Before, during, and after: Identity and the social construction of knowledge in qualitative research Interviews.

Yates, Peter Michael

Authors

Peter Michael Yates

Abstract

After outlining briefly some of the key ideas in symbolic interactionist theories of self, this article will reflect on the author’s experiences of interviews during a Research Interviews course and the impact of identity before, during and after the interview. It will argue that a symbolic interactionist view of self and identity is useful for understanding the nature of knowledge produced in research interviews but this needs to be complemented by a Foucauldian understanding of power. It will conclude that combining these two perspectives allows us to see that simplistic notions of reflexivity, which consider only the impact of the identity of the researcher on the research process, are inadequate. Instead we need to understand that the identities of the researcher and the respondents, and the research process itself, are all in a dynamic and mutually influencing relationship with each other.

Citation

Yates, P. M. (2013). Before, during, and after: Identity and the social construction of knowledge in qualitative research Interviews. Hydra Interdisciplinary Journal of Social Studies, 1, 31-41

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	2013
Deposit Date	Mar 11, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Mar 11, 2015
Print ISSN	2052-8590
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	1
Pages	31-41
Keywords	Identity; self; symbolic interactionist theory; research interviews; power;
Public URL	http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/7667