Abstract
In this chapter I consider intensive interviewing as a way of generating in-depth talk in relation to experiences/cognitions relevant to discussions around racism. As in earlier chapters, I structure the chapter by focusing on methodological and epistemological considerations, giving special attention to different interpretations of what is involved in this mode of inquiry.
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- 1.
Certain theorists such as Hammersley define positivism narrowly as implying that scientific theories “can be confirmed, or at least falsified, with certainty” (1995, p. 5). Other theorists such as Keat and Urry (1975) define positivism (and post-positivism) as embracing also the Popperian argument, where it is recognized that science can neither verify nor falsify particular claims with certainty. (See Chapter 1, Section 1.5.1, and also Romm, 2001, pp. 20–25.) Postmodernism as an epistemology can be seen as taking issue with both the positivist and post-positivist definition of truth – and with the belief that we can specify (scientific) mechanisms for moving closer to truth, defined as an accurate representation of some posited extra-linguistic reality.
- 2.
Crenshaw states in this regard that “the intersectional subordination of raced women is often underread” and that it is important to consider the various ways in which the lives of some women are “shaped, constrained, and sometimes lost by the nexus between gender, race, color, or ethnicity and other axes of subordination.” She indicates that intersectional analysis specifically addresses “the manner in which racism, patriarchy, class oppression and other discriminatory systems create background inequalities that structure the relative positions of women, races, ethnicities, classes, and the like” (2000).
- 3.
As far as the logic of analytic induction is concerned, this is associated with the idea that social theorizing is distinct from natural scientific theorizing in that social scientists need to engage in the interpretation of meanings as the basis for their analyses (cf. Henwood & Pidgeon, 1993, p. 22). Analytic logic is used with the purpose of highlighting resonance between people’s experiences in different social contexts – as drawn out through the analysis (Romm & Adman, 2000). This is seen as different from positivist-endorsed induction, which posits that scientists – whether natural or social ones – can induce theories about causal connections by using a similar logic whether natural or social phenomena are being explored. Essed is invoking here the interpretive-oriented account of induction. But this kind of induction, along with positivist-endorsed induction, has also been criticized by more structurally oriented sociology (cf. Layder, 1993, pp. 56–57). Essed proposes an approach that takes into account the criticisms leveled by structural sociology.
- 4.
Holstein and Gubrium provide an outline of how ethnomethodology (which focuses on the way in which actors “exercise interpretive discretion, mediated by complex layerings of interpretive influence”) relates to phenomenology (which focuses on interpreting and explaining human action and thought) and other styles of interpretive inquiry (1994, pp. 262–268). They note that all of these approaches are concerned with “reality-constituting interpretive practice” (1994, p. 262).
- 5.
It is worth noting here, in terms of my discussion of the reinforcement of bounded groupness in Chapters 3 and 4, that Pettigrew comments that “the more bounded the two groups [under consideration] the greater the ultimate attribution error is likely to be” (1979, p. 469). He cites research (such as that of McKillip, DiMiceli, and Luebke, (1977)) suggesting that the ultimate attribution error is linked to “high salience of group membership” (1979, p. 469).
- 6.
This is consistent with the policy reported to me in an interview (2007) with a manager in the diversity and inclusiveness division at Shell (which has its headquarters in The Hague in the Netherlands). The interviewee indicated to me that while the operations of Shell in the USA and in South Africa are in line with legal provisions for affirmative action, in the Netherlands targets are set for employing more “ethnic minorities” – but these are not legally required to be met. She also indicated to me that different people in Shell see the targets differently – with some arguing the case for trying to meet targets on moral grounds, and others arguing that the “business benefit” needs to be shown in terms of the effectiveness for business of diversity in Shell. In this climate she tries in her work to collect stories that show “how diversity is good for business.” She also makes use of Implicit Association Tests (IATs) (see Chapter 3, Section 3.7) to help people to acknowledge biases that they may be carrying in relation to those perceived as “different,” and to open up discussions on possibly unacknowledged racism.
- 7.
Douglas also initiated a collaborative inquiry group for Black women managers – as a “safe and secure” context where they could identify with the aim of transforming “habitual taken-for-granted responses.” In establishing criteria for joining the group, she looked for women who, for example, “were experienced in developing Black women” as she “hoped to tap a wider source of knowledge than just our personal experience.” She also considered it important that they showed willingness to “collaborate as equals taking neither teacher, nor mentee roles.” She indicates that the overall aim was to “create an ethos of critical reflectivity” rather than people “detaching the self and heavily [and defensively] protecting it” (2002, p. 253). Douglas’s discussion of the importance of creating a context where people could feel “safe,” tallies with Collins’s expression of the need for this – see Chapter 1, Section 1.4.
- 8.
Douglas explains that her research concerns around this issue grew out of my work and life experiences as a Black woman in Britain working with organizations to implement their various equal opportunity policies. They also emerged from a more fundamental life question “Is it possible for Black women to thrive in Britain?” (2002, p. 250).
She indicates that this life question became triggered for her “during a Maya Angelou poetry reading concert in Lewisham. Though inspired by the woman herself, I was most struck by the idea of ‘surviving’ and ‘thriving’ as distinctly different goals for the Black woman” (2002, p. 250).
- 9.
Ivey and Ivey argue in similar vein that in “intentional interviewing,” participants can be facilitated to “restory” – that is, to generate new ways to talk about themselves in “new narratives” – as part of the process of reconsidering options for action. In this way, restorying becomes linked to possibilities for empowerment (2003, p. 27).
- 10.
This ties in with my discussion in Chapter 4, Section 4.3.2, where I discussed Mann’s (2006) account of interviewing perceived as an encounter where perspectives become (re)created, rather than “found.”
- 11.
This Gubrium is not the same person as the co-author of Holstein and Gubrium (1995, 2003), although Gubrium and Koro-Ljungberg cite favorably the work of Holstein and Gubrium (1995) for developing an understanding of interviewing that “enhances interactions and participants, and enriches analytic practices and data interpretations” (2005, p. 711).
- 12.
Hammersley calls his (realist) position non-foundationalism in order to distinguish it from “naïve” empiricist positions (1995, p. 72). In doing so, he follows Popper’s suggestion that lessons can be learned from positivism, while rejecting the naïve empiricism (foundationalism) associated with positivism (1995, p. 19). As pointed out by Lincoln and Guba, “constructivists … tend toward the anti-foundational” (2003, p. 273, my italics). Anti-foundational, they note, is the “term used to denote a refusal to adopt any permanent, unvarying … standards by which truth can be universally known” (2003, p. 273).
- 13.
Some theorists naming themselves critical theorists still adhere to realist-oriented positions – see, for example, Morrow (1994) and Parks (2007). However, in Chapter 6, I indicate how critical theorizing is more often associated with questioning the fact/value distinction that underpins realist epistemologies.
- 14.
Flick indicates that the notion that “individual views” are part of a dynamic social process is “an essential element of the social constructionist theoretical approach to reality [and] has been increasingly taken into account in the methodological literature” (2002, p. 119). My suggestion is that recognizing that views become “changed, asserted or suppressed” (as Flick, 2002, p. 119, puts it) in social exchange places a responsibility on facilitators to consider their involvement in this.
- 15.
He heard about this through a participant in another set of (cross-racial) focus groups that I organized with adults to discuss racialized and postracialized social relationships (in Margate, South Africa, earlier in 2007).
- 16.
He later explained to me that this was a formerly White (government) school, where fees were relatively high and where many Black professionals chose to send their children post-apartheid (with increasing numbers of Black children entering the school each year). The school to which the other children went was likewise a fee-paying formerly White school (now called Model C schools).
- 17.
In making this statement I drew partly on Appiah’s remarks (1994, 1996) that insofar as identities become constructed around being, say, black, this can lead to scripts associated with (in the case of the USA) being an “African American.” As he notes, there will be “proper ways of being black …, there will be expectations to be met, demands will be made” (1994, p. 162). He criticizes this stance in that it does not provide for resisting “someone who demands that I organize my life around my ‘race’” (1994, p. 163). He points out (1994, p. 164) that the downside of the application of a “recognition” stance that “demands respect for people as blacks” – which seems to be the concern of those criticizing Ayanda in this case for apparently not wanting to associate with “blackness” – is that it can lead to creating a set of expectations for people’s behavior (and choices) that is “too tightly scripted” – as here experienced by Ayanda.
- 18.
In a television talk show (3 Talk) hosted by Noeleen Maholwana-Sangqu on 20 October 2007 around the novel called Coconut by Kopano Matlwa (2007), Noeleen indicated that “I still don’t understand it. What is it? Is it my accent? Is it the way I speak? Is it the way I live? Is it the way I dress? Is it that I hang out with White girls?” One of the (Black) panel members indicated that it is a serious label that one gives someone, and that “a 15 year old could feel hurt.” She continued that “it is a label applied by Black people to other Black people implying ‘you don’t fit in,’ and you are called upon to defend yourself.” Phumla Nhlumayo – in offering me feedback on this chapter (May 2009) – pointed out to me that it is not only that one is called upon to defend oneself, but that one may be considered that one is “betraying other Blacks” by associating too much with Whites. She herself experiences this in her (good) relationship with her White manager, which leads to her “getting names from other Blacks saying she thinks she is White.” She indicates that in this way the effects of apartheid still live on in the way she experiences the continued racialization of her social relationships.
- 19.
Schutte notes that often English-speaking authors writing about South Africa attributed blame to Afrikaners and the Afrikaner-led (apartheid) government rather than to Whites in general for South Africa’s “moral, political, and economic decline” (1995, p. 15).
- 20.
The term Kaffir – originally derived from an Arabic word
that is usually translated into English as “infidel” – was used by colonists during the Dutch and British colonial periods to describe Black people of the Southern African region (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir). During the twentieth century the term took on increasingly derisory meanings in South Africa, and as the nationmaster encyclopedia points out, it is used today in South Africa “only as a derogatory and offensive term of abuse” (http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/South-Africa-Kaffir-people). In 2000, the South African parliament enacted Act No. 4 of 2000: Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act that contains a clause relating to Hate Speech (speech that can be considered as hurtful, harmful, or promoting hatred). The clause is meant to prohibit the use of words such as Kaffir and other derogatory racial classifications (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir). - 21.
Phumla Nhlumayo’s interpretation of this scenario (in offering feedback to me, May 2009) is that it shows that although we are supposedly living in a free world, the world is not free – in that Henriette did not feel free to contest the use of the language. But she indicates that especially for a child, it would have been difficult to raise this as an issue, also because she was a visitor in their home. She can thus see how, as visitor, Henriette did not feel that she could explicitly raise her concerns.
- 22.
In Noeleen Maholwana-Sangqu’s television show 3 Talk on 10 May 2007 (advertised as exploring racism in South Africa), one White caller called in to indicate that he had wanted as a doctor to specialize in surgery in South Africa. But he had had no success in being accepted. He went for an interview abroad and was accepted. One of the White panel members stated that “at some stage you want to see where it [affirmative action] is going to stop” (in the country). The Chairman of the South African Human Rights Commission (also on the panel) – Jody Kollapen – responded that “in 1994 we did not inherit a country of equality” and that “mechanisms to address the inequalities of the past still have to be instituted.” He suggested that “we need a proper application of affirmative action” – one that does not “forget the past” – to help “level the playing field” in South Africa.
- 23.
By this she meant formerly Black state schools (during apartheid) that are still monoracial and that continue to be under-resourced.
- 24.
It is worth noting in this regard that Zegeye comments that due to the way the government educational budget was spent during the apartheid era, “South Africa today has some of the best state schools in the world today [the formerly White ones], but also some of the worst” (due to the relative lack of money spent on Black schools) (2004, p. 872). He indicates that with the respondents whom he interviewed when exploring Black youth culture in Mamelodi, all of them “considered having a good education to be very important or important” (2004, p. 872). Nevertheless, “a significant proportion of the respondents were inclined to perceive a failure in efforts to provide them with an adequate education.” As he states, “a large proportion of the respondents referred to the deficiencies in South Africa regarding black education in explaining their views that education for young black adults was not good enough to prepare them well for the future” (2004, p. 872). Thukiwe is likewise highlighting in the focus group here that the issue of the neglect of (still monoracial) Black schools needs to be focused upon.
- 25.
I asked people individually immediately after the discussion or 1 or 2 days later whether they had found the discussions boring or worthwhile. Most were very enthusiastic and indicated that they felt that these kinds of discussion are essential in post-apartheid South Africa. None indicated that they had been bored (although I gave them the option to state this) and they expressed amusement at my asking this.
- 26.
She suggested that this is especially insofar as group discussions are set up to create a forum that is both supportive of individual views as well as challenging – thus enabling people to extend their personal horizons. (This conversation that we had was in the UK, where we met, with Susan Weil, primarily to advance our co-authored book on the Dynamics of Everyday Institutional Racism.)
- 27.
One could argue that in my focus group interviewing approach I tried – at the point of interviewing – to participate with (other) participants in considering how deracialization could be set in motion. For example, we spoke about deracializing the different Sports stands on Sports days, thus making openings to review our understandings of the groupings at the different stands. Furthermore, by Thukiwe raising for consideration the class-based nature of being “Black and poor” and the fact that affirmative action is insufficiently equipped to deal with this, she helped us to redefine our understanding of the “race-based” social order in terms of concerns around poverty. This, I would suggest, points to potential in the social fabric for reviewing our relationships, not based on the essentialization of race categories. Of course, it is possible that the children in this focus group may have been somewhat atypical in their way of defying (as part of our discussion) apartheid-styled racial categorization. But my point is that this example can be used to point to, and at the same time draw out, a potential in the fabric to review socially entrenched categorizations – which thus far Hercules found to remain by and large entrenched.
- 28.
The expressed purpose of the Race and Values Directorate is “to promote equality, nonracialism and a culture of human rights in all education institutions” (cf. http://www.education.gov.za/functions/branchS_equity.asp).
- 29.
He indicated that the majority of schools in South Africa are still monoracial.
- 30.
McKinney indicates in this regard that when she tried to open up discussions around “race” in a “historically ‘White’ and Afrikaans University” she found this difficult. She points to what she sees as various discourses in circulation and argues for the need to “deconstruct essentialist notions of both ‘race’ and ‘culture’” (2007, p. 215).
- 31.
In concluding the interview, I asked him if he had found our interview around the issues as meaningful for him – and he replied that he found it refreshing. I explained that my style of interviewing is that I do not want to leave the person feeling that I have been “extracting” information from them. And that is why I also tried to add contributions at the moment of the interview. He said that he is interviewed on a daily basis by people, and with lots of these interviewers he “feels that way” (as if it has been “extractive”). After I sent him (as I had said I would) the write-up of our conversation for him to extend/modify any of it, his response to this (via e-mail) was that “I think it captures our conversation very well. Thank you for the opportunity to respond to it. I am really looking forward to reading the book.” He also indicated that he would be “very comfortable” with my identifying him as “Granville Whittle” (i.e., with my using his name rather than just his position in the Directorate).
- 32.
Ali emphasizes that it is crucial to recognize the power of narrative, because knowledge is “carried by stories” in a way that differs from “that which has been promoted by Western scientific tradition” (2003, p. 30). She makes this argument in the context of considering how the dominant (hegemonic) discourse on racialized identity itself can become “subverted.” Her book Mixed-Race, Post-Race detailing her (dialogical) interviews with children and their parents offers a narrative on mixedness. She believes that it is important as a way of intervening in the knowledge/power nexus around “race” to “start work on producing some kind of ‘community of thought’ in relation to mixedness, no matter how many differences may be contained within it” (2003, p. 30). See also Chapter 4, Section 4.7.1.
that is usually translated into English as “infidel” – was used by colonists during the Dutch and British colonial periods to describe Black people of the Southern African region (cf. Author information
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Romm, N. (2010). Intensive Interviewing as Research: Generating In-Depth Talk to Explore Experiences/Cognitions of Racism. In: New Racism. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8728-7_5
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