Commonality, Difference and the Dynamics of Disclosure in In-Depth Interviewing

Abstract

The last few decades have witnessed a notable growth in literature addressing the politics and ethics of social research. Much of this literature has stressed difference between the researcher and the interviewee, and has addressed the importance of sensitising researchers to the difficulties and dilemmas encountered in in-depth interviewing crossing sex, class, and race boundaries. We argue that an examination of the cultural identities of the researcher and the interviewee, and how they may impact upon the interview process, needs further exploration. As two independent researchers of Chinese young people in Britain, we found that our interview experiences as mixed-descent Chinese-English and Korean-American researchers `positioned' us in terms of both commonality and difference vis-à-vis our interviewees. More attention needs to be given to how assumptions made by interviewees regarding the cultural identity of the researcher shapes interviewees' accounts. Interviewees could claim either commonality or difference with us, on the basis of gender, language, physical appearance and personal relationships.

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