Qualitative Interviewing as an Embodied Emotional Performance

The article argues that the emotional framing of interviews plays a major role in shaping the content of interviews. Drawing on the psychoanalytic theory of Jessica Benjamin and Luce Irigaray, the article describes how interviews can be experienced as either conquest or communion. Qualitative resear...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Qualitative inquiry 2010-03, Vol.16 (3), p.163-170
Main Author: Ezzy, Douglas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS)
Autobiographies
Benjamin, Jessica
Communion
Consciousness
Emotional Response
Emotions
Ethnography
Framing
History, theory and methodology
Interpersonal Relationship
Interviews
Irigaray, Luce
Methodology
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalytic theory
Psychology
Qualitative analysis
Qualitative Research
Reflexivity
Research Methodology
Research methods
Researcher Subject Relations
Researchers
Sociology
Theories
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Summary:The article argues that the emotional framing of interviews plays a major role in shaping the content of interviews. Drawing on the psychoanalytic theory of Jessica Benjamin and Luce Irigaray, the article describes how interviews can be experienced as either conquest or communion. Qualitative researchers typically focus on the cognitively articulated aspects of the interview and elide the significance of their own and the interviewee’s, emotions. A reanalysis of two previous qualitative interview studies is used to illustrate the difference between interviews experienced as conquest or communion. The article argues that all interviews are emotional and embodied performances and that good interviewing is facilitated by a reflexive awareness of, and engagement with, the emotional, embodied, and performed dimensions of the interview.
ISSN:1077-8004
1552-7565
DOI:10.1177/1077800409351970