Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

220 Chapter 9
topics. But to break the ice and get the interview flowing, there is nothing
quite as useful as what Spradley (1979) called the grand tour question.
This does not mean that asking longer questions or using neutral probes
necessarily produces better responses. They do, however, produce more
responses, and, in general, more is better. Furthermore, the more you can keep
an informant talking, the more you can express interest in what they are saying
and the more you build rapport. This is especially important in the first interview
you do with someone whose trust you want to build (see ibid.:80). There
is still a lot to be learned about how various kinds of probes affect what informants
tell us.
Threatening questions—those asking for sensitive information—should be
short but preceded by a long, rambling run-up: ‘‘We’re interested in the various
things that people do these days in order to keep from getting diseases
when they have sex. Some people do different kinds of things, and some people
do nothing special. Do you ever use condoms?’’ If the respondents says,
‘‘Yes,’’ or ‘‘No,’’ or ‘‘Sometimes,’’ then you can launch that series of questions
about why, why not, when, with whom, and so on. The wording of sensitive
questions should be supportive and nonjudgmental. (See below for more on
threatening questions.)
Probing by Leading
After all this, you may be cautious about being really directive in an interview.
Don’t be. Many researchers caution against ‘‘leading’’ an informant.
Lofland (1976), for example, warns against questions like, ‘‘Don’t you think
that? . . .’’ and suggests asking, ‘‘What do you think about? . . .’’ He is, of
course, correct. On the other hand, any question an interviewer asks leads an
informant. You might as well learn to do it well.
Consider this leading question that I asked a Ñähñu Indian: ‘‘Right. I understand.
The compadre is supposed to pay for the music for the baptism fiesta.
But what happens if the compadre doesn’t have the money? Who pays then?’’
This kind of question can stop the flow of an informant’s narrative stone dead.
It can also produce more information than the informant would otherwise have
provided. At the time, I thought the informant was being overly ‘‘normative.’’
That is, I thought he was stating an ideal behavioral custom (having a compadre
pay for the music at a fiesta) as if it were never violated.
It turned out that all he was doing was relying on his own cultural competence—’’abbreviating,’’
as Spradley (1979:79) called it. The informant took
for granted that the anthropologist knew the ‘‘obvious’’ answer: If the compadre
didn’t have enough money, well, then there might not be any music.
My interruption reminded the informant that I just wasn’t up to his level of