Description
How can researchers conduct interviews about sensitive topics the interlocutors are unwilling to discuss? This article presents two research techniques particularly useful in arranging and conducting interviews about controversial or sensitive matters: real-life vignettes and adaptable self-presentation practices. Drawing on my fieldwork in Israel and the UK, especially transcripts and field notes from semi-structured interviews with 32 British and 38 Israeli state officials, the article contributes to the ongoing methodological debates on elite interviewing. It first presents the types of challenges I faced trying to get answers as to why secure and powerful states like the UK and Israel employ narratives of vulnerability in wartime public communication. Then it discusses how the use of real-life vignettes during interviews assists in introducing sensitive topics into the interview. I illustrate how they allow me to quickly establish the importance of the research phenomenon as well as to facilitate more open conversations. Finally, I show the benefits of the adaptable self-presentation technique. The goal of this practice is to conduct a responsive interview. One in which the researcher builds trust with the participant by bringing out its own biographical aspects that emphasize either its outsider or insider status.
Keywords: interpretivism, methods, interviews, fieldwork, sensitive topics
