Qualitative Interviewing as an Embodied Emotional Performance

Abstract

The article argues that the emotional framing of interviews plays a major role in shaping the content of interviews. Drawing on the psychoanalytic theory of Jessica Benjamin and Luce Irigaray, the article describes how interviews can be experienced as either conquest or communion. Qualitative researchers typically focus on the cognitively articulated aspects of the interview and elide the significance of their own and the interviewee’s, emotions. A reanalysis of two previous qualitative interview studies is used to illustrate the difference between interviews experienced as conquest or communion. The article argues that all interviews are emotional and embodied performances and that good interviewing is facilitated by a reflexive awareness of, and engagement with, the emotional, embodied, and performed dimensions of the interview.

Keywords

qualitative interviewing emotions psychoanalysis reflexivity.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Benjamin, J. ( 1988). The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, feminism, and the problem of domination. New York: Pantheon Books.

Charmaz, K. ( 1991). Good days bad days: The Self in chronic illness and time . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Cotterill, P. , & Letherby, G. ( 1993). Weaving stories: Personal auto/biographies in feminist research. Sociology, 27(1), 67-80.

Crowley, J. ( 2007). Friend of foe? Self-expansion, stigmatized groups, and the researcher-participant relationship. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 36, 603-630.

Douglas, J. ( 1985). Creative interviewing. London: Sage.

Duncan, I. ( 2009). Joy of belly dancing. Retrieved October 12, 2009, http://www.joyofbellydancing.com/danquote2.html

Ellis, C. ( 1999). Heartful autoethnography. Qualitative Health Research, 9, 669-683.

Ellis, C. ( 2009). Revision: Autoethnographic reflections on life and work . Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press .

Ellis, C. , & Bochner, A. ( 2001). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 733-768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

10.

Enosh, G. , Ben-Ari, A. , & Buchbinder, E. (2008). Sense of differentness in the construction of knowledge. Qualitative Inquiry, 14, 450-465.

11.

Enosh, G. , & Buchbinder, E. (2005). The interactive construction of narrative styles. Qualitative Inquiry, 11, 588-617.

12.

Ezzy, D. ( 2000). Illness narratives: Time, hope and HIV. Social Science & Medicine, 50, 605-617.

13.

Glaser, B. , & Strauss, A. ( 1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago: Aldine.

14.

Hermanowicz, J. ( 2002). The great interview. Qualitative Sociology , 25, 479-499.

15.

Holstein, J. , & Gubrium, J. ( 1995). The active interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

16.

Irigaray, L. ( 2001). Two be two (M. Rhodes & M. Cocito-Monoc, Trans.). New York: Routledge.

17.

La Pastina, A. ( 2006). The implications of an ethnographer’s sexuality . Qualitative Inquiry, 12, 724-735

18.

Nussbaum, M. ( 2001). Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

19.

Oikarinen-Jabai, H. ( 2003). Toward performative research: Embodied listening to the Self/Other. Qualitative Inquiry, 9, 569-579.

20.

Pike, S. ( 2001). Earthly bodies, magical selves: Contemporary pagans and the search for community. Berkeley: University of California Press.

21.

Richardson, L. ( 1997). Fields of play. New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press.

22.

Seidman, I. ( 1991). Interviewing as qualitative research. New York: Teachers College Press.

23.

Stephens, N. , & Delamont, S. ( 2006). Balancing the Berimbau: Embodied ethnographic understanding . Qualitative Inquiry, 12, 316-339.

24.

Wesely, J. ( 2006). Negotiating myself: The impact of study female exotic dancers on a feminist research. Qualitative Inquiry, 12, 146-162.

25.

Wiersma, J. ( 2006). The press release. Journal of Personality , 56, 205-238.