The Social Life of Interview Material

Abstract

Among anthropologists the belief that the traditional fieldwork practice of participant observation may be unfeasible in the privatised world of a western society has contributed to ‘anthropology at home’ acquiring the status of poor relation when compared with studies carried out in the discipline’s traditional overseas locations. When ‘the weather is dire and everything interesting seems to be going on behind closed doors’ (Hockey 2002: 209), focus groups and interviews are likely to be seen as the only possible form of engagement. However, as I argued in a collection which explored these issues (Rapport 2002), when western anthropologists-at-home do opt for single, time-bounded interviews, their practice may in fact resemble many of the social interactions that constitute everyday life for their participants. As such, they can be considered precisely a form of participant observation. Such interactions include single-purpose exchanges with, for example, a counsellor, clairvoyant, sex worker, or hairdresser; episodic contact between family members living at a distance from one another; or disembodied engagement via media such as Facebook, email or Twitter. Thus, I suggested, ‘[i]n a world of consultants and confessional chat shows, interviewing begins to resemble a form of participant-observation. As a practice it conforms closely to Western categories of experience’ (Hockey 2002: 220).