Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Interviewing: Unstructured and Semistructured 211
1965; Gorden 1975; Spradley 1979). These different types of interviews produce
different types of data that are useful for different types of research projects
and that appeal to different types of researchers. For convenience, I divide
the continuum of interviews into four large chunks.
1. Informal Interviewing
At one end there is informal interviewing, characterized by a total lack of
structure or control. The researcher just tries to remember conversations heard
during the course of a day in the field. This requires constant jotting and daily
sessions in which you sit at a computer, typing away, unburdening your memory,
and developing field notes. Informal interviewing is the method of choice
at the beginning of participant observation fieldwork, when you’re settling in.
It is also used throughout ethnographic fieldwork to build greater rapport and
to uncover new topics of interest that might have been overlooked.
When it comes to interviewing, never mistake the adjective ‘‘informal’’ for
‘‘lightweight.’’ This is hard, hard work. You have to remember a lot; you have
to duck into private corners a lot (so you can jot things down); and you have
to use a lot of deception (to keep people from knowing that you’re really at
work, studying them). Informal interviewing can get pretty tiring.
Still, in some kinds of research, informal interviewing is all you’ve got.
Mark Connolly (1990) studied gamines, or street children, in Guatemala City,
Guatemala, and Bogotá, Colombia. These children live, eat, and sleep on the
street. Hanging out and talking informally with these children was an appropriate
way to do this research. Informal ethnography can also be combined
with more structured methods, when circumstances allow it. In fact, Rachel
Baker (1996a, 1996b) was able to collect anthropometric data on street children
in Kathmandu, Nepal, while doing informal ethnography.
2. Unstructured Interviewing
Next comes unstructured interviewing, one of the two types covered in
this chapter. There is nothing at all informal about unstructured interviewing,
and nothing deceptive, either. You sit down with another person and hold an
interview. Period. Both of you know what you’re doing, and there is no shared
feeling that you’re just engaged in pleasant chitchat.
Unstructured interviews are based on a clear plan that you keep constantly
in mind, but are also characterized by a minimum of control over the people’s
responses. The idea is to get people to open up and let them express themselves
in their own terms, and at their own pace. A lot of what is called ethnographic
interviewing is unstructured. Unstructured interviewing is used in