Gender Issues in the Use of Interviewing as a Research Method∗

Abstract

The open‐ended interview is gaining widespread acceptance within human geography as a research method. Frequently, such interviews can provide researchers with a richer account of events than can larger scale, standardized statistical approaches. However, researchers using interviews as part of their information gathering practices need to be aware of the social relations within which the interviews are conducted. In this paper I argue that gender relations are an important dynamic shaping the interview process which can significantly influence the sorts of data obtained using this particular research methodology.

Getting Personal: Reflexivity, Positionality, and Feminist Research∗

“…We are differently positioned subjects with different biographies; we are not dematerialized, disembodied entities. This subjectivity does influence our research as is illustrated by, for example, the extensive literature on how the gender of the researcher and those being researched influences the nature of fieldwork (Geiger, 1990;Herod, 1993;Oakley, 1981;Warren, 1988). Moreover, we have different personal histories and lived experiences, and so, as Carol Warren (1988, 7) makes clear, the researcher as "any person, without gender, personality, or historical location, who would objectively produce the same findings as any other person," is completely mythical.…”

Insider or outsider, both or neither: some dilemmas of interviewing in a cross-cultural setting

“…While the unstructured interview has become the most popular method for understanding corporate strategy, the actual process of conducting such research has been largely unproblematized. Only a few geographers have commented on the fact that as a ®eld method, it too is highly a ected by issues of power, positionality and subjectivity (Schoenberger, 1991;McDowell, 1992b;Herod, 1993). These issues have become important because of their ultimate impact on the rigor 1 and ethics involved in such research.…”

“…Herod (1993), for example, argues that not only might the gender of the interviewer and interviewee in¯uence the research process, but gendered assumptions may also in¯uence models of interviewing chosen as well as the subsequent interpretation of the information gathered. Herod argues further, that the asymmetrical distribution of institutional power between men and women has implications for the sort of information and insights that interviews produce.…”

Producing Knowledge about 'Third World Women': The Politics of Fieldwork in a Zimbabwean Secondary School

“…Herod, 1993). For this reason, focus group discussions were conducted separately with girls and boys.…”