Accounts and Accounting

Abstract

This chapter examines some of the methodological issues arising when asking actors to give accounts of their life experiences.¹ The research strategy pursued here parts from the premise that accounts are social products and as such need to be located and interpreted within the social context in which they occur. In this case the specific context and features of exile as a research setting, and the way in which this impinged upon the gathering of information and the quality of information obtained, need to be borne in mind. More narrowly, the accounts were generated within the distinctive setting of an interview where the presence of the researcher also has a bearing on the data received. Not only is the researcher assigned a number of identities by participants themselves as they attempt to make sense of the project and the person but, more generally, the researcher’s gender, age and ethnic identity all play a part in shaping the account produced.² The chapter ends with a discussion of the way in which the participants in this study were selected and with a broad profile of the men and women who make up the interview group.

I’ve given interviews before in Chile but I was only ever asked about trade union affairs. Nobody ever dreamt of asking me about my home life.

Pedro, a manual worker

Nobody ever thought of asking me for my opinion before.

Mariana, a housewife