instead the satisfaction of understanding.