Reconsidering the shape of power: Challenges of interviewing elites in a later-learned language

Introduction

In social sciences research, power dynamics are recognised as hugely influential to the research process and are continuously explored in methodological literature. Especially in qualitative interviews, differences in power can be manifested in interactions between interviewers and interviewees, which will directly affect the successful establishment of a working relationship between both parties, the quality of data and research outcomes (Charmaz, 2014). Qualitative researchers are advised to be conscious of the relative differences in power and constantly reflect on it and its associated impacts throughout the research process (Smith, 2006).

Methodological literature generally assumes that researchers are in a position of power and tend to dominate the process, since most research are inclined to focus on marginal and vulnerable groups as participants, rendering visible their voices (Selwyn, 2013; Råheim et al., 2016). However, the interactive, two-way nature of interviews means that power may reside on either side between interviewers and interviewees, and there will inevitably be instances when power is in the hands of participants (Conti and O’Neil, 2007; Gibson and Hua, 2016). This phenomenon has been characterised as ‘study up’ (Ostrander, 1993: 7), referring to research about people in possession of power, authority and privilege, also known as ‘elites’ (see also Desmond, 2004; Hertz and Imber, 1995). Eliteness may include high social or institutional status, but it can also refer to professional competence and expertise, or the ability to mobilise formal and informal networks that grant access to insider knowledge and influential decision-making processes (Harvey, 2011; Wedel, 2017). The unique difference of interviewing elites from conventional interviews is that the power balance tends to be tilted in favour of elites who have accumulated extensive experiences and hold powerful positions in their fields, while researchers are placed in a relatively weaker position (Smith, 2006).

In addition to the difference in status, power relations will be even more complicated if the interviewers and the interviewees do not share the same first language (L1), and either or both are multilinguals (Cormier, 2018). In this case, foreign language speakers might find themselves naturally placed in a weaker position compared to their counterparts who use L1 (Rolland et al., 2019). Particularly when it is the researchers who have to use a later-learned language (LX) ¹ to interview elites, it can exacerbate the pre-existing power imbalance, disempowering the researchers even further (Marschan-Piekkari and Reis, 2004). However, the challenges of interviewing elites in one's LX are scarcely documented in the literature. Given the increasing linguistic diversities in social sciences research and the growing number of international scholars working and researching in LX (Holmes, 2016; King, 2023), this represents a significant gap in the knowledge.

To fill the gap, this article draws on my doctoral experiences interviewing an elite participant in my LX (English) to explore the intersections of power, language and researcher positionality. Through a reflexive analysis of 2 interviews with the elite, I examine how the power relationship between us was co-constructed and transformed by our perceptions of my positionality and our use of language. This paper offers insights into the complexities and tensions arising from interviewing elites in one's LX, particularly in relation to the changing power dynamics, while suggesting a possible means to address the power gap by communicating researcher vulnerabilities with elite participants. The following section will start by exploring existing knowledge about interviewing elites.

Current understandings of interviewing elites

Although elite interviewing represents a growing body of literature in the past few decades, there seems to be a lack of consensus on the definition of ‘elites’. According to Harvey (2010), the elite status can be made up of various elements (e.g., power, hierarchical positions, social capital) that are often incomparable across different contexts. Therefore, instead of agreeing on a universal definition, most studies have provided context-specific definitions with several key characteristics to identify elites. For example, Boucher (2017) suggested two main criteria to distinguish elites: those who are in positions of power, such as corporate CEOs, staff at senior management roles, government executives; and those who have acquired extensive expertise through years of experiences in relevant fields. In a study by Welch et al. (2002: 613) that addressed the methodological challenges of interviewing corporate elites, the definition of elites was expanded to the following:

An informant (usually male) who occupies a senior or middle management position; has functional responsibility in an area which enjoys high status in accordance with corporate values; has considerable industry experience and frequently also long tenure with the company; possesses a broad network of personal relationships; and has considerable international exposure.

My research into English language testing for university admissions aims to explore the full spectrum of test-taking experiences from those involved in test development and administration to those taking and interpreting the tests. The research objective necessitates the need to focus on test providers, most of whom are powerful multinational organisations designing and delivering the tests. Therefore, drawing on the review of literature above, elites in this study refer to the people who have worked or are currently working as senior management roles at leading companies and organisations in the language testing industry, and have accumulated substantial insider knowledge about the development and administration of standardised English tests.

In addition to the definition of elites, the methodological challenges associated with interviewing elites seem to be a critical concern in existing literature. Researchers are recurringly faced with obstacles about access to participants, interviewing strategies, participants’ level of openness, etc. (Harvey, 2010; Perera, 2021; Smith, 2006). The following sections will discuss how these issues are particularly difficult to deal with when interviewing elites.

The role of language in shaping power and positionality

The role of language in conducting research has attracted heightened attention due to the increase in linguistic diversities in academia. In multilingual research, careful consideration is required regarding the choice of language throughout the research process: from the initial conceptualisation and planning stage, to deciding what language(s) to be employed in reviewing literature, working with participants, collecting and analysing data, and finally presenting findings to all stakeholders (Holmes, 2016). Whether or not researchers share the same language with participants can transform language into a form of power that heavily influences the collection of data (Cormier, 2018). Even though multilingual research has gained greater momentum in social sciences, the role of language and its impacts on power dynamics and researcher positionalities remain a minority topic in methodological literature, particularly within the context of elite interviewing. This paper thus addresses this scarcity by providing a reflexive account into my experiences interviewing an elite in English—my LX—and by examining the role of language in shaping and re-shaping the power dynamics.

As interest in multilingual research grows in academia, discussions about the impacts of language on researcher positionality and power dynamics have intensified. According to Holmes et al. (2015), multilingual research can take various forms, and the role of language in every scenario is distinct. In some cases, researchers can be linguistic insiders who share the same language(s) and/or lived experiences with participants. Existing literature generally considers it as an advantage for various reasons, including easier access to the field and local contacts (Hult, 2013), easier to obtain informed consent (Kim, 2012), and effective rapport building (Perryman, 2011). Therefore, having shared language(s) could help bridge the gap in power between researchers and the researched, establish a more intimate understanding of participants’ lived experiences and generate richer data (Aiello and Nero, 2019).

Despite this, the insider-outsider dichtomy is criticised for overlooking the complexity of positionality and researcher identity, which are shaped by various factors, including race, ethnicity, gender, social status, etc (e.g., Hult, 2013; McNess et al., 2015). From this perspective, researchers can have multiple identities, and the insider-outsider status is not static but rather fluid and dynamic (Cormier, 2018). Sharing the same language(s) does not automatically grant researchers an insider status and its associated benefits. An example can be found in Aiello and Nero (2019), where they reflected on scenarios that triggered tensions around language, power and identity in two different contexts. In both cases, language was the centre of concern, embedded in researchers’ identities but challenged by participants during conversations about culture, policy development and beliefs. By engaging in a reflexive account, they demonstrated the complexities of defining insider-outsider status, which transcends nationality, language and ethnicity to encompass ‘researcher roles, relative levels of familiarity with the evolution of issues in the educational context, and the ideologies, attitudes and practices within the larger culture in which the research takes place’ (Aiello and Nero, 2019: 261). It highlights the need to re-examine the role of language across various contexts and be conscious of how linguistic positionalities can influence researcher-participant relationships and power dynamics.

On the other hand, there are often circumstances where researchers and participants do not share the same L1, and the involvement of interpreters and translators might be necessary (e.g., Backhaus, 2022; Bochmann, 2022; Ganassin and Holmes, 2013). Power, in this case, circulates among researchers, participants and translators/interpreters, resulting in greater complexities and ambiguities regarding the negotiation of power, the production of content and ethical considerations (Berman and Tyyskä, 2011; Edwards, 1998; Temple et al., 2006). At other times, researchers or participants might be multilingual themselves and able to communicate in a foreign language (e.g., Chen, 2011; Rolland, 2023; Svensson, 2024). The choice of language becomes paramount in this case, as it can strongly influence how multilinguals express themselves, recall experiences and construct personal identies (De Fina, 2016; Dewaele, 2010; Pavlenko, 2007). Furthermore, one's use of language is ‘bounded by socio-historical norms, language ideologies and interactional contexts’ (Rolland et al., 2023: 647), which further complicates the meaning conveyed in different languages. Particularly in an interview setting, a participant's responses to the same question may vary significantly depending on whether they use their first or second language (Cortazzi et al., 2011). Participants’ power and agency could be reduced if they are not offered a choice to use or not use a certain language (Prior, 2015). Therefore, scholars have called for more careful consideration on the choice of language to ensure research trustworthiness and maintain the power equilibrium (Ganassin and Holmes, 2020; Rolland, 2023).

While researchers often focus extensively on the potential vulnerabilities of multilingual participants in relation to the interview language, there is little consideration of a possible reversed situation, where a researcher has to work in LX to interview participants born speaking that language. Whether a researcher feels confident researching in LX is closely related to one's linguistic positionality and the power relationship (King, 2023). Especially when interviewing elites, the linguistic insecurity of researchers could further excerbate the power asymmetry between them and elites. However, while researchers of elite interviews generally acknowledge the significance of language (e.g., Marschan-Piekkari and Reis, 2004; Welch et al., 2002), there has been little exploration of how it can transform the power dynamics during interviews. This paper is an attempt to bridge this gap in the knowledge by reflexively exploring my own experiences interviewing an elite in LX, highlighting the rising tensions and intersections between power, language and perceived researcher positionality. The following section will provide an overview of the research context.

Study background

This paper draws on interview data from my ongoing doctoral research started in October 2022. The project aims to explore the test-taking experiences of standardised English tests for all concerned, from those taking the tests to those interpreting and administering the tests, including test-takers, staff at higher education institutions (e.g., lecturers/academic tutors, admissions officers), staff from testing organisations and providers. The overarching research question is ‘how is the experience of standardised English tests for university admissions co-constructed by the multiple actors involved?’. Adopting a case study approach, a research-intensive, prestige UK university has been chosen as the case site, and a recognised English test accepted by the university has been chosen as one of the target tests to elicit test-taking experiences. To this date, participants include test-takers who have received an offer at this university, current and previous employees from testing organisations, and university recruitment and admissions staff. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted to explore their experiences of tests and their role/involvement in the process. Relevant documents and materials have been collected for further analysis (e.g., test-takers’ preparation notes, test-takers’ writing samples, assessment guidelines/handbooks). The project is ongoing and currently in the phase of initial data analysis using open coding.

Elite participants in my study have worked for testing organisations as team leaders and managers for academic issues. All of them have accumulated over 10 years of experience teaching and assessing English across various regions. They were recruited through a combination of purposive and snowball sampling, with some being identified initially through staff profiles on organisation websites, then contacted via work emails. The initial group was then invited to nominate other potential informants, some of whom I was able to approach via emails. A brief online meeting was arranged with most of them to introduce the project and research objectives, explain the process of data collection, reassure them of the confidentiality and anonymity rules, and answer any questions they may have.

Interviews with elite participants focused on their daily experiences of work in the assessment industry, their roles in the delivery and development of tests, and their interactions with internal and external stakeholders. All interviews were conducted online and screen-recorded via Microsoft Teams. Informed by and reflecting on the challenge of anonymisation when interviewing elites, the name of test, testing organisations and their (previous) job titles are not given in this paper, and pseudonyms are used throughout. An informal research journal was kept to record my thoughts and reflections throughout the research journey, enabling me to reflect on the challenges and refine my research practice in subsequent interviews.

Reflection on my researcher positionality

As suggested by Creswell and Creswell (2018), qualitative researchers should identify and actively reflect on their subjective values and potential biases coming from their previous background to shape their research approach. This could include considerations such as gender, race, culture, language and socioeconomic status. Self-reflection has been a major theme in my doctoral journey, through which I documented and recognised my strengths and weaknesses as a researcher. This has enabled me to improve my research approach and make necessary refinements. The following section describes my personal experiences and analyses my positionality from the perspectives of me and elite participants.

I am a female, novice researcher in my late twenties, born and raised in a small city of China. I had the privilege of attending an international college in China and later pursuing tertiary education in Canada. Since then, English has become a necessary skill and an important form of social capital for me, and the idea that proficiency in English determines future success has been internalised and continues to influence my thinking, shaping my identity and positionality as an LX researcher. Even though I have lived in English-speaking countries for more than 6 years and can speak English fluently, I still experience anxiety especially when using English to communicate with so-called ‘native speakers’ (i.e., people for whom English is their L1), as I am afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid. This fear of failure, according to Salehi and Marefat (2014), is a key factor that leads to unsatisfactory language performance of foreign language speakers, particularly in verbal communication. Upon reflection, I found that language anxiety influenced my research approach in many respects, such as the ways I posed questions and my hesitation to disclose struggles of understanding, both of which undermined my ability to manage interviews.

In addition to feeling like a linguistic outsider, my self-perception as a young researcher with limited experience and knowledge of English testing was another trigger of my anxiety and sense of powerlessness when interviewing elites. My academic trajectory has dominated my life so far, and I have little practical experience of the assessment industry other than being a previous test-taker myself. As a result, I perceived myself to be less powerful than my elite participants, many of whom were far more senior than me in age, work experience, expertise, and social status. This perceived power imbalance was manifested in interviews, where I allowed conversations to be taken over or led off-topic by participants, or failed to follow up on things I did not understand. My experience resonates with existing literature that highlights the risk of interviews being dominated by elite participants (e.g., Stephens, 2007; Boucher, 2017).

On the other hand, my elite participants seemed to regard me more as an insider for several reasons. First of all, having been through these tests myself as an international student, I am familiar with the basics of tests (e.g., test content, delivery, and construction). Therefore, my past experiences enabled me to develop an in-depth, contextualised understanding of tests, which enhanced the efficiency of communication with participants (Kim, 2012). Additionally, my role as a PhD researcher also seemed to contribute to my ‘insiderness’, as a few participants have been novice researchers themselves, while others seemed to be highly interested in participation of research to promote their test. In this case, my dual identity as both a previous test-taker and a novice researcher has perhaps helped me gain access to elites more easily, as I may be perceived as a ‘perfectly harmless’ person who is young, informed, interested in their work but not necessarily threatening (Gewirtz and Ozga, 2013: 193).

Overall, there seems to be a difference between how I perceived my positionality and how my elite participants perceived it. The divergent perceptions of my positionality on the insider-outsider continuum have influenced my interactions with elites and created unique challenges associated with power asymmetry and language during the interviews. In the following sections, I reflect on the challenges I faced as an LX researcher interviewing an elite, particularly those intertwined with language, power dynamics, and perceived researcher positionality.

Initial access

As discussed previously, obtaining access is a well-recognised issue in elite interviewing. Power of elites at this stage is usually manifested in forms of restricting access via various gatekeepers and layers of administrative procedures (Littig, 2009), which in my case appeared to be the limited transparency and accessibility of information about elites. On the websites of testing organisations, there was little information available about members of test management teams and their roles in the testing process. Even when there was information online about staff members, their work responsibilities were vaguely described and hard to interpret based on my limited understanding of the organisational structures. Furthermore, the high-stakes, large-scale nature of tests means that test development and delivery processes are highly complicated and labour-intensive, resulting in a sophisticated organisational structure with regional offices across the globe. Especially when a test is jointly managed by several organisations and companies, it may be even harder to identify potential informants who might be relevant to the study with a regional focus of mainland China. Testing organisations exercised their power to make these information largely inaccessible and invisible to the public, adding to the existing barriers of accessing elites. Eventually, I tried to identify contacts from professional networks such as conference mailing lists and online communities of language assessments, through which Mike was discovered as a contact. He has previously worked in China for decades as an expert of English teaching and assessments, having occupied managerial roles at a testing organisation. I sent him an email explaining the project and citing the professional network as a mutual connection, and he sent a positive reply immediately. This seemed to echo previous research which suggested a higher chance of success if researchers share common links with elites (Duke, 2002).

In addition to gatekeeping, power was also exercised by elites and organisations through the negotiation of terms of the interviews. In Mike's first reply to my invitation email, he directly asked me to propose a time for interview and kindly nominated another colleague whom he thought might be useful to my project. At that point, I was hugely surprised by his cooperativeness. Being afraid of losing him as a participant, I decided to move things forward as quickly as possible. Instead of arranging an informal meeting to explain further details of the study, I replied with a suggested time for interview with attachments of the participant information sheet and consent form for him to read on his own. This move, however, turned out to be particularly risky, as the chance to provide a clear explanation of the study and build rapport was compromised. Unsurprisingly, he replied by asking for clarifications regarding the collection of certain paperwork specified in the information sheet, as he was concerned about breaching the confidentiality agreement of the organisation—a common concern shared by elites (e.g., Harvey, 2011; Mikecz, 2012). I had to address his concern by reassuring him of my duty of care for participants, including respecting their choices to share or not share certain documents. This example demonstrated how elites can act as agents of power, bounded in rules and principles of the organisations which control the information.

The initial access experience marked the formation of a perceived asymmetrical power relation between me, elite participants and the organisations behind them. Power is exercised by organisations to restrict access of information from the public, and passed onto individuals within organisations to self-regulate information shared with outsiders. As a student researcher, I felt like I was placed in a passive, vulnerable position where I had very little choice but to wait for their ‘approval’ to move things forward. This perceived power imbalance began to emerge, leading to unfolding power dynamics that intersected with language and researcher positionality, ultimately influencing data collection.

First interview: the ‘loss’ of power

Our first interview was a challenging experience for me. The interview was conducted online, as requested by Mike due to his working style, and English was used as the interview language due to our cultural and linguistic backgrounds. I am fluent in both Chinese (my L1) and English (my LX), while English is Mike's L1. Although he has worked in China for decades, he is not a fluent user of Chinese, but could occasionally switch to Chinese to name the institutions related to his previous work. Therefore, English seemed to be the most appropriate interview language. However, during the interview, I felt in various instances that I lost control of as an interviewer due to a combination of reasons, including the perceived power asymmetry, language, and the divergent perceptions of researcher positionality between me and Mike. These factors were intertwined together to gradually shift the interview in an unexpected direction.

Second interview: regaining power

Although challenges associated with power asymmetry in elite interviewing are widely recognised, it is not impossible to mitigate the power gap and restore balance. As mentioned previously, various strategies have been suggested to cope with these challenges, such as doing careful research about elites’ background (Aydarova, 2019), rephrasing questions to elicit more details (Laurila, 1997), or taking up the courage to be confrontational and challenge their ‘corporate’ answers (Ostrander, 1993).

In my case, since language seemed to be a key factor in shaping power dynamics, my supervisor encouraged me to be upfront about my struggle with language as a potential means to even out the power imbalance. Hence, before the start of my second interview with Mike, I revealed to him that I did not fully understand him last time and might need to interrupt and ask for clarifications of certain language that might not be comprehensible to me. Surprisingly, he seemed very sorry and apologised immediately for it, explaining that he sometimes has the habit of ‘rambling’. Later in the interview, although there were still unfamiliar phrases used occasionally, he became much more careful and self-aware of his language use and constantly checked my understanding. Examples of meaning negotiation between us are showed in Excerpts 4 and 5:

Excerpt 4: Mike:

You know, because XXX (Mike's previous job) is a kind of cul-de-sac. A profession.

Informed by my interviews with Mike, I began incorporating a brief explanation of my struggles with language at the start of subsequent interviews with other elites whom I interviewed in English, with the intention to build confidence and a more balanced power relationship. All participants responded positively, and my perceived anxiety seemed to ease a bit in later interviews. This might be because of the self-disclosure, the accumulation of experiences interviewing elites, and the different personalities and conversational styles of participants. Although challenges still existed in later interviews, such as elites providing ‘public relations’ responses or self-censoring information, I felt more comfortable with asking for clarifications and posing challenging questions.

My interview experiences with Mike and other elites provided a possibility for researchers to regain power by acknowledging researchers’ vulnerabilities and staying open about researchers’ needs. By directly expressing my struggles as an LX researcher, the power dynamics were effectively reshaped in two ways. On one hand, the self-disclosure of my struggles with language reduced my anxiety and re-empowered me with the right to question and interrupt, without worrying about being misinterpreted as disrespectful, impolite or incompetent, which helped me re-establish confidence and position myself equally with the elite. On the other hand, it made the elite participant reflect on his use of language as a way of exercising power and made him aware of the need to increase the clarity of his speech. Thus, a space for the re-negotiation of power was actively created, enabling us both to address the barriers of comprehension and make mutual efforts to restore the power equilibrium.

Discussion and conclusion

This paper illustrates how elite interviewing is an intricate, nuanced process shaped by the interconnections between power, language, and researcher positionality. Through the reflexive analysis of 2 interviews with one elite participant, it demonstrates how perceived differences in these areas are intertwined throughout the interviews to co-construct the interactions between researchers and elites. It also illustrates the importance of reflexivity and the explicit acknowledgement of researcher's vulnerabilities as useful strategies to address the challenges of researching elites as an LX researcher.

My experiences of interviewing elites foreground the unique role of language in shaping power relations and the perceived researcher positionality. In addition to being a communicative tool, language is intricately linked to one's identity and socio-cultural background, and can sometimes function as a tool of exercising power, thus influencing power dynamics and the positioning of researchers (Cormier, 2018). In my interviews with Mike, my linguistic identity as an LX researcher and his use of unfamiliar language inevitably contributed to my lack of confidence and sense of powerlessness, which then negatively impacted my own language use and oral ability to interview in LX. It is also crucial to recognise that, other than language, power relations are shaped by a complex web of intersectional positions of researchers and participants (Vähäsantanen and Saarinen, 2012). My lack of confidence may have partially come from the awareness that I was a young, female student researcher interviewing a male, elite participant who was much more senior than me in age and experience, as echoed by previous research (e.g., Prior and Peled, 2021). Although it would not be possible to explore all intersecting identities in depth, this reflexive article highlights the key role of language in shaping how power is experienced, enacted and negotiated in elite interviews.

Despite the fact that a natural gap in power exists when interviewing elites, what can an LX researcher do to restore the power equilibrium? My experience shows that it can be helpful to be upfront with elites and acknowledge struggles with language, in order to gain mutual respect and connect with participants on a human level (Lounasmeri, 2020). Researchers might need to be careful as some elites might interpret such self-disclosures as a sign of weakness and further exploit the power asymmetry (see Welch et al., 2002). However, in cases similar to mine where elites are kind and patient, communicating vulnerabilities has the potential to ‘transform the self and others’ (Chang, 2016: 52), to create a space of care between interviewers and interviewees, to allow vulnerabilities to be seen and heard, thus encouraging mutual effort from both sides to bridge the gap in power.

In conclusion, this paper contributes to the growing body of work on elite interviewing, with a particular focus on the role of language in shaping the interview experience. Through reflecting on my interviews with an elite participant, I reveal the unique challenges faced by LX researchers when interviewing elites, while highlighting the complex, discursive nature of power dynamics in relation to language and researcher positionality. Insights are provided based on my experiences to address the challenge, as an LX researcher, to be open about one's vulnerabilities, engage in dialogue with the elites and make a mutual effort to restore the power equilibrium. In the future, it would be worthwhile to further explore the effects and experiences of using LX to research on a wider scale. As the number of international scholars has risen significantly in the last few decades, how do they feel to be out of their comfort zone and research in a later-learned language? How are the relationships between researchers and the researched shaped and reshaped by the language(s) spoken? This article is an attempt to open a window for dialogue around these questions, bringing greater attention to the experiences of the growing number of scholars conducting research in LX.