Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Interviewing: Unstructured and Semistructured 227
backs risk choking on their own mucous or vomit. Since then, of course, medical
opinion—and all the baby books that young parents read nowadays—have
flip-flopped about this issue several times. At the time, though, not wanting to
offend anyone, Carole listened politely and tried to act nonjudgmental.
One day, enough was enough. Carole told off a woman who intervened and
that was that. From then on, women were more eager to discuss child-rearing
practices in general, and the more we challenged them, the more they challenged
us. There was no rancor involved, and we learned a lot more than if
Carole had just kept on listening politely and had said nothing. This was informal
interviewing in the context of long-term participant observation. So, if we
had offended anyone, there would have been time and opportunity to make
amends—or at least come to an understanding about cultural differences.
Little Things Mean a Lot
Little things are important in interviewing, so pay attention to them. How
you dress and where you hold an interview, for example, tell your respondent
a lot about you and what you expect. The ‘‘interviewing dress code’’ is: Use
common sense. Proper dress depends on the venue. Showing up with a backpack
or an attaché case, wearing jeans or a business suit—these are choices
that should be pretty easy to make, once you’ve made the commitment to
accommodate your dress to different circumstances.
Same goes for venue. I’ve held interviews in bars, in business offices, in
government offices, on ferry boats, on beaches, in homes. ...Ican’t give you
a rule for selecting the single right place for an interview, since there may be
several right places. But some places are just plain wrong for certain interviews.
Here again, common sense goes a long way.
Using a Voice Recorder
Don’t rely on your memory in interviewing; use a voice recorder in all
structured and semistructured interviews, except where people specifically ask
you not to. Recorded interviews are a permanent archive of primary information
that can be passed on to other researchers. (Remember, I’m talking here
about formal interviews, not the hanging-out, informal interviews that are part
of ethnographic research. More on that in chapter 17.)
If you sense some reluctance about the recorder, leave it on the table and
don’t turn it on right away. Start the interview with chitchat and when things
get warmed up, say something like ‘‘This is really interesting. I don’t want to
trust my memory on something as important as this; do you mind if I record