Role or whole person?

When I was teaching last week, I was reminded of the distinction I make in my book between interviewing a person as a representative of a role or as a whole person. Quite a few people have found this a useful distinction to make.

When you are interviewing someone in their role – for example as a teacher or a police officer – they will respond to you and to the research in a different way than if you have asked to interview them about their personal life.

Of course, this all links to debates about Reflexive Practice. If we are doing good, qualitative research, we try to always be aware of the baggage, expectations and so on, that we each bring to any interaction.

But it really is worth spending a bit of time thinking about whether you approach someone in the context of the role or position in an organisation or whether you approach them as an individual with a whole complex of positions, statuses, experiences, and so on.

In the former case, of course, it might be appropriate, interesting and valuable to learn more about the person as a person. We are all individuals, living complex and interesting lives, with histories, dreams, experiences, and expectations. And any of these can affect how we undertake any given role. But depending on how you approached the person, it might come as a bit of a shock if you suddenly start asking them about their personal life.

On the other hand, it may be that their personal lives are not relevant to the research (although I find that hard to understand as our personal lives affect how we do anything). It may be that you are specifically asking questions about their task, position, experiences in working with a community, and so on.

So, are you interested in the role or whole? Or both? And have you made that clear to the participants?

Some useful links

Qualitative Research Methods for Everyone (book)

Paper about reflexive practice (open access)

Benson, M. and O’Reilly, K. (2020) Reflexive Practice in Live Sociology: Lessons fromresearching Brexit in the lives of British Citizens living in the EU-27, QualitativeResearch

The Qualitative Research Methods for Everyone Podcast

https://shows.acast.com/qualitative-research-methods-for-everyone-podcast/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts