Co-interviewing across gender and culture: expanding qualitative research methods in Melanesia

Abstract

BackgroundThe social and cultural positions of both researchers and research participants influence qualitative methods and study findings. In Papua New Guinea (PNG), as in other contexts, gender is a key organising characteristic and needs to be central to the design and conduct of research. The colonial history between researcher and participant is also critical to understanding potential power differences. This is particularly relevant to public health research, much of which has emerged from a positivist paradigm. This paper describes our critical reflection of flexible researcher responses enacted during qualitative research in PNG.MethodsLed by a senior male HIV researcher from PNG, a male from a PNG university and a female from an Australian university conducted qualitative interviews about faith-based responses to HIV in PNG. The two researchers planned to conduct one-on-one interviews matching gender of participants and interviewer. However, while conducting the study, four participants explicitly requested to be interviewed by both researchers. This experience led us to critically consider socially and culturally situated ways of understanding semi-structured interviewing for public health research in Melanesia.ResultsNew understandings about public health research include: (i) a challenge to the convention that the researcher holds more power than the research participant, (ii) the importance of audience in Melanesia, (iii) cultural safety can be provided when two people co-interview and (iv) the effect an esteemed leader heading the research may have on people’s willingness to participate. Researchers who occupy insider-outsider roles in PNG may provide participants new possibilities to communicate key ideas.ConclusionsOur recent experience has taught us public health research methods that are gender sensitive and culturally situated are pivotal to successful research in Melanesia. Qualitative research requires adaptability and reflexivity. Public health research methods must continue to expand to reflect the diverse worldviews of research participants. Researchers need to remain open to new possibilities for learning.

Awareness and Rejection Accounts of Intimate Partner Violence by Young Women in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa

“…One assumed advantage was an elimination of imbalanced gendered power dynamics between the researcher and the participants. Collective experience with research on sexuality and GBV suggests that gender-matching between interviewer and participants increases honest disclosure (Byrne, 2004; Redman-MacLaren et al, 2014). In terms of disadvantages, participants may not have elaborated on information which they assumed that the researcher already knew.…”

Co-Interviewing in Qualitative Social Research: Prospects, Merits and Considerations

“…Beyond gender, co-interviewing might magnify the voices of participants who are marginalised by virtue of other aspects of identity, such as sexuality, race or language. Burnard (2004) and Redman-Maclaren et al (2014) both assert that co-interviewing can provide benefits for culturally focused research, where including a cultural 'insider' and 'outsider' researcher can facilitate interpretation, understanding, and bridge cultural divides. Indeed, in their research with Punjabi women with rheumatoid arthritis, Sanderson et al (2013) observed some benefits of including a co-researcher in the interviews, who provided language interpretation, where participants did not have sufficient proficiency in English.…”

“…However, few recent studies have explicitly examined the experience of having two researchers actively conduct the same interview. In fact, with the rare exception of work conducted by Redman-Mclaren et al (2014), no recent literature has specifically interrogated the process of co-interviewing in qualitative research. Clearly, for two researchers to conduct an interview with one participant, there are concerns surrounding an inherent power imbalance, by mere virtue of outnumbering.…”

Experience of Conducting Sensitive Qualitative Research as a Cultural Outsider: Formulation of a Guide for Reflexivity

“…However, FJ’s outsider position compelled him to scrutinize certain issues more closely, instead of accepting all the interpreter’s feedback, as suggested by Suwankhong and Liamputtong (2015). The experience in this study demonstrated the value of co-interviewing as a mechanism to blunt the influence of the insider and outsider in research with cultural and gender divides (Redman–MacLaren et al, 2014).…”