Scientific and self-reflexive culture: The western assumptions of interviewing

The topic of this paper is derived from concrete problems that were experienced during a recently conducted qualitative inquiry. The given research is conducted in the ethnically diverse context of civil integration courses. I conducted semi structured interviews with a small sample of 15 participants of an integration course about the influence this course had on their identity, as well as about the main insights they got from this course and how their views changed as a result of the course. In contrast with previous research in a (sub)culturally homogenous context with similar research questions, several things became apparent: the different nature of the answers, the problem to gain trust of the interviewees and the lack of reflexive profundity in the answers to identity-related questions. However, from content analysis of the most prominent course material, identity under the form of autonomy and the respect for (other) identities are a notable topic. So, while identity was in the two cases an important topic, in the former case the interviewees managed to verbalize their reflexive search for the self, while in the latter they did not. The contrast between these cases made me aware of the situatedness of the knowledge that is being produced during an interview (Rose 1997, Caretta 2015). Knowledge production is a contingent, contextual, hierarchical and relational process and more specifically ethnicity does not only influence the answers that are given to the questions asked, but as well the way wherein the whole frame of conducting a ‘scientific research’ is interpreted. Using the method of interviewing already presupposes a shared cultural context and a shared understanding of what the activity of interviewing precisely entails. Recording, working with informed consent documents, the presumption of neutral research without political affiliations, highly reflexive questions to the ‘self’ were all practices these interlocutors were not familiar with and that affected their (socially desirable) answers. So, contrary to positivist presumptions, interviewing in this context turned out not to be a culturally neutral activity. It presupposes a familiarity with scientific and also individualistic culture. In accordance with the latter element, we could consider the interview practice as a self-technique wherein respondents actively shape a coherent self (Foucault 1980, Fadil 2008: 91), which is more evident for people with an individualistic cultural background.status: publishe