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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The SAGE handbook of interview research : the complexity of the
craft / editors, Jaber F. Gubrium . . . [et al.]. — 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: Handbook of interview research : context & method /
editors, Jaber F. Gubrium, James A. Holstein. c2002.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4129-8164-4 (cloth)
1. Interviewing—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Gubrium, Jaber F.
II. Handbook of interview research. III. Title: Handbook of
interview research.
H61.28.H36 2012
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![◆ 1
In today’s “interview society” (Silverman, 1997),
we frequently learn about lives, feelings, and
experiences by way of interviews. Interviewing
flourishes as the stock-in-trade of journalism and
contemporary news media. Its popu
larity as enter-
tainment continues to grow. And the interview
remains unquestionably a staple of social-scientific
research. In the historical context of information
about society, however, the interview is a relatively
recent invention (see Benney & Hughes, 1956;
Platt, 2002; Platt’s chapter “The History of the
Interview,” this volume). But as straightforward a
process as it may seem, interviewing and interview
data posed complex challenges for those practic-
ing the craft for research purposes.
Early Challenges
Early on, the competence of potential interviewees
was a major concern (see Holstein & Gubrium, 1995).
Henry Mayhew’s four-volume study of London
Labour and the London Poor (1861–1862) offers a
revealing glimpse into the perceived ability of
research subjects to convey useful information. In
the preface to the first volume, Mayhew comments
that he had initially believed the term poverty (or
“poor people”) signaled narrative incompetence. At
the time, for purposes of information gathering, the
poor were considered incapable of telling their own
story; those considered more learned—their “social
betters”—were viewed as more reliable and accurate
when it came to describing the condition of the
“humbler classes.” To his credit, Mayhew broke with
convention to discover that the poor, indeed, could
speak authoritatively about their lives in “unvar-
nished language; and [social researchers could] por-
tray the condition of their homes and their families
by personal observation of the places, and direct
communication with the individuals” (p. iii).
Mayhew used interviews and observations con-
ducted among the London poor to document their
◆
Jaber F. Gubrium, James A. Holstein,
Amir B. Marvasti, and Karyn D. McKinney
INTRODUCTION
The Complexity of the Craft](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-16-320.jpg)
![Chapter 1. The History of the Interview ◆ 11
what the concerns reflected there show us about the
researchers’ focuses of interest as for what the find-
ings have been, though research has surely influenced
practice. The interlinked issues of changing interest in
and thought about validity, conceptions of the appro-
priate social relations between interviewer and respon-
dent, and the types of data sought by those working
in different styles are briefly explored; some effort is
made to draw out points of potential interest to
researchers, whose concern is less with the history as
such than it is with informing their own practice.
Finally, the strands are drawn together to present a
synthetic account of the ways in which interviewing
and thinking about it have changed over time.
The Trajectory of Change in
Methodological Writing
To give a sense of the broad trajectory of change, a
sequence of arguably representative accounts of
interviewing, in particular its forms and purposes, is
presented below in order of historical appearance.
Key points of content and assumptions are outlined,
and each is briefly placed in its context.
HOWARD W. ODUM AND KATHARINE
JOCHER, AN INTRODUCTION TO
SOCIAL RESEARCH, 1929
This was one of the first general social science
methods textbooks. In it, in addition to “interview,”
“schedule” (to be used by an enumerator) and “ques-
tionnaire” (to be answered unaided) are mentioned;
for these, there is a discussion of questions and
presentation but nothing on interviewing as such.
(At this time, the conduct of structured interviews
was not treated as being at all problematic and so
was hardly discussed.) It is stated that
an interview is made for the purpose of securing
information . . . about the informant himself, or
about other persons or undertakings that he
knows or is interested in. The purpose may be to
secure a life history, to corroborate evidence got
from other sources, to secure . . . data which
the informant possesses. [It] . . . may also be the
means of enlisting the informant’s cooperation . . .
in the investigation. . . . If the student is not
acquainted with the informant, some method of
introduction through a mutual acquaintance
should be secured. (pp. 366–367)
Permission to take notes should be requested.
As here, in the 1920s and 1930s, an “interview”
was often assumed to be of a key informant or gate-
keeper rather than a respondent who is merely one
member of a sample (cf. Bingham Moore, 1931;
Fry, 1934). The implicit model of the old, fact-find-
ing survey in the Booth tradition is still in the back-
ground; Booth’s data on the working-class family
were provided by middle-class visitors (Bales, 1991).
The interviewee may thus be an informant about the
situation studied, as much as or more than being a
part of it, and potentially of a status superior to the
interviewer, another reason for allowing the respon-
dent to structure the interaction. This does not mean
that no questionnaires to mass samples were being
used, though they were not common yet in academic
social science, but that this was seen as a distinct
method. It was often recommended that notes
should not be taken during the interview, or only to
a minimal extent, but that recording should be done
as soon as possible afterward; questions might not be
revealed or might be written on the back of an enve-
lope to appear informal and spontaneous (see, e.g.,
Converse, 1987, p. 51). Clearly the role of respon-
dent was not yet so institutionalized that no need to
conceal the mechanics was felt.
PAULINE V. YOUNG, SCIENTIFIC SOCIAL
SURVEYS AND RESEARCH, 1939
This was a very successful general methods text-
book. “Interview” is again distinguished from
“schedule” and “questionnaire,” which are dealt
with separately. Young distinguishes respondents
who are adequate sources on factual matters from
those who are of interest as subjects, individually or
in relation to the larger situation. A personal intro-
duction to the respondent is still seen as desirable.
“The interview proper does not begin until a consid-
erable degree of rapport has been established. . . . The
most important touchstone is probably the mutual
discovery of common experiences” (p. 189). What
does she see as the value of the interview?
The personal interview is penetrating; it goes to
the “living source.” Through it the student . . . is
able to go behind mere outward behavior and](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-26-320.jpg)
![12 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT
phenomena. He can secure accounts of events and
processes as they are reflected in personal experi-
ences, in social attitudes. He can check inferences
and external observations by a vital account of the
persons who are being observed. . . . [T]he field
worker . . . needs to know in a general way why
he is interviewing this particular person or group
and what he intends asking . . . [but] needs to be
open to unforeseen developments. (pp. 175, 179)
As few questions as possible should be asked:
When people are least interrupted, when they can
tell their stories in their own way, . . . they can
react naturally and freely and express themselves
fully. . . . [Interruptions and leading questions are
likely to have the effect that] . . . the adventure
into the unknown, into uncharted and hitherto
undisclosed spheres, has been destroyed. (p. 190)
It is rarely advisable to complete an interview at
one sitting (p. 195). It is better not to take notes,
except maybe a few key words, and it is seen as
controversial whether to record the interview in the
first or the third person and whether a verbatim
account is to be preferred to a summary by the
interviewer (pp. 196, 200).
Young’s department at the University of Southern
California was oriented toward the training of prac-
titioners; her Interviewing in Social Work (1935)
was widely cited in sociology when there were few
other such sources to draw on. Its perceived rele-
vance owed something to the widespread use by
sociologists, especially at the University of Chicago
where she was trained, of case histories collected by
social workers; this connects with the idea of the
case study and of the significance of life history
data, which are clearly the contexts she has in mind
in the passages quoted above (Platt, 1996, p. 46).
One may also perhaps detect formative traces of the
participant observation she used in her doctoral
work. George A. Lundberg’s (1942) important—
and intellectually far superior—textbook takes a
similar approach, despite his strongly scientistic
tastes, though with a slight twist in the direction of
the more modern concern with personality and psy-
choanalytical interests.
By the 1949 edition of her text, Young had men-
tioned the modern survey, though she was far from
treating it as the paradigm:
A specialized form of the interview is useful in the
collection of personal data for quantitative pur-
poses. This type of interview aims to accumulate a
variety of uniform responses to a wide scope of
predetermined specific questions. (Generally these
questions appear on a printed form.) (p. 244)
This distanced account was in effect one of the last
traces of an older conception.
CHARLES F. CANNELL AND ROBERT L.
KAHN, “THE COLLECTION OF DATA
BY INTERVIEWING,” 1953
This is a chapter in what became a standard gen-
eral methods text, written by a group from the
University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research
(ISR). Cannell and Kahn, the former a clinical and
the latter a social psychologist, were members of the
team that became the wartime Division of Program
Surveys (DPS) and after the war transformed itself
into the Institute for Social Research. In this chapter
they attempt to go beyond current rules of thumb
and to draw on work in counseling and communica-
tion theory to understand the psychology of the
interview. (Their later book, The Dynamics of
Interviewing, Kahn Cannell, 1957, carries this
forward, coming to the formulation of objectives
and questions only after three chapters on the inter-
viewing relationship.)
The following extract shows their relatively quali-
tative orientation, which nonetheless goes with a
strong commitment to scientific procedure; one may
detect some tensions between the two:
Even when the research objectives call for infor-
mation which is beyond the individual’s power to
provide directly, the interview is often an effec-
tive means of obtaining the desired data. . . . Bias
and lack of training make it impossible for an
individual to provide such intimate information
about himself, even if he is motivated to the
utmost frankness. But only he can provide the
data about his attitudes towards his parents, col-
leagues, and members of minority groups, from
which some of his deeper-lying characteristics can
be inferred. . . . [T]he interviewer cannot apply
unvaryingly a specified set of techniques, because
he is dealing with a varying situation. . . . [T]he best
approximation to a standard stimulus is to word](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-27-320.jpg)
![Chapter 1. The History of the Interview ◆ 13
the question at a level which is understandable to
all respondents and then to ask the question of
each respondent in identical fashion. . . . [T]he inter-
viewer’s role with respect to the questionnaire is
to treat it as a scientific instrument designed to
administer a constant stimulus. (pp. 332, 358)
Cannell was a doctoral student of Carl Rogers,
recruited to the DPS to draw on what he had
learned with Rogers about nondirective styles of
questioning. It is assumed in the book that a sched-
ule is used, but this heritage was shown in the team’s
long-term commitment to more open-ended ques-
tions than those favored by other groups and
explains some of the assumptions made here about
interviewing. At an early stage, there was contro-
versy between the proponents of closed and open
questions, contrasted by one participant in the DPS
as the “neat reliables” and the “sloppy valids.” This
was reflected in a classic article by Paul F. Lazarsfeld
(1944), in which he aimed to resolve the conflict
between wartime research outfits with divergent
styles. Converse (1987, pp. 195–202) shows that
the dispute was as much about the costs of more
open-ended work, and whether the gains were
worth it, as it was about validity. It became evident
even to those committed in principle to the open
style that it not only created coding problems but
also was impossible to sustain with less educated
interviewers scattered across the country, making
training and supervision difficult.
SELLTIZ, JAHODA, DEUTSCH, AND COOK,
RESEARCH METHODS IN SOCIAL
RELATIONS, 1965
This classic textbook written by psychologists has
passed through many editions. It still distinguishes
between “interview” and “questionnaire,” seeing
the interview, which may be structured or unstruc-
tured, as practically advantageous because it does
not require literacy and has a better response rate
than postal questionnaires, is more flexible, and is
“the more appropriate technique for revealing
information about complex, emotionally laden sub-
jects, or for probing the sentiments that may under-
lie an expressed opinion” (p. 242). However, much
of the discussion is on question wording, without
distinguishing interview from questionnaire, and
clearly a standard survey interview, by now well
established, is what they have in mind. The inter-
viewer should put the respondent at ease and create
a friendly atmosphere but “must keep the direction
of the interview in his own hands, discouraging
irrelevant conversation and endeavoring to keep the
respondent to the point” (p. 576) and must ask the
questions exactly as worded and not give impromptu
explanations. Complete verbatim recording is
needed for free-answer questions—“aside from
obvious irrelevancies and repetitions” (p. 580).
Many of those involved in the early development of
polling and market research using the survey were
psychologists, and for them the experiment was usu-
ally the model, so they laid great emphasis, as here,
on the importance of applying a uniform stimulus.
This shows development well beyond the approach
of the early Gallup (1944) conducting the simple
political poll, designed for newspaper rather than
academic publication. The interview there was
unequivocally designed for quantification of the
responses made to fixed questions by members of
the general public, and the need for accuracy and
precision was emphasized, but uniformity of stimu-
lus was not given the importance that it later
acquired; validity was seen primarily in terms of
getting the public predictions right.
GIDEON SJOBERG AND ROGER NETT,
A METHODOLOGY FOR SOCIAL
RESEARCH, 1968
This is quite a new genre of work, reflecting wider
movements in sociology. The authors were not
closely involved with survey units and were not writ-
ing a conventional methods text but a textbook/
monograph with a standpoint: “The scientist who
employs . . . [structured interviews] is usually intent
upon testing an existing set of hypotheses; he is less
concerned with discovery per se. And, of course,
standardization greatly enhances reliability”—as
well as saving time and money. However, it has the
drawback of imposing the investigator’s categories
on informants: “The unstructured type is most useful
for studying the normative structure of organiza-
tions, for establishing classes, and for discovering the
existence of possible social patterns (rather than the
formal testing of propositions concerning the exis-
tence of given patterns)” (pp. 193–195).
Four types of unstructured interview are described:
(1) the free-association method, (2) the focused](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-28-320.jpg)
![14 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT
interview, (3) the objectifying interview, and (4) the
group interview. Of these, the objectifying interview
is preferred:
The researcher informs the interviewee from the
start . . . concerning the kinds of information he
is seeking and why. The informant is apprised of
his role in the scientific process and is encouraged
to develop his skills in observation (and even in
interpretation). . . . Besides examining his own
actions, the interviewee is encouraged to observe
and interpret the behavior of his associates in his
social group. Ideally, he becomes a peer with
whom the scientist can objectively discuss the
ongoing system, to the extent that he is encour-
aged to criticize the scientist’s observations and
interpretations. (p. 214)
Throughout the discussion, there is a stress on the
social assumptions built into different choices of ques-
tions. Status effects in the interview situation, and the
consequences of varying cultural backgrounds, espe-
cially for work in the Third World, are discussed.
The authors approached the matter from a theo-
retical and—in a turn characteristic of the period—a
sociopolitical perspective; it was proposed to involve
the respondent as an equal, not so much for instru-
mental reasons of technical efficacy as because a
nonhierarchical, nonexploitive relationship is seen as
intrinsically right. It is also noticeable that this is a
sociologists’ version; there is no orientation to psy-
chologists’ usual concerns. Although Galtung (1967)
and Denzin (1970) wrote books more like conven-
tional methods texts, those have key features in com-
mon with Sjoberg and Nett’s book: the more
theoretical and philosophical interests, the more
distanced approach to surveys and their mundane
practicalities, and a clearly sociological frame of ref-
erence. Interviewing of various kinds has now
become a standard practice to which even those with
theoretical interests relate their ideas.
STEVEN J. TAYLOR AND ROBERT BOGDAN,
INTRODUCTION TO QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH METHODS, 1984, SECOND
EDITION
This is a specialized methods textbook, again with
a strong standpoint:
In stark contrast to structured interviewing, quali-
tativeinterviewingisflexibleanddynamic . . . [with]
repeated face-to-face encounters between the
researcher and informants directed toward under-
standing informants’ perspectives on their lives,
experiences, or situations as expressed in their
own words. The in-depth interview is modeled
after a conversation between equals, rather than a
formal question-and-answer exchange. Far from
being a robotlike data collector, the interviewer,
not an interview schedule or protocol, is the
research tool. The role entails not merely obtain-
ing answers, but learning what questions to ask
and how to ask them. (p. 77)
Without direct observation to give context to what
people say in an interview, the responses may not be
adequately understood, and there may be problems
of deception and distortion; it is important, there-
fore, to interview in depth,
getting to know people well enough to understand
what they mean and creating an atmosphere in
which they are likely to talk freely. . . . [I]t is only by
designing the interview along the lines of natural
interaction that the interviewer can tap into what is
important to people. . . . [T]he interviewer has many
parallels in everyday life: “the good listener,” “the
shoulder to cry on,” “the confidante.” . . . [T]here
has to be some exchange in terms of what inter-
viewers say about themselves. . . . The best advice
is to be discreet in the interview, but to talk about
yourself in other situations. You should be willing
to relate to informants in terms other than inter-
viewer/informant. Interviewers can serve as
errand-runners, drivers, babysitters, advocates.
(pp. 82–83, 93–94, 101)
This reaction against “robotlike” standard survey
interviewing is part of the growth of a separate,
“qualitative” stream, recommending many practices
anathema to surveyors. The rhetoric is very distant
from that of “science.” These authors often refer to
the Chicago School as a model, drawing on a widely
current image of it—if one more useful for ideo-
logical than for historical purposes (Platt, 1996,
pp. 265–269). The ideal is clearly participant obser-
vation or ethnography, and this type of interviewing
again blurs the boundary with them. It could not be
adapted to large representative samples without](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-29-320.jpg)
![Chapter 1. The History of the Interview ◆ 15
enormous costs, and makes implicit assumptions
about likely research topics that, one somehow
infers, exclude (for instance) the demographic or
economic. Other representatives of this broad ten-
dency are Douglas (1985), Holstein and Gubrium
(1995), and Potter and Hepburn (2005). Potter and
Hepburn set such high conversation-analytic stan-
dards and emphasize the significance of the interac-
tion between interviewer and respondent so heavily
that, after recognizing that the necessary quality
would be bought at the expense of sample size, they
suggest that it might be better anyway to use natural-
istic records rather than interviews. (Perhaps their
focus on interviewing for psychology may have led to
a concern with fine detail less necessary for sociology
or anthropology.)
Many feminists have practiced and argued in
favor of similar styles on feminist grounds. Reinharz
(1992) suggests that interviewing appeals to femi-
nists because it
offers researchers access to people’s ideas,
thoughts and memories in their own words rather
than in the words of the researcher. This asset is
particularly important for the study of women
because [this] . . . is an antidote to centuries of
ignoring women’s ideas altogether or having men
speak for women. (p. 19)
She points out, however, that having close relations
with every subject is not practicable and that too
much emphasis on rapport may unduly limit the
range of topics covered. (It is noticeable that the
work she cites in this chapter is almost all on topics
such as rape and hysterectomies.) The emphasis here
is on letting the respondent’s perspective dominate
rather than analyzing the interaction with the inter-
viewer. Recent advocacy of “narrative interviewing”
goes further in the attempt to elicit narration with
minimal intervention by the interviewer: “It is
assumed that [uninterrupted] narrations preserve
particular perspectives in a more genuine form”
(Jovchelovitch Bauer, 2007, p. 1), though the final
interpretive product fuses the informants’ relevance
structures with those of the researcher.
One might speculate how much of this qualita-
tive tendency rests on the increased availability of
good-quality portable tape recorders, which facili-
tate the detailed recording of free answers and their
close textual analysis.1
We may expect fresh creative
developments facilitated by the digital revolution;
there are already methodological and ethical discus-
sions of the special features of online data collection.
Empirical Work and Its Influence
Important contributions to discussion of interview-
ing have also been made by authors whose primary
concern was their substantive topic; these do not
necessarily relate directly to the professional meth-
odological discussion and cannot be explained by
their location within that. Below, we review some of
them. It is probably not by chance that the empirical
exemplars that come to mind, as well as much meth-
odological research, are largely from work done in
the period from 1935 to 1955. This was the time
when the modern survey was emerging, and so the
problems that its practice raised were live ones, con-
fronted and argued over for the first time, while its
high profile and popularity also encouraged those
with criticisms, or alternatives suited to less usual
topics, to write about them. None of the exemplars
is a conventional survey because, where there is a
structured schedule, the tradition has been to pro-
vide a copy of it without describing the interviewing
process; what took place is implicitly assumed to be
sufficiently described by the schedule.
Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939/1964) make an
early contribution to unstructured interviewing tech-
nique, though the intellectual responsibility for this
arguably lies more with Elton Mayo, who led the
work—his ideas on method were influenced both by
his interest in Jungian psychoanalysis and by his
friendship with the anthropologist and fieldwork
pioneer Malinowski. The interviewing program
reported started to collect employees’ views about
their work (for use in improving supervisor train-
ing), but it was found that the workers often wanted
to talk about “irrelevant” material, so in 1929 the
decision was made to adopt an “indirect approach,”
following the workers’ lead without changing the
subject and asking only noncommittal questions.
Interviews were recorded as far as possible verbatim,
1
In an earlier version of this chapter, I said that research on the consequences for practice of changing recording techniques
and technologies was strikingly absent; Lee (2004) has responded with a valuable step toward filling that gap.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-30-320.jpg)
![16 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT
rather than under target headings, and the data were
seen as information not so much on real problems as
on the meanings that the worker gave to the realities.
“Rules of performance” were set up, such as “Listen
in a patient, friendly but intelligently critical man-
ner” and “Do not display any kind of authority,” but
these rules were to be treated as flexible: “If the
interviewer understands what he is doing and is in
active touch with the actual situation, he has extreme
latitude in what he can do” (pp. 286–287). This pro-
gram, not initially intended for social-scientific pur-
poses, became used for social science.
Warner and Lunt (1941) said that in their work
they used techniques suggested by Roethlisberger
and Dickson (1939/1964), although their research,
an intensive community study, was of a very different
character; Warner was an anthropologist by training,
and the anthropological fieldwork tradition seems
more relevant to their research. Many of their
“interviews” were done without the subject’s aware-
ness of being interviewed: “The activity of the inves-
tigator has been classed as observation when the
emphasis fell on the observer’s seeing behavior of an
individual; as interviewing, when emphasis fell on
listening to what was said” (Warner Lunt, 1941,
p. 46). Questionnaires were seen as liable to take
items out of their social context and as useful only
when one is already familiar with the general situa
tion from interviews (Warner Lunt, 1941,
pp. 55–56). Although the authors called their main
method “interviewing,” it should probably be
regarded primarily as part of the history of what we
now call participant observation.
Our next example, Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin’s
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948), is more
idiosyncratic. Kinsey was a professor of zoology and
devised techniques planned to suit his special topic.
There was a list of items to be covered in the inter-
view, but no fixed order or words for them, and addi-
tional items for subjects with uncommon ranges of
experience. The questions placed the burden of denial
of sexual practices on the subject and were asked very
rapidly to increase the spontaneity of the answers
(pp. 50–54). Interviewer neutrality was not valued:
Something more than cold objectivity is needed in
dealing with human subjects. . . . The interviewer
who senses what these things can mean . . . is
more effective, though he may not be altogether
neutral. The sympathetic interviewer records his
reactions in ways that may not involve spoken
words but which are, nonetheless, readily compre-
hended by most people. . . . These are the things
that . . . can never be done through a written ques-
tionnaire, or even through a directed interview in
which the questions are formalized and the con-
fines of the investigation strictly limited. (p. 42)
The aims of the interview were not at all concealed
from respondents, and if they appeared not to be
answering truthfully, the interview was broken off.
Very long training was again seen as necessary for
interviewers, who were also required, in the interests
of confidentiality, to memorize a large number of
codes for recording the answers. Any use of this
method by others has not been identified in the
mainstream sociological literature; Kinsey’s reason-
ing suggests that it would only have been appropri-
ate in areas posing the same problems as sexual
behavior (Kinsey et al., 1948).
Radically different, almost equally famous, and
more influential in social science method was
Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford’s
The Authoritarian Personality (1950). Here again,
there was a schedule, but interviewers were not
expected to stick closely to its questions or order.
The model followed was that of the psychotherapeu-
tic encounter, and the instructions distinguished
“underlying” from “manifest” questions. It was
taken that “the subject’s view of his own life . . . may
be assumed to contain real information together
with wishful—and fearful—distortions,” and conse-
quently, methods were needed
to differentiate the more genuine, basic feelings,
attitudes, and strivings from those of a more com-
pensatory character behind which are hidden
tendencies, frequently unknown to the subject
himself, which are contrary to those manifested or
verbalized on a surface level. (p. 293)
(Kinsey also distrusted overt statements of attitudes,
but his solution was to ask only about behavior
and—unless untruths were suspected—to accept
what was offered at face value [Kinsey et al., 1948])
Perhaps surprisingly, given the lack of social-
scientific precedent for Kinsey’s approach (Kinsey
et al., 1948), Adorno et al. (1950) were treated more
harshly in published critiques. Where the former were
criticized, it was concluded that empirical evidence](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-31-320.jpg)
![Chapter 1. The History of the Interview ◆ 17
for saying that their results were less valid than those
of alternative approaches was not available (Cochran,
Mosteller, Tukey, 1954, pp. 78–79); Adorno et al.
(1950) were, however, accused of inconsistency and
speculative overinterpretation of data not appropriate
for their use (Christie Jahoda, 1954, pp. 97, 100).
What might be seen as a more social version of
such an approach, used to generate large ideas about
historical change in American society, is shown in
other work from the same period, by David Riesman
and colleagues. They carried out many interviews
but certainly did not take them at face value:
Everything conspired to lead to an emphasis not
on the interview itself but on its interpreta-
tion. . . . [S]uch a method . . . requires repeated
reading of the interview record . . . in search of
those small verbal nuances and occasional
Freudian slips that might be clues to character.
(Riesman Glazer, 1952, pp. 14–15).
Of course, character as a topic hardly lends itself to
direct questions of a factual nature, but the extent of
“interpretation” here goes strikingly beyond the lit-
eral data. It is interesting that there are two books
from the project, the main interpretive one (Riesman,
Glazer, Denney, The Lonely Crowd, 1950), which
contains almost no direct interview data, and Faces
in the Crowd (Riesman Glazer, 1952), consisting
mainly of raw interview data without analysis; the
issue of how securely the data support the interpreta-
tion is thus avoided.2
The genre of publication of raw interview data
has a history—sometimes, like the work of Studs
Terkel, a history not within academic social science,
even if social scientists refer to it. However, material
that looks raw may be at least lightly cooked. Terkel
describes his own procedure thus:
The most important part of the work, is the edit-
ing of the transcripts . . . the cutting and shaping
of it into a readable result. The way I look at it is
I suppose something like the way a sculptor looks
at a block of stone: inside it there’s a shape which
he’ll find. (Parker, 1997, p. 169)
Thus, to treat the published version as showing just
what took place in the interview would be mislead-
ing. Whole “life stories” have been published in
sociology, though sometimes written by their sub-
jects rather than elicited by interviewing;3
the genre
was treated as of central importance in the interwar
period, and much more recently, it has been revived.
Some recent work on life stories (e.g., Atkinson,
1998) takes a similar approach—on the one hand,
putting a very high value on the subject’s own ver-
sion of events while, on the other hand, permitting
the interviewer a considerable editorial role. Note
that this, interestingly, shifts the stage intended as
active researcher intervention from data elicitation,
as with a questionnaire or interview guide, to data
presentation. The version presented is, though,
nearer to raw data than are the figures and tables of
the quantitative tradition.
Topics of research have their own traditions and
intrinsic needs (Platt, 1996, pp. 129–130), and so
some methodological ideas arise from the substance
of the work being done: Kinsey’s conceptions of
interviewing technique followed directly from what
they saw as the requirements of work on sexual
behavior (Kinsey et al., 1948). One might expect the
influence of such work to follow the same paths,
though whether it has done so cannot be explored
here. It is clear that the choices of method did not
simply follow from the current state of method-
ological discussion, though the results fed into that,
if only by evoking criticism. The level of attention
paid to the methods of such work has depended on
the extent to which it has departed from the survey
paradigm as well as on the general interest in its
substantive content.
Some Analytical Themes
Discussions of empirical work have taken us a little
nearer to what has happened in practice. Research on
interviewing offers another window through which
we may see something of the actual conduct of the
interview, as distinct from the prescriptions for it.
Practice has often been indeed distinct. Interviewers
2
Later, however, in his chapter in The Academic Mind (Lazarsfeld Thielens, 1958), Riesman (1958) contributed what
is in effect—though he does not present it as such—an extended, research-based discussion of validity, based on respondent
reports on the experience of being interviewed.
3
James Bennett (1981) has suggested the circumstances under which some types of these appear appropriate.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-32-320.jpg)
![20 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT
commonly taught practices do not necessarily have
the intended effects. That the limited benefits of
“rapport” for data quality have repeatedly been
(re)discovered suggests that, for whatever reasons,
practice has not always followed research-based
conclusions and that the folklore of the field has
been powerful. Recommendations on the relations
between interviewer and respondent have changed
considerably, whether the aim is rapport or just
access. One of the earliest statements on this subject
is by Bingham and Moore (1931): “The interviewee
is frank when he feels that his own point of view is
appreciated and respected, that the interviewer has
some right to the information, and that the ques-
tions are relevant and not impertinent” (p. 11).
This is rationalistic, corresponding to the assump-
tion that the respondent is of relatively high status
and is being approached for factual information;
this is not typical of later discussion with other
assumptions. When the interview is seen as deep
and richly qualitative, or as a large-scale survey
interview with members of the general public, other
approaches follow. The early survey literature typi-
cally suggested that rapport needed to be estab-
lished to get access and cooperation but that the
interviewer should also when questioning appear
unshockable, have no detectable personal opinions,
and behind the front of friendliness be objective
and scientific.5
Not every writer offered as business-
like a conception of rapport as Goode and Hatt
(1952), for whom rapport existed when the respon-
dent “has accepted the research goals of the inter-
viewer, and actively seeks to help him in obtaining
the necessary information” (p. 190), but the ideal
was clearly an instrumental relationship.
Before the modern survey was fully developed, it
was often not seen as so important to keep the inter-
viewer as a person out of the picture. Lundberg
(1942) suggests as ways of getting an informant
“started” some devices—“to refer to important
friends of the informant as if one were quite well
acquainted with them; to tell of one’s own experi-
ences or problems and ask the informant’s advice or
reactions to them” (pp. 365–366)—of just the kind
that survey organizations train their interviewers to
avoid. Kinsey’s advocacy of a less impersonal and
unbiased style was quoted above (Kinsey et al., 1948).
Elements of such an approach have now come round
again in recent qualitative work, where there has
often been a sociopolitical commitment to treat the
respondent as an equal, which is taken to imply not
playing a detached role while expecting the other
party to reveal the self:
We can no longer remain objective, faceless inter-
viewers, but become human beings and must dis-
close ourselves, learning about ourselves as we try
tolearnabouttheother. . . . Aslongas . . . research-
ers continue to treat respondents as unimportant,
faceless individuals whose only contribution is to
fill one more boxed response, the answers
we . . . get will be commensurable with the ques-
tions we ask and the way we ask them. (Fontana
Frey, 1994, p. 374)
This line can, however, be presented in a more manip-
ulative way, as here in Douglas’s (1985) unique style:
Most Goddesses [beautiful women] feel the need
for a significant amount of self-disclosure before
they will . . . reveal their innermost selves in their
most self-discrediting aspects. When they seem to
be proceeding to the inner depths with reluctance,
I normally try to lead the way with a significant
bit of self-discrediting self-disclosure. (p. 122)
Research on their perceptions of each other has
shown that respondents do not necessarily detect the
interviewer’s biases or manipulative strategies; to
that extent, the impulse is moral or political rather
than scientific. The barrier between the role and the
self is broken down—or is it? Is this just another
mode of instrumental presentation of self, as fellow-
human rather than as detached professional?
Holstein and Gubrium (1995) do not stress the
interviewer’s revelation of self but treat the inter-
viewer and the respondent as equal in another way,
since both are creating meanings; both are also
“active,” rather than the respondent being seen as
just the passive object of the interviewer’s attempted
control. For them, there is no such thing as the one
correct answer to be found, but a range of possibili-
ties depending on which of the respondent’s
resources and potential standpoints are brought to
5
This is another area where CATI must have changed the issues, though it has been little written about from that point of
view; perhaps the physical separation from the respondent has placed the focus on control of the interviewer rather than
on understanding the respondent’s reactions to the situation.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-35-320.jpg)
![28 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT
This chapter discusses the transformation of how
researchers conceive of respondent and interview
roles, the nature of interview information, and the
relationship of the information to society. These
themes are traced through critical commentary on
models of interview subjectivity and their relation
to narrative practice in the interview context.
Reconceptualizing interview roles in terms of narra-
tive practice presents a more active version of how
interview participants actually operate. Their agency
is recast as artful, collaborative, and suffused with
discourse. If the responsive, yet relatively passive,
respondent and the inquiring interviewer once char-
acterized participant subjectivity, this is now consid-
ered deceptively simple. It has given way to a more
interactionally sensitive and constructive perspec-
tive, featuring the active narrativity of the enterprise.
The chapter explores the implications of this trans-
formation for how interview data might be con-
strued and analyzed.
Public Opinion and Surveillance
Despite its familiarity, the interview is a relatively
recent phenomenon and was once figured to be
strange in the everyday scheme of things. As a sys-
tematic method for obtaining experiential knowl-
edge, it is the product of a mere century of
development (Platt, 2002). Undergirding the emer-
gence of the interview was a new understanding that
the individual person—each and every one of them—
is an important source of knowledge. We can imag-
ine, of course, that questioning and answering have
been with us since the beginning of communication.
As long as we have had parental authority, parents
have questioned their children regarding their where-
abouts and activities. Similarly, suspects and prison-
ers have been interrogated since suspicion and
incarceration have been a part of human affairs.
Healers, priests, employers, writers, and many oth-
ers seeking knowledge about daily life for practical
purposes have all engaged in interview-like inquiry.
Yet a century ago, it would have seemed peculiar
for a complete stranger to approach us—any one of
us, from the humblest to the most celebrated—and
to ask for permission to discuss personal matters just
for the sake of knowledge. Questioning and answer-
ing was more practical. Daily life was, in many ways,
more intimate; everyday affairs were conducted on a
face-to-face basis only between those well acquainted
with each other. According to Mark Benney and
Everett Hughes (1956), “The interview [as a behav-
ioral format] is a relatively new kind of encounter in
the history of human relations” (p. 193). It is not the
asking and answering of questions that was new.
Rather, the innovation was a preplanned conversa-
tion between strangers from all walks of life devoted
to information gathering without an immediate pur-
pose in view (Benney Hughes, 1956).
Especially after World War II, with the emergence
of standardized survey interviews, individuals
became accustomed to offering their opinions for the
sake of information gathering. “Public opinion”
became a newfound and anonymous forum within
which individuals could forthrightly express their
most private thoughts and deepest feelings with the
expectation that their published opinions were
anonymous but important. No matter how insignifi-
cant their station in life, they were treated as equal
elements of populations of interest. Each person had
a voice, and it was imperative that each voice be
heard. Seeking the gamut of thoughts and senti-
ments, the research interview democratized opinion.
THE MODERN TEMPER
Guided by the new “modern temper,” the times
progressively embraced routine conversational
exchanges between strangers (Riesman Benney,
1956). When they encountered an interview situa-
tion, people weren’t immediately defensive about
being asked for information about their lives, their
associates, and even their heartfelt sentiments. They
readily recognized and accepted two new roles asso-
ciated with talking about oneself and one’s life to
strangers, (1) the role of interviewer and (2) the role
of respondent, the centerpieces of the now familiar
interview encounter.
Interviewing helped spread the understanding
that all individuals have the wherewithal to offer a
meaningful description of, or a set of opinions
about, their lives. Experiential knowledge was no
longer the principal responsibility of high-status
commentators—of tribal chiefs, village headmen, or
the educated classes—who in other times and places
spoke for one and all. As Pertti Alasuutari (1998)
explains, it wasn’t so long ago that when one
wanted to know something important about society
or daily life, one asked those allegedly “in the know”](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-43-320.jpg)
![Chapter 2. Narrative Practice and the Transformation of Interview Subjectivity ◆ 31
not only to “friend[ship] with the policeman, but
with the priest, the teacher, and the ‘psy’ profes-
sional” (p. 248). Third, and perhaps most important,
a mass technology must be widely available and eas-
ily accessible. The interviewing ethos and its techni-
cal realization must be recognizably in place
throughout society, so that virtually everyone is
familiar with the goals of interviewing as well as
what it takes to participate in an interview.
Not only do communications media and human
service professionals get their information from inter-
views, but it’s been estimated that fully 90% of all
social science investigations exploit interview data
(Briggs, 1986). Internet surveys now provide instant
questions and answers about every imaginable sub-
ject; we are asked for our inclinations and opinions
regarding everything from political candidates to sug-
gestions for which characters on TV serials should be
retained or removed. The interview society is a con-
temporary fixture, flourishing as a leading milieu for
addressing the subjective contours of daily living.
The prominence of the interview has served to
promote the individualized subject (Atkinson
Silverman, 1997) as a key feature of the interview
society. Ultimately, there is a fundamentally romantic
impulse undergirding the interview enterprise. If we
desire to really know the individual subject, then we
must provide a means of hearing his or her authentic
voice. “Really,” “authentic,” and “voice” are the
bywords. Superficial inquiry and description are
inadequate. Accordingly, interviewers are prompted
to explore the deeper emotional grounds of the self
by way of open-ended or in-depth interviewing.
While, technically, these are merely alternative ways
of structuring the interview process, Atkinson and
Silverman (1997) argue that the words flag an epis-
temological understanding, namely, that the true
voice of the subject is internal and comes through
only when it is not externally screened or otherwise
narratively fettered. The interview society, it seems,
is the province of subjects harboring deep inner
meanings, selves, and sentiments, whose stories
retain the truths of the matters in question.
But Atkinson and Silverman (1997) caution that
authenticity should not be taken as ultimate experien-
tial truth. Authenticity itself is a methodically con-
structed product of communicative practice (see
Gubrium Holstein, 2009b). Authenticity has a
constructive technology of its own, in other words.
Recognizable signs of emotional expression and scenic
practices such as direct eye contact and intimate ges-
tures are widely taken to reveal deep truths about
individual experience (also see Gubrium Holstein,
1997, 2009a; Holstein Gubrium, 2000). We “do”
deep, authentic experiences as much as we “do” opin-
ion offering in the course of the interview. It is not
simply a matter of procedure or the richness of data
that turns researchers, the interview society, and its
truth-seeking audiences to in-depth and open-ended
interviewing. Rather, discur
sive conventions make
audible and visible the phenomenal depths of the indi-
vidual subject.
The Turn to Narrative Practice
If experience is increasingly generated and mediated
by the interview, everyday reality is also becoming
even more narratively formulated. As Charles Briggs
(2007) puts it, interview narratives “produce sub-
jects, texts, knowledge, and authority” (p. 552). As
part of a recent narrative turn, social researchers aim
to document and understand the discursive complex-
ity of narratives of all sorts (see Chase 2005, 2011;
Gubrium Holstein, 2009a; Hyvärinen, 2008;
Polkinghorne, 1988, 1995; Riessman, 2008). Texts
and textual analysis have become de rigueur in the
social sciences. Briggs and many others are especially
interested in how interviews and their stories are
assembled and communicated and how they circu-
late in various domains of society. The diversity is
stunning, as particulars are worked up and presented
in specific settings, performing different functions
and having varied consequences.
Most researchers acknowledge the interactional
bases of interviewing (see Conrad Schober, 2008;
Warren Karner, 2005), but the technical literature
typically stresses the need to keep conversational
bias in check. Guides to interviewing—especially
those oriented to standardized surveys—are primar-
ily concerned with maximizing the flow of valid,
reliable information while minimizing distortions of
what the respondent knows (Fowler Mangione,
1990; Gorden, 1987). But a heightened sensitivity to
the constitutive properties of communication—char-
acteristic of poststructuralist, postmodernist, con-
structionist, and ethnomethodological inquiry—has
refocused attention on the in situ activeness of inter-
views (e.g., Hootkoop-Steenstra, 2000; Kvale,
1996). These perspectives view meaning as socially](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-46-320.jpg)
![Chapter 2. Narrative Practice and the Transformation of Interview Subjectivity ◆ 37
recovery programs. At a doctoral committee meet-
ing, he asked, “Whose voice do we hear when these
pharmacists tell their stories? Their own or NA’s?”
The question, in effect, asked whether the stories
belonged to the individuals being interviewed or to
the organizations that promulgated their discourse.
An equalized and unstructured interview environ-
ment does not so much guarantee narrative authen-
ticity as help make its accomplishment and sources
more visible. It opens to view the complex work and
sources of subject positioning in storytelling (see
Koven, in press). For example, in the best of inter-
view circumstances, does a 50-year-old man offer the
opinions of a professional at the height of his career,
or might his voice be that of a husband and father
reflecting on what he missed in family life along the
way? Or will he speak as a church elder, a novice
airplane pilot, or the “enabling” brother of an alco-
holic at different points of the interview? All of these
might be possible, given the range of subject posi-
tions that could underpin the accounts the man
offers in response to interview questions. Each has
multiple bases for authenticity. In practice, respon-
dent subjectivity emerges out of the give-and-take of
the interview process, even while the researcher
might hope for a particular form of agency or foot-
ing to emerge out of an interview format designed to
explore a specific research topic.
In contrast to the unwitting ways in which the
preceding pharmacists’ accounts drew on alternate
subject positions, interview participants can also be
openly strategic about this practice, which is the rea-
son why both the hows and the whats of narrative
practice must be examined. Consider a passing com-
ment that might be made by a father being inter-
viewed about parenting practices. Following a
question asking him to place himself along a five-
point continuum of parenting styles, from being an
authority figure at one end to being a friend at the
other, the man responds to another interview item:
I figure that . . . what did you say? . . . I can be
“friendly” [gestures quotation marks with his
hands] when I have to and that usually works,
unless they [his children] really get wound up,
then another father comes out.
The inserted question “What did you say?” refer-
ences a possible subject position articulated earlier
by the interviewer, the implication being that, in the
give-and-take of the interview, participants jointly
figured the father’s narrative positions and resulting
interview data.
Verbal prefaces are frequently used to signal shifts
in subjectivity, something often ignored in interview
research. The phrases “to put myself in someone else’s
shoes” and “to put on a different hat” are speech acts
that voice shifts in footing. For example, in an inter-
view study of nurses’ opinions on the qualities of
good infant care, we probably wouldn’t be surprised
to hear a respondent say something like, “That’s when
I have my RN [registered nurse] cap on, but as a
mother, I might tell you a different story.” Some
respondents are didactic in giving voice to alternative
subject positions and their respective points of view, as
when a respondent prefaces a response with “What I
mean is . . . from the point of view of a . . .” or “Let
me explain what I mean . . . it depends on whose
shoes you’re wearing, doesn’t it?” Such phrases are
not interview debris but skillfully do things with
words, in this case conveying an important and persis-
tent complication of interview subjectivity.
But things are seldom this straightforward. An
interview, for example, might start with the presump-
tion that a father or a mother is being interviewed,
which the interview’s introductions appear to con-
firm. But there is no guarantee that these subject
positions will remain constant throughout. This isn’t
often evident in so many words or comments.
Indeed, the possibility of an unforeseen change in
subjectivity might not be broached, if broached at all,
until the very end of the interview, when a respon-
dent remarks, “Yeah, that’s the way all of us who
were raised down South do with our children,” mak-
ing it unclear who or what exactly has been providing
responses to the interview’s questions, this individual
parent or her region of the country.
The work of establishing subject position and
voice also implicates the interviewer. Who, after all,
is the interviewer to the respondent? How will the
interviewer role fit into the conversational matrix?
For example, respondents in debriefings might com-
ment that an interviewer sounded more like a com-
pany man than a human being or that one interviewer
made the respondent feel that the interviewer was
“just an ordinary person, like myself.” This raises the
possibility that the respondent’s perceived subject
position, and by implication the respondent’s “own”
story, is constructed out of the unfolding interper-
sonal sentiments of the interview participants.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-52-320.jpg)
![de manière à les envelopper. Quoique la fortune lui eût accordé trois
jours à Lugo, quatre jours à la Corogne, il faudrait, pour assurer que
son hésitation fut une faute, savoir si son infanterie, dont les cadres
arrivaient chaque soir à moitié vides, était assez ralliée, si son
artillerie était assez pourvue, pour combattre avec avantage une
armée anglaise, égale en nombre, et postée, chaque fois qu'on
l'avait rencontrée, dans des positions de l'accès le plus difficile. Mais,
si une telle question peut être élevée relativement au maréchal
Soult, on ne saurait en élever une pareille à l'égard du maréchal Ney,
placé à quelques journées de l'armée britannique. La supposition
qu'il aurait pu prendre la route d'Orense, et tourner la Corogne par
Vigo, n'a pas le moindre fondement. Ni l'Empereur, qui était sur les
lieux, ni le maréchal Soult, auquel on avait laissé la faculté de
requérir le maréchal Ney, s'il en avait besoin, n'imaginèrent alors
qu'on pût faire un tel détour. Il aurait fallu que le maréchal Ney
exécutât le double de chemin par des routes impraticables, et tout à
fait inaccessibles à l'artillerie. Et, en effet, le maréchal Soult ayant
exprimé, vers la fin de la retraite, c'est-à-dire le 9 janvier, le désir
que la division Marchand se dirigeât sur Orense, pour observer le
marquis de La Romana et les trois mille Anglais de Crawfurd, le
maréchal Ney ordonna ce mouvement au général Marchand, qui ne
put l'effectuer qu'avec une partie de son infanterie, et sans un seul
canon. Le maréchal Ney serait certainement resté embourbé sur
cette route s'il avait voulu la prendre avec son corps tout entier.
Ce qui se pouvait, ce qui n'eut pas lieu, c'était de faire marcher les
troupes du maréchal Ney immédiatement à la suite du maréchal
Soult, de manière qu'un jour suffît pour réunir les deux corps. Or, à
Lugo où l'on eut trois jours, à la Corogne où l'on en eut quatre, il
aurait été possible de combattre les Anglais avec cinq divisions. Le
maréchal Ney, mis par les ordres du quartier général à la disposition
du maréchal Soult, offrit à celui-ci de le joindre, et ne reçut de sa
part que l'invitation tardive de lui prêter l'une de ses divisions,
lorsqu'il n'était plus temps de faire arriver cette division
utilement[29]; nouvel exemple de la divergence des volontés, du
décousu des efforts, lorsque Napoléon cessait d'être présent. Le vrai](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-67-320.jpg)
![Projet de
Napoléon de
retourner à
Paris.
Ses vues pour la
suite de la
guerre
d'Espagne.
malheur ici, la vraie faute, c'est qu'il ne fût pas de sa personne à la
suite des Anglais, obligeant ses lieutenants à s'unir pour les détruire.
Mais il était retenu ailleurs par la faute, l'irréparable faute de sa vie,
celle d'avoir tenté trop d'entreprises à la fois; car, tandis qu'il aurait
fallu qu'il fût à Lugo pour écraser les Anglais, il était appelé à
Valladolid pour se préparer à faire face aux Autrichiens[30].
Toujours plus sollicité par l'urgence des
événements d'Autriche et de Turquie, qui lui
révélaient une nouvelle guerre générale, il se
décida même à partir de Valladolid, pour se rendre
à Paris, laissant les affaires d'Espagne dans un état
qui lui permettait d'espérer bientôt l'entière
soumission de la Péninsule. Les Anglais, en effet,
étaient rejetés dans l'Océan; les Français
occupaient tout le nord de l'Espagne jusqu'à
Madrid; le siége de Saragosse se poursuivait activement, le général
Saint-Cyr était victorieux en Catalogne. Napoléon avait le projet
d'envoyer le maréchal Soult en Portugal avec le 2e
corps, dans lequel
venait d'être fondu le corps du général Junot, en laissant le maréchal
Ney dans les montagnes de la Galice et des Asturies, pour réduire
définitivement à l'obéissance ces contrées si difficiles et si obstinées;
d'établir le maréchal Bessières avec beaucoup de cavalerie dans les
plaines des deux Castilles, et, tandis que le maréchal Soult
marcherait sur Lisbonne, d'acheminer le maréchal Victor avec trois
divisions et douze régiments de cavalerie sur Séville par
l'Estrémadure. Le maréchal Soult, une fois maître de Lisbonne,
pouvait par Elvas expédier l'une de ses divisions au maréchal Victor,
pour l'aider à soumettre l'Andalousie. Saragosse conquise, les
troupes de l'ancien corps de Moncey, qui exécutaient ce siége,
pourraient prendre la route de Valence, et terminer de leur côté la
conquête du midi de l'Espagne. Pendant ces mouvements
savamment combinés, Joseph, placé à Madrid avec la division de
Dessoles (troisième de Ney, rentrée à Madrid), avec le corps du
maréchal Lefebvre, comprenant une division allemande, une division
polonaise, et la division française Sébastiani, aurait une réserve](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-68-320.jpg)
![pour contenir la
populace des
villes
espagnoles.
Napoléon quitte
Valladolid le 17
janvier.
Ses paroles à
Joseph sur
l'année 1809.
du malheureux marquis de Peralès à Madrid, de
don Juan San Benito à Talavera, il avait massacré à
Ciudad-Real don Juan Duro, chanoine de Tolède et
ami du prince de la Paix, à Malagon l'ancien
ministre des finances don Soler. Partout où ne se trouvaient pas les
armées françaises, les honnêtes gens tremblaient pour leurs biens et
pour leurs personnes. Napoléon, voulant faire un exemple sévère
des assassins, avait ordonné à Valladolid l'arrestation d'une douzaine
de scélérats, connus pour avoir contribué à tous les massacres,
notamment à celui du malheureux gouverneur de Ségovie, don
Miguel Cevallos, et les avait fait exécuter, malgré les instances
apparentes des principaux habitants de Valladolid[31].—Il faut, avait-
il écrit plusieurs fois à son frère, vous faire craindre d'abord, et aimer
ensuite. Ici on m'a demandé la grâce des quelques bandits qui ont
égorgé et pillé, mais on a été charmé de ne pas l'obtenir, et depuis
tout est rentré dans l'ordre. Soyez à la fois juste et fort, et autant
l'un que l'autre, si vous voulez gouverner.—Napoléon avait exigé de
plus que l'on arrêtât à Madrid une centaine d'égorgeurs, qui
assassinaient les Français sous prétexte qu'ils étaient des étrangers,
les Espagnols sous prétexte qu'ils étaient des traîtres; et il avait
prescrit qu'on en fusillât quelques-uns, voulant, de plus, que ces
actes lui fussent imputés à lui seul, pour qu'au-dessus de la douceur
connue du nouveau roi, planât sur les scélérats la terreur inspirée
par le vainqueur de l'Europe.
Ces ordres expédiés, Napoléon quitta Valladolid,
résolu de franchir la route de Valladolid à Bayonne
à franc étrier, afin de gagner du temps, tant il était
pressé d'arriver à Paris. Son frère l'ayant félicité à
l'occasion des fêtes du premier de l'an, dans les
termes suivants: «Je prie Votre Majesté d'agréer
mes vœux pour que dans le cours de cette année
l'Europe pacifiée par vos soins rende justice à vos
intentions[32]...,» il lui répondit: «Je vous remercie de ce que vous
me dites relativement à la bonne année. Je n'espère pas que
l'Europe puisse être encore pacifiée cette année. Je l'espère si peu](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3360959-250529122501-6326ba4f/85/The-Sage-Handbook-Of-Interview-Research-The-Complexity-Of-The-Craft-2nd-Jaber-F-Gubrium-71-320.jpg)
The Sage Handbook Of Interview Research The Complexity Of The Craft 2nd Jaber F Gubrium
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- 6. The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research Second Edition
- 7. INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD Pertti Alasuutari, University of Tampere Sara Arber, University of Surrey Christopher R. Corey, RAND Corporation Norman K. Denzin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Donileen R. Loseke, University of South Florida George E. Marcus, University of California, Irvine Anne Martin-Matthews, University of British Columbia Sheila Neysmith, University of Toronto Jodi O’Brien, Seattle University Carol Rambo, University of Memphis David Silverman, Goldsmiths’ London University
- 8. The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research Jaber F. Gubrium James A. Holstein Amir B. Marvasti Karyn D. McKinney Edited by The Complexity of the Craft Second Edition University of Missouri Marquette University Pennsylvania State University, Altoona Pennsylvania State University, Altoona
- 9. Copyright © 2012 by SAGE Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The SAGE handbook of interview research : the complexity of the craft / editors, Jaber F. Gubrium . . . [et al.]. — 2nd ed. p. cm. Rev. ed. of: Handbook of interview research : context & method / editors, Jaber F. Gubrium, James A. Holstein. c2002. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4129-8164-4 (cloth) 1. Interviewing—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Gubrium, Jaber F. II. Handbook of interview research. III. Title: Handbook of interview research. H61.28.H36 2012 158.3´9—dc23 2011034825 This book is printed on acid-free paper. 12 13 14 15 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 FOR INFORMATION: SAGE Publications, Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 E-mail: order@sagepub.com SAGE Publications Ltd. 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP United Kingdom SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd. B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044 India SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd. 33 Pekin Street #02-01 Far East Square Singapore 048763 Acquisitions Editor: Vicki Knight Associate Editor: Lauren Habib Editorial Assistant: Kalie Koscielak Permissions Editor: Adele Hutchinson Production Editor: Laureen Gleason Copy Editor: QuADS Prepress (P) Ltd. Typesetter: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd. Proofreader: Scott Oney Indexer: Molly Hall Cover Designer: Candice Harman Cover Image: Weber, Max. Tapestry. 1913. Max Weber. By Alfred Werner. New York: Harry Abrams Publishers, 1975. 89. Print. Marketing Manager: Nicole Elliott
- 10. Preface ix Introduction: The Complexity of the Craft 1 Jaber F. Gubrium, James A. Holstein, Amir B. Marvasti, and Karyn D. McKinney PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT 7 1. The History of the Interview 9 Jennifer Platt 2. Narrative Practice and the Transformation of Interview Subjectivity 27 Jaber F. Gubrium and James A. Holstein 3. Postmodern Trends: Expanding the Horizons of Interviewing Practices and Epistemologies 45 Michael Ian Borer and Andrea Fontana 4. The Pedagogy of Interviewing 61 Kathryn Roulston PART II. METHODS OF INTERVIEWING 75 5. Survey Interviewing 77 Royce A. Singleton Jr. and Bruce C. Straits 6. The Interpersonal Dynamics of In-Depth Interviewing 99 John M. Johnson and Timothy Rowlands CONTENTS
- 11. 7. The Life Story Interview as a Mutually Equitable Relationship 115 Robert Atkinson 8. Interviewing as Social Interaction 129 Carol A. B. Warren 9. Autoethnography as Feminist Self-Interview 143 Sara L. Crawley 10. Focus Groups and Social Interaction 161 David L. Morgan 11. Internet Interviewing 177 Nalita James and Hugh Busher 12. The Implications of Interview Type and Structure in Mixed-Method Designs 193 Janice M. Morse PART III. LOGISTICS OF INTERVIEWING 205 13. Interview Location and Its Social Meaning 207 Hanna Herzog 14. The Value of Interviewing on Multiple Occasions or Longitudinally 219 Anne Grinyer and Carol Thomas 15. The Interview Question 231 Jinjun Wang and Ying Yan 16. Interview and Sampling: How Many and Whom 243 Ben K. Beitin 17. Culture Work in the Research Interview 255 Shannon K. Carter and Christian L. Bolden 18. After the Interview: What Is Left at the End 269 Christopher A. Faircloth PART IV. SELF AND OTHER IN THE INTERVIEW 279 19. Managing the Interviewer Self 281 Annika Lillrank 20. Listening to, and for, the Research Interview 295 John B. Talmage 21. Constructing the Respondent 305 Lara J. Foley 22. Five Lenses for the Reflexive Interviewer 317 Linda Finlay
- 12. 23. Stigma and the Interview Encounter 333 Kay E. Cook PART V. ANALYTIC STRATEGIES 345 24. Qualitative Interviewing and Grounded Theory Analysis 347 Kathy Charmaz and Linda Liska Belgrave 25. Analysis of Personal Narratives 367 Catherine Kohler Riessman 26. Investigating Ruling Relations: Dynamics of Interviewing in Institutional Ethnography 381 Marjorie L. DeVault and Liza McCoy 27. Interviews as Discourse Data 397 Pirjo Nikander 28. Using Q Methodology in Qualitative Interviews 415 David Shemmings and Ingunn T. Ellingsen 29. Using Software to Analyze Qualitative Interviews 427 Clive Seale and Carol Rivas PART VI. ETHICS OF THE INTERVIEW 441 30. Informed Consent 443 Marco Marzano 31. Protecting Confidentiality 457 Karen Kaiser 32. Protecting Participants’ Confidentiality Using a Situated Research Ethics Approach 465 Kristin Heggen and Marilys Guillemin 33. Assessing the Risk of Being Interviewed 477 Anne Ryen 34. Toward Conciliation: Institutional Review Board Practices and Qualitative Interview Research 495 Michelle Miller-Day PART VII. CRITICAL REFLECTIONS 509 35. Stories About Getting Stories: Interactional Dimensions in Folk and Personal Narrative Research 511 Kirin Narayan and Kenneth M. George 36. Interview as Embodied Communication 525 Laura L. Ellingson
- 13. 37. The (Extra)Ordinary Practices of Qualitative Interviewing 541 Tim Rapley 38. Eight Challenges for Interview Researchers 555 Jonathan Potter and Alexa Hepburn Author Index 571 Subject Index 589 About the Editors 603 About the Contributors 605
- 14. ◆ ix As an approach to data collection, inter- viewing continues to expand, diver- sify, and evolve with the reflexive revision of long-standing assumptions. Core prin- ciples of the traditional model of the structured interview—such as the distinctive roles of the interviewer and the respondent—have been refor mulated in a number of ways and across a wide range of disciplines. The first edition of the Handbook of Interview Research successfully delivered the latest developments in the enter- prise. This revised edition both builds on and moves beyond the first edition by • • updating the book in terms of recent developments, especially in qualitative interviewing; • • shortening the volume so that it can be used as the main text for graduate seminars in qualitative research as well as a general refer- ence book; • • featuring a how-to/instructional approach through empirically and theoretically informed discussions; and • • enhancing the multidisciplinary flavor of the first edition. The contributing authors offer a survey of the field, with an emphasis on empirical diversity, procedural options, and theoretical choices. In this edition, three new sections have been added: • • Logistics of Interviewing • • Self and Other in the Interview • • Ethics of the Interview While there is ample coverage of more tradi- tional interviewing approaches and concerns (see, e.g., the chapters on survey interviews and quantitative analysis), the new edition empha- sizes the dynamic, interactional, and reflexive dimensions of the research interview. This is in keeping with newly emerging interests in the field and the editors’ expertise in presenting the research interview in this way. The volume high- lights the myriad dimensions of complexity that are emerging as researchers increasingly frame the interview as a communicative opportunity as much as a data-gathering format. Like the origi- nal volume, the second edition begins with the history and conceptual transformations of the interview. The subsequent chapters are orga- nized around the following main components of interview practice: • • Part I: Interviewing in Context • • Part II: Methods of Interviewing • • Part III: Logistics of Interviewing PREFACE
- 15. x ◆ THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF INTERVIEW RESEARCH • • Part IV: Self and Other in the Interview • • Part V: Analytic Strategies • • Part VI: Ethics of the Interview • • Part VII: Critical Reflections As indicated by the subtitle of the new edition (The Complexity of the Craft), the research interview is being recast as a complex, multidimensional col- lection of assumptions and practices. Having shed the presumption that a particular model of inter- viewing is the “gold standard” of data collection, interviewing’s persistent, ubiquitous presence in the social sciences is marked by an amazing diversity. Taken together, the contributions to the Handbook encourage readers simultaneously to learn the frame- works and technologies of interviewing and to reflect on the epistemological foundations of the interview craft. We invite readers to view the chapter contents both as points of emphasis in a common enterprise and as reflexive reconsiderations that have taken an uncommonly imaginative direction. It goes without saying that the Handbook would not have been possible without the superb work of the contributing authors. We deeply appreciate their scholarly insight, spirit of innovation, generosity, and consummate professionalism in working with us on this volume. We also thank the volume’s editorial board and reviewers, who were called on for critical guidance and insight. Last, but not the least, we are also extremely grateful to all the people in the editorial, production, and marketing departments at SAGE Publications who did so much to bring this project to fruition.
- 16. ◆ 1 In today’s “interview society” (Silverman, 1997), we frequently learn about lives, feelings, and experiences by way of interviews. Interviewing flourishes as the stock-in-trade of journalism and contemporary news media. Its popu larity as enter- tainment continues to grow. And the interview remains unquestionably a staple of social-scientific research. In the historical context of information about society, however, the interview is a relatively recent invention (see Benney & Hughes, 1956; Platt, 2002; Platt’s chapter “The History of the Interview,” this volume). But as straightforward a process as it may seem, interviewing and interview data posed complex challenges for those practic- ing the craft for research purposes. Early Challenges Early on, the competence of potential interviewees was a major concern (see Holstein & Gubrium, 1995). Henry Mayhew’s four-volume study of London Labour and the London Poor (1861–1862) offers a revealing glimpse into the perceived ability of research subjects to convey useful information. In the preface to the first volume, Mayhew comments that he had initially believed the term poverty (or “poor people”) signaled narrative incompetence. At the time, for purposes of information gathering, the poor were considered incapable of telling their own story; those considered more learned—their “social betters”—were viewed as more reliable and accurate when it came to describing the condition of the “humbler classes.” To his credit, Mayhew broke with convention to discover that the poor, indeed, could speak authoritatively about their lives in “unvar- nished language; and [social researchers could] por- tray the condition of their homes and their families by personal observation of the places, and direct communication with the individuals” (p. iii). Mayhew used interviews and observations con- ducted among the London poor to document their ◆ Jaber F. Gubrium, James A. Holstein, Amir B. Marvasti, and Karyn D. McKinney INTRODUCTION The Complexity of the Craft
- 17. 2 ◆ THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF INTERVIEW RESEARCH living conditions from the point of view of the people themselves. The insights generated were extraordinary. John Madge (1965) suggests that the idea of inter- viewing anyone about their lives, let alone the poor, was unprecedented at that time, even though the poor and poverty were topics of considerable public debate and social policy. He explains that the word interview does not even appear until about the time of Mayhew’s study. Following Mayhew, the notion of interviewing as a means of gathering facts of expe- rience in general, not to mention the experience of urban poverty, cut a new path for social research, establishing a broad spectrum of persons as potential sources of information. The emerging view was that people of all backgrounds were capable of giving credible voice to experience. The nascent craft of interview research was grounded in the newly recognized principle that everyone possessed significant views and feelings about life, which were accessible by simply asking people about them. As William James (1892/1961) argued well over 100 years ago, this assumed that each and every individual had a sense of self that was owned and controlled by himself or herself, even if this self was interpersonally formulated. Everyone could meaningfully reflect on experience and enter into socially relevant dialogue about it. This became the new guiding principle: Interview practice since that time has assumed that “everyone” was capable of voicing their experience, even as the general prac- tice might be circumscribed by cultural and political delimitations of what constituted research popula- tions (Holstein Gubrium, 1995). Technical Complexity Interviewing traditionally has been viewed as a straightforward process in which interviewers solicit infor mation from interviewees, who, in turn, respond to interviewers’ inquiries. Ostensibly, those seeking information about others’ thoughts, feelings, and actions merely have to ask the right questions, and the responses virtually pour out. Studs Terkel, the legend- ary journalistic and sociological interviewer, made this stance explicit, claiming at one point that he just turned on his tape recorder and asked people to talk unabashedly about their lives. Referring to the inter- views done for his classic study Working (1972), Terkel indicated that his questions unlocked well- springs of information that interviewees were all too ready to share. In Terkel’s interviews, “the sluice gates of dammed up hurts and dreams were open” (p. xxv). This straightforward approach to interviewing was fairly typical in the social sciences for much of the 20th century. If it was the imagined ideal, this is not to say that researchers were complacent about technical challenges. As Andrea Fontana and James Frey (2005) note, “Interviewing is not merely the neutral exchange of asking questions and getting answers. . . . Asking questions and getting answers is a much harder task than it may seem at first” (pp. 696–697). Social scientists had recognized this for decades and worked diligently to “get it right,” as it were. Generations of sociologists, anthropologists, and other social researchers rigorously examined interview practices (see Platt, 2002), delving in great detail into the methods, forms, and functions of the interview (see Bradburn Sudman, 1979; Hyman, Cobb, Feldman, Hart, Stember, 1975; Richardson, Dohrenwend, Klein, 1965); the strategies, tech- niques, and tactics of interviewing (see Cannell, Miller, Oskenberg, 1981; Gorden, 1987; Kahn Cannell, 1957; Sudman Bradburn, 1983); and the variety of interactional problems that could derail the enterprise (see Suchman Jordan, 1990). Perhaps no other social science information- gathering technique has been subjected to such scru- tiny. This was the first watershed of complexity for the craft. Because research on the interview process has been motivated by the perspective that the short- comings of interviewing as a mode of information collection were technical problems, technical improvements could further open and clarify inter- viewing’s window to the world. Refinements grew at the technical forefront of survey research (see, e.g., Converse Schuman, 1974). Much of this literature deals with the nuances of formulating questions and providing an atmo- sphere conducive to open and undistorted communi- cation between the interviewer and the respondent. It specifies ways of asking questions that will not interfere with or contaminate information that resides with respondents, which is waiting to be set free (see Holstein Gubrium, 1995). It offers myr- iad procedures for obtaining unadulterated facts and details, most of which implicate the interviewer and question neutrality. The underlying assumption is that if the interviewing process goes “by the book” and is unbiased, respondents will communicate the relevant facts of their lives. Contamination emanates from the interview setting, its participants, and their
- 18. Introduction ◆ 3 interaction, not from the interview subject, who is understood to provide authentic reports under the right conditions. Epistemological Complexity Not all challenges to the craft have been technical. More recently, a second watershed of complexity emerged that has been equally concerned with episte- mological issues. Qualitative researchers began to ask fundamental questions about the nature of interview communication and interview information. These questions challenged what previously have been pri- marily technical developments. The idealized view of the interview as a straightforward exercise in infor- mation extraction has given way to the perspective that interviewing, like communication in general, is as much collaboratively constructive of the meanings of experience as it is an efficient means of gathering information. Traditional technical concerns are now sharing the complexity terrain with concerns about the interview as a form of knowledge production. The second edition of the Handbook of Interview Research features the interplay between the technical and epistemological challenges of the craft. It raises questions about what it means, in communicative practice, to be an interviewer or a respondent. How do time, place, culture, and sociohistorical circum- stance affect interviews? And, as a result, how is interview material to be analyzed? The ideas that the interview can be conceptualized in relation to a uni- versal standard, that particular rules of procedure guide good interviewing, and that outcomes are adequately understood in terms of the distribution of responses and the relationship between distributions still underpin much of interview research. But these views now sit alongside, rather than over and above, epistemological concerns. A key assumption of many of the Handbook’s chapters is that technical and epistemological issues are intertwined, that complex- ity presents itself most vividly and consequentially at their intersection. The Contributions The chapters of Part I, “Interviewing in Context,” lead the way in examining the multifaceted terrain of complexity. Jennifer Platt (Chapter 1) organizes her history around key texts, tracing the evolution of validity, examining the shifting senses of the appro- priate relationship between interviewer and respon- dent, and contrasting approaches to what constitutes useful data. Clearly, interviewing and how research- ers conceptualize it have changed over time; what may have been standard at one time is not necessarily what was standard at another. Jaber Gubrium and James Holstein (Chapter 2) discuss the transforma- tion in how researchers conceive of the subjectivity of interview participants. The chapter contrasts passive and active views of subjectivity, provides different conceptions of participants’ roles, explains what to make of interview results, and offers a basis for con- sidering the craft as narrative production. Michael Ian Borer and Andrea Fontana (Chapter 3) take us on the postmodern journey that has inspired some inter- view researchers. If there are postmodern sensibilities in evidence, there is no distinctive postmodern inter- view, according to the authors. Kathryn Roulston (Chapter 4) argues for the ultimate impossibility of designating the characteristics of a good interview, presenting a more modest way of evaluating the craft. Part II, “Methods of Interviewing,” features the complexity of existing interview procedures. The range of what is understood to be appropriate is striking, from the guiding principles of survey inter- viewing, discussed by Royce Singleton and Bruce Straits (Chapter 5), to the autoethnographic self- interview procedure described by Sara Crawley (Chapter 9). John Johnson and Timothy Rowlands (Chapter 6) consider in-depth interviewing as a social form whose procedural shape reflects a com- mon mode of interpersonal communication. Robert Atkinson (Chapter 7) brings another social form into the mix; the life story interview is viewed as importing the mutually equitable and intimate for- mat of how experience is shared through time. Carol Warren (Chapter 8) expands on the parallels between research procedure and daily living in a discussion of the interactive contours of qualitative interviewing. David Morgan (Chapter 10) considers the interac- tional dimensions of group interviews, and Nalita James and Hugh Busher (Chapter 11) feature inter- viewing that capitalizes on the Internet, a rapidly growing social form. Janice Morse (Chapter 12) com bines qualitative and quantitative sensibilities—and social practices—into a discussion of mixed-method designs. It is evident throughout Part II that com- plexity derives as much from parallels with commu- nicative formats in society as it does from a spectrum of procedural options.
- 19. 4 ◆ THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF INTERVIEW RESEARCH The chapters of Part III, “Logistics of Interviewing,” center on important practical challenges to inter- viewing of all kinds. Hanna Herzog (Chapter 13) is concerned with the effect of interview location on out comes. Anne Grinyer and Carol Thomas (Chapter 14) address the question of trust and rap- port in the context of interviewing on multiple occa- sions or longitudinally, figuring that the quality of data, not just interpersonal relations, is significantly affected. Jinjun Wang and Ying Yan (Chapter 15) take question selection beyond desired information to the issue of how power is exercised in the selection pro- cess. Here, complexity emerges in the contentious area of impartiality and neutrality, challenging researchers over and above technical concerns. Not leaving sample size to statistical considerations, Ben Beitin (Chapter 16) discusses the matter in terms of “who can provide information to present the most comprehensive picture possible.” Shannon Carter and Christian Bolden (Chapter 17) reformulate what it means to figure culture in interview responses; the concept of “culture work” highlights how shared meaning is constructed within the interview, not just shaping responses from the outside. Christopher Faircloth (Chapter 18) discusses “what is left at the end” of the interview, dealing with the huge terrain of coding, analysis, and the representation of findings in terms of integral political considerations. Part IV , “Self and Other in the Interview,” deals with the personal side of interviewing, from how one manages the interviewer self (Annika Lillrank, Chapter 19) to how stigma (especially in relation to marginalized participants) can shape the data col- lected (Kay Cook, Chapter 23). John Talmage (Chapter 20) explains how practices of listening mediate the question–answer exchange, pointing to differences in the cultivated alertness of interview- ers. Lara Foley (Chapter 21) outlines the many ways respondents are constructed in the interview, adding layers of subjectivity undervalued in information- centered approaches. Linda Finlay (Chapter 22) features the centrality of reflexivity in interviewing, offering a multifaceted perspective for increasing the richness and the integrity of understanding. The chapters of Part V , “Analytic Strategies,” take us out of the interviewing process and into the realm of data analysis. The distinction is somewhat artificial in qualitative inquiry, as analysis and data collection commonly transpire simultaneously. Kathy Charmaz and Linda Belgrave (Chapter 24) begin with a descrip tion of grounded theory analysis. Catherine Riessman (Chapter 25) follows with a commentary on how to analyze personal narratives. Marjorie DeVault and Liza McCoy (Chapter 26) discuss the dynamics of interviewing in institutional ethnography, which is a form of analysis integral to the exploration of the “relations of ruling.” Pirjo Nikander (Chapter 27) turns to the communicative details of the interview exchange, showing how analysis can extend to the ways in which interview information is solicited, constructed, and managed in the interview process. David Shemmings and Ingunn Ellingsen (Chapter 28) explain how to use Q methodology to unpack the everyday epistemological grounds of meaning mak- ing in the interview. And Clive Seale and Carol Rivas (Chapter 29) provide a handy discussion of the uses of qualitative analysis software, especially for exam- ining video data. Part VI, “Ethics of the Interview,” turns to contro- versial moral and legal dimensions of the craft. Marco Marzano (Chapter 30) reviews the history of informed consent and its implementation in social research. Complexity emerges because the original domain of the consent issue—biomedicine—has decidedly differ- ent epistemological dimensions from its social science counterparts. Karen Kaiser (Chapter 31) examines the challenges of disseminating detailed data while simultaneously protecting the confidentiality of participants. Kristin Heggen and Marilys Guillemin (Chapter 32) offer a “situated ethics approach” to the protection of confidentiality. Anne Ryen (Chapter 33) reflects on the micropolitical dimensions of research ethics, which contrasts with debates that transpire as if ethical matters were not indigenous concerns of everyday life. Michelle Miller-Day (Chapter 34) offers an alternative perspective on the uneasy relationship between institutional review boards and qualitative researchers, proposing strategies for possible accord. The chapters of Part VII, “Critical Reflections,” pose a basic empirical question—What are inter- views about?—which centers on the substantive bearings of the craft. To comprehend the interpretive frames of interviewing, Kirin Narayan and Kenneth George (Chapter 35) ask us to imagine that we, as interview researchers, are witnessing story forma- tion, not just information gathering, as we talk with respondents about their lives. Laura Ellingson (Chapter 36) takes issue with the mind/body split that pervades social research, offering suggestions for consciously embodying the interview process to produce embodied results. Tim Rapley (Chapter 37) revisits the interaction-in-interviews issue, suggesting
- 20. Introduction ◆ 5 what can be learned from this research. Jonathan Potter and Alexa Hepburn (Chapter 38) close the volume with a discussion of eight challenges for interview researchers. Their chapter reflexively inte- grates epistemological and technical issues and offers suggestions for using noninterview data, especially records of natural interaction, more effectively in qualitative research. A Gentle Caution The editors invite you to consider in detail the facets of complexity in interview research. The Handbook is an impressive array of contributions. From the technical to the analytic to the epistemological, complexity is clearly evident throughout. But we must be cautious not to let our fascination with complexity shortchange the interview’s informa- tion-gathering potential. To recognize and elaborate the multifaceted shape of the interview should not mean that we pay less attention to its utility for learning about the world around us. Rather, it is just the opposite; we must think carefully about both technical and epistemological matters because they inventively construct our knowledge of the world we live in, as much as they serve to gather informa- tion about it. If the chapters of the Handbook stress complexity, they do so with an eye to improving the craft that interviewing creates. References Benney, M., Hughes, E. C. (1956). Of sociology and the interview. American Journal of Sociology, 62, 137–142. Bradburn, N., Sudman, S. (1979). Improving interview method and questionnaire design. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Cannell, C., Miller, P ., Oksenberg, L. (1981). Research on interview technique. In S. Leinhardt (Ed.), Socio logical methodology (pp. 389–437). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Converse, J., Schuman, H. (1974). Conversations at random: Survey research as interviewers see it. New York, NY: Wiley. Fontana, A., Frey, J. (2005). The interview: From neu- tral stance to political involvement. In N. Denzin Y. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 695–727). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gorden, R. (1987). Interviewing: Strategy, techniques, and tactics. Homewood, IL: Dorsey. Holstein, J., Gubrium, J. (1995). The active interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hyman, H. H., Cobb, W . J., Feldman, J. J., Hart, C. W ., Stember, C. H. (1975). Interviewing in social research. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. James, W . (1961). Psychology: The briefer course. New York, NY: Harper. (Original work published 1892) Kahn, R. L., Cannell, C. F. (1957). The dynamics of interviewing: Theory, technique, and cases. New York, NY: Wiley. Madge, J. (1965). The tools of social science. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Mayhew, H. (1861–1862). London labour and the London poor. London, England: Griffin, Bohn. Platt, J. (2002). The history of the interview. In J. Gubrium J. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research (1st ed., pp. 33–54). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Richardson, S., Dohrenwend, B., Klein, D. (1965). Interviewing: Its forms and functions. New York, NY: Basic Books. Silverman, D. (1997). Qualitative research: Theory, method, and practice. London, England: Sage. Suchman, L., Jordan, B. (1990). Interactional troubles in face-to-face survey interviews. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 85, 232–241. Sudman, S., Bradburn, N. (1983). Asking questions. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Terkel, S. (1972). Working. New York, NY: Avon.
- 24. ◆ 9 1 The “interview” has existed, and changed over time, both as a practice and as a meth- odological term in current use. However, the practice has not always been theorized or dis- tinguished from other modes of acquiring informa- tion. Interviewing has sometimes been treated as a distinct method, but more often it has been located within some broader methodological category, such as “survey,” “case study,” or “life story.” It is not always easy to decide what should be treated as a part of interviewing as such; for instance, some discussion of interview questions is about the con- struction of schedules, without reference to how the questions are presented to the respondent. Here, the focus is on what happens while the inter- viewer is interacting with the respondent. At each stage, the more fully institutionalized practices have been less likely to be written about in detail, except for the purpose of guiding train- ees; therefore caution needs to be exercised in generalizing from the prescriptive literature to current practice. In principle, we aim here to look at both the theorization and the practice of the interview, without assuming that there has always been a close correspondence between the two. But interview practice has been very unevenly described. Descriptions of it are more common when some aspect becomes salient because it is seen as novel, unconventional, or problematic. Even then, what is described is commonly a policy or strategy rather than the actual practice, which may not always conform to the policy. Thus, for our historical account, we have to draw largely on prescriptions for practice as it should be. We concentrate on the book literature; the main points in the journals will have been taken up in books if they were practically influential, so this is adequate for a broad overview. It is with regret that the decision had also to be made, given the limita- tions of space, to focus almost entirely on the U.S. experience. For the prewar period, especially its earlier part, this can be quite misleading, as other national disciplines had some of their own distinct traditions and discussion. From about 1945 to 1960, U.S. social science and the survey became so hegemonic elsewhere that they can perhaps be treated as representing the whole; after the high period of U.S. hegemony, however, this approach ◆ Jennifer Platt THE HISTORY OF THE INTERVIEW
- 25. 10 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT becomes less reasonable. This chapter is written from a sociologist’s perspective; the most likely bias is one toward work that sociologists have used and treated as important, whether or not the authors were soci- ologists. Those from other backgrounds are urged to supplement my examples with their own. The U.S. book literature on interviewing falls into a number of categories, of which some illustrative examples are listed in Table 1.1. (Where possible these are chosen from works not extensively dis- cussed below, to indicate more of the range of mate- rial.) There are relatively distinct intellectual and practical traditions here, despite overlaps and some strong influences across traditions, and this needs to be taken into account in placing the stances and con- cerns of single texts. We concentrate on social-scientific interviewing, but that has not always been distinguished from the interviewing techniques of psychiatrists, social case- workers, or personnel managers. When it has been so distinguished, work in such fields has still often been drawn on by social scientists. But the character of the literature has changed historically. The earliest rele- vant work was not specifically social scientific. As new practices such as polling and bodies such as survey organizations emerged, they generated writing that expressed their concerns and led to methodological research on issues they were interested in. Once an orthodoxy was established, there was room for cri- tiques of it and declarations of independence from it. Those working on special groups developed special ways of dealing with them; then, with an understand- able lag, theorists began to take an interest in the more philosophical aspects. Textbooks regularly strove to keep up with the main developments, while authors of empirical studies wrote about the experi- ences and needs specific to their particular topics. In later times, as the quantitative and qualitative worlds became increasingly separate, their discussions of interviewing diverged correspondingly. The quantita- tivists carried forward an established tradition with increasing sophistication, from time to time taking on technical innovations such as telephone interviewing, while qualitative workers blossomed out into focus groups, life histories, and own-brand novelties. However, an interesting link has recently been estab- lished in the use by surveyors of conversation-analytic techniques to analyze what is happening in their ques- tions and answers. Below, a broad outline of the trajectory of the field is sketched in via selected examples of such writings, starting with the prescriptive methodological litera- ture and going on to empirical work that has been treated as methodologically important. We then review some key analytical themes. The literature of research on interviewing is looked at as much for Table 1.1 Genres of Books Related to Interviewing Genre Examples Practitioner textbooks Garrett, Interviewing: Its Principles and Methods, 1942 Polling practice Gallup, A Guide to Public Opinion Polls, 1944 Social science methods textbooks Goode and Hatt, Methods in Social Research, 1952 Instructions to survey interviewers University of Michigan, Survey Research Center, Manual for Interviewers, 1954 Critiques of method, general or particular Christie and Jahoda, Studies in the Scope and Method of “The Authoritarian Personality,” 1954; Cicourel, Method and Measurement in Sociology, 1964 Empirical work discussing its methods Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, 1948 Handbooks Denzin and Lincoln, Handbook of Qualitative Research, 1994 Monographs on special groups, novel approaches Dexter, Elite and Specialized Interviewing, 1970; Douglas, Creative Interviewing, 1985 Philosophical/theoretical discussion Sjoberg and Nett, A Methodology for Social Research, 1968 Reports of methodological research Hyman, Interviewing in Social Research, 1954
- 26. Chapter 1. The History of the Interview ◆ 11 what the concerns reflected there show us about the researchers’ focuses of interest as for what the find- ings have been, though research has surely influenced practice. The interlinked issues of changing interest in and thought about validity, conceptions of the appro- priate social relations between interviewer and respon- dent, and the types of data sought by those working in different styles are briefly explored; some effort is made to draw out points of potential interest to researchers, whose concern is less with the history as such than it is with informing their own practice. Finally, the strands are drawn together to present a synthetic account of the ways in which interviewing and thinking about it have changed over time. The Trajectory of Change in Methodological Writing To give a sense of the broad trajectory of change, a sequence of arguably representative accounts of interviewing, in particular its forms and purposes, is presented below in order of historical appearance. Key points of content and assumptions are outlined, and each is briefly placed in its context. HOWARD W. ODUM AND KATHARINE JOCHER, AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL RESEARCH, 1929 This was one of the first general social science methods textbooks. In it, in addition to “interview,” “schedule” (to be used by an enumerator) and “ques- tionnaire” (to be answered unaided) are mentioned; for these, there is a discussion of questions and presentation but nothing on interviewing as such. (At this time, the conduct of structured interviews was not treated as being at all problematic and so was hardly discussed.) It is stated that an interview is made for the purpose of securing information . . . about the informant himself, or about other persons or undertakings that he knows or is interested in. The purpose may be to secure a life history, to corroborate evidence got from other sources, to secure . . . data which the informant possesses. [It] . . . may also be the means of enlisting the informant’s cooperation . . . in the investigation. . . . If the student is not acquainted with the informant, some method of introduction through a mutual acquaintance should be secured. (pp. 366–367) Permission to take notes should be requested. As here, in the 1920s and 1930s, an “interview” was often assumed to be of a key informant or gate- keeper rather than a respondent who is merely one member of a sample (cf. Bingham Moore, 1931; Fry, 1934). The implicit model of the old, fact-find- ing survey in the Booth tradition is still in the back- ground; Booth’s data on the working-class family were provided by middle-class visitors (Bales, 1991). The interviewee may thus be an informant about the situation studied, as much as or more than being a part of it, and potentially of a status superior to the interviewer, another reason for allowing the respon- dent to structure the interaction. This does not mean that no questionnaires to mass samples were being used, though they were not common yet in academic social science, but that this was seen as a distinct method. It was often recommended that notes should not be taken during the interview, or only to a minimal extent, but that recording should be done as soon as possible afterward; questions might not be revealed or might be written on the back of an enve- lope to appear informal and spontaneous (see, e.g., Converse, 1987, p. 51). Clearly the role of respon- dent was not yet so institutionalized that no need to conceal the mechanics was felt. PAULINE V. YOUNG, SCIENTIFIC SOCIAL SURVEYS AND RESEARCH, 1939 This was a very successful general methods text- book. “Interview” is again distinguished from “schedule” and “questionnaire,” which are dealt with separately. Young distinguishes respondents who are adequate sources on factual matters from those who are of interest as subjects, individually or in relation to the larger situation. A personal intro- duction to the respondent is still seen as desirable. “The interview proper does not begin until a consid- erable degree of rapport has been established. . . . The most important touchstone is probably the mutual discovery of common experiences” (p. 189). What does she see as the value of the interview? The personal interview is penetrating; it goes to the “living source.” Through it the student . . . is able to go behind mere outward behavior and
- 27. 12 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT phenomena. He can secure accounts of events and processes as they are reflected in personal experi- ences, in social attitudes. He can check inferences and external observations by a vital account of the persons who are being observed. . . . [T]he field worker . . . needs to know in a general way why he is interviewing this particular person or group and what he intends asking . . . [but] needs to be open to unforeseen developments. (pp. 175, 179) As few questions as possible should be asked: When people are least interrupted, when they can tell their stories in their own way, . . . they can react naturally and freely and express themselves fully. . . . [Interruptions and leading questions are likely to have the effect that] . . . the adventure into the unknown, into uncharted and hitherto undisclosed spheres, has been destroyed. (p. 190) It is rarely advisable to complete an interview at one sitting (p. 195). It is better not to take notes, except maybe a few key words, and it is seen as controversial whether to record the interview in the first or the third person and whether a verbatim account is to be preferred to a summary by the interviewer (pp. 196, 200). Young’s department at the University of Southern California was oriented toward the training of prac- titioners; her Interviewing in Social Work (1935) was widely cited in sociology when there were few other such sources to draw on. Its perceived rele- vance owed something to the widespread use by sociologists, especially at the University of Chicago where she was trained, of case histories collected by social workers; this connects with the idea of the case study and of the significance of life history data, which are clearly the contexts she has in mind in the passages quoted above (Platt, 1996, p. 46). One may also perhaps detect formative traces of the participant observation she used in her doctoral work. George A. Lundberg’s (1942) important— and intellectually far superior—textbook takes a similar approach, despite his strongly scientistic tastes, though with a slight twist in the direction of the more modern concern with personality and psy- choanalytical interests. By the 1949 edition of her text, Young had men- tioned the modern survey, though she was far from treating it as the paradigm: A specialized form of the interview is useful in the collection of personal data for quantitative pur- poses. This type of interview aims to accumulate a variety of uniform responses to a wide scope of predetermined specific questions. (Generally these questions appear on a printed form.) (p. 244) This distanced account was in effect one of the last traces of an older conception. CHARLES F. CANNELL AND ROBERT L. KAHN, “THE COLLECTION OF DATA BY INTERVIEWING,” 1953 This is a chapter in what became a standard gen- eral methods text, written by a group from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research (ISR). Cannell and Kahn, the former a clinical and the latter a social psychologist, were members of the team that became the wartime Division of Program Surveys (DPS) and after the war transformed itself into the Institute for Social Research. In this chapter they attempt to go beyond current rules of thumb and to draw on work in counseling and communica- tion theory to understand the psychology of the interview. (Their later book, The Dynamics of Interviewing, Kahn Cannell, 1957, carries this forward, coming to the formulation of objectives and questions only after three chapters on the inter- viewing relationship.) The following extract shows their relatively quali- tative orientation, which nonetheless goes with a strong commitment to scientific procedure; one may detect some tensions between the two: Even when the research objectives call for infor- mation which is beyond the individual’s power to provide directly, the interview is often an effec- tive means of obtaining the desired data. . . . Bias and lack of training make it impossible for an individual to provide such intimate information about himself, even if he is motivated to the utmost frankness. But only he can provide the data about his attitudes towards his parents, col- leagues, and members of minority groups, from which some of his deeper-lying characteristics can be inferred. . . . [T]he interviewer cannot apply unvaryingly a specified set of techniques, because he is dealing with a varying situation. . . . [T]he best approximation to a standard stimulus is to word
- 28. Chapter 1. The History of the Interview ◆ 13 the question at a level which is understandable to all respondents and then to ask the question of each respondent in identical fashion. . . . [T]he inter- viewer’s role with respect to the questionnaire is to treat it as a scientific instrument designed to administer a constant stimulus. (pp. 332, 358) Cannell was a doctoral student of Carl Rogers, recruited to the DPS to draw on what he had learned with Rogers about nondirective styles of questioning. It is assumed in the book that a sched- ule is used, but this heritage was shown in the team’s long-term commitment to more open-ended ques- tions than those favored by other groups and explains some of the assumptions made here about interviewing. At an early stage, there was contro- versy between the proponents of closed and open questions, contrasted by one participant in the DPS as the “neat reliables” and the “sloppy valids.” This was reflected in a classic article by Paul F. Lazarsfeld (1944), in which he aimed to resolve the conflict between wartime research outfits with divergent styles. Converse (1987, pp. 195–202) shows that the dispute was as much about the costs of more open-ended work, and whether the gains were worth it, as it was about validity. It became evident even to those committed in principle to the open style that it not only created coding problems but also was impossible to sustain with less educated interviewers scattered across the country, making training and supervision difficult. SELLTIZ, JAHODA, DEUTSCH, AND COOK, RESEARCH METHODS IN SOCIAL RELATIONS, 1965 This classic textbook written by psychologists has passed through many editions. It still distinguishes between “interview” and “questionnaire,” seeing the interview, which may be structured or unstruc- tured, as practically advantageous because it does not require literacy and has a better response rate than postal questionnaires, is more flexible, and is “the more appropriate technique for revealing information about complex, emotionally laden sub- jects, or for probing the sentiments that may under- lie an expressed opinion” (p. 242). However, much of the discussion is on question wording, without distinguishing interview from questionnaire, and clearly a standard survey interview, by now well established, is what they have in mind. The inter- viewer should put the respondent at ease and create a friendly atmosphere but “must keep the direction of the interview in his own hands, discouraging irrelevant conversation and endeavoring to keep the respondent to the point” (p. 576) and must ask the questions exactly as worded and not give impromptu explanations. Complete verbatim recording is needed for free-answer questions—“aside from obvious irrelevancies and repetitions” (p. 580). Many of those involved in the early development of polling and market research using the survey were psychologists, and for them the experiment was usu- ally the model, so they laid great emphasis, as here, on the importance of applying a uniform stimulus. This shows development well beyond the approach of the early Gallup (1944) conducting the simple political poll, designed for newspaper rather than academic publication. The interview there was unequivocally designed for quantification of the responses made to fixed questions by members of the general public, and the need for accuracy and precision was emphasized, but uniformity of stimu- lus was not given the importance that it later acquired; validity was seen primarily in terms of getting the public predictions right. GIDEON SJOBERG AND ROGER NETT, A METHODOLOGY FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH, 1968 This is quite a new genre of work, reflecting wider movements in sociology. The authors were not closely involved with survey units and were not writ- ing a conventional methods text but a textbook/ monograph with a standpoint: “The scientist who employs . . . [structured interviews] is usually intent upon testing an existing set of hypotheses; he is less concerned with discovery per se. And, of course, standardization greatly enhances reliability”—as well as saving time and money. However, it has the drawback of imposing the investigator’s categories on informants: “The unstructured type is most useful for studying the normative structure of organiza- tions, for establishing classes, and for discovering the existence of possible social patterns (rather than the formal testing of propositions concerning the exis- tence of given patterns)” (pp. 193–195). Four types of unstructured interview are described: (1) the free-association method, (2) the focused
- 29. 14 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT interview, (3) the objectifying interview, and (4) the group interview. Of these, the objectifying interview is preferred: The researcher informs the interviewee from the start . . . concerning the kinds of information he is seeking and why. The informant is apprised of his role in the scientific process and is encouraged to develop his skills in observation (and even in interpretation). . . . Besides examining his own actions, the interviewee is encouraged to observe and interpret the behavior of his associates in his social group. Ideally, he becomes a peer with whom the scientist can objectively discuss the ongoing system, to the extent that he is encour- aged to criticize the scientist’s observations and interpretations. (p. 214) Throughout the discussion, there is a stress on the social assumptions built into different choices of ques- tions. Status effects in the interview situation, and the consequences of varying cultural backgrounds, espe- cially for work in the Third World, are discussed. The authors approached the matter from a theo- retical and—in a turn characteristic of the period—a sociopolitical perspective; it was proposed to involve the respondent as an equal, not so much for instru- mental reasons of technical efficacy as because a nonhierarchical, nonexploitive relationship is seen as intrinsically right. It is also noticeable that this is a sociologists’ version; there is no orientation to psy- chologists’ usual concerns. Although Galtung (1967) and Denzin (1970) wrote books more like conven- tional methods texts, those have key features in com- mon with Sjoberg and Nett’s book: the more theoretical and philosophical interests, the more distanced approach to surveys and their mundane practicalities, and a clearly sociological frame of ref- erence. Interviewing of various kinds has now become a standard practice to which even those with theoretical interests relate their ideas. STEVEN J. TAYLOR AND ROBERT BOGDAN, INTRODUCTION TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS, 1984, SECOND EDITION This is a specialized methods textbook, again with a strong standpoint: In stark contrast to structured interviewing, quali- tativeinterviewingisflexibleanddynamic . . . [with] repeated face-to-face encounters between the researcher and informants directed toward under- standing informants’ perspectives on their lives, experiences, or situations as expressed in their own words. The in-depth interview is modeled after a conversation between equals, rather than a formal question-and-answer exchange. Far from being a robotlike data collector, the interviewer, not an interview schedule or protocol, is the research tool. The role entails not merely obtain- ing answers, but learning what questions to ask and how to ask them. (p. 77) Without direct observation to give context to what people say in an interview, the responses may not be adequately understood, and there may be problems of deception and distortion; it is important, there- fore, to interview in depth, getting to know people well enough to understand what they mean and creating an atmosphere in which they are likely to talk freely. . . . [I]t is only by designing the interview along the lines of natural interaction that the interviewer can tap into what is important to people. . . . [T]he interviewer has many parallels in everyday life: “the good listener,” “the shoulder to cry on,” “the confidante.” . . . [T]here has to be some exchange in terms of what inter- viewers say about themselves. . . . The best advice is to be discreet in the interview, but to talk about yourself in other situations. You should be willing to relate to informants in terms other than inter- viewer/informant. Interviewers can serve as errand-runners, drivers, babysitters, advocates. (pp. 82–83, 93–94, 101) This reaction against “robotlike” standard survey interviewing is part of the growth of a separate, “qualitative” stream, recommending many practices anathema to surveyors. The rhetoric is very distant from that of “science.” These authors often refer to the Chicago School as a model, drawing on a widely current image of it—if one more useful for ideo- logical than for historical purposes (Platt, 1996, pp. 265–269). The ideal is clearly participant obser- vation or ethnography, and this type of interviewing again blurs the boundary with them. It could not be adapted to large representative samples without
- 30. Chapter 1. The History of the Interview ◆ 15 enormous costs, and makes implicit assumptions about likely research topics that, one somehow infers, exclude (for instance) the demographic or economic. Other representatives of this broad ten- dency are Douglas (1985), Holstein and Gubrium (1995), and Potter and Hepburn (2005). Potter and Hepburn set such high conversation-analytic stan- dards and emphasize the significance of the interac- tion between interviewer and respondent so heavily that, after recognizing that the necessary quality would be bought at the expense of sample size, they suggest that it might be better anyway to use natural- istic records rather than interviews. (Perhaps their focus on interviewing for psychology may have led to a concern with fine detail less necessary for sociology or anthropology.) Many feminists have practiced and argued in favor of similar styles on feminist grounds. Reinharz (1992) suggests that interviewing appeals to femi- nists because it offers researchers access to people’s ideas, thoughts and memories in their own words rather than in the words of the researcher. This asset is particularly important for the study of women because [this] . . . is an antidote to centuries of ignoring women’s ideas altogether or having men speak for women. (p. 19) She points out, however, that having close relations with every subject is not practicable and that too much emphasis on rapport may unduly limit the range of topics covered. (It is noticeable that the work she cites in this chapter is almost all on topics such as rape and hysterectomies.) The emphasis here is on letting the respondent’s perspective dominate rather than analyzing the interaction with the inter- viewer. Recent advocacy of “narrative interviewing” goes further in the attempt to elicit narration with minimal intervention by the interviewer: “It is assumed that [uninterrupted] narrations preserve particular perspectives in a more genuine form” (Jovchelovitch Bauer, 2007, p. 1), though the final interpretive product fuses the informants’ relevance structures with those of the researcher. One might speculate how much of this qualita- tive tendency rests on the increased availability of good-quality portable tape recorders, which facili- tate the detailed recording of free answers and their close textual analysis.1 We may expect fresh creative developments facilitated by the digital revolution; there are already methodological and ethical discus- sions of the special features of online data collection. Empirical Work and Its Influence Important contributions to discussion of interview- ing have also been made by authors whose primary concern was their substantive topic; these do not necessarily relate directly to the professional meth- odological discussion and cannot be explained by their location within that. Below, we review some of them. It is probably not by chance that the empirical exemplars that come to mind, as well as much meth- odological research, are largely from work done in the period from 1935 to 1955. This was the time when the modern survey was emerging, and so the problems that its practice raised were live ones, con- fronted and argued over for the first time, while its high profile and popularity also encouraged those with criticisms, or alternatives suited to less usual topics, to write about them. None of the exemplars is a conventional survey because, where there is a structured schedule, the tradition has been to pro- vide a copy of it without describing the interviewing process; what took place is implicitly assumed to be sufficiently described by the schedule. Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939/1964) make an early contribution to unstructured interviewing tech- nique, though the intellectual responsibility for this arguably lies more with Elton Mayo, who led the work—his ideas on method were influenced both by his interest in Jungian psychoanalysis and by his friendship with the anthropologist and fieldwork pioneer Malinowski. The interviewing program reported started to collect employees’ views about their work (for use in improving supervisor train- ing), but it was found that the workers often wanted to talk about “irrelevant” material, so in 1929 the decision was made to adopt an “indirect approach,” following the workers’ lead without changing the subject and asking only noncommittal questions. Interviews were recorded as far as possible verbatim, 1 In an earlier version of this chapter, I said that research on the consequences for practice of changing recording techniques and technologies was strikingly absent; Lee (2004) has responded with a valuable step toward filling that gap.
- 31. 16 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT rather than under target headings, and the data were seen as information not so much on real problems as on the meanings that the worker gave to the realities. “Rules of performance” were set up, such as “Listen in a patient, friendly but intelligently critical man- ner” and “Do not display any kind of authority,” but these rules were to be treated as flexible: “If the interviewer understands what he is doing and is in active touch with the actual situation, he has extreme latitude in what he can do” (pp. 286–287). This pro- gram, not initially intended for social-scientific pur- poses, became used for social science. Warner and Lunt (1941) said that in their work they used techniques suggested by Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939/1964), although their research, an intensive community study, was of a very different character; Warner was an anthropologist by training, and the anthropological fieldwork tradition seems more relevant to their research. Many of their “interviews” were done without the subject’s aware- ness of being interviewed: “The activity of the inves- tigator has been classed as observation when the emphasis fell on the observer’s seeing behavior of an individual; as interviewing, when emphasis fell on listening to what was said” (Warner Lunt, 1941, p. 46). Questionnaires were seen as liable to take items out of their social context and as useful only when one is already familiar with the general situa tion from interviews (Warner Lunt, 1941, pp. 55–56). Although the authors called their main method “interviewing,” it should probably be regarded primarily as part of the history of what we now call participant observation. Our next example, Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948), is more idiosyncratic. Kinsey was a professor of zoology and devised techniques planned to suit his special topic. There was a list of items to be covered in the inter- view, but no fixed order or words for them, and addi- tional items for subjects with uncommon ranges of experience. The questions placed the burden of denial of sexual practices on the subject and were asked very rapidly to increase the spontaneity of the answers (pp. 50–54). Interviewer neutrality was not valued: Something more than cold objectivity is needed in dealing with human subjects. . . . The interviewer who senses what these things can mean . . . is more effective, though he may not be altogether neutral. The sympathetic interviewer records his reactions in ways that may not involve spoken words but which are, nonetheless, readily compre- hended by most people. . . . These are the things that . . . can never be done through a written ques- tionnaire, or even through a directed interview in which the questions are formalized and the con- fines of the investigation strictly limited. (p. 42) The aims of the interview were not at all concealed from respondents, and if they appeared not to be answering truthfully, the interview was broken off. Very long training was again seen as necessary for interviewers, who were also required, in the interests of confidentiality, to memorize a large number of codes for recording the answers. Any use of this method by others has not been identified in the mainstream sociological literature; Kinsey’s reason- ing suggests that it would only have been appropri- ate in areas posing the same problems as sexual behavior (Kinsey et al., 1948). Radically different, almost equally famous, and more influential in social science method was Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford’s The Authoritarian Personality (1950). Here again, there was a schedule, but interviewers were not expected to stick closely to its questions or order. The model followed was that of the psychotherapeu- tic encounter, and the instructions distinguished “underlying” from “manifest” questions. It was taken that “the subject’s view of his own life . . . may be assumed to contain real information together with wishful—and fearful—distortions,” and conse- quently, methods were needed to differentiate the more genuine, basic feelings, attitudes, and strivings from those of a more com- pensatory character behind which are hidden tendencies, frequently unknown to the subject himself, which are contrary to those manifested or verbalized on a surface level. (p. 293) (Kinsey also distrusted overt statements of attitudes, but his solution was to ask only about behavior and—unless untruths were suspected—to accept what was offered at face value [Kinsey et al., 1948]) Perhaps surprisingly, given the lack of social- scientific precedent for Kinsey’s approach (Kinsey et al., 1948), Adorno et al. (1950) were treated more harshly in published critiques. Where the former were criticized, it was concluded that empirical evidence
- 32. Chapter 1. The History of the Interview ◆ 17 for saying that their results were less valid than those of alternative approaches was not available (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey, 1954, pp. 78–79); Adorno et al. (1950) were, however, accused of inconsistency and speculative overinterpretation of data not appropriate for their use (Christie Jahoda, 1954, pp. 97, 100). What might be seen as a more social version of such an approach, used to generate large ideas about historical change in American society, is shown in other work from the same period, by David Riesman and colleagues. They carried out many interviews but certainly did not take them at face value: Everything conspired to lead to an emphasis not on the interview itself but on its interpreta- tion. . . . [S]uch a method . . . requires repeated reading of the interview record . . . in search of those small verbal nuances and occasional Freudian slips that might be clues to character. (Riesman Glazer, 1952, pp. 14–15). Of course, character as a topic hardly lends itself to direct questions of a factual nature, but the extent of “interpretation” here goes strikingly beyond the lit- eral data. It is interesting that there are two books from the project, the main interpretive one (Riesman, Glazer, Denney, The Lonely Crowd, 1950), which contains almost no direct interview data, and Faces in the Crowd (Riesman Glazer, 1952), consisting mainly of raw interview data without analysis; the issue of how securely the data support the interpreta- tion is thus avoided.2 The genre of publication of raw interview data has a history—sometimes, like the work of Studs Terkel, a history not within academic social science, even if social scientists refer to it. However, material that looks raw may be at least lightly cooked. Terkel describes his own procedure thus: The most important part of the work, is the edit- ing of the transcripts . . . the cutting and shaping of it into a readable result. The way I look at it is I suppose something like the way a sculptor looks at a block of stone: inside it there’s a shape which he’ll find. (Parker, 1997, p. 169) Thus, to treat the published version as showing just what took place in the interview would be mislead- ing. Whole “life stories” have been published in sociology, though sometimes written by their sub- jects rather than elicited by interviewing;3 the genre was treated as of central importance in the interwar period, and much more recently, it has been revived. Some recent work on life stories (e.g., Atkinson, 1998) takes a similar approach—on the one hand, putting a very high value on the subject’s own ver- sion of events while, on the other hand, permitting the interviewer a considerable editorial role. Note that this, interestingly, shifts the stage intended as active researcher intervention from data elicitation, as with a questionnaire or interview guide, to data presentation. The version presented is, though, nearer to raw data than are the figures and tables of the quantitative tradition. Topics of research have their own traditions and intrinsic needs (Platt, 1996, pp. 129–130), and so some methodological ideas arise from the substance of the work being done: Kinsey’s conceptions of interviewing technique followed directly from what they saw as the requirements of work on sexual behavior (Kinsey et al., 1948). One might expect the influence of such work to follow the same paths, though whether it has done so cannot be explored here. It is clear that the choices of method did not simply follow from the current state of method- ological discussion, though the results fed into that, if only by evoking criticism. The level of attention paid to the methods of such work has depended on the extent to which it has departed from the survey paradigm as well as on the general interest in its substantive content. Some Analytical Themes Discussions of empirical work have taken us a little nearer to what has happened in practice. Research on interviewing offers another window through which we may see something of the actual conduct of the interview, as distinct from the prescriptions for it. Practice has often been indeed distinct. Interviewers 2 Later, however, in his chapter in The Academic Mind (Lazarsfeld Thielens, 1958), Riesman (1958) contributed what is in effect—though he does not present it as such—an extended, research-based discussion of validity, based on respondent reports on the experience of being interviewed. 3 James Bennett (1981) has suggested the circumstances under which some types of these appear appropriate.
- 33. 18 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT are repeatedly shown to use their own ways of deal- ing with problems in eliciting the data wanted. Roth (1966) long ago documented a few cases where research employees had for their own reasons departed from the investigator’s plan, in ways that damaged it. He argued that this was only to be expected when they were employed as “hired hands,” without personal commitment to the research goal or control over the content and methods. Later authors have also identified interviewer cheating. Jean Peneff (1988) observed some of the most experienced and valued interviewers working for a French govern- mental survey organization, all highly motivated, and found that they regularly adapted their behavior and language to the social context: “They intuitively improvised a blend of survey norms and fieldwork practices” (p. 533). He queries whether departure from specifications should be regarded as cheating— though it tended to make what was intended as stan- dard survey work more “qualitative.” It sounds as though there was an implicit bargain between inter- viewers and their supervisors, in which good-quality work was exchanged for lack of close inquiry into the way in which the quality was achieved. (An under- researched and under-theorized area of interviewing is that of the social relations between employed inter- viewers and their supervisors, and their conse- quences.) We do not know how far patterns such as those found by Peneff have held more widely, but we ought not to be surprised if sometimes they do. In a very different style, Brenner (1982) elicited a large number of recordings of routine survey interviews and found that departures from instructions were common; individual interviewers showed consider- able differences in asking questions as required and in probing. He treats this as a problem of interviewer skills and training rather than either “cheating” or creative fieldwork; the emphasis is on uniformity of stimulus, and he shows how departure from instruc- tions could often lead to the collection of inadequate information. Roth’s (1966) and Peneff’s (1988) work is unusual; research on interviewing has come overwhelmingly from those active in specialist survey units. (A list of main book sources presenting research on interview- ing is given in Table 1.2.) It is not surprising that it should be those with continuing professional concern with the matter who do such work, but it does mean that the research has been skewed toward their dis- tinctive preoccupations. What was problematic about interviewing for them can be seen from the topics researched, and it is from that point of view that some of their themes are considered. A major preoccupation over the years has been variation in the answers elicited by different inter- viewers. This is commonly taken as a measure of “error,” implying that validity is defined as arriving at the correct overall figures rather than as fully Table 1.2 Key Works Presenting Research and Analysis on Interviewing 1947 Hadley Cantril, Gauging Public Opinion 1954 Herbert H. Hyman, Interviewing in Social Research 1965 Stephen A. Richardson, B. S. Dohrenwend, and D. Klein, Interviewing: Its Forms and Functions 1969 Raymond L. Gorden, Interviewing: Strategy, Techniques and Tactics 1974 Jean M. Converse and Howard Schuman, Conversations at Random 1979 Norman M. Bradburn and Seymour Sudman, Improving Interview Method and Questionnaire Design 1981 Charles F. Cannell, P. V. Miller, and L. Oksenberg, “Research on Interviewing Techniques” 1982 W. Dijkstra and J. van der Zouwen, Response Behaviour in the Survey-Interview 1984 Charles Turner and Elizabeth Martin, Surveying Subjective Phenomena 1990 Lucy Suchman and Brigitte Jordan, “Interactional Troubles in Face-to-Face Survey Interviews” 1991 Paul P. Biemer, R. M. Groves, L. E. Lyberg, N. A. Mathiowetz, and S. Sudman, Measurement Errors in Surveys 2002 Douglas W. Maynard, H. Houtkoop-Steenstra, N. C. Schaeffer, and J. van der Zouwen, Standardization and Tacit Knowledge: Interaction and Practice in the Survey Interview
- 34. Chapter 1. The History of the Interview ◆ 19 grasping individuals’ meanings or correctly identify- ing their real opinions. Cantril (1947) suggested that the problem of interviewer biases could be dealt with by selecting interviewers with canceling biases. Other writers saw careful selection of interviewers for their personal characteristics, whether of race or of personality, as valuable—though the real labor market often made this difficult. Fowler (1991, p. 260) points out that the conventional definition of “error” that he uses makes standardization across interviewers tautologically necessary to reduce error; this approach inevitably ignores the possibility that some nonstandardized interviewers might be better than others. In the earlier work, there was a strong tendency to blame interviewers for problems and to see the answer as more control over them. An extreme of this definition of the situation is sug- gested by Bradburn and Sudman’s (1979) chapter on interviewer variations in asking questions, where the nonprogrammed interviewer behavior studied by tape recordings included minutiae such as stuttering, coughing, false starts, and corrected substitutions.4 Converse and Schuman (1974), in contrast, studied the interviewers’ point of view, and were not con- cerned primarily with their errors and how to con- trol their behavior—which may owe something to the fact that their interviewers were graduate stu- dents, members of “us” rather than “them.” Consequently, they emphasize the tensions inter- viewers experience between conflicting roles and expectations. Later work, however, more often recognizes respondents’ contributions and takes the interview as interaction more seriously. For Cannell, Miller, and Oksenberg (1981), the aim was to decrease reporting error due to the respondent rather than the interviewer. Because the study used in the research was on topics appearing in medical records, which could, unlike attitudes, be checked, they were able to identify some clear factual errors made by respondents. It was found that interviewers were giv- ing positive feedback for poor respondent perfor- mance, in the supposed interests of rapport, so that correction of this and clearer guidance to respon- dents on what was expected of them improved their performance. More recent writing about “cognitive” interview- ing has revived the issue of accuracy in ways that do deal with the issue of validity, if only in relation to “factual” questions. Suchman and Jordan (1990), anthropologists using a conversation-analytic per- spective, stress the extent to which “the survey inter- view suppresses those interactional resources that routinely mediate uncertainties of relevance and interpretation” (p. 232), so that reliability is bought at the cost of validity. They recommend encouraging interviewers to play a more normal conversational role, so that respondents may correctly grasp the concepts used in the questions. This article raised considerable discussion; perhaps its ideas would not have seemed so novel to the readership of a more social-scientific journal. Schaeffer (1991) balances such considerations against the need for some uni- formity if the answers are to be added to give a total. She points out that “artificiality” in the interview situation does not necessarily mean that the answers given are less valid, but that to elicit them as intended, the researcher needs to bear in mind the rules of interaction that the respondent brings to the situa- tion. Schober and Conrad (1997) have shown that less standardized and more conversational interview- ing can markedly increase the accuracy of the responses given—by, for instance, allowing the inter- viewer to help the respondents fit their relatively complicated circumstances into the categories of answer provided by the researcher. They illustrate the self-defeating extremes to which the pursuit of the uniform stimulus had gone, being used to forbid even the provision of guidance that would ensure that the meanings sought by the researcher were indeed conveyed in the answers chosen. It is notice- able that most of the examples used in these recent discussions are drawn from large-scale national sur- veys, often carried out for governmental purposes and with fact-finding as a key aim. This reflects the increasing tendency of academics doing quantitative work to use high-quality data not created for their own purposes; that has led discussion in the direc- tions suitable to the character of such work, but not equally applicable to the whole range of surveys. Schober and Conrad’s (1997) study exemplifies a recurrent pattern in which research shows that 4 Some kinds of error, such as mistakes in following the schedule’s instructions on which question to put next, have been eliminated by the computer-assisted methods now commonly used in survey organizations. Lyberg and Kasprzyk (1991, p. 257) point out, though, that computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI)-specific errors may still arise.
- 35. 20 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT commonly taught practices do not necessarily have the intended effects. That the limited benefits of “rapport” for data quality have repeatedly been (re)discovered suggests that, for whatever reasons, practice has not always followed research-based conclusions and that the folklore of the field has been powerful. Recommendations on the relations between interviewer and respondent have changed considerably, whether the aim is rapport or just access. One of the earliest statements on this subject is by Bingham and Moore (1931): “The interviewee is frank when he feels that his own point of view is appreciated and respected, that the interviewer has some right to the information, and that the ques- tions are relevant and not impertinent” (p. 11). This is rationalistic, corresponding to the assump- tion that the respondent is of relatively high status and is being approached for factual information; this is not typical of later discussion with other assumptions. When the interview is seen as deep and richly qualitative, or as a large-scale survey interview with members of the general public, other approaches follow. The early survey literature typi- cally suggested that rapport needed to be estab- lished to get access and cooperation but that the interviewer should also when questioning appear unshockable, have no detectable personal opinions, and behind the front of friendliness be objective and scientific.5 Not every writer offered as business- like a conception of rapport as Goode and Hatt (1952), for whom rapport existed when the respon- dent “has accepted the research goals of the inter- viewer, and actively seeks to help him in obtaining the necessary information” (p. 190), but the ideal was clearly an instrumental relationship. Before the modern survey was fully developed, it was often not seen as so important to keep the inter- viewer as a person out of the picture. Lundberg (1942) suggests as ways of getting an informant “started” some devices—“to refer to important friends of the informant as if one were quite well acquainted with them; to tell of one’s own experi- ences or problems and ask the informant’s advice or reactions to them” (pp. 365–366)—of just the kind that survey organizations train their interviewers to avoid. Kinsey’s advocacy of a less impersonal and unbiased style was quoted above (Kinsey et al., 1948). Elements of such an approach have now come round again in recent qualitative work, where there has often been a sociopolitical commitment to treat the respondent as an equal, which is taken to imply not playing a detached role while expecting the other party to reveal the self: We can no longer remain objective, faceless inter- viewers, but become human beings and must dis- close ourselves, learning about ourselves as we try tolearnabouttheother. . . . Aslongas . . . research- ers continue to treat respondents as unimportant, faceless individuals whose only contribution is to fill one more boxed response, the answers we . . . get will be commensurable with the ques- tions we ask and the way we ask them. (Fontana Frey, 1994, p. 374) This line can, however, be presented in a more manip- ulative way, as here in Douglas’s (1985) unique style: Most Goddesses [beautiful women] feel the need for a significant amount of self-disclosure before they will . . . reveal their innermost selves in their most self-discrediting aspects. When they seem to be proceeding to the inner depths with reluctance, I normally try to lead the way with a significant bit of self-discrediting self-disclosure. (p. 122) Research on their perceptions of each other has shown that respondents do not necessarily detect the interviewer’s biases or manipulative strategies; to that extent, the impulse is moral or political rather than scientific. The barrier between the role and the self is broken down—or is it? Is this just another mode of instrumental presentation of self, as fellow- human rather than as detached professional? Holstein and Gubrium (1995) do not stress the interviewer’s revelation of self but treat the inter- viewer and the respondent as equal in another way, since both are creating meanings; both are also “active,” rather than the respondent being seen as just the passive object of the interviewer’s attempted control. For them, there is no such thing as the one correct answer to be found, but a range of possibili- ties depending on which of the respondent’s resources and potential standpoints are brought to 5 This is another area where CATI must have changed the issues, though it has been little written about from that point of view; perhaps the physical separation from the respondent has placed the focus on control of the interviewer rather than on understanding the respondent’s reactions to the situation.
- 36. Chapter 1. The History of the Interview ◆ 21 bear. The role of the interviewer is “to provide an environment conducive to the production of the range and complexity of meanings that address rel- evant issues and not be confined by predetermined agendas” (p. 17). The resultant conversation is not necessarily less authentic than “real,” normal ones, though the use of interviewers may be justified by their capacity to raise for comment matters on which everyday conversation is rare. Coding, by both inter- viewer and respondent, is seen as “endogenous to the interview” (p. 66), implicit in the emergent cat- egories that they develop together to describe expe- rience. When the materials collected in this way are put together to make a broader picture,6 it is cer- tainly not done in quantitative terms, and this is clearly not an approach intended to be of use toward fact-finding or hypothesis-testing goals. A method of data collection that cannot make plausible claims to validity is of no use, so it is sur- prising that a wide range of levels of concern for validity, and conceptions of it, have been shown in relation to interviews. It has commonly been agreed that less rigidly structured methods may score higher on validity, though this has to be traded off against the greater reliability of the more structured meth- ods. Concern with the problem has come more from those who employ other people to do their inter- views; those who carry out their own interviews have usually seemed to regard their validity as self- evident and not requiring checks. This sometimes reflects a hostility to “science” or “positivism” preva- lent among qualitative researchers. However, in the literature of the standard survey too there has been surprisingly little concern shown about validity as such. The question of the substantive meaningfulness of the data, except on purely factual questions, somehow gets elided in the concern about inter- viewer error and questionnaire improvement. It is, of course, in the survey, as in other contexts, difficult to demonstrate validity, though some authors have suggested ways of doing so. Maccoby and Maccoby (1954) proposed a traditional mea- sure: “It remains to be seen whether unstandardized interviews have sufficiently greater validity so that ratings based upon them will predict criterion vari- ables better than will ratings based on standardized interviews” (p. 454). Where there is a clear criterion to use as the standard of prediction, as in voting results, it has been used, but for many topics there is none. There has been some discussion in terms of whether the respondent is telling the truth. Kinsey et al. (1948) take an inimitably robust stand on this: It has been asked how it is possible for an inter- viewer to know whether people are telling the truth. . . . As well ask a horse trader how he knows when to close a bargain! The experienced interviewer knows when he has established a suf- ficient rapport to obtain an honest record. (p. 43) Even if one accepts the horse-trading approach as adequate, it could only be applied in relatively deep and unstructured types of interview, where the inter- viewer has time to establish a relationship. For the “depth” or psychoanalytical style, of course, the issue of validity has not arisen in the same sense, since the focus has been not on correct factuality but on the interpretations made by the analyst. Warner and Lunt (1941) take a different approach: The information gathered about social relations is always social fact if the informant believes it, and it is always fact of another kind if he tells it and does not believe it. If the informant does not believe it, the lie he tells is frequently more valu- able as a lead to understanding his behavior or that of others than the truth. (p. 52) They assume the researcher to have ways of knowing that the respondent is lying. In intensive, long-term studies of a community, such as Warner and Lunt’s, that is a relatively plausible assumption; Vidich and Bensman (1954), conducting another such study, also report detecting much intentional misrepresen- tation. Plainly, however, in many other cases this assumption would not be met. Galtung (1967) is one of the earliest representa- tives of what might be seen as a truly sociological position, even if it is not one that exactly solves the problem: The spoken word is a social act, the inner thought is not, and the sociologist has good reasons to be most interested and concerned with the former, the psychologist perhaps with the latter. But this only transforms the problem from correspondence 6 A remarkable discussion of the choice of good respondents (as distinct from a quantitatively representative sample) that, despite its sophisticated style, is reminiscent of some of the much earlier literature on informants.
- 37. 22 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT between words and thoughts to that of how rep- resentative the interview situation is as social intercourse. (p. 124) Holstein and Gubrium (1995) take this one step fur- ther and, informed by ethnomethodological perspec- tives, stop worrying about such representativeness: One cannot expect answers on one occasion to replicate those on another because they emerge from different circumstances of production. Similarly, the validity of answers derives not from their correspondence to meanings held within the respondent but from their ability to convey situ- ated experiential realities in terms that are locally comprehensible. (p. 9) This takes it that there is no stable underlying reality to identify, thus in a sense abolishing the problem. Mishler’s (1986) emphasis on the interview response as a narrative in which the respondent makes sense of and gives meaning to experience has a similar stance. The issue has thus moved from the interview as an adequate measure of a reality external to it to the content of the interview as of interest in its own right. This is a long way from the concerns of some survey researchers to get correct reports of bath- room equipment or medical treatment received. Each of the extremes of the discussion may write about “the interview,” but they have had in mind different paradigms and different research topics and have shown little interest in the problems relevant to the needs and concerns of the other. The Historical Pattern Not all the work reviewed fits into a clear historical pattern, and empirical studies may be idiosyncratic in relation to the methodological literature, but none- theless we sketch a broad trajectory that thinking has followed. The dates suggested are not meant as pre- cise; different workers move at different speeds. Up to the later 1930s, the “interview” was distin- guished from the “questionnaire,” which was gener- ally thought of as for self-completion; if it was administered by an interviewer, her contribution was not seen as requiring serious attention. The “inter- view” was unstructured, if with an agenda, and wide-ranging; the interviewer was likely to be the researcher. Subjects were often used as informants with special knowledge to pass on, rather than as units to be quantified. This kind of interview was not strongly distinguished from interviews for job selec- tion or journalism or, when interviewing down, for social casework. (Indeed, data from social work interviews in particular were widely used by social scientists, at a time when the idea of professors themselves going into the field was a new one.) Little concern with reliability or validity was shown. A few rules of thumb were suggested for success. It was assumed that subjects might not accept overt inter- viewing, so some concealment was necessary. In parallel to this, however, much work was done under rubrics such as “life history,” “fieldwork,” and “case study,” which we might call “interviewing” even if the writers did not. For these, there was serious dis- cussion of technical matters such as how to keep the respondent talking without affecting the direction of the conversation too much (see, e.g., Palmer, 1928, pp. 171–175). Meanwhile, political polling and market research were developing. Here, interviews were conducted by forces of interviewers instructed and supervised from the center. The private research agency came into existence, alongside developments within gov- ernment. The modern “survey” began to emerge and, hence, concern with the technique of interview- ing with a relatively elaborate fixed schedule. The work done was often to be published in the newspa- pers or was of direct commercial interest to the cli- ent, which meant that predictions might be testable and numerical accuracy became important. There were also repeated studies of similar kinds carried out by the same agencies. Reliability began to be taken seriously as the data to evaluate it were avail- able, and this led to concern with “interviewer effects” and the control of the interviewing force. The development of ideas about sampling was also important, because it was only when, in the late 1930s, it began to be seen as desirable to have nationally representative samples that the issue of how to control a large, scattered, and not very highly trained body of interviewers came to the fore. Whatever the intellectual preferences of the survey- ors, the realities of dealing with such a labor force had weight. Less was left to the interviewer’s initia- tive, and training became more detailed and serious. Much of the work was done by psychologists, so an experimental and stimulus–response model was
- 38. Chapter 1. The History of the Interview ◆ 23 influential, and attitudes rather than factual informa- tion became a focus of interest. Then the hothouse atmosphere of wartime research brought different strands of work together, and the modern survey emerged fully. There were controversies between structured and unstructured approaches, or open and closed questions, and differ- ent teams developed different styles, but there was much cooperation and a consensus on many practical and technical issues. Nonexperimental aspects of psychology were prominent as inspiration; on the level of technique, Rogers’s “nondirective” approach, and psychoanalytic approaches were popular in the more qualitative styles. For those in the lead on sur- veys, question construction, sampling, and scaling became of more interest than interviewing as such. Researchers not in the survey world developed their own detailed qualitative techniques, often planned to deal with their particular subject matter; some were heavily criticized by the methodologists from the perspectives that they had now developed. After the war, new practices were incorporated into textbooks and training procedures (see, e.g., Sheatsley, 1951). Systematic research on interviewing started, and it showed that some of the folk wisdom was unfounded. Social scientists turned to the survey as a major method, and it became a standard practice. Those out of sympathy defended alternatives, often under the banner of “participant observation” (Becker Geer, 1957), which was differentiated from the survey by laying stress more on direct observation than on questioning, though certainly much “conver- sation with a purpose” (a frequently cited definition of“interview”)waspartoftheobservation.Discussions of participant observation technique have, though, given attention to the social relations involved in such conversation rather than to the fine detail of what takes place in the encounter; obviously, repeated con- tacts with the same subjects raise different issues. Soon surveys were widespread enough for non- methodologists to take an interest in them—though often a skeptical one. From the later 1960s, the upheaval in the political and theoretical interests of the time was related to interviewing, and work was done on its implicit assumptions in areas such as epistemology. Much more interest was shown in its social relations; this was the heyday of reflexivity and autobiographical accounts of research. Specialist work on interviewing particular groups (children, elites) also started to be written as the general appli- cation of survey method brought to light the special problems involved. By the 1970s, interviewing was taken for granted as an established practice in the survey world; special- ists continued with increasingly sophisticated meth- odological research and refined details of method still further, often in relation to new technologies using telephones and/or computers. (Meanwhile, for mem- bers of the general public, the idea of polling with quantitative results, and of the role to be played by respondents, became established; Back Cross, 1982,7 and Igo, 2007, discuss what this meant.) The “qualitative” world became ideologically more sepa- rate and developed its own discussions, which showed little concern with the technical issues it might have in common with the survey world. Feminists often saw qualitative methods as particularly appropriate to women as subjects and developed ideas about their special requirements. The barrier between inter- viewer and respondent was attacked, and efforts were made to define ways of co-opting respondents rather than using them; whether these have been successful, and how it feels from the respondent’s point of view, has hardly been investigated. There is a sense in which interviewing has come full circle. Although in its early beginnings the typical stance toward mass respondents was that of the social worker rather than of the social equal, for some sociologists the interviewer again has a high degree of freedom and initiative and may make direct use of personal experience. In much of the survey world, however, the pattern has been different. From a starting point where the inter- viewer’s behavior was not much programmed, it has gone through a phase of high programming with relatively unsophisticated techniques to one where the areas formerly left unexamined, such as probing, are themselves intended to be pro- grammed. What really happens in the field might not live up to those hopes—but less was done “in 7 “One can say that the interview proceeds best if the social situation of the interview has been solidified in the culture, if survey research is an accepted institution, and if people have definite expectations of the performance in the interview. If these social conditions are met, the interview can proceed smoothly, while the respondent can disregard the characteristics of the interviewer or the nature of the questions” (pp. 201–202).
- 39. 24 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT the field.” The telephone interviewing system opened up fresh possibilities of near-total surveil- lance and control of interviewer behavior. Thus, the flexibility needed for adaptation to the respon- dent’s needs became no longer an area of initiative. Meanwhile, however, another strand of develop- ment, the cognitive approach, has reopened some of the earlier possibilities of unprogrammed con- versational initiative by the survey interviewer, showing an interesting convergence between other- wise very separate areas of work. Quantification can only be justified if it is in some sense instances of the same thing that are added up— but there is room for variation in how precisely uniform the stimuli need to be—and not all research has had goals to which quantification is appropriate. For exploratory or descriptive research, not aiming to test specific hypotheses, varying stimuli could be desirable if they help produce responses of more detail, precision, validity, and felt adequacy for the respondent—as long as those responses are not then fed into precodes. If the text of the answer is to be processed later, there are problems of recording and analysis, but many problems shift from the inter- viewing to the analysis stage. In the end, therefore, discussion cannot be confined to the interaction between interviewer and respondent. Some of the changes over time in interviewing theory and practice have arisen internally, from methodological concerns, though which ones have been salient has depended on the topics studied and on the organizational and technological framework within which the studies have taken place. Other changes have responded to broader intellectual movements and to agendas defined in sociopolitical rather than methodological terms. Strong normative statements about method have often rested on assumptions appropriate to their original context but less relevant to other kinds of work. The inter- view remains an area of richly diverse practice about which few convincing generalizations can be made. We cannot tell which of the many current variants will appear to the later historian to have played a significant role or whether history will recognize all the distinctions made between them as meaningful. References Adorno, T. W ., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., Sanford, R. N. (1950). The authoritarian personality. New York, NY: Harper Row. Atkinson, R. (1998). The life story interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Back, K. W ., Cross, T. S. (1982). Response effects of role- restricted respondent characteristics. In W . Dijkstra J. van der Zouwen (Eds.), Response behaviour in the survey-interview (pp. 189–207). London, England: Academic Press. Bales, K. (1991). Charles Booth’s survey of Life and Labour of the People in London 1889–1903. In M. Bulmer, K. Bales, K. K. Sklar (Eds.), The social survey in historical perspective 1880–1940 (pp. 66–110). Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer sity Press. Becker, H. S., Geer, B. (1957). Participant observation andinterviewing:Acomparison.HumanOrganization, 16, 28–32. Bennett, J. (1981). Oral history and delinquency: The rhetoric of criminology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Biemer, P . P ., Groves, R. M., Lyberg, L. E., Mathiowetz, N. A., Sudman, S. (Eds.). (1991). Measurement errors in surveys. New York, NY: Wiley. Bingham, W . V . D., Moore, B. V . (1931). How to inter- view. New York, NY: Harper. Bradburn, N. M., Sudman, S. (1979). Improving inter- view method and questionnaire design. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Brenner, M. (1982). Response effects of “role-restricted” characteristics of the interviewer. In W . Dijkstra J. van der Zouwen (Eds.), Response behaviour in the survey-interview (pp. 131–165). London, England: Academic Press. Cannell, C. F., Kahn, R. L. (1953). The collection of data by interviewing. In L. Festinger D. Katz (Eds.), Research methods in the behavioral sciences (pp. 327–380). New York, NY: Dryden Press. Cannell, C. F., Miller, P . V ., Oksenberg, L. (1981). Research on interviewing techniques. In S. Lienhardt (Ed.), Sociological methodology 1981 (pp. 389–437). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Cantril, H. (1947). Gauging public opinion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Christie, R., Jahoda, M. (Eds.). (1954). Studies in the scope and method of “The Authoritarian Personality.” Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Cicourel, A. V . (1964). Method and measurement in sociol- ogy. New York, NY: Free Press. Cochran, W . G., Mosteller, F., Tukey, J. W . (1954). Statistical problems of the Kinsey report. Washington, DC: American Statistical Association. Converse, J. M. (1987). Survey research in the US: Roots and emergence, 1890–1960. Berkeley: University of California Press. Converse, J. M., Schuman, H. (1974). Conversations at random: Survey research as interviewers see it. New York, NY: Wiley.
- 40. Chapter 1. The History of the Interview ◆ 25 Denzin, N. K. (1970). The research act in sociology. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Denzin, N. K., Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Dexter, L. A. (1970). Elite and specialized interviewing. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Dijkstra, W ., van der Zouwen, J. (Eds.). (1982). Response behaviour in the survey-interview. London, England: Academic Press. Douglas, J. D. (1985). Creative interviewing. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Fontana, A., Frey, J. H. (1994). Interviewing: The art of science. In N. K. Denzin Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 361–376). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Fowler, F. J. (1991). Reducing interviewer-related error through interviewer training, supervision and other means. In P. B. Biemer, R. M. Groves, L. E. Lyberg, N. A. Mathiowetz, S. Sudman (Eds.), Measurement errors in surveys (pp. 260–279). New York, NY: Wiley. Fry, C. L. (1934). 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- 41. 26 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT Selltiz, C., Jahoda, M., Deutsch, M., Cook, S. W . (1965). Research methods in social relations. London, England: Methuen. Sheatsley, P . B. (1951). The art of interviewing and a guide to interviewer selection and training. In M. Jahoda, M. Deutsch, S. W . Cook (Eds.), Research methods in social relations (Pt. 2, pp. 463–492). New York, NY: Dryden Press. Sjoberg, G., Nett, R. (1968). A methodology for social research. New York, NY: Harper Row. Suchman, L., Jordan, B. (1990). Interactional troubles in face-to-face survey interviews. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 85, 232–241. Taylor, S. J., Bogdan, R. (1984). Introduction to qualita- tive research methods. New York, NY: Wiley. Turner, C., Martin, E. (Eds.). (1984). Surveying sub- jective phenomena. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. University of Michigan. (1954). Manual for interviewers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Survey Research Center. Vidich, A., Bensman, J. (1954). The validity of field data. Human Organization, 13, 20–27. Warner, W . L., Lunt, P . S. (1941). The social life of a mod- ern community. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Young, P . V . (1935). Interviewing in social work. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Young, P . V . (1939). Scientific social surveys and research. New York, NY: Prentice Hall. Young, P . V . (1949). Scientific social surveys and research (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Prentice Hall.
- 42. ◆ 27 2 The research interview was once viewed as a straightforward method of data collection. Respondents were contacted, interviews scheduled, a location determined, ground rules set, and the interviews begun. Questions were designed to elicit answers in an anticipatable form from respondents until interview protocols were com- plete. The respondent’s job was to provide infor- mation pertinent to the research project. Knowing his or her role, the respondent waited until the questions were posed before answering. Duties did not extend to managing the encounter or raising queries of his or her own. This was the interview- er’s responsibility. If the respondent asked ques- tions, they were treated as requests for clarification. This model of the interview informed social research for decades. Most people are now well acquainted with what it takes to play either role, recognize what it means to interview someone, and broadly know the aims of the interview process. The requirements of interviewing are familiar, whether they take the form of demographic ques- tionnaires, product use surveys, Internet polls, or health inventories. The roles and expectations cross the borders of scientific and professional interviewing. Recently, researchers have begun to scrutinize the traditional model’s epistemological bearings (see, e.g., Denzin Lincoln, 2005, 2011). A more reflexive appreciation of knowledge production in general, not just interview knowledge, has prompted a reassessment of the procedures of empirical inquiry, including the interview. Given its centrality in a recent turn toward more sophis- ticated analyses of knowledge production (see Chase, 2011), the interview can no longer be viewed as a unilaterally guided means of excavat- ing information. It is being reevaluated in terms of its structure, interactional dynamics, situational responsiveness, and discursive dimensions. ◆ Jaber F. Gubrium and James A. Holstein NARRATIVE PRACTICE AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF INTERVIEW SUBJECTIVITY
- 43. 28 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT This chapter discusses the transformation of how researchers conceive of respondent and interview roles, the nature of interview information, and the relationship of the information to society. These themes are traced through critical commentary on models of interview subjectivity and their relation to narrative practice in the interview context. Reconceptualizing interview roles in terms of narra- tive practice presents a more active version of how interview participants actually operate. Their agency is recast as artful, collaborative, and suffused with discourse. If the responsive, yet relatively passive, respondent and the inquiring interviewer once char- acterized participant subjectivity, this is now consid- ered deceptively simple. It has given way to a more interactionally sensitive and constructive perspec- tive, featuring the active narrativity of the enterprise. The chapter explores the implications of this trans- formation for how interview data might be con- strued and analyzed. Public Opinion and Surveillance Despite its familiarity, the interview is a relatively recent phenomenon and was once figured to be strange in the everyday scheme of things. As a sys- tematic method for obtaining experiential knowl- edge, it is the product of a mere century of development (Platt, 2002). Undergirding the emer- gence of the interview was a new understanding that the individual person—each and every one of them— is an important source of knowledge. We can imag- ine, of course, that questioning and answering have been with us since the beginning of communication. As long as we have had parental authority, parents have questioned their children regarding their where- abouts and activities. Similarly, suspects and prison- ers have been interrogated since suspicion and incarceration have been a part of human affairs. Healers, priests, employers, writers, and many oth- ers seeking knowledge about daily life for practical purposes have all engaged in interview-like inquiry. Yet a century ago, it would have seemed peculiar for a complete stranger to approach us—any one of us, from the humblest to the most celebrated—and to ask for permission to discuss personal matters just for the sake of knowledge. Questioning and answer- ing was more practical. Daily life was, in many ways, more intimate; everyday affairs were conducted on a face-to-face basis only between those well acquainted with each other. According to Mark Benney and Everett Hughes (1956), “The interview [as a behav- ioral format] is a relatively new kind of encounter in the history of human relations” (p. 193). It is not the asking and answering of questions that was new. Rather, the innovation was a preplanned conversa- tion between strangers from all walks of life devoted to information gathering without an immediate pur- pose in view (Benney Hughes, 1956). Especially after World War II, with the emergence of standardized survey interviews, individuals became accustomed to offering their opinions for the sake of information gathering. “Public opinion” became a newfound and anonymous forum within which individuals could forthrightly express their most private thoughts and deepest feelings with the expectation that their published opinions were anonymous but important. No matter how insignifi- cant their station in life, they were treated as equal elements of populations of interest. Each person had a voice, and it was imperative that each voice be heard. Seeking the gamut of thoughts and senti- ments, the research interview democratized opinion. THE MODERN TEMPER Guided by the new “modern temper,” the times progressively embraced routine conversational exchanges between strangers (Riesman Benney, 1956). When they encountered an interview situa- tion, people weren’t immediately defensive about being asked for information about their lives, their associates, and even their heartfelt sentiments. They readily recognized and accepted two new roles asso- ciated with talking about oneself and one’s life to strangers, (1) the role of interviewer and (2) the role of respondent, the centerpieces of the now familiar interview encounter. Interviewing helped spread the understanding that all individuals have the wherewithal to offer a meaningful description of, or a set of opinions about, their lives. Experiential knowledge was no longer the principal responsibility of high-status commentators—of tribal chiefs, village headmen, or the educated classes—who in other times and places spoke for one and all. As Pertti Alasuutari (1998) explains, it wasn’t so long ago that when one wanted to know something important about society or daily life, one asked those allegedly “in the know”
- 44. Chapter 2. Narrative Practice and the Transformation of Interview Subjectivity ◆ 29 (also see Platt, 2002). In contrast to what seems self- evident today—that is, questioning those individuals whose experiences are under consideration—the obvious and efficient choice was to ask informed citizens to provide answers to research questions. Those considered to be properly knowledgeable in the subject matter, Alasuutari notes, were viewed as informants. Not everyone’s opinion counted, cer- tainly not the opinions of the “humbler classes” (see Mayhew, 1851, pp. xv–xvi). But the modern inter- view changed this, giving rise to the importance of all opinion. (See, e.g., the proliferation of Internet interviews and surveys that derive entertainment value from the valorization of any and all publicly offered opinions.) BIOPOLITICS Along with the democratization of opinion came increasing life surveillance, what Michel Foucault (Dreyfus Rabinow, 1982) calls “biopolitics.” The survey interview became an efficient means of infor- mation gathering for populations of individuals. Foucault’s (1973, 1975, 1977, 1978) seminal studies of the discursive organization of identity shed impor- tant light on the development of individualized sub- jectivity. Time and again, in institutional contexts ranging from the medical clinic and the mental asy- lum to the prison, Foucault showed how “technolo- gies of the self” created and transformed sources of information about who and what we are (see Dreyfus Rabinow, 1982; Foucault, 1988). The phrase refers to the concrete practices through which a sense of, and information about, individual identity is constructed. The notion that each and every one of us has an ordinary self, capable of reflecting on his or her experience, individually describing it, and communicating opinions about it and his or her sur- rounding world, created a new subjectivity worth communicating about. The technologies Foucault especially had in view were the concrete, socially and historically located institutional practices, including individual inter- views, through which the new democratic and indi- vidualized sense of who and what we are as human beings was being constructed. Prompted, this indi- vidualized subject would duly offer his or her out- look and sentiments within the self-scrutinizing regimens of what Foucault (1991) called “govern- mentality,” the unwitting archipelago of surveillance practices suffusing modern life. As James Miller (1993, p. 299) points out, governmentality extends well beyond the political and carceral, to include pedagogical, spiritual, and religious dimensions (also see Garland, 1997). If Bentham’s original panopti- con was an efficient form of prison surveillance, panopticism in the modern temper became the wide- spread self-scrutiny that “governs” all aspects of life in the very commonplace questions and answers we continually apply to ourselves both in our inner thoughts and in public inquiries. Now formalized in opinion surveys and increasingly in media inter- views, these are inquiries about what we personally think and feel about every conceivable topic, includ- ing our most private actions. The research interview was a constitutive part of this development. Indeed, this interview may be seen as one of the 20th century’s most distinctive tech- nologies of the self. It helped scientize the individual- ized self. As Nikolas Rose (1990, 1997) has shown in the context of the psychological sciences, the shap- ing of the private self, along with its descriptive data, was invented right along with the technologies we now associate with behavioral and attitude measure- ment. Scientific surveillance such as psychological testing, case assessments, and individual interviews of all kinds have created the experiencing and informing respondent we take for granted as the subject of our inquiries. LEARNING FROM STRANGERS The title of Robert Weiss’s (1994) popular how-to book on interviewing, Learning from Strangers, affirms the importance of anonymous opinion seek- ing. Behind each bit of advice on how to interview effectively is the understanding that every stranger- respondent one encounters as an interviewer is someone worth listening to. The respondent is some- one who can provide amazingly detailed descrip- tions of his or her thoughts, feelings, and activities— presumably better than anyone else—if one asks and listens carefully. The trick, in Weiss’s judgment, is to present a concerned attitude, expressed within a well- planned and encouraging format. The aim is to derive as objectively as possible the respondent’s own opinions on the subject matter, opinions that will readily be offered up and elaborated on by the respondent when circumstances are conducive to doing so and the proper solicitations extended.
- 45. 30 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT The full range of individual experiences is acces- sible through interviewing, according to Weiss (1994), because the interview is a virtual window on experience. It is its own panopticon. In answering the question of why we interview, Weiss offers a compelling portrayal of the democratization of expe- riential knowledge: Interviewing gives us access to the observations of others. Through interviewing we can learn about places we have not been and could not go and about settings in which we have not lived. If we have the right informants, we can learn about the quality of neighborhoods or what happens in families or how organizations set their goals. Interviewing can inform us about the nature of social life. We can learn about the work of occupa- tions and how people fashion careers, about cul- tures and the values they sponsor, and about the challenges people confront as they lead their lives. We can learn also, through interviewing, about people’s interior experiences. We can learn what people perceived and how they interpreted their perceptions. We can learn how events affect their thoughts and feelings. We can learn the meanings to them of their relationships, their families, their work, and their selves. We can learn about all the experiences, from joy through grief, that together constitute the human condition. (p. 1) The Interview Society Today, interviewing is ubiquitous. Think of how much is learned about people and their experiences by way of interviews, across a broad spectrum of venues and beyond the realm of social research. Interviews, for example, are an important source of celebrity, notoriety, and entertainment. News media interviewers introduce us to presidents and power brokers, who not only provide a mass audience with their thoughts, feelings, policies, and opinions but also cultivate fame in the process. The process impli- cates the deepest secrets and sentiments, not just the political, economic, or social savvy of high-profile figures. Interviewers like Barbara Walters or Oprah Winfrey plumb the emotional depths of luminaries and VIPs from across the political and entertainment gamut. To this, add television talk show hosts of all stripes, who daily invite ordinary men and women, the emotionally tortured, and the behaviorally bizarre to “spill their guts” to millions. Questions and answers fly back and forth on the Internet, where blogs, chat rooms, Facebook, and Twitter are as inquisitive and intimate as back porches, bars, and bedrooms. The interview is a premier experiential conduit of the electronic age. Interviews extend to professional realms as well. Countless institutions employ interviewing to gener- ate useful and often crucial information. Physicians conduct medical interviews with their patients to formulate diagnoses and monitor progress in treat- ment (see Zoppi Epstein, 2002). Employers inter- view job applicants, guided by consultants who formularize the process (see Latham Millman, 2002). Psychotherapy always has been a largely interview-based human service, perhaps more diver- sified in its perspectives than any other professional interviewing (see Miller, de Shazer, De Jong, 2002). Even forensic investigation has come a long way from the interview practices of the Inquisition, where giving the “third degree” was the last resort of interrogation (see McKenzie, 2002). As interviewing became pervasive, an interview- ing industry developed. Survey research, public opinion polling, and marketing research are in the vanguard. This crosses over as survey research is increasingly employed for commercial purposes. The interviewing industry now extends from individual product use inquiries to group-interviewing services, where focus groups are used to quickly establish everything from consumer product evaluations to voter preferences (see Morgan, 2002). David Silverman (1993, 1997) argues that we live in an “interview society,” in which interviews are central to making sense of life (see Gubrium Holstein, 2002). The interview process and the interview society are reflexively related, the process giving discursive shape to the social form and the social form prompting us to present who and what we are writ large in its terms. Resonating with the modern temper and governmentality, Silverman (1997) identifies three requisite conditions for this development. First, the interview society requires a particular form of informing subjectivity, “the emer- gence of the self as a proper object of narration” (p. 248). Second, there is a need for the “technology of the confessional.” The interview society requires a procedure for securing the narrative by-product of “confession,” which, as Silverman points out, extends
- 46. Chapter 2. Narrative Practice and the Transformation of Interview Subjectivity ◆ 31 not only to “friend[ship] with the policeman, but with the priest, the teacher, and the ‘psy’ profes- sional” (p. 248). Third, and perhaps most important, a mass technology must be widely available and eas- ily accessible. The interviewing ethos and its techni- cal realization must be recognizably in place throughout society, so that virtually everyone is familiar with the goals of interviewing as well as what it takes to participate in an interview. Not only do communications media and human service professionals get their information from inter- views, but it’s been estimated that fully 90% of all social science investigations exploit interview data (Briggs, 1986). Internet surveys now provide instant questions and answers about every imaginable sub- ject; we are asked for our inclinations and opinions regarding everything from political candidates to sug- gestions for which characters on TV serials should be retained or removed. The interview society is a con- temporary fixture, flourishing as a leading milieu for addressing the subjective contours of daily living. The prominence of the interview has served to promote the individualized subject (Atkinson Silverman, 1997) as a key feature of the interview society. Ultimately, there is a fundamentally romantic impulse undergirding the interview enterprise. If we desire to really know the individual subject, then we must provide a means of hearing his or her authentic voice. “Really,” “authentic,” and “voice” are the bywords. Superficial inquiry and description are inadequate. Accordingly, interviewers are prompted to explore the deeper emotional grounds of the self by way of open-ended or in-depth interviewing. While, technically, these are merely alternative ways of structuring the interview process, Atkinson and Silverman (1997) argue that the words flag an epis- temological understanding, namely, that the true voice of the subject is internal and comes through only when it is not externally screened or otherwise narratively fettered. The interview society, it seems, is the province of subjects harboring deep inner meanings, selves, and sentiments, whose stories retain the truths of the matters in question. But Atkinson and Silverman (1997) caution that authenticity should not be taken as ultimate experien- tial truth. Authenticity itself is a methodically con- structed product of communicative practice (see Gubrium Holstein, 2009b). Authenticity has a constructive technology of its own, in other words. Recognizable signs of emotional expression and scenic practices such as direct eye contact and intimate ges- tures are widely taken to reveal deep truths about individual experience (also see Gubrium Holstein, 1997, 2009a; Holstein Gubrium, 2000). We “do” deep, authentic experiences as much as we “do” opin- ion offering in the course of the interview. It is not simply a matter of procedure or the richness of data that turns researchers, the interview society, and its truth-seeking audiences to in-depth and open-ended interviewing. Rather, discur sive conventions make audible and visible the phenomenal depths of the indi- vidual subject. The Turn to Narrative Practice If experience is increasingly generated and mediated by the interview, everyday reality is also becoming even more narratively formulated. As Charles Briggs (2007) puts it, interview narratives “produce sub- jects, texts, knowledge, and authority” (p. 552). As part of a recent narrative turn, social researchers aim to document and understand the discursive complex- ity of narratives of all sorts (see Chase 2005, 2011; Gubrium Holstein, 2009a; Hyvärinen, 2008; Polkinghorne, 1988, 1995; Riessman, 2008). Texts and textual analysis have become de rigueur in the social sciences. Briggs and many others are especially interested in how interviews and their stories are assembled and communicated and how they circu- late in various domains of society. The diversity is stunning, as particulars are worked up and presented in specific settings, performing different functions and having varied consequences. Most researchers acknowledge the interactional bases of interviewing (see Conrad Schober, 2008; Warren Karner, 2005), but the technical literature typically stresses the need to keep conversational bias in check. Guides to interviewing—especially those oriented to standardized surveys—are primar- ily concerned with maximizing the flow of valid, reliable information while minimizing distortions of what the respondent knows (Fowler Mangione, 1990; Gorden, 1987). But a heightened sensitivity to the constitutive properties of communication—char- acteristic of poststructuralist, postmodernist, con- structionist, and ethnomethodological inquiry—has refocused attention on the in situ activeness of inter- views (e.g., Hootkoop-Steenstra, 2000; Kvale, 1996). These perspectives view meaning as socially
- 47. 32 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT constituted; experience is the product of the actions undertaken to produce and understand it (see Cicourel, 1964, 1974; Garfinkel, 1967). Treating interviewing as a social encounter in which knowl- edge is actively formed and shaped implies that the interview is not so much a neutral conduit or source of distortion as an occasion for constructing accounts (Gubrium Holstein, 1995; Holstein Gubrium, 1995; see Warren Karner, 2005). Briggs (1986) explains that the social circumstances of interviews are more than obstacles to respondents’ articulations. Interview situations fundamentally, not incidentally, shape the form and content of what is said. Interviews result in locally pertinent narratives— some longer than others—that represent versions of opinion, persons, events, and the world at large. The circumstances of narrative production are deeply and unavoidably implicated in creating the meanings that ostensibly reside within individual experience. Meaning is not merely directly elicited by skillful questioning, nor is it simply transported through truthful replies; it is strategically assembled in the interview process (Holstein Gubrium, 1995). Interview participants are as much constructive prac- titioners of experiential information as they are repositories or excavators of experiential knowledge. This view reconceptualizes interviews in terms of narrative practice. It suggests the need to concertedly attend to the meaning-making work and communi- cative conditions of interviewing (Gubrium Holstein, 2009a). In this context, researchers pay explicit attention to both the constructive hows and the substantive whats of interviewing, taking care to give them equal status both in the research process and in reporting results (see Gubrium Holstein, 1997, 2009a). Understanding how the narrative pro- cess constructively unfolds in the interview is as critical as appreciating what is selectively composed and preferred. The new understanding, in turn, prompts a reimag ining of the subjects behind interview participants. Regardless of the type of interview, there is always a model of the subject lurking behind those assigned the roles of interviewer and respondent (Holstein Gubrium, 1995). Even the soberly rational and con- trolled survey interview has an implicit subjectivity. By virtue of the subjectivity we project—again regardless of the type of interview—we confer vary- ing senses of agency on interviewers and respon- dents. Differential methodological sensibilities ensue. PASSIVE SUBJECTIVITY Recent developments in research interviewing have begun to transform interview subjectivity from fundamentally passive to concertedly and construc- tively active. In traditional interviewing, respondents are envisioned as being vessels of answers to whom interviewers direct their questions. Respondents are seen as repositories of facts, reflections, opinions, and other traces of experience. This extends to nonre- search interviews. Studs Terkel, journalistic inter- viewer par excellence, worked with the traditional image in place. He simply turned on his tape recorder and asked people to talk. Writing of the interviews he did for his book Working, Terkel (1972) explained, There were questions, of course. But they were casual in nature . . . the kind you would ask while having a drink with someone; the kind he would ask you. . . . In short, it was a conversation. In time, the sluice gates of dammed up hurts and dreams were open. (p. xxv) Others have likened traditional interviewing to “prospecting” for the true facts and feelings residing within the respondent (cf. Kvale, 1996). The image of prospecting turns the interview into a search-and- discovery mission, with the interviewer intent on detecting what is already there within more or less cooperative respondents. The challenge lies in exca- vating information as efficiently as possible, without contaminating it. Highly refined interview techniques streamline, systematize, and sanitize the process. Occasionally, researchers acknowledge that it may be difficult to obtain accurate or honest information, but the information is still imagined, in principle, as embedded in the respondent’s vessel of answers. The challenge is to formulate reliable questions and pro- vide an atmosphere conducive to open communica- tion between interviewer and respondent. The challenge is all up-front, in recalcitrant respondents and feckless interviewers, not in the vessel of answers. In the vessel-of-answers approach, the image of the subject behind the respondent is passive, even while the subject’s respondent may be actively reluc- tant or otherwise difficult to deal with (see Adler Adler, 2002). The subjects themselves are not engaged in the production of knowledge. If the interviewing process goes “by the book” and is non- directive and unbiased, respondents will validly and
- 48. Chapter 2. Narrative Practice and the Transformation of Interview Subjectivity ◆ 33 reliably speak the unadulterated facts of experience. Contamination creeps in from the interview setting, its participants, and their interaction; the imagined subject, in contrast, is pristinely communicative, and under ideal conditions, his or her respondent serves up authentic reports when beckoned. Much of the traditional methodological literature on interviewing deals with the nuances of aligning respondentswithapassivesubjectivity.Understandably, the vessel-of-answers view leads interviewers to be careful in how they ask questions, lest their method of inquiry bias what lies within the subject. This has prompted the development of myriad procedures for obtaining unadulterated information, most of which relyoninterviewerandquestionneutrality.Successfully implementing neutral practices elicits truths held uncontaminated in this vessel of answers. “Good data” result from the successful application of these techniques. This image evokes a complementary model of the subject behind the interviewer. Because the inter- viewer aims to extract information, he or she stands apart from the actual data; the interviewer merely unearthsandcollectswhatisalreadythere.Interviewers are expected to avoid shaping the information they extract. This involves controlling one’s opinions as an interviewer so as not to influence what the passive interview subject can communicate. Interviewers resist supplying particular frames of reference or personal information in the interview. Interviewers are expected to keep themselves and their preferences out of the interview conversation. Neutrality is the standard. Ideally, the interviewer uses his or her interpersonal skills to merely encourage the expression of, but not help construct, the attitudes, sentiments, and behav- iors under consideration. The ideal interviewer is a facilitator, not a coproducer, of pertinent information. This stance relegates the interviewer’s involvement in the interview to a preordained role, one that is con- stant from one interview to another. Should the inter- viewer introduce anything other than variations on prespecified questions, the generalizability of the interview is compromised. This is understandable given the subjectivity in place. ACTIVE SUBJECTIVITY Drawing on a contrasting image of active subjectiv- ity, interview researchers are increasingly appreciating the narrative agency of the subjects behind the par- ticipants, of both respondents and interviewers. Interviews have been reconceptualized as formal occa- sions on which animated subjects collaboratively assemble accounts of experience (see Holstein Gubrium, 1995). Conceiving the interview in this way casts participants as constructive practitioners of the enterprise, who work together to discern and desig- nate the recognizable and orderly features of the experience under consideration (see Bamberg, 2006; Chase, 2011; Clandinin, 2007; Gubrium Holstein, 2009a; Riessman, 2008). This transforms the subject behind the respondent from a repository of information or wellspring of emotions into an animated, productive source of narrative knowledge (see Polkinghorne, 1988). The subject behind the respondent not only retains the details of his or her inner life and social world but, in the very process of offering them up to the inter- viewer, stories the information, assembling it into a coherent account (see Linde, 1993). The respondent can hardly spoil what is subjectively constructed in the first place. Indeed, the active subject pieces expe- rience together before, during, and after occupying the respondent role. He or she is, in a phrase, “always already” a storyteller. Active subjectivity also lurks behind the inter- viewer. His or her participation in the interview process is not ultimately a matter of standardization or constraint; neutrality is not the issue. One cannot very well taint the solicitation of knowledge if its response expectations do not exist in some pure form apart from the process of communication. Rather, the active subject behind the interviewer is a necessary counterpart, a working narrative partner, of the active subject behind the respondent. The subject behind the interviewer is fully engaged in the coproduction of accounts. From the time one identi- fies a research topic, to respondent selection, ques- tioning and answering, and, finally, to the interpretation of responses, the interviewing enter- prise is a narrative project. Contingencies of Narrative Practice Active agency alters the quality of interview com- munication as well as its procedural sensibilities (see Gubrium Holstein, 1997, 2009a)—the ways in which we think about and evaluate what is and is
- 49. 34 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT not permissible within the interview encounter. We can sort these matters in terms of the contingent whats and hows of the interview noted earlier. One family of contingencies centers on the whats of interviewing, dealing with the substantive demands and circumstances of the research project. They provide interpretive signposts and resources for developing interview narratives. The eventual nar- rative is to some degree always already told in the kind of story prompted by the research project through the interviewer. From there, it is construc- tively elaborated in terms that resonate with the salient circumstances involved in and evoked by the interview process. These circumstances constitute the interview’s narrative environment. As inter- viewing practices are deployed, participants are encouraged to narratively link the topics of interest to biographical particulars, taking account of the circumstantial contingencies of the interview pro- cess, producing a subject who both responds to and is affected by the narrative environment. Analysis must take these environments into consideration so that results are not merely coded without regard for context but are also examined for circumstantial and cultural resonances. Another family of contingencies centers on the constructive hows of the interview process. Interview narratives develop within ongoing interaction. The interaction is not merely incidental but is a constitu- tive part of the meanings and accounts that emerge. In this context, it is not in the nature of narratives to simply flow forth, but instead, they are formulated and shaped in collaboration between the respondent and the interviewer. Participants continually con- struct and reflexively modify their roles in the exchange of questions and answers as the interview unfolds. The whats of the interview have to be inter- actionally put into place, managed, and sustained. The interplay between these hows and whats— between narrative work and its narrative environ- ments, respectively—constitutes narrative practice (see Gubrium Holstein, 2009a). NARRATIVE WORK Eliot Mishler’s (1986) discussion of empower- ing interview respondents has set a tone for the growing appreciation of narrative work in the inter- view context—the hows of the interview process. Uncomfortable with the model of the interview as a controlled, asymmetric conversation dominated by the researcher (see Kahn Cannell, 1957; Maccoby Maccoby, 1954), Mishler examines the communi- cative assumptions and implications behind the stan- dardized interview. His aim is to activate the interview by bringing the respondent more fully into the picture, to make the respondent an equal partner in the interview conversation. Rather than modeling the interview as a form of stimulus and response, where the respondent is merely a repository of answers for the formalized questions asked by the interviewer, Mishler (1986) suggests that the interview encounter might more fruitfully be viewed as an interactional accomplish- ment. Noting that interview participants not only ask and answer questions in interviews but simulta- neously engage in “speech activities,” Mishler turns our attention to what participants do with words: Defining interviews as speech events or speech activities, as I do, marks the fundamental contrast between the standard antilinguistic, stimulus- response model and an alternative approach to interviewing as discourse between speakers. Different definitions in and of themselves do not constitute different practices. Nonetheless, this new definition alerts us to the features of interviews that hitherto have been neglected. (pp. 35–36) The key phrase “discourse between speakers” directs us to the integral and inexorable speech activities that even survey interview participants engage in as they ask and answer questions (see Schaeffer Maynard, 2002), but that are treated as merely technical by survey researchers. Informed by conversation analytic sensibilities (see Sacks, 1992a, 1992b; Sacks, Schegloff, Jefferson, 1974), Mishler (1986) turns the reader to the discursive machinery evident in interview transcripts, which provides evi- dence of the way the interviewer and the respondent mutually monitor speech exchanges. Focused on these hows, Mishler discusses the way in which par- ticipants collaboratively construct their senses of the developing interview agenda. Mishler notes, for example, that even token responses by the inter- viewer, such as “Hmmm . . . hmmm,” can serve as a confirmatory marker that the respondent is on the right track for interview purposes, telling a pertinent story. The slightest or most mundane of speech acts
- 50. Chapter 2. Narrative Practice and the Transformation of Interview Subjectivity ◆ 35 is integral to an unfolding narrative. To eliminate them can, in effect, stop the conversation, hence the interview and the account. This observation points to the practical need for interview participants to be linguistically active and responsive, not just stan- dardized and passive. Mishler (1986) explains that each and every point in the series of speech exchanges that constitute an interview is subject to interactional work, activity aimed at producing interview data. This applies to both unstructured and standardized forms of inter- viewing. In contrast to the traditional asymmetric model of the interview, Mishler notes, in practice, that there is considerable communicative reciprocity and collaboration in interviewing: The discourse of the interview is jointly con- structed by interviewer and respondent. . . . Both questions and responses are formulated in, devel- oped through, and shaped by the discourse between interviewers and respondents. . . . An adequate understanding of interviews depends on recogniz- ing how interviewers reformulate questions and how respondents frame answers in terms of their reciprocal understanding as meanings emerge dur- ing the course of an interview. (p. 52) As an alternative, Mishler (1986) advocates more open-ended questions, minimal interruptions of accounts, and the use of respondents’ own linguistic formulations to encourage elaborations of the expe- riences in view. He urges researchers to consider ways in which interviewing can be activated, designed so that the respondent’s voice comes through in greater detail as a way of highlighting respondent relevancies (see Holstein Gubrium, 2011). This concern for voice privileges respondents’ stories; experience, it is argued, takes meaningful shape as we narrate our lives (see, e.g., Chase, 2005; McAdams, 1993). We communicate experiences to each other in the form of stories. Encouraging elabo- ration, interviewers commonly use narrative devices such as “Go on,” “Then what happened?” and so forth, prompting story-like formulations. In Mishler’s (1986) view, it is difficult to imagine how an experi- ence of any kind can be adequately conveyed except in such narrative terms. Mishler (1986) recommends that we reconceptu- alize the research interview to “empower” respon- dents to tell their own stories. The word own is key here and will be of critical concern as we consider the issue of narrative ownership. Empowerment can be gotten by lessening interviewer control in the interview. According to Mishler, the goal is to hear the respondents’ own voices and, in turn, obtain their own story (see Gubrium Holstein, 1997); empowerment, voice, and story are his leading con- cerns. But it is also important to explore the extent to which empowerment allows or provokes the respondent’s own voice or the voicing of alternate subject positions to be expressed. In other words, when the respondent is actively encouraged to freely speak, whose voice do we hear? Does it assure us that we will hear the respondent’s own story? Conferring ownership, and by implication per- sonal authenticity, on a particular narrative voice has major implications for what is taken to be the extent and purview of the narrative work involved. Mishler’s (1986) sense of ownership locates authen- ticity within the narrator or storyteller, diminishing the role of the narrative-producing interaction and the broader narrative environment. This seems to contradict his call for “reciprocal understanding.” If narrative analysis seeks the respondent’s own voice and, as a result, his or her own story, as Mishler encourages, another form of passive image of the subject behind the respondent emerges, one that, in the final analysis, locates the true voice of the subject in the respondent’s own vessel of answers. This effectively reappropriates passive subjectivity. The respondent is conceived as a subject who owns his or her story, who, on his or her own and under equal- izing conditions, can and would narrate that story. The story is uniquely the respondent’s in that only his or her own voice can articulate it authentically; any other voice or format detracts from this. By resurrecting the subject as a vessel of answers, the respondent is reestablished as the ultimate repos- itory of meaningful information, and the interview- er’s job remains to extract that information. The process is now envisioned as interactively coopera- tive rather than interactionally controlled and directed. Nevertheless, as empowered or equalized as the interview conversation might be, the actual stories of respondents’ lives are seen to emerge from a sort of internal repository. While Mishler’s (1986) strategy alters the shape of the discourse between speakers, it shortchanges the work that goes into producing authentic accounts. Narrative work does not stop with the
- 51. 36 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT extraction of the respondent’s own stories but includes the integral production of authenticity, one common practical marker of which is equalized communication (see Gubrium Holstein, 2009a). Paul Atkinson (1997) is aware of this problem and recommends critical attention to the cultural con- ventions used to produce authentically personal stories. Writing about narrative analysis generally, but with clear implications for analyzing interview narratives, Atkinson argues, The ubiquity of the narrative and its central- ity . . . are not license simply to privilege those forms. It is the work of anthropologists and soci- ologists to examine those narratives and to sub- ject them to the same analysis as any other forms. We need to pay due attention to their construc- tion in use: how actors improvise their personal narratives. . . . We need to attend to how socially shared resources of rhetoric and narrative are deployed to generate recognizable, plausible, and culturally well-informed accounts. . . . What we cannot afford to do is to be seduced by the cul- tural conventions we seek to study. We should not endorse those cultural conventions that seek to privilege the account as a special kind of rep- resentation. (p. 341) Atkinson (1997) is advocating a more fully inter- actional appreciation of interview accounts, espe- cially those claimed to be personal narratives. Narrative work, from this perspective, includes any communicative activity involved in producing inter- view accounts: how interview participants work up adequate responses and what they attempt to accom- plish in the process. Attention focuses on both how interview narratives are produced and the functions those narratives serve—in a word, what respondents do with the narratives (see Wittgenstein, 1953). Ownership, and by implication personal authen- ticity, are established through the constructive voices of interacting narrative agents, which, as we’ll illus- trate shortly, also brings us to the whats of the mat- ter. In practice, the idea of one’s “own story”—which once was actually viewed as a methodological proce- dure and called the “own story method” (see Shaw, 1930/1966)—is not just a commendable research goal but is something participants themselves con- tend with as they move through the interview. They continuously and tentatively resolve the interactive problems of ownership as a way of sorting the pos- sible subjectivities of an account and collaboratively proceed on that basis for practical communicative purposes. When a respondent such as a young wife and mother responds to a question about her parent- ing style, she might note that “it depends” on whether she is thinking (and speaking) in terms of the parenting manuals she conscientiously consults or in terms of her own mother’s caution about spar- ing the rod and spoiling the child. One’s own voice, in other words, depends on one’s footing and related perspective on the matter, on whose voice is empow- ered and asserted in responding to the question. This is as much the respondent’s doing as it is a matter of interviewer guidance. An illustration from one of the authors’ doctoral supervision duties shows the complexities of the nar- rative work involved in shifting footings and establish- ing narrative ownership. It also underscores the way in which the whats of narrative practice are inter- twined with the hows of narrative work. Gubrium was serving on the dissertation committee of a gradu- ate student who was researching substance abuse among pharmacists. The student was committed to allowing the pharmacists being interviewed to convey in their own words their experiences involving illicitly using drugs, seeking help for their habits, and going through rehabilitation. The graduate student had put in place a version of Mishler’s (1986) empowerment strategy. He hoped to understand how those who “should know better” would describe what they did and explain what happened to them afterward. When the interviews were completed, the inter- view data were analyzed thematically and presented in the dissertation as individual accounts of experi- ence. Interestingly, several of the themes identified in the pharmacists’ stories closely paralleled the famil- iar recovery themes of self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous (NA). As it turned out, many, if not all, of the phar- macists had participated in such recovery groups and evidently had incorporated these groups’ ways of narrating the substance abuse and recovery experi- ence into their “own” stories. For example, respon- dents spoke of the experience of “hitting bottom” and organized the stepwise trajectory of the recovery process in familiar NA terms in this case. Noting this, Gubrium raised the issue of the extent to which the interview material could be analyzed as the phar- macists’ own stories as opposed to the stories of their
- 52. Chapter 2. Narrative Practice and the Transformation of Interview Subjectivity ◆ 37 recovery programs. At a doctoral committee meet- ing, he asked, “Whose voice do we hear when these pharmacists tell their stories? Their own or NA’s?” The question, in effect, asked whether the stories belonged to the individuals being interviewed or to the organizations that promulgated their discourse. An equalized and unstructured interview environ- ment does not so much guarantee narrative authen- ticity as help make its accomplishment and sources more visible. It opens to view the complex work and sources of subject positioning in storytelling (see Koven, in press). For example, in the best of inter- view circumstances, does a 50-year-old man offer the opinions of a professional at the height of his career, or might his voice be that of a husband and father reflecting on what he missed in family life along the way? Or will he speak as a church elder, a novice airplane pilot, or the “enabling” brother of an alco- holic at different points of the interview? All of these might be possible, given the range of subject posi- tions that could underpin the accounts the man offers in response to interview questions. Each has multiple bases for authenticity. In practice, respon- dent subjectivity emerges out of the give-and-take of the interview process, even while the researcher might hope for a particular form of agency or foot- ing to emerge out of an interview format designed to explore a specific research topic. In contrast to the unwitting ways in which the preceding pharmacists’ accounts drew on alternate subject positions, interview participants can also be openly strategic about this practice, which is the rea- son why both the hows and the whats of narrative practice must be examined. Consider a passing com- ment that might be made by a father being inter- viewed about parenting practices. Following a question asking him to place himself along a five- point continuum of parenting styles, from being an authority figure at one end to being a friend at the other, the man responds to another interview item: I figure that . . . what did you say? . . . I can be “friendly” [gestures quotation marks with his hands] when I have to and that usually works, unless they [his children] really get wound up, then another father comes out. The inserted question “What did you say?” refer- ences a possible subject position articulated earlier by the interviewer, the implication being that, in the give-and-take of the interview, participants jointly figured the father’s narrative positions and resulting interview data. Verbal prefaces are frequently used to signal shifts in subjectivity, something often ignored in interview research. The phrases “to put myself in someone else’s shoes” and “to put on a different hat” are speech acts that voice shifts in footing. For example, in an inter- view study of nurses’ opinions on the qualities of good infant care, we probably wouldn’t be surprised to hear a respondent say something like, “That’s when I have my RN [registered nurse] cap on, but as a mother, I might tell you a different story.” Some respondents are didactic in giving voice to alternative subject positions and their respective points of view, as when a respondent prefaces a response with “What I mean is . . . from the point of view of a . . .” or “Let me explain what I mean . . . it depends on whose shoes you’re wearing, doesn’t it?” Such phrases are not interview debris but skillfully do things with words, in this case conveying an important and persis- tent complication of interview subjectivity. But things are seldom this straightforward. An interview, for example, might start with the presump- tion that a father or a mother is being interviewed, which the interview’s introductions appear to con- firm. But there is no guarantee that these subject positions will remain constant throughout. This isn’t often evident in so many words or comments. Indeed, the possibility of an unforeseen change in subjectivity might not be broached, if broached at all, until the very end of the interview, when a respon- dent remarks, “Yeah, that’s the way all of us who were raised down South do with our children,” mak- ing it unclear who or what exactly has been providing responses to the interview’s questions, this individual parent or her region of the country. The work of establishing subject position and voice also implicates the interviewer. Who, after all, is the interviewer to the respondent? How will the interviewer role fit into the conversational matrix? For example, respondents in debriefings might com- ment that an interviewer sounded more like a com- pany man than a human being or that one interviewer made the respondent feel that the interviewer was “just an ordinary person, like myself.” This raises the possibility that the respondent’s perceived subject position, and by implication the respondent’s “own” story, is constructed out of the unfolding interper- sonal sentiments of the interview participants.
- 53. 38 ◆ PART I. INTERVIEWING IN CONTEXT If this isn’t complicated enough, imagine what the acknowledgement of multiple subject positions does to the concept of sample size. To decompose the des- ignated respondent into his or her subject positions raises the possibility that any sample unit or set of units can expand or contract in size in the course of the interview, increasing or decreasing the sample n in the process. Treating subject positions and their asso- ciated voices seriously, we might find that what we took to be a single interview, in practice, is an inter- view with several subjects, whose particular identities may only be partially, if at all, clear. To be satisfied that one has completed an empowered interview with a single respondent and to code it as such because it was conducted in a context of equalitarian exchange is to be rather cavalier about narrative practice. All of this is reason enough for some researchers to approach the interview as a set of positions and accounts that are continuously accomplished. In stan- dardized interviewing, one needs to conclusively settle on the matter of who the subject behind the respon- dent is, lest it be impossible to know to which popula- tion generalizations can be made—a dubious goal in the context of practice. A respondent who shifts the subjectivity to whom she is giving voice poses dra- matic difficulties for the kind of generalization survey researchers aim for. Varied parts of a single completed interview, for example, would have to be coded as the responses of different subjects and be generalizable to different populations, which would be a conceptual, if not just a procedural, nightmare. NARRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS If they are not straightforwardly owned by indi- viduals, where do interview narratives come from? This turns us to the whats of the matter and their complications, broached in our pharmacist illustra- tion. It was evident in the previous discussion of the pharmacist drug abuse research that respondents made use of a very common notion of recovery in today’s world, one that has percolated through the entire troubles treatment industry (Gubrium Holstein, 2001). Does this industry, or other institu- tions dealing with human experiences, offer an answer to the question? Erving Goffman’s (1961) exploration of what he called “moral careers” provides a point of departure for addressing this. Goffman was especially concerned with the moral careers of stigmatized persons such as mental patients, but his approach is broadly sugges- tive. In his reckoning, each of us has many available identities and associated ways of accounting for our actions. Goffman described the prepatient, patient, and postpatient selves that individuals constructed, along with others, on their way into and out of mental hospitals. He referred to this trajectory of identities as a moral career because it had implications for the self- representation of those concerned, both the individ- ual patients in question and those who interacted with them. The identities were moral because they related significantly to choices made about who one was, is now, and would be, implicating the appropriateness of the accounts conveyed in the process. According to Goffman (1961), individuals obtain narrative footing as they move through the various moral environments that offer pertinent recipes for identity. A mental hospital, he noted, provides the individuals it serves with particular selves, which includes ways of storying who one is, one’s past, and one’s future. The moral environment of the mental hospital also provides others, such as staff members, acquaintances, and even strangers, with parallel footing, such as what to expect from and how to respond to patients as they move along the trajec- tory. As far as stories are concerned—both our own and those of others—moral environments are also narrative environments. Goffman’s (1961) analysis of moral careers focused on what he called “total institutions,” envi- ronments whose narrative options are limited and engulf the self. What Everett Hughes (1942/1984) calls “going concerns” expand moral careers and their narrative options to the world at large, to the many and varied social locations, not just formal organizations, that specify pertinent identities and ways of accounting for ourselves. It was Hughes’s way of emphasizing that institutions are not just for- mally mandated and, more important in practice, are not fixed establishments but that considerable narra- tive work keeps them going, to put it in our terms. How we story our lives is as varied as the narrative options available. Going concerns are a virtual land- scape of narrative possibilities, stunningly complicat- ing our moral careers and their accounts. From the myriad formal organizations in which we work, study, play, and recover, to the countless informal associations and networks to which we oth- erwise attend, to our affiliations with racial, ethnic,
- 54. Chapter 2. Narrative Practice and the Transformation of Interview Subjectivity ◆ 39 and gendered groupings, we engage in a panoply of going concerns on a daily basis. Taken together, they set the conditions of possibility (Foucault, 1979) for narrative footing—for who and what we could pos- sibly be. Many going concerns explicitly structure or reconfigure personal identity. Human service agen- cies, for example, readily delve into the deepest enclaves of the self to ameliorate personal ills, with the aim of re-storying our lives. Self-help organiza- tions seem to crop up on every street corner, and self-help literature beckons us from the tabloid racks of most supermarkets and the shelves of every book- store. “Psychobabble” on radio and TV talk shows constantly prompts us to formulate (or reformulate) our stories, aiming to give voice to the selves we do or should live by. Interviewing without these whats in view shortchanges the extensive communicative apparatus that prompts and supports accounts. Narrative environments not only feed personal accounts but are also a source of socially relevant questions that interviewers pose to respondents. To the extent that those who conduct large-scale sur- veys are sponsored by the very agents who formulate applicable discourses such as recovery trajectories, the collaborative production of the respondent’s own story is shaped, for better or worse, in agree- ments and markets well beyond the give-and-take of the interview conversation—such are the proprietary subjectivities of individual accounts in a world of going concerns (Gubrium Holstein, 2000). This observation returns us to the interview soci- ety. The research context is not the only place in which we are asked interview questions and are expected to respond in turn with opinions. Virtually all going concerns are in the interviewing business; they construct and marshal the subjects they need to do their work. Each provides a communicative con- text for narrative practice, for the collaborative pro- duction of the moral equivalents of respondents and interviewers. Medical clinics deploy interviews and, in the process, assemble doctors, patients, and their illnesses (see Zoppi Epstein, 2002). Personnel officers interview job applicants and collect informa- tion that forms the basis for selection decisions (see Latham Millman, 2002). Therapists of all stripes continue to interview as they have for decades and assemble narrative plots of illness experiences, which form the basis for further, rehabilitative interviewing (see Frank, 1995; Kleinman, 1988; Mattingly, 1998; Miller, de Shazer, De Jong, 2002). The same is true for schools, forensic investigation, and journal- istic interviewing, among the broad range of con- cerns that enter our lives and help shape our stories (see Altheide, 2002; Gabriel, 2000; McKenzie, 2002; Tierney Dilley, 2002). As the interview society expands the institutional auspices of interviewing well beyond the research context, it would be a rather narrow perspective on the interview to limit ourselves to research environ- ments. The research interview is only one of the many sites where subjectivities and the voicing of individual experience are storied. These going con- cerns can’t be considered to be independent of each other. As our pharmacist illustration suggested, the narrative environments of therapy and recovery can be brought directly into the research interview, serv- ing to commingle a spectrum of institutional voices. Our understandings of subjectivity and voice are varied and deepened as new formats for interviewing are developed. These formats are themselves going concerns, providing distinctive narrative environ- ments. The group interview, for example, can be a veritable swirl of subject positions and opinion con- struction, as participants share and make use of story material from a broader range of narrative resources than a single interview might muster on its own. Life story and oral history interviews extend biographical construction through time, which can be amazingly convoluted when compared with the often detempo- ralized information elicited in cross-sectional surveys (see Atkinson Coffey, 2002; Cándida-Smith, 2002). The in-depth interview extends experience in emotional terms, affectively elaborating subjectivity by constructing it ever more deeply within experi- ence (see Johnson, 2002). It’s Like Jazz To guard against overdetermining the role of either narrative environments or narrative work in the pro- duction of interview accounts, it is important to emphasize that the practice of interviewing refracts, but does not reproduce, the narratives proffered by going concerns. Interview participants themselves are biographically active in shaping how received subjectivities are put to use in the interview process. While institutional auspices provide resources for both asking questions and providing answers, pre- scribe possible roles for interview participants, and
- 55. Exploring the Variety of Random Documents with Different Content
- 56. Poursuite des Anglais par le maréchal Soult. sur la route des courriers de France, tandis que s'il se fût posté à Astorga ou à Lugo, les courriers auraient eu un détour de plus de cent lieues à faire pour le joindre, et il n'aurait pas pu, tout en dirigeant les armées d'Espagne, s'occuper de l'organisation de celles d'Italie et d'Allemagne. Il se rendit donc à Valladolid avec sa garde, qu'il voulait rapprocher des événements d'Allemagne autant que lui- même. Ayant dissous le corps de Junot pour renforcer celui du maréchal Soult, il résolut de dédommager le général Junot en lui confiant le commandement des troupes qui assiégeaient Saragosse, et que le maréchal Moncey à son gré commandait trop mollement. Il destinait plus tard le maréchal Moncey à opérer sur le royaume de Valence, que ce maréchal connaissait déjà. Le maréchal Lefebvre, auquel il était prescrit de repousser les Espagnols du pont d'Almaraz jusqu'à Truxillo, avait bien, il est vrai, enlevé ce pont, mais il avait eu l'idée singulière de se porter sur Ciudad-Rodrigo avant d'en avoir reçu l'ordre, prenant pour une instruction définitive une première indication de Napoléon. Dans ce mouvement il s'était laissé couper en deux par la Tietar débordée, et il avait envoyé une partie de son corps sur Tolède, tandis qu'il emmenait l'autre à Avila. Napoléon, très-mécontent, plaça sous l'autorité de l'état-major de Joseph le corps du maréchal Lefebvre, qu'il ne pouvait plus confier à un chef aussi peu capable, quoique fort brave un jour de bataille. Ce corps fut réparti entre Madrid, Tolède et Talavera, en attendant que, les affaires terminées au nord de l'Espagne, on pût songer au midi. Après avoir pris ces dispositions, Napoléon se transporta, comme nous venons de le dire, à Valladolid, pour s'y occuper de l'organisation de ses armées d'Allemagne et d'Italie, autant que de la direction de celles d'Espagne. Le maréchal Soult s'était mis, avec les divisions Merle, Mermet, Laborde, la cavalerie de Franceschi, les dragons Lorge et Lahoussaye, à la poursuite du général Moore. Malheureusement la route était devenue presque impraticable par les pluies continuelles À
- 57. Le général Moore, placé entre les routes de Vigo et de la Corogne, se décide pour celle de la Corogne. et le passage de deux armées, l'une anglaise, l'autre espagnole. À chaque instant on rencontrait des convois de munitions, d'armes, de vivres, d'effets de campement appartenant aux Anglais et conduits par des muletiers espagnols, qui s'enfuyaient en apercevant le casque de nos dragons. On ramassait par centaines les soldats anglais exténués de fatigue ou gorgés de vin, qui se laissaient surprendre dans un état à ne pouvoir opposer aucune résistance. Le 31 décembre, le général Moore avait quitté la plaine pour entrer dans la montagne, à Manzanal, à quelques lieues d'Astorga. (Voir la carte no 43.) Il se trouvait le 1er janvier à Bembibre, où il avait vainement usé de toute son autorité pour arracher ses soldats des caves et des maisons avant la venue des dragons français. Il était parti lui-même de Bembibre, formant toujours l'arrière-garde avec la cavalerie et la réserve, mais sans réussir à se faire suivre de tous les siens, dont un bon nombre resta dans nos mains. Nos dragons accourant au galop fondirent sur une longue file de soldats anglais, ivres pour la plupart, de femmes, d'enfants, de vieillards espagnols, abandonnant leurs demeures sans savoir où chercher un asile, craignant leurs alliés qui s'enfuyaient en les pillant, et leurs ennemis qui arrivaient affamés, le sabre au poing, et dispensés de tout ménagement envers des populations insurgées. Ceux qui avaient le courage de demeurer s'en applaudissaient dès qu'ils avaient pu comparer l'humanité de nos soldats avec la brutalité des soldats anglais, qu'aucun frein n'arrêtait plus, malgré les honorables efforts de leur général et de leurs officiers pour maintenir la discipline. À Ponferrada, le général Moore avait à choisir entre la route de Vigo et celle de la Corogne, qui aboutissaient toutes les deux à de fort belles rades, très-propres à l'embarquement d'une armée nombreuse. Il préféra celle de la Corogne, parce qu'en la suivant il fallait trois journées de moins pour atteindre au point d'embarquement. Il avait obtenu que le marquis de La Romana se dirigerait
- 58. Combat d'arrière-garde à Pietros. Mort du général Colbert. par la route de Vigo, qui passe par Orense, et débarrasserait ainsi celle de la Corogne. Il lui adjoignit trois mille hommes de troupes légères, sous le général Crawfurd, lesquels devaient occuper la position de Vigo, en supposant qu'il fallût plus tard s'y replier afin de s'embarquer. Il envoya courriers sur courriers pour faire arriver à sir Samuel Hood, commandant la flotte britannique, l'ordre d'expédier tous les transports de Vigo sur la Corogne. Le 3 janvier il se porta sur Villafranca. Désirant s'y arrêter, et donner à tout ce qui marchait avec lui un peu de repos, il résolut de livrer un combat d'arrière-garde à Pietros, en avant de Villafranca, dans une position militaire assez belle, et où l'on pouvait se défendre avantageusement. La route, après avoir franchi un défilé fort étroit, descendait dans une plaine ouverte, passait à travers le village de Pietros, puis remontait sur une hauteur plantée de vignes, dont le général Moore avait fait choix pour y établir solidement 3 mille fantassins, 600 chevaux, et une nombreuse artillerie. Le général Merle avec sa belle division, le général Colbert avec sa cavalerie légère, abordèrent le premier défilé, l'infanterie en avant, pour vaincre les résistances qu'on pourrait leur opposer. Mais les Anglais étaient au delà, à la seconde position, au bout de la plaine. Nous passâmes sans obstacle, et la cavalerie, prenant la tête de la colonne, s'élança au galop dans la plaine. Elle y trouva une multitude de tirailleurs anglais, et fut obligée d'attendre l'infanterie qui, arrivant bientôt, se dispersa de son côté en troupes de tirailleurs pour repousser l'ennemi. Le général Colbert, impatient d'amener les troupes en ligne, était occupé à placer lui-même quelques compagnies de voltigeurs, lorsqu'il reçut une balle au front, et expira, en exprimant de touchants regrets d'être enlevé sitôt, non à la vie, mais à la belle carrière qui s'ouvrait devant lui.
- 59. Arrivée des deux armées devant Lugo. Le général Moore prend la Le général Merle, ayant débouché dans la plaine avec son infanterie, traversa le village de Pietros, puis assaillit la position des Anglais, au moyen d'une forte colonne qui les aborda de front, tandis qu'une nuée de tirailleurs, se glissant dans les vignes, s'efforçaient de déborder leur droite. Après une fusillade assez vive les Anglais se retirèrent, nous abandonnant quelques morts, quelques blessés, quelques prisonniers. Ce combat d'arrière-garde nous coûta une cinquantaine de blessés ou de morts, et surtout le général Colbert, officier du plus haut mérite. L'obscurité ne nous permit pas de pousser plus avant. L'ennemi évacua Villafranca dans la nuit pour se porter à Lugo, qui offrait, disait-on, une forte position militaire. En entrant dans Villafranca nous le trouvâmes dévasté par les Anglais, qui avaient enfoncé les caves, ravagé les maisons, bu tout le vin qu'ils avaient pu, et qui étaient engouffrés dans tous les recoins de la ville, malgré les efforts réitérés de leurs chefs pour les rallier. Nous en prîmes encore plusieurs centaines, avec une grande quantité de munitions et de bagages. Le lendemain on continua cette poursuite, ne pouvant guère avancer plus vite que les Anglais, malgré l'avantage que nos fantassins avaient sur eux sous le rapport de la marche, à cause de l'état des routes et de la difficulté des transports d'artillerie. Nos soldats vivaient de tout ce que laissaient les Anglais après avoir pillé et réduit au désespoir leurs malheureux alliés. Toujours marchant ainsi sur les pas de l'ennemi, nous arrivâmes le 5 janvier au soir en vue de Lugo. Nous avions recueilli en chemin beaucoup d'artillerie et un trésor considérable que les Anglais avaient jeté dans les précipices. Nos soldats se remplirent les poches en ne craignant pas de descendre dans les ravins les plus profonds. On put sauver une somme de piastres valant environ 1,800,000 francs. Le 5 au soir l'armée anglaise se montra en bataille en avant de Lugo. Le général Moore se
- 60. résolution de s'arrêter à Lugo, pour y offrir la bataille aux Français. Avantages de la position de Lugo. Le maréchal Soult passe trois jours devant la sentant vivement pressé par les Français, et s'attendant chaque jour à les avoir sur les bras, voyant son armée se dissoudre par une rapidité de marche excessive, prit la résolution qu'il faut souvent prendre quand on bat en retraite, celle de s'arrêter dans une bonne position, pour y offrir la bataille à l'ennemi. Avec des soldats solides comme les soldats anglais, dans une excellente position défensive, il avait de grandes chances de vaincre. Vainqueur, il repoussait les Français pour long-temps, illustrait sa retraite par un fait d'armes éclatant, remontait le moral de ses soldats, et pouvait achever paisiblement sa marche sur la Corogne. Vaincu, il essuyait en une seule fois tout le mal qu'il était exposé à essuyer en détail par cette retraite précipitée. D'ailleurs à la guerre, quand la sagesse le conseille, le général doit braver la défaite, comme le soldat doit braver la mort. Il était impossible, au surplus, de choisir un meilleur site que celui de Lugo pour l'exécution d'un tel dessein. La ville, entourée de murailles, s'élevait au-dessus d'une éminence, laquelle se terminant à pic sur le lit du Minho d'un côté, était bordée de l'autre par une petite rivière vers laquelle elle allait en s'abaissant. De nombreuses clôtures garnissaient cette pente, et en facilitaient la défense. Le général Moore rangea sur ce champ de bataille, et en deux lignes, les seize ou dix-sept mille hommes d'infanterie qu'il avait encore. Il disposa son artillerie sur son front, et remplit de tirailleurs les nombreuses clôtures qui couvraient le côté abordable de sa position. Il rappela à lui sa cavalerie qui marchait en tête depuis qu'on était entré dans la région montagneuse, et nous montra ainsi environ vingt mille hommes établis de pied ferme en avant de Lugo. C'était tout ce qui lui restait des vingt-huit ou vingt-neuf mille hommes qu'il avait à Sahagun. Il en avait envoyé cinq à six mille, les uns sur Vigo, les autres en avant, et perdu environ trois mille. Les Français, parvenus le 5 au soir devant Lugo, discernaient à peine l'ennemi. Ils s'arrêtèrent vis-à- vis, à San-Juan de Corbo, dans une position
- 61. position de Lugo sans attaquer. Le général Moore, après avoir attendu trois jours les Français dans la position de Lugo, se décide à décamper. également forte, où ils pouvaient, sans perdre de vue les Anglais, attendre en sûreté le ralliement de tout ce qui était demeuré en arrière. Le lendemain 6, les deux divisions Mermet et Laborde, qui suivaient la division Merle, arrivèrent en ligne, mais elles avaient laissé la moitié de leur effectif en arrière, et, outre cette masse de traînards, leur artillerie et leurs convois de munitions. Ce n'était pas dans cet état qu'on devait songer à attaquer les Anglais, car on avait à leur égard la triple infériorité du nombre, des ressources matérielles, et du terrain sur lequel il s'agissait de combattre. À chaque instant, toutefois, les traînards et les convois d'artillerie rejoignaient, et le lendemain 7, on était déjà beaucoup plus en mesure de livrer bataille. Mais devant la forte position des Anglais, inabordable d'un côté, puisque c'était le bord taillé à pic du Minho, et très-difficile à emporter de l'autre, à cause des nombreuses clôtures qui la couvraient, le maréchal Soult hésita, et voulut remettre au lendemain 8. Ce jour-là, la plupart de nos moyens étaient réunis, moins toutefois une partie de l'artillerie. Mais, toujours préoccupé des difficultés que présentait cette position, le maréchal Soult remit encore au lendemain 9, pour exécuter par sa droite sur le flanc gauche des Anglais un mouvement de cavalerie qui pût les ébranler. C'était trop présumer de la patience du général Moore, que d'imaginer qu'arrivé le 5 à Lugo, y ayant passé les journées du 6, du 7, du 8, il y resterait encore le 9. Le général Moore, en effet, ayant pris trois jours entiers pour faire filer ses bagages et ses troupes les plus fatiguées, pour remonter le moral de son armée, pour recouvrer enfin l'honneur des armes par l'offre trois fois répétée de la bataille, se crut dispensé de tenter plus long-temps la fortune. Ayant réalisé une partie des résultats qu'il se proposait d'obtenir en s'arrêtant, il décampa secrètement dans la nuit du 8 au
- 62. Entrée des Français à Lugo. Arrivée du général Moore à la Corogne. Chagrin du général Moore en voyant que la flotte anglaise n'a pu encore arriver à la Corogne. Précautions des Anglais pour se défendre dans la Corogne. 9 janvier. Il eut soin de laisser après lui beaucoup de feux et une forte arrière-garde, afin de tromper les Français. Le lendemain 9, les Français trouvèrent la position de Lugo évacuée, et ils y firent encore de nombreuses captures en vivres et matériel. On recueillit aux environs et dans Lugo même sept à huit cents prisonniers, qui, malgré les ordres réitérés de leurs chefs, n'avaient pas su se retirer à temps. Le retour à la discipline obtenu par le général Moore fut de courte durée; car de Lugo à Betanzos, dans les journées du 9, du 10, du 11, des corps entiers se débandèrent, et nos dragons purent enlever près de deux mille Anglais et une quantité considérable de bagages. Le 11, le général Moore atteignit Betanzos, et, franchissant enfin la ceinture des hauteurs qui enveloppent la Corogne, descendit sur les bords du beau et vaste golfe dont cette ville occupe un enfoncement. Par malheur, au lieu d'apercevoir la multitude de voiles qu'on espérait y trouver, on vit à peine quelques vaisseaux de guerre, bons tout au plus pour escorter une armée, mais non pour la transporter. Les vents contraires avaient jusqu'ici empêché la grande masse des transports de remonter de Vigo à la Corogne. À cette vue, le général Moore fut rempli d'anxiété, l'armée anglaise de tristesse. Toutefois, on prit des précaution pour se défendre dans la Corogne, en attendant l'apparition de la flotte. Une rivière large et marécageuse à son embouchure coulait entre la Corogne et les hauteurs par lesquelles on y arrivait: c'était la rivière de Mero. Un pont, celui de Burgo, servait à la traverser. On le fit sauter. On fit sauter également, avec un fracas effroyable qui agita le golfe comme un coup de vent, une masse immense de poudre que les Anglais avaient réunie dans une poudrière située à quelque distance des murs. On prit enfin position avec les meilleures troupes sur le cercle des hauteurs qui environnent la Corogne. La première ligne de ces hauteurs, fort
- 63. Arrivée du maréchal Soult devant la Corogne. élevée et fort avantageuse à défendre, mais trop éloignée de la ville, pouvait, par ce motif, être tournée. On la laissa aux Français qui accouraient. On se posta sur des hauteurs plus rapprochées et moins dominantes, qui s'appuyaient à la Corogne même. On réunit sur le rivage tous les malades, les blessés, les écloppés, le matériel, pour les embarquer immédiatement sur quelques vaisseaux de guerre et de transport mouillés antérieurement dans le golfe. Le général Moore attendit de la sorte, et dans de cruelles perplexités, le changement des vents, sans lequel il allait être réduit à capituler. Ce n'était qu'une avant-garde qui, le 11 au soir, avait suivi les Anglais au pont de Burgo sur le Mero, et qui en avait vu sauter les débris dans les airs. Le lendemain 12 seulement, parurent d'abord la division Merle, puis successivement les divisions Mermet et Laborde. Le maréchal Soult, arrêté devant le Mero, expédia au loin sur sa gauche la cavalerie de Franceschi, pour chercher des passages qu'elle parvint à découvrir, mais dont aucun n'était propre à l'artillerie. Il fit vers sa droite border la mer par des détachements, tâchant de disposer des batteries qui pussent envoyer des boulets au fond du golfe, jusqu'aux quais de la Corogne; ce qui était très-difficile à la distance où l'on était placé. Obligé de réparer le pont de Burgo, le maréchal Soult y employa les journées du 12 et du 13, opération qui devait donner aux traînards et au matériel le temps de rejoindre. Le 14, avant réussi à rendre praticable le pont de Burgo, il fit passer une partie de ses troupes au delà du Mero, franchit la ligne des hauteurs dominantes qu'on lui avait abandonnées, et vint s'établir sur leur versant, vis-à- vis des hauteurs moins élevées et plus rapprochées de la Corogne, qu'occupaient les Anglais. La division Mermet formait l'extrême gauche, la division Merle le centre, la division Laborde la droite, contre le golfe même de la Corogne. Il fut possible à cette distance de dresser quelques batteries qui avaient un commencement d'action sur le golfe.
- 64. Nouveau retard du maréchal Soult avant de livrer bataille aux Anglais. Le maréchal Soult se décide Cependant, ne se sentant pas assez fort, car il comptait au plus dix-huit mille hommes, tandis que les Anglais, même après tout ce qu'ils avaient perdu, détaché ou déjà embarqué, étaient encore 17 ou 18 mille en bataille, le maréchal Soult voulut attendre que ses rangs se remplissent des hommes restés en arrière, et surtout que toute son artillerie fût amenée en ligne. Les Anglais attendaient de leur côté l'apparition du convoi qui tardait toujours à se montrer, et ils étaient plongés dans les plus cruelles angoisses. Les principaux officiers de leur armée proposèrent même à sir John Moore d'ouvrir une négociation qui leur permît, comme celle de Cintra l'avait permis aux Français, de se retirer honorablement. N'ayant toutefois aucune chance de se sauver si les transports ne paraissaient pas très-promptement, il était douteux qu'ils obtinssent des conditions satisfaisantes pour eux. Aussi le général Moore repoussa-t-il toute idée de traiter, et résolut-il de se fier à la fortune, qui, en effet, lui accorda, comme on va le voir, le salut de son armée, mais non de sa personne, et lui donna la gloire au prix de la vie. Les 14, 15, 16 janvier, les vents ayant varié, plusieurs centaines de voiles parurent successivement dans le golfe, et vinrent s'accumuler sur les quais de la Corogne, hors de la portée des boulets français. On pouvait les apercevoir des hauteurs que nous occupions, et à cet aspect l'ardeur de nos soldats devint extrême. Ils demandèrent à grands cris qu'on profitât pour combattre du temps qui restait, car l'armée anglaise allait leur échapper. Le maréchal Soult, arrivé en présence de l'ennemi dès le 12, avait employé les journées du 13, du 14 et du 15 à rectifier sa position, à attendre ses derniers retardataires, et surtout à placer vers son extrême gauche, sur un point des plus avantageux, une batterie de douze pièces, qui, prenant par le travers la ligne anglaise, l'enfilait tout entière. Le 16 au matin, ayant définitivement reconnu la position des Anglais, il résolut de faire une tentative, de manière à déborder leur ligne, et à la
- 65. enfin à attaquer les Anglais. Bataille de la Corogne. Le maréchal Soult laisse la bataille indécise. tourner. Un petit village, celui d'Elvina, situé à notre extrême gauche, et à l'extrême droite des Anglais, dans le terrain creux qui séparait les deux armées, était gardé par beaucoup de tirailleurs de la division de sir David Baird. Vers le milieu de la journée du 16, la division française Mermet, s'ébranlant sur l'ordre du maréchal Soult, marcha vers le village d'Elvina, pendant que notre batterie de gauche, tirant par derrière nos soldats, causait le plus grand ravage sur toute l'étendue de la ligne ennemie. La division Mermet, vigoureusement conduite, enleva aux Anglais le village d'Elvina, et les obligea à rétrograder. Dans ce moment, le général Moore, accouru sur le champ de bataille avec la résolution de combattre énergiquement avant de se rembarquer, porta le centre de sa ligne, composé de la division Hope, sur le village d'Elvina, afin de secourir sir David Baird, et détacha vers son extrême droite une partie de la division Fraser, pour empêcher la cavalerie française de tourner sa position. La division Mermet, ayant affaire ainsi à des forces supérieures, fut ramenée. Alors le général Merle, qui formait notre centre, entra en action avec ses vieux régiments. La lutte devint acharnée. On prit et on reprit plusieurs fois le village d'Elvina. Le 2e léger se couvrit de gloire dans ces attaques répétées, mais la journée s'acheva sans avantage prononcé de part ni d'autre. Le maréchal Soult, qui avait à sa droite la division Laborde, laquelle, rabattue sur le centre des Anglais, les aurait sans doute accablés, fit néanmoins cesser le combat, ne voulant point apparemment engager ce qui lui restait de troupes, et hésitant à demander à la fortune de trop grandes faveurs contre un ennemi qui était prêt à se retirer. Le combat finit donc à la chute du jour après une action sanglante, où nous perdîmes trois à quatre cents hommes en morts ou blessés, et les Anglais environ douze cents, grâce aux effets meurtriers de notre artillerie. Le général Moore, tandis qu'il menait lui-même ses régiments au feu, fut atteint d'un boulet qui lui
- 66. Mort du général Moore. Résultats de cette campagne pour les Anglais. Vraie cause qui empêche la destruction entière de l'armée britannique. fracassa le bras et la clavicule. Transporté sur un brancard à la Corogne, il expira en y entrant, à la suite d'une campagne qui, moins bien dirigée, aurait pu devenir un désastre pour l'Angleterre. Il mourut glorieusement, fort regretté de son armée, qui, tout en le critiquant quelquefois, rendait justice néanmoins à sa prudente fermeté. Le général David Baird avait aussi reçu une blessure mortelle. Le général Hope prit le commandement en chef, et le soir même, rentrant dans la place, fit commencer l'embarquement. Les murs de la Corogne étaient assez forts pour nous arrêter, et pour donner aux Anglais le temps de mettre à la voile. Dans les journées des 17 et 18 ils s'embarquèrent, abandonnant, outre les blessés recueillis par nous sur le champ de bataille de la Corogne, quelques malades et prisonniers, et une assez grande quantité de matériel. Ils avaient perdu dans cette campagne environ 6 mille hommes, en prisonniers, malades, blessés ou morts, plus de 3 mille chevaux tués par leurs cavaliers, un immense matériel, rien assurément de leur honneur militaire, mais beaucoup de leur considération politique auprès des Espagnols, et ils se retiraient avec la réputation, pour le moment du moins, d'être impuissants à sauver l'Espagne. Poursuivis plus vivement, ou moins favorisés par la saison, ils ne seraient jamais sortis de la Péninsule. Depuis, comme il arrive toujours, quelques historiens imaginant après coup des combinaisons auxquelles personne n'avait songé lors des événements, ont reporté du maréchal Soult sur le maréchal Ney le reproche d'avoir laissé embarquer les Anglais, qui auraient dû être, dit-on, atteints et pris jusqu'au dernier. D'abord, il est douteux que, vu l'inclémence de la saison et l'état affreux des chemins, il fût possible de marcher assez vite pour les atteindre, et que le maréchal Soult lui-même, qui était continuellement aux prises avec leur arrière-garde, eût pu les joindre
- 67. de manière à les envelopper. Quoique la fortune lui eût accordé trois jours à Lugo, quatre jours à la Corogne, il faudrait, pour assurer que son hésitation fut une faute, savoir si son infanterie, dont les cadres arrivaient chaque soir à moitié vides, était assez ralliée, si son artillerie était assez pourvue, pour combattre avec avantage une armée anglaise, égale en nombre, et postée, chaque fois qu'on l'avait rencontrée, dans des positions de l'accès le plus difficile. Mais, si une telle question peut être élevée relativement au maréchal Soult, on ne saurait en élever une pareille à l'égard du maréchal Ney, placé à quelques journées de l'armée britannique. La supposition qu'il aurait pu prendre la route d'Orense, et tourner la Corogne par Vigo, n'a pas le moindre fondement. Ni l'Empereur, qui était sur les lieux, ni le maréchal Soult, auquel on avait laissé la faculté de requérir le maréchal Ney, s'il en avait besoin, n'imaginèrent alors qu'on pût faire un tel détour. Il aurait fallu que le maréchal Ney exécutât le double de chemin par des routes impraticables, et tout à fait inaccessibles à l'artillerie. Et, en effet, le maréchal Soult ayant exprimé, vers la fin de la retraite, c'est-à-dire le 9 janvier, le désir que la division Marchand se dirigeât sur Orense, pour observer le marquis de La Romana et les trois mille Anglais de Crawfurd, le maréchal Ney ordonna ce mouvement au général Marchand, qui ne put l'effectuer qu'avec une partie de son infanterie, et sans un seul canon. Le maréchal Ney serait certainement resté embourbé sur cette route s'il avait voulu la prendre avec son corps tout entier. Ce qui se pouvait, ce qui n'eut pas lieu, c'était de faire marcher les troupes du maréchal Ney immédiatement à la suite du maréchal Soult, de manière qu'un jour suffît pour réunir les deux corps. Or, à Lugo où l'on eut trois jours, à la Corogne où l'on en eut quatre, il aurait été possible de combattre les Anglais avec cinq divisions. Le maréchal Ney, mis par les ordres du quartier général à la disposition du maréchal Soult, offrit à celui-ci de le joindre, et ne reçut de sa part que l'invitation tardive de lui prêter l'une de ses divisions, lorsqu'il n'était plus temps de faire arriver cette division utilement[29]; nouvel exemple de la divergence des volontés, du décousu des efforts, lorsque Napoléon cessait d'être présent. Le vrai
- 68. Projet de Napoléon de retourner à Paris. Ses vues pour la suite de la guerre d'Espagne. malheur ici, la vraie faute, c'est qu'il ne fût pas de sa personne à la suite des Anglais, obligeant ses lieutenants à s'unir pour les détruire. Mais il était retenu ailleurs par la faute, l'irréparable faute de sa vie, celle d'avoir tenté trop d'entreprises à la fois; car, tandis qu'il aurait fallu qu'il fût à Lugo pour écraser les Anglais, il était appelé à Valladolid pour se préparer à faire face aux Autrichiens[30]. Toujours plus sollicité par l'urgence des événements d'Autriche et de Turquie, qui lui révélaient une nouvelle guerre générale, il se décida même à partir de Valladolid, pour se rendre à Paris, laissant les affaires d'Espagne dans un état qui lui permettait d'espérer bientôt l'entière soumission de la Péninsule. Les Anglais, en effet, étaient rejetés dans l'Océan; les Français occupaient tout le nord de l'Espagne jusqu'à Madrid; le siége de Saragosse se poursuivait activement, le général Saint-Cyr était victorieux en Catalogne. Napoléon avait le projet d'envoyer le maréchal Soult en Portugal avec le 2e corps, dans lequel venait d'être fondu le corps du général Junot, en laissant le maréchal Ney dans les montagnes de la Galice et des Asturies, pour réduire définitivement à l'obéissance ces contrées si difficiles et si obstinées; d'établir le maréchal Bessières avec beaucoup de cavalerie dans les plaines des deux Castilles, et, tandis que le maréchal Soult marcherait sur Lisbonne, d'acheminer le maréchal Victor avec trois divisions et douze régiments de cavalerie sur Séville par l'Estrémadure. Le maréchal Soult, une fois maître de Lisbonne, pouvait par Elvas expédier l'une de ses divisions au maréchal Victor, pour l'aider à soumettre l'Andalousie. Saragosse conquise, les troupes de l'ancien corps de Moncey, qui exécutaient ce siége, pourraient prendre la route de Valence, et terminer de leur côté la conquête du midi de l'Espagne. Pendant ces mouvements savamment combinés, Joseph, placé à Madrid avec la division de Dessoles (troisième de Ney, rentrée à Madrid), avec le corps du maréchal Lefebvre, comprenant une division allemande, une division polonaise, et la division française Sébastiani, aurait une réserve
- 69. Repos d'un mois accordé à l'armée avant d'envahir le midi de la Péninsule. considérable, pour se faire respecter de la capitale, et pour se porter partout où besoin serait. D'après ces vues, et en deux mois d'opérations, si l'intervention de l'Europe ne modifiait pas cette situation, la Péninsule tout entière, Espagne et Portugal compris, devait être soumise sans y employer un soldat de plus. Mais pour le moment Napoléon voulait que son armée se reposât tout un mois, du milieu de janvier au milieu de février. C'était la durée qu'il supposait encore au siége de Saragosse. Pendant ce mois le maréchal Soult rallierait ses troupes, y réunirait les portions du corps de Junot qui ne l'avaient pas encore rejoint, et préparerait son artillerie; les divisions Dessoles et Lapisse ramenées vers Madrid auraient le temps d'y arriver et de s'y reposer; la cavalerie refaite se trouverait en état de marcher, et on serait ainsi complétement en mesure d'agir vers le midi de la Péninsule. La seule opération que Napoléon eût prescrite immédiatement consistait à pousser le maréchal Victor avec les divisions Ruffin et Villatte sur Cuenca, pour y culbuter les débris de l'armée de Castaños, qui semblaient méditer quelque tentative. Les ordres de Napoléon furent donnés conformément à ces vues. Il achemina vers le maréchal Soult les restes du corps de Junot; il fit préparer un petit parc d'artillerie de siége pour le maréchal Victor, afin de pouvoir forcer les portes de Séville, si cette capitale résistait; il ordonna des dépôts de chevaux pour remonter l'artillerie, et fit partir de Bayonne, en bataillons de marche, les conscrits destinés à recruter les corps, pendant le mois de repos qui leur était accordé. Trouvant que le général Junot, qui avait remplacé le maréchal Moncey dans le commandement du 3e corps, et le maréchal Mortier à la tête du 5e , ne concouraient pas assez activement au siége de Saragosse, il envoya le maréchal Lannes, remis de sa chute, prendre la direction supérieure de ces deux corps, afin qu'il y eût à la fois plus de vigueur et plus d'ensemble dans la conduite de ce siége, qui devenait une opération de guerre aussi singulière que terrible.
- 70. Dispositions pour l'entrée de Joseph dans Madrid. Mesures sévères de Napoléon Enfin Napoléon s'occupa de préparer l'entrée de Joseph dans Madrid. Ce prince était resté jusqu'ici au Pardo, très-impatient de rentrer dans sa capitale, ne l'osant pas toutefois sans l'autorisation de son frère, quoique instamment appelé à y venir par la population tout entière, qui trouvait dans son retour le gage assuré d'un régime plus doux, et la certitude que le pouvoir civil remplacerait bientôt le pouvoir militaire. Napoléon, en effet, dans ses profonds calculs, avait voulu faire désirer son frère, et avait exigé qu'on lui produisît, sur le registre des paroisses de Madrid, la preuve du serment de fidélité prêté par tous les chefs de famille, disant, pour motiver cette exigence, qu'il ne prétendait pas imposer son frère à l'Espagne, que les Espagnols étaient bien libres de ne pas l'accepter pour roi, mais qu'alors, n'ayant aucune raison de les ménager, il leur appliquerait les lois de la guerre, et les traiterait en pays conquis. Mus par cette crainte, et délivrés des influences hostiles qui les excitaient contre la nouvelle royauté, les habitants de Madrid avaient afflué dans leurs paroisses pour prêter sur les Évangiles serment de fidélité à Joseph. Cette formalité, remplie en décembre, ne leur avait pas encore procuré en janvier le roi qu'ils désiraient sans l'aimer. Napoléon consentit enfin à ce que Joseph fit son entrée dans la capitale de l'Espagne, et voulut auparavant recevoir à Valladolid même une députation qui lui apportait le registre des serments prêtés dans les paroisses. Il accueillit cette députation avec moins de sévérité qu'il n'avait accueilli celle que Madrid lui avait envoyée à ses portes en décembre, mais il lui déclara encore d'une manière fort nette que, si Joseph était une seconde fois obligé de quitter sa capitale, celle-ci subirait la plus cruelle et la plus terrible exécution militaire. Napoléon avait très- distinctement aperçu, dans le prétendu dévouement du peuple espagnol à la maison de Bourbon, les passions démagogiques qui l'agitaient, et qui pour se produire adoptaient cette forme étrange, car c'était de la démagogie la plus violente sous les apparences du plus pur royalisme. Ce peuple extrême avait en effet recommencé à égorger, pour se venger des revers des armées espagnoles. Depuis l'assassinat
- 71. pour contenir la populace des villes espagnoles. Napoléon quitte Valladolid le 17 janvier. Ses paroles à Joseph sur l'année 1809. du malheureux marquis de Peralès à Madrid, de don Juan San Benito à Talavera, il avait massacré à Ciudad-Real don Juan Duro, chanoine de Tolède et ami du prince de la Paix, à Malagon l'ancien ministre des finances don Soler. Partout où ne se trouvaient pas les armées françaises, les honnêtes gens tremblaient pour leurs biens et pour leurs personnes. Napoléon, voulant faire un exemple sévère des assassins, avait ordonné à Valladolid l'arrestation d'une douzaine de scélérats, connus pour avoir contribué à tous les massacres, notamment à celui du malheureux gouverneur de Ségovie, don Miguel Cevallos, et les avait fait exécuter, malgré les instances apparentes des principaux habitants de Valladolid[31].—Il faut, avait- il écrit plusieurs fois à son frère, vous faire craindre d'abord, et aimer ensuite. Ici on m'a demandé la grâce des quelques bandits qui ont égorgé et pillé, mais on a été charmé de ne pas l'obtenir, et depuis tout est rentré dans l'ordre. Soyez à la fois juste et fort, et autant l'un que l'autre, si vous voulez gouverner.—Napoléon avait exigé de plus que l'on arrêtât à Madrid une centaine d'égorgeurs, qui assassinaient les Français sous prétexte qu'ils étaient des étrangers, les Espagnols sous prétexte qu'ils étaient des traîtres; et il avait prescrit qu'on en fusillât quelques-uns, voulant, de plus, que ces actes lui fussent imputés à lui seul, pour qu'au-dessus de la douceur connue du nouveau roi, planât sur les scélérats la terreur inspirée par le vainqueur de l'Europe. Ces ordres expédiés, Napoléon quitta Valladolid, résolu de franchir la route de Valladolid à Bayonne à franc étrier, afin de gagner du temps, tant il était pressé d'arriver à Paris. Son frère l'ayant félicité à l'occasion des fêtes du premier de l'an, dans les termes suivants: «Je prie Votre Majesté d'agréer mes vœux pour que dans le cours de cette année l'Europe pacifiée par vos soins rende justice à vos intentions[32]...,» il lui répondit: «Je vous remercie de ce que vous me dites relativement à la bonne année. Je n'espère pas que l'Europe puisse être encore pacifiée cette année. Je l'espère si peu
- 72. Joseph, autorisé par Napoléon à rentrer dans Madrid, attend le résultat des opérations du maréchal Victor contre le corps de Castaños retiré à Cuenca. que je viens de rendre un décret pour lever cent mille hommes. La haine de l'Angleterre, les événements de Constantinople, tout fait présager que l'heure du repos et de la tranquillité n'est pas encore sonnée!» Les terribles journées d'Essling et de Wagram étaient comme annoncées dans ces rudes et mélancoliques paroles. Napoléon partit de Valladolid le 17 janvier au matin avec quelques aides de camp, escorté par des piquets de la garde impériale, qui avaient été échelonnés de Valladolid à Bayonne. Il fit à cheval ce trajet tout entier. Il répandit partout qu'il reviendrait dans une vingtaine de jours, et il le dit même à Joseph, lui promettant d'être de retour avant un mois s'il n'avait pas la guerre avec l'Autriche. Joseph, ayant la permission de s'établir à Madrid, fit les apprêts de son entrée solennelle dans cette capitale. Il aimait l'appareil, comme tous les frères de l'Empereur, réduits qu'ils étaient à chercher dans la pompe extérieure ce qu'il trouvait, lui, dans sa gloire. Joseph manquait d'argent, et il avait obtenu de Napoléon deux millions en numéraire à imputer sur le prix des laines confisquées, dont le trésor espagnol devait avoir sa part. Napoléon s'était procuré ces deux millions en faisant frapper au coin du nouveau roi beaucoup d'argenterie saisie chez les principaux grands seigneurs, dont il avait séquestré les biens pour cause de trahison. Joseph, toutefois, désirait reparaître dans sa capitale sous les auspices de quelque succès brillant. L'expulsion des Anglais du sol espagnol à la suite de la bataille de la Corogne, qu'on représentait comme ayant été désastreuse pour eux, était déjà un fait d'armes qui avait beaucoup d'éclat, et qui tendait à ôter toute confiance dans l'appui de la Grande-Bretagne. Mais d'un jour à l'autre on attendait un exploit du maréchal Victor contre les restes de l'armée de Castaños retirés à Cuenca, et Joseph disposa tout pour entrer à Madrid après la connaissance acquise de ce qui aurait eu lieu de ce côté. La prise de Saragosse eût été le plus heureux des événements de cette nature,
- 73. Marche du maréchal Victor sur Cuenca. Motifs du mouvement offensif des troupes espagnoles réfugiées à Cuenca. mais l'étrange obstination de cette ville ne permettait pas de l'espérer encore. Effectivement, le maréchal Victor avait marché avec les divisions Villatte et Ruffin sur le Tage, dès que l'arrivée de la division Dessoles à Madrid avait permis de distraire de cette capitale quelques-uns des corps qui s'y trouvaient. Il s'était dirigé par sa gauche sur Tarancon, afin de marcher à la rencontre des troupes sorties de Cuenca. Voici quel était le motif de cette espèce de mouvement offensif de l'ancienne armée de Castaños, passée après sa disgrâce aux ordres du général la Peña, et récemment à ceux du duc de l'Infantado. Lorsque le général Moore, tout effrayé de ce qu'il allait tenter, s'était avancé sur la route de Burgos pour menacer, disait-il, les communications de l'ennemi, mais en réalité pour se rapprocher de la route de la Corogne, il avait craint de voir bientôt toutes les forces de Napoléon se tourner contre lui, et il avait demandé que les armées du midi fissent une démonstration sur Madrid, dans le but d'y attirer l'attention des Français. La junte centrale, incapable de commander, et ne sachant que transmettre les demandes de secours que les corps insurgés s'adressaient les uns aux autres, avait vivement pressé l'armée de Cuenca d'opérer quelque mouvement dans le sens indiqué par le général Moore. Le duc de l'Infantado, toujours malheureux en guerre comme en politique, s'était empressé de porter en avant de Cuenca, sur la route d'Aranjuez, une partie de ses troupes. Réduit primitivement à huit ou neuf mille soldats, fort indociles et fort démoralisés, qu'il avait reçus de la main de la Peña, il était parvenu à rétablir un peu d'ordre parmi eux, et il les avait successivement augmentés, d'abord des traînards qui avaient rejoint, puis de quelques détachements venus de Grenade, de Murcie et de Valence, ce qui avait enfin élevé ses forces à une vingtaine de mille hommes. Excité par les dépêches de la junte centrale, il avait dirigé
- 74. Manœuvre du maréchal Victor pour tourner la position des Espagnols à Uclès. Bataille d'Uclès. quatorze à quinze mille hommes environ sur Uclès, route de Tarancon. (Voir la carte no 43.) Il avait confié ce détachement, formant le gros de son armée, au général Vénégas, qui, dans la retraite de Calatayud, avait montré une certaine énergie. Il s'était proposé de le suivre avec une arrière-garde de 5 à 6 mille hommes. Le maréchal Victor, pouvant disposer de la division Ruffin depuis le retour à Madrid de la division Dessoles, l'avait immédiatement acheminée sur Aranjuez, pour la joindre à la division Villatte, qui était déjà sur les bords du Tage, avec les dragons de Latour- Maubourg. Le 12 janvier, il porta ses deux divisions d'infanterie et ses dragons sur Tarancon, le tout présentant une force d'une douzaine de mille hommes des meilleures troupes de l'Europe, capables de culbuter trois ou quatre fois plus d'Espagnols qu'il n'allait en rencontrer. Sachant que les Espagnols l'attendaient à Uclès, dans une position assez forte, il eut l'idée de ne leur opposer que les dragons de Latour-Maubourg et la division Villatte, gui suffisaient bien pour les débusquer, et, en faisant par sa gauche avec la division Ruffin un détour à travers les montagnes d'Alcazar, d'aller leur couper la retraite, de manière qu'ils ne pussent pas s'échapper. Le 13 au matin, la division Villatte s'avança hardiment sur Uclès. La position consistait en deux pics assez élevés, entre lesquels était située la petite ville d'Uclès. Les Espagnols avaient leurs ailes appuyées à ces pics, et leur centre à la ville. Le général Villatte les aborda brusquement avec ses vieux régiments, et les chassa de toutes leurs positions. Tandis qu'à gauche le 27e léger culbutait la droite des Espagnols, au centre le 63e de ligne prenait d'assaut la ville d'Uclès, et y passait par les armes près de deux mille ennemis, avec les moines du couvent d'Uclès, qui avaient fait feu sur nos troupes. À droite, les 94e et 95e de ligne, manœuvrant pour tourner les Espagnols, les obligeaient à
- 75. Brillants résultats de la bataille d'Uclès. Après les batailles de la Corogne et d'Uclès, Joseph se décide enfin à entrer dans Madrid. se retirer sur Carrascosa, où les attendait la division Ruffin dans les gorges d'Alcazar. Ces malheureux, en effet, fuyant en toute hâte vers Alcazar, y trouvèrent la division Ruffin qui arrivait sur eux par une gorge étroite. Ils prirent sur-le-champ position pour se défendre en gens déterminés. Mais attaqués de front par le 9e léger et le 96e de ligne, tournés par le 24e , ils furent contraints de mettre bas les armes. Une partie d'entre eux, voulant gagner la gorge même d'Alcazar, d'où avait débouché la division Ruffin, allaient se sauver par cette issue, qu'occupait seule actuellement l'artillerie du général Senarmont, restée en arrière à cause des mauvais chemins. Celui-ci pouvait être enlevé par les fuyards; mais, toujours aussi résolu et intelligent qu'à Friedland, il imagina de former son artillerie en carré, et tirant dans tous les sens, il arrêta la colonne fugitive, qui fut ainsi rejetée sur les baïonnettes de la division Ruffin. Treize mille hommes environ déposèrent les armes à la suite de cette opération brillante, et livrèrent trente drapeaux avec une nombreuse artillerie. Sans perdre un instant, le maréchal Victor courut sur Cuenca pour atteindre le peu qui restait du corps du duc de l'Infantado. Mais celui-ci s'était enfui précipitamment sur la route de Valence, laissant encore dans nos mains des blessés, des malades, du matériel. Nos dragons recueillirent les débris de son corps, et sabrèrent plusieurs centaines d'hommes. Après ce fait d'armes, on devait pour long-temps être en repos à Madrid, et la victoire d'Uclès prouvait qu'on n'aurait pas beaucoup de peine à envahir le midi de la Péninsule. Toutefois on ne pouvait pas encore y songer. Il fallait auparavant que Joseph s'établît à Madrid, que l'armée française se reposât, et que Saragosse fût pris. Les événements de la Corogne étaient maintenant tout à fait connus. On savait que les Anglais s'étaient retirés en désordre, abandonnant tout leur matériel, et ayant perdu sur les routes ou sur le champ de bataille un quart de leur effectif, leurs principaux officiers et leur
- 76. Entrée de Joseph dans Madrid le 22 janvier. général en chef. La prise à Uclès d'une armée espagnole tout entière, vrai pendant de Baylen, si la prise d'une armée espagnole avait pu produire le même effet que celle d'une armée française, était un nouveau trophée très-propre à orner l'entrée du roi Joseph à Madrid. Napoléon avait voulu que cette entrée eût quelque chose de triomphal. Il avait placé auprès de son frère la division Dessoles, la division Sébastiani, pour qu'il eût avec lui les plus belles troupes de l'armée française, et qu'il ne parût au milieu des Espagnols qu'entouré des vieilles légions qui avaient vaincu l'Europe.—Je leur avais envoyé des agneaux, avait-il dit en parlant des jeunes soldats de Dupont, et ils les ont dévorés; je leur enverrai des loups qui les dévoreront à leur tour.—C'est à la tête de ces redoutables soldats que Joseph entra, le 22 janvier, dans Madrid, au bruit des cloches, aux éclats du canon, et en présence des habitants de la capitale soumis par la victoire, résignés presque à la nouvelle royauté, et, quoique toujours blessés au cœur, préférant pour ainsi dire la domination des Français à celle de la populace sanguinaire, qui peu de temps auparavant assassinait l'infortuné marquis de Peralès. Celle-ci seule était irritée et encore à craindre. Mais on venait d'arrêter une centaine de ses chefs les plus connus par leurs crimes, et au Retiro, vis-à-vis de Madrid, s'élevait un ouvrage formidable, hérissé de canons, et capable en quelques heures de réduire en cendres la capitale des Espagnes. Joseph fut donc accueilli avec beaucoup d'égards, et même avec une certaine satisfaction par la masse des habitants paisibles, mais avec une rage concentrée par la populace, qui se sentait détrônée à l'avénement d'un gouvernement régulier, car c'était son règne plus que celui de Ferdinand VII dont elle déplorait la chute. Joseph se rendit au palais, où vinrent le visiter les autorités civiles et militaires, le clergé, et ceux des grands seigneurs de la cour d'Espagne qui n'avaient pas pu ou n'avaient pas voulu quitter Madrid. Joseph passait tellement pour protecteur des Espagnols auprès du conquérant qui avait étendu sur eux son bras terrible, qu'on ne regardait pas comme un crime de l'aller voir. Mais au fond, tant la gloire soumet les hommes, on était plus près d'aimer, si on avait aimé quelque chose dans la cour de
- 77. Siége de Saragosse. Première cause des lenteurs de ce siége. France, l'effrayante grandeur de Napoléon que l'indulgente faiblesse de Joseph; et si celle-ci était le prétexte, celle-là était le motif vrai qui amenait encore beaucoup d'hommages aux pieds du nouveau monarque. Joseph fut donc suffisamment entouré dans son palais pour s'y croire établi. Le célèbre Thomas de Morla accepta de lui des fonctions. On vint le solliciter d'alléger le poids de certaines condamnations. Il lui arriva plus d'un avis de Séville, portant qu'il n'était pas impossible de traiter avec l'Andalousie; car, indépendamment de ce que la junte centrale était tombée au dernier degré du mépris par sa manière de gouverner, elle avait perdu le président qui seul répandait quelque éclat sur elle, l'illustre Florida Blanca. Pour qui n'avait pas le secret de la destinée, il était permis de se tromper sur le sort de la nouvelle dynastie imposée à l'Espagne, et on pouvait croire qu'elle commençait à s'établir comme celles de Naples, de Hollande et de Cassel. Au milieu de ces apparences de soumission, un seul événement, toujours annoncé, mais trop lent à s'accomplir, celui de la prise de Saragosse, tenait les esprits en suspens, et laissait encore quelque espoir aux Espagnols entêtés dans leur résistance. Nous avons vu en plaine les Espagnols fuir, sans aucun souci de leur honneur militaire et de leur ancienne gloire: ils effaçaient à Saragosse toutes les humiliations infligées à leurs armes, en opposant à nos soldats la plus glorieuse défense qu'une ville assiégée ait jamais opposée à l'invasion étrangère. Nous avons déjà fait connaître les retards inévitables qu'avait entraînés dans le siége de Saragosse le mouvement croisé de nos troupes autour de cette place. Quoique la victoire de Tudela, qui avait ouvert l'Aragon à nos soldats et supprimé tout obstacle entre Pampelune et Saragosse, eût été remportée le 23 novembre, le maréchal Moncey, privé d'abord de la meilleure partie de ses forces
- 78. Opérations tendant à resserrer l'ennemi dans la ville. Inaction du 5e corps pendant les commencement s du siége. par l'envoi de deux divisions à la poursuite de Castaños, rejoint ensuite par le maréchal Ney, et abandonné par celui-ci au moment où il allait attaquer les positions extérieures de Saragosse, n'avait pas pu s'approcher de cette ville avant le 10 décembre. Renforcé enfin le 19 décembre par le maréchal Mortier, qui avait ordre de couvrir le siége, de seconder même les troupes assiégeantes dans les occasions graves, sans fatiguer ses soldats aux travaux et aux attaques, il avait profité de ce concours fort limité pour resserrer la place, et enlever les positions extérieures. Le 21 décembre, la division Grandjean avait, par une manœuvre hardie et habile, occupé le Monte- Torrero, qui domine la ville de Saragosse, et sur lequel les Aragonais avaient élevé un ouvrage, tandis que la division Suchet, du corps de Mortier, se rendait maîtresse des hauteurs de Saint-Lambert sur la rive droite de l'Èbre, et que sur la rive gauche la division Gazan, appartenant au même corps, emportait la position de San Gregorio, rejetait l'ennemi dans le faubourg, et prenait ou passait par les armes 500 Suisses restés fidèles à l'Espagne. Cette journée avait décidément renfermé les Aragonais dans la ville elle-même, et dès lors les travaux d'approche avaient pu commencer. Ce secours une fois prêté au 3e corps, le maréchal Mortier était rentré dans son rôle d'auxiliaire, qui se bornait à couvrir le siége. Laissant la division Gazan sur la gauche de l'Èbre, pour bloquer le faubourg qui occupe cette rive, il avait passé sur la rive droite avec la division Suchet, et avait pris position loin du théâtre des attaques, à Calatayud, afin d'empêcher toute tentative des Espagnols, qui auraient pu venir soit de Valence, soit du centre de l'Espagne. C'était assez pour lier les opérations de Saragosse avec l'ensemble de nos opérations en Espagne; c'était trop peu pour la marche du siége, car le 3e corps, formé, depuis le départ de la division Lagrange, des trois divisions Morlot, Musnier et Grandjean, ne comptait guère plus de 14,000 hommes d'infanterie, 2,000 de cavalerie, 1,000 d'artillerie, 1,000 du génie. Avec les difficultés qu'on allait avoir à vaincre, il
- 79. Préparatifs des assiégés et des assiégeants pour rendre la lutte terrible. Caractère de Joseph Palafox, commandant de Saragosse. aurait fallu pouvoir se servir des 8,000 hommes de la division Gazan, qui bloquaient sans l'attaquer le faubourg de la rive gauche, des 9,000 hommes de la division Suchet, qui étaient postés vers Calatayud, à une vingtaine de lieues. Cette disposition ordonnée d'en haut et de loin par Napoléon, qui avait voulu tenir le corps de Mortier toujours frais et disponible pour l'utiliser ailleurs, avait l'inconvénient des plans conçus à une trop grande distance des lieux, celui de ne pas cadrer avec l'état vrai des choses. Ce n'eût pas été trop, nous le répétons, des 36 ou 38,000 hommes qui composaient les deux corps réunis, pour venir à bout de Saragosse. Les deux partis avaient mis à profit tous ces retards en préparant de plus terribles moyens d'attaque et de défense, tant au dedans qu'au dehors de Saragosse. Les Aragonais, fiers de la résistance qu'ils avaient opposée l'année précédente, et s'étant aperçus de la valeur de leurs murailles, étaient résolus à se venger, par la défense de leur capitale, de tous les échecs essuyés en rase campagne. Après Tudela, ils s'étaient retirés au nombre de 25 mille dans la place, et avaient amené avec eux 15 ou 20 mille paysans, à la fois fanatiques et contrebandiers achevés, tirant bien, capables, du haut d'un toit ou d'une fenêtre, de tuer un à un ces mêmes soldats devant lesquels ils fuyaient en plaine. À eux s'étaient joints beaucoup d'habitants de la campagne, que la terreur forçait à s'éloigner, de façon que la population de Saragosse, ordinairement de quarante à cinquante mille âmes, se trouvait être de plus de cent mille en ce moment. C'était toujours Palafox qui commandait. Brave, présomptueux, peu intelligent, mais mené par deux moines habiles, secondé par deux frères dévoués, le marquis de Lassan et François Palafox, il exerçait sur la populace aragonaise un empire sans bornes, surtout depuis qu'on avait su qu'à la prudence de Castaños, qu'on qualifiait de trahison, il avait toujours opposé son ardeur téméraire, qu'on appelait héroïsme. La paisible bourgeoisie
- 80. Moyens de résistance accumulés dans Saragosse. Configuration de Saragosse. de Saragosse allait être cruellement sacrifiée, dans ce siége horrible, à la fureur de la multitude, qui par deux moines gouvernait Palafox, la ville et l'armée. Des approvisionnements immenses en blé, vins, bétail avaient été amassés par la peur même des habitants des environs, lesquels en fuyant transportaient à Saragosse tout ce qu'ils possédaient. Les Anglais avaient de plus envoyé d'abondantes munitions de guerre, et on avait ainsi tous les moyens de prolonger indéfiniment la résistance. Pour la faire durer davantage, des potences avaient été élevées sur les places publiques, avec menace d'exécuter immédiatement quiconque parlerait de se rendre. Rien, en un mot, n'avait été négligé pour ajouter à la constance naturelle des Espagnols, à leur patriotisme vrai, l'appui d'un patriotisme barbare et fanatique. Dans l'armée d'Aragon retirée à Saragosse, se trouvaient de nombreux détachements de troupes de ligne, et beaucoup d'officiers du génie fort capables, et fort dévoués. Chez les vieilles nations militaires qui ont dégénéré de leur ancienne valeur, les armes savantes sont toujours celles qui se maintiennent le plus long-temps. Les ingénieurs espagnols, qui, aux seizième et dix-septième siècles, étaient si habiles, avaient conservé une partie de leur ancien mérite, et ils avaient élevé autour de Saragosse des ouvrages nombreux et redoutables. Cette place, comme il a été dit précédemment (livre XXXI), n'était pas régulièrement fortifiée, mais son site, la nature de ses constructions, pouvaient la rendre très-forte dans les mains d'un peuple résolu à se défendre jusqu'à la mort. (Voir la carte no 45.) Elle était entourée, d'une enceinte qui n'était ni bastionnée ni terrassée; mais elle avait pour défense, d'un côté l'Èbre, au bord duquel elle est assise, et dont elle occupe la rive droite, n'ayant sur la rive gauche qu'un faubourg, de l'autre côté une suite de gros bâtiments, tels que le château de l'Inquisition, les couvents des Capucins, de Santa- Engracia, de Saint-Joseph, des Augustins, de Sainte-Monique,
- 81. véritables forteresses qu'il fallait battre en brèche pour y pénétrer, et que couvrait une petite rivière profondément encaissée, celle de la Huerba, qui longe une moitié de l'enceinte de Saragosse avant de se jeter dans l'Èbre. À l'intérieur se rencontraient de vastes couvents, tout aussi solides que ceux du dehors, et de grandes maisons massives, carrées, prenant leurs jours en dedans, comme il est d'usage dans les pays méridionaux, peu percées au dehors, vouées d'avance à la destruction, car il était bien décidé que, les défenses extérieures forcées, on ferait de toute maison une citadelle qu'on défendrait jusqu'à la dernière extrémité. Chaque maison était crénelée, et percée intérieurement pour communiquer de l'une à l'autre; chaque rue était coupée de barricades avec force canons. Mais, avant d'en être réduit à cette défense intérieure, on comptait bien tenir long-temps dans les travaux exécutés au dehors, et qui avaient une valeur réelle. En partant de l'Èbre et du château de l'Inquisition, placé au bord de ce fleuve, en face de la position occupée par notre gauche, on avait élevé, pour suppléer à l'enceinte fortifiée qui n'existait pas, un mur en pierre sèche avec terrassement, allant du château de l'Inquisition au couvent des Capucins, et à celui de Santa-Engracia. En cet endroit, la ville présentait un angle saillant, et la petite rivière de la Huerba, venant la joindre, la longeait jusqu'à l'Èbre inférieur, devant notre extrême droite. Au point où la Huerba joignait la ville, une tête de pont avait été construite, de forme quadrangulaire et fortement retranchée. De cet endroit, en suivant la Huerba, on rencontrait sur la Huerba même, et en avant de son lit, le couvent de Saint-Joseph, espèce de forteresse à quatre faces qu'on avait entourée d'un fossé et d'un terrassement. Derrière cette ligne régnait une partie de mur, terrassé en quelques endroits, et partout hérissé d'artillerie. Cent cinquante bouches à feu couvraient ces divers ouvrages. Il fallait par conséquent emporter la ligne des couvents et de la Huerba, puis le mur terrassé, puis après ce mur les maisons, les prendre successivement, sous le feu de quarante mille défenseurs, les uns, il est vrai, soldats médiocres, les autres fanatiques d'une vaillance rare derrière des murailles, tous pourvus
- 82. de vivres et de munitions, et résolus à faire détruire une ville qui n'était pas à eux, mais à des habitants tremblants et soumis. Enfin la superstition à une vieille cathédrale très-ancienne, Notre-Dame del Pilar, leur persuadait à tous que les Français échoueraient contre sa protection miraculeuse.
- 83. Force des Français devant Saragosse. Officiers du génie chargés de diriger les travaux du siége. Ouverture de la tranchée dans la nuit du 29 au 30 décembre. Si on met à part les 8 mille hommes de la division Gazan, se bornant à observer le faubourg de la rive gauche, et les 9 mille de la division Suchet placés à Calatayud, le général Junot, qui venait de prendre le commandement en chef, avait pour assiéger cette place, gardée par quarante mille défenseurs, 14 mille fantassins, 2 mille artilleurs ou soldats du génie, 2 mille cavaliers, tous, jeunes et vieux, Français et Polonais, tous soldats admirables, conduits par des officiers sans pareils, comme on va bientôt en juger. Le commandant du génie était le général Lacoste, aide de camp de l'Empereur, officier d'un grand mérite, actif, infatigable, plein de ressources, secondé par le colonel du génie Rogniat, et le chef de bataillon Haxo, devenu depuis l'illustre général Haxo. Une quarantaine d'officiers de la même arme, remarquables par la bravoure et l'instruction, complétaient ce personnel. Le général Lacoste n'avait pas perdu pour les travaux de son arme le mois écoulé en allées et venues de troupes, et il avait fait transporter de Pampelune à Tudela par terre, de Tudela à Saragosse, par le canal d'Aragon, 20 mille outils, 100 mille sacs à terre, 60 bouches à feu de gros calibre. Il avait en même temps employé les soldats du génie à construire plusieurs milliers de gabions et de fascines. Le général d'artillerie Dedon l'avait parfaitement assisté dans ces diverses opérations. Du 29 au 30 décembre, tandis que Napoléon poursuivait les Anglais au delà du Guadarrama, tandis que les maréchaux Victor et Lefebvre rejetaient les Espagnols dans la Manche et l'Estrémadure, et que le général Saint-Cyr venait de se rendre maître de la campagne en Catalogne, le général Lacoste, d'accord avec le général Junot, ouvrit la tranchée à 160 toises de la première ligne de défense, qui consistait, comme on
- 84. Trois attaques, dont une simulée et deux sérieuses. Ouverture de la seconde parallèle, le 2 janvier 1809. vient de le voir, en couvents fortifiés, en portions de muraille terrassée, en une partie du lit de la Huerba. (Voir la carte no 45.) Il avait fait adopter le projet de trois attaques: la première à gauche, devant le château de l'Inquisition, confiée à la division Morlot, mais celle-là plutôt comme diversion que comme attaque réelle: la seconde au centre, devant Santa- Engracia et la tête de pont de la Huerba, confiée à la division Musnier, celle-ci destinée à être très-sérieuse; la troisième enfin à droite, devant le formidable couvent de Saint-Joseph, confiée à la division Grandjean, et la plus sérieuse des trois, parce que, Saint- Joseph pris, elle devait conduire au delà de la Huerba, sur la partie la moins forte de la muraille d'enceinte, et sur un quartier par lequel on espérait atteindre le Cosso, vaste voie intérieure qui traverse la ville tout entière, et qui ressemble fort au boulevard de Paris. La tranchée hardiment ouverte, on procéda au plus tôt à perfectionner la première parallèle, et on chemina vers la seconde, dans le but de s'approcher du couvent de Saint-Joseph à droite, de la tête de pont de la Huerba au centre. Le 31 décembre, une sortie tentée par les troupes régulières de la garnison fut vivement repoussée. Ce n'était pas en rase campagne que les Espagnols pouvaient retrouver leur vaillance naturelle. Le 2 janvier, on ouvrit la seconde parallèle. Les jours suivants furent employés à disposer en plusieurs batteries trente bouches à feu déjà arrivées, afin de ruiner la tête de pont de la Huerba ainsi que le château de Saint-Joseph, et de contre-battre aussi l'artillerie ennemie placée en arrière de cette première ligne de défense. Pendant ces travaux, auxquels concouraient plus de deux mille travailleurs par jour, sous la direction des soldats du génie, les assiégés envoyaient dans nos tranchées une grêle de pierres et de grenades, lancées avec des mortiers. Nous y répondions par le feu de nos tirailleurs postés derrière des sacs à terre, et tirant avec une grande justesse sur toutes les embrasures de l'ennemi.
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