Reading :: Doing InterViews

InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing, Third Edition
By Svend Brinkmann and Steinar Kvale

My colleague David Guile suggested this book to me, especially because of the metaphorical distinction they make between “miners” (interviewers who are trying to excavate a specific topic) and “travelers” (interviewers who are more exploratory and tend to follow their participants through emergent topics). I gained access to it through my library and read it online, and as a result, I only now see that the authors use a pun in the title. Their approach to interviews really is about “inter-views,” exchanging views between the interviewer and interviewee.

This book is written in a straightforward, engaging manner that will likely be accessible to undergraduates, but will still provide useful advice for those at graduate and postgraduate levels. The authors provide plenty of examples to dissect, and they cover aims, epistemology, ethics, planning and conducting, interview variants, interview quality, transcription and analysis, and generalizing and reporting. Chapters are short and lucid, and examples are robust.

If you’re new to conducting research interviews — or teaching students who are — definitely check it out.