Highlights and hurdles of doing interviews: an ‘inspired’ account
by Aruna Manuelrayan Dip. Ed, BA (Hons) & MEd (TESOL)
PhD Scholar (Australian Studies)
David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and Research
University of South Australia
Abstract
The aim of my research is to seek qualitative data in order to develop an
understanding of the challenges and achievements of two generations of Indian
women in contemporary Australia, with a view to comparing their perspectives on
maintenance of their culture and identity. This paper is based on interviews with
Indian women across two generations living in Canberra. It discusses the highlights
and hurdles of conducting interviews based on my analysis of my own experience as a
researcher, new to the interviewing process, and defined by an auto-ethnographic
approach.
Introduction
I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to go to Canberra, at the end of June, early
July 2009, for 3 days to interview 15 Indian women. This gave me a better
understanding of who they are and their lifestyles. And through it all had an enjoyable
time just chatting with fellow migrants in a different state. Much of what the women
said resonated with me as I have similar views about and experience of cultural
identity and reasons for migration. Their stories were not very different from that of
my mother’s or daughter’s either, although unlike them who where India-bornAustralian Hindus, I am a Singapore-born-Indian-Australian Catholic.
In Pappadums in paradise? Kannan narrates the journeys of 11 Indian migrant
women in Melbourne, Australia. Kannan states that her interviews were a vehicle for
drawing out that which was already there and as she sifted through their narratives,
she was richly rewarded with intriguing records which on the surface seemed like
ordinary. I took her advice and prepared some questions. Before long each record
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became ‘a thread in a tapestry that constitutes life in its extraordinariness’ (Kannan
ix).
To honour the value placed on giving voice to participants, I chose a method
congruent with those values – interviews. Benny and Hughes (191) state that
interviewing is just one of the many ways in which ‘two people talk to one another’
and (Devault 96) stresses that women interviewing women bring to their interaction a
tradition of ‘woman talk’ where they help each other develop ideas and are typically
better prepared than men to use interview as a ‘search procedure’. So when I
undertook this task I assured myself that being a woman researcher, interviewing
other women was the best research design to use to achieve my desired goal, as
mentioned earlier. The interviews were semi-structured, and ran as a seamless
conversation giving the feeling that personal histories and views were exchanged
rather than recorded. However, my experience challenged the assumption that women
open up to women. This was not true as I was not seen as an equal by virtue of being,
in this case, a researcher, one whose status, at least in academic terms, is higher than
that of the interviewee, among other differences.
Highlights, hurdles and lessons gleaned
On the surface the ordinary lives of Indian migrant women unfold and evolve without
any notice or fanfare. Therefore, there is nothing much to document or so it seems.
However, I was thankful for deciding on interviews to tell the story of migrant Indian
women in Australia for one of the participants ‘looked at me, or so I felt, to speak for
her. She depended on me for a voice’ (Hurston 87). Had I not embarked on this
strategy, she may never have had found her ‘voice’ her mouthpiece. Moreover, like
Jung (5) through this endeavour, I, too, found ‘the microcosm of my own experience
repeated and reaffirmed in the macrocosm of a vast land’ where my life and theirs
became intertwined, even if for the moment.
This opportunity accorded me the privilege of visiting Indian migrants in their homes
and I was honoured when I was invited to a special temple ceremony. In all, I visited
7 homes and in every home. Similar to Kannna’s experience, I was treated ‘as a
favoured guest’, serving me drinks and biscuits [Indian titbits] on their best crockery.
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I, too, experienced Indian hospitality over and over again and was heartened by the
fact that the years of being away from India have not changed their traditional values.
From talking to 15 women of first and second generations, I became aware of and
more convinced that my initial perceptions and fundamental views based on my
readings and experience were challenged and I came out of the interviews more aware
of the direction my research should take. Like Kannan I began to ‘see my responses to
the women’s stories as changing as the position in which I placed or found myself
(feminist, interviewer, guest, younger woman, [older woman, Indian women]’ change.
It enabled me, therefore to re-focus on the reasons behind the research, to refine my
interview technique as well as research questions.
I was under the illusion that the ‘bond between women interviewer and women
interviewee is insufficient to create the shared meaning that could transcend the
division between them’ (Riessman 172) and being an Indian woman migrant I had the
licence to talk to those with hyphenated identities like me (Hage). But what I soon
discovered was ‘while being an Indian made me an insider ethnically, it did not
necessarily translate into being the ideal biographer because of the many internal
cultural differences (Kannan). I soon discovered that Temple was right in saying that
the dynamics of the encounter is affected by who the researcher is. I was an ethnic
Indian, based on my ancestry, but a Singaporean by birth and to make matters worse,
I, a cradle Catholic, was interviewing Hindus from India. However, my hybrid culture
(Smolicz 277) did not pose much of a problem because I am knowledgeable about
Indian literature and philosophy and proficient in one of the Indian languages, Tamil,
which a number of my interviews either could spoke or understand. However, had I
not, my gender would not have been enough to overcome ethnic differences.
Oakley (30) is of the view that in order to succeed at interviews there should
exist a ‘non- hierarchical relationship’ and the interviewer should be prepared to
‘invest her personal identity in the relationship’. Thus I was prepared to be open
and at times vulnerable. I started with my life story to win their confidence, trust
and respect and the self-disclosure put them at ease. So, the first 10, 15, 20
minutes was the hardest and the slowest.
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Although it was to be a semi-structured interview, I had to be able to be in control of
the direction it took and ask focussed questions to get as much information as I had
hoped to. To make matters even more complicated, some questions or responses
either from me or from the participants led to banter and fuelled emotional responses
as they had unintentionally triggered dormant memories. For example, one the
daughters told her mother that she could have had done some things differently when
she was younger and the mother at first disagreed but after about 5 minutes saw her
point.
From the above, I learnt that I had to be more than adequately prepared. It made me
also realise I had to practice what I was going to do and ask. I had to ensure that I was
armed with the necessary tools. It goes without saying that it is important to be
genuinely interested in their responses and not to be afraid to re-focus should the
interviewee go on a tangent.
Conclusion
There is no denying that interview as a research tool is the best way to collect data,
especially for a qualitative research design. It also brings about personal satisfaction.
However, if face to face interview is not something you prefer or is not cost effective,
choose to do an online survey or questionnaire and follow-up with a request for
written answers to specific questions or do phone/skype interviews. These were the
first set of interviews, so they were useful to test my questions, refine my topic and to
further develop my own ideas for the research question and the next round of
interviews. Based on these interview data, I was able to do a preliminary analysis
under broad themes such as , . Where do I want to go from here? I am hoping to
interview a few more mothers and daughters in Melbourne in the coming months. I
hope to be better prepared this time.
(~ 1300 words)
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References
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