This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by HARKESS, S. Articles by WARREN, C. A.B. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

The Social Relations of Intensive Interviewing

Constellations of Strangeness and Science

University of Kansas

CAROL A.B. WARREN

University of Kansas

The central question of this article is, What happens when interviewer and interviewee know, or come to know, one another, as they do in the intensive interview of qualitative research? The authors begin with the contradiction between the assumption of science that interview participants be strangers, on one hand, and the need for rapport in order to establish validity on the other. The authors construct a typology of the social relations in intensive interviewing: (1) the stranger dyad, in which unfamiliarity is assumed; (2) the web of relevance, in which interview participants know of one another at least indirectly; and (3) the web of group affiliation, in which participants are members of a primary group. For each type, different consequences of departures from strangeness for rapport and validity are explored. The authors conclude that although intensive interviews do produce valid data, the effects of familiarity appear problematic more often than not.

Sociological Methods & Research, Vol. 21, No. 3, 317-339 (1993)
DOI: 10.1177/0049124193021003002


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. T. Sciarra and J. G. Ponterotto Adolescent Motherhood among Low-Income Urban Hispanics: Familial Considerations of Mother-Daughter Dyads Qual Health Res, November 1, 1998; 8(6): 751 - 763. [Abstract] [PDF]