general training
Part 2
Ethics, interviewing
and listening to survivors
0. LIFE STORY
0. LIFE STORY
What is a LIFE STORY INTERVIEW?
The life story is a multidisciplinary research method that comes from psychology, ethnography
and oral history. It clarifies individuals’ life stories, shows how these represent a coherent
history and highlights the relation with other individuals’ life stories and with the
community as a whole.
The life story allows the participants to express the complexities and contradictions of their
deepest personal feelings. It is also a means of analyzing peoples’ intimate experience
linked to a trauma.
0. LIFE STORY
Life story vs testimony
THE truth vs THEIR truth
Objectivity vs Subjectivity
Factual vs Personal Experience
0. LIFE STORY
What a life story interview is not:
Letterman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h48KiQFJ1Wo&feature=related
Hannity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0EKWDisi7Y
Dr Phil: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrFhDBAIAe4
0. LIFE STORY
Life story interview excerpt:
•
Paul Bard
Holocaust WG
•
Janet Lumb
Oral History and Performance WG
•
Discussion
Interview techniques
Content
Other comments
*** PAUSE ***
I. ETHICS
I. ETHICS
Oral history’s 7 guiding principles
1.
To respect peoples’ dignity
2.
To respect free and informed consent
- The interview has to be held on a voluntary basis.
- Consent must be informed (objectives of the project, identity of the researcher,
possible uses).
3.
To respect vulnerable people
- Children, the elderly, refugees, members of displaced communities, victims,
disabled or any vulnerable person or person who could become vulnerable by
participating to a life story interview.
4.
To respect confidentiality
- The respect of peoples’ privacy is a “fundamental value”; not respecting this
value can cause harm.
Ref.: Oral History Association’s Principles and Standards
I. ETHICS
Oral history’s 7 guiding principles
5.
To respect justice and inclusion
- Oral history projects must do justice to the communities or groups they are
studying and be just and proper towards them.
- It is essential to allow divergent voices to be heard and opposite points of view
to express themselves by collecting a wide spectrum of testimonies.
6.
To evaluate advantages and disadvantages
7.
To reduce negative consequences as much as possible
Ref.: Oral History Association’s Principles and Standards
I. ETHICS
Sharing authority
The Montreal Life Stories Project is based on the sharing authority (Frisch) principle
and constitutes an effort of collaboration, in all directions, and at all levels.
The project, at the research level, has its roots in the collaboration between researchers
and participants.
The sharing authority is intrinsic to the collaborative work of oral history. It implies
cultivating and maintaining a relationship based on trust, respect, shared decision
making and collaboration with participants, as well as facilitating their participation
in research production.
Instead of being considered research objects, the communities that are part of the
project have a role as associates and real partners in the dialogue.
I. ETHICS
Consent Form
•
What is it for?
•
A tool for a shared authority
•
It is important to have a good understanding to be able to explain it
•
How to present it to the interviewee?
Option 1
Open Public Access
2 sub-options
Option 2
Limited Access
Option 3
Anonymity
Comments
Conditions
I. ETHICS
Purpose of the interviews
It is essential to spend some time with the interviewee before starting the interview to
“break the ice”, to start building a relationship and obtain basic factual
information. The interviewer can also give the interviewee the possibility to ask
him or her questions. A relationship is built through dialoguing as equals.
The project’s objective is to spend “real time” with the interviewees or at least to allow
for the necessary time so that they can share their life story at their own pace and
in their own manner.
This explains why we have multiple sessions when the participant shows an interest in
doing so. (The estimated average duration of an interview is around 5 hours, but
there is no limit).
I. ETHICS
Guiding principles for interviews to be ethically correct
•
Explain the goal of the project and the nature of the interview.
•
Inform the person that he/she is free to answer the questions as he/she wishes
and that he/she can refuse to answer a question or can end the interview at any
time (imperative!!!!)
•
Establish an interview framework based on “sharing of authority” to be applied
throughout the whole process (egalitarian and non-hierarchal environment of
mutual respect and trust).
•
Create an interactive environment and one of collaboration
II. INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
II. INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
Overall principles
•
Carry out interviews in a highly sensitive manner and respectfully.
•
Guide the person being interviewed through their memory retrieval process.
•
Try to obtain “personalized” as opposed to “generalized” life stories.
•
The main goal is to listen to the participant for as long and as much as he or she
will be willing to speak.
•
Ask open questions that encourage the participant to answer and develop his or
her story.
•
The interviewer should be able to control the conversation without being over
controlling, discouraging or patronizing.
II. INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
Overall principles
•
Be an attentive, responsive and empathetic listener.
•
Do your homework about the historical and social context.
•
Do not claim to know what the participant is about to say.
•
Do not pass judgment or jump to conclusion, never question what the interviewee
is stating.
•
Continue to be attentive with the interviewee after the end of the interview.
II. INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
How to start an interview session?
•
There is not only one good way.
•
What to bring? To wear?
•
Where to conduct the interview?
•
Tone of voice?
•
Create a relax and comfortable atmosphere (water, tissues).
•
Explain the project and its purposes.
•
Start with easy questions (Where were you born? What was your childhood like?)
II. INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
How to ask questions?
•
Interviewee-led (these are life stories and people can talk about whatever they
feel is important). Be flexible! Don’t insist on sticking to the interview guide!
•
Conversations as opposed to Q&A.
•
Give the interviewee time. Do not interrupt. Some silence can be healthy as they
formulate responses to difficult questions.
•
Ask open-ended questions: “Could you please tell us about…?”
•
Simple questions, uncomplicated language, one at a time.
•
Repeat language and do not introduce controversial terminology unless the
interviewee does (e.g. “rape” or “survivor”).
II. INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
Interview Guide
•
The project has developed a chronologically organized “interview guide” for a life
story interview.
•
This guide should be used as a “general plan’”, “a road map” to make the stories
more complete and relevant.
•
However, it is the interview and the participant’s personality that will determine in
great measure the questions to be asked.
•
As much as possible, the questions should give the participant the opportunity of
telling his or her life story in his or her own way.
II. INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
Examples of open questions
•
Could you please tell me about yourself, your life?
•
What influence did your father and mother have on your life (work, social life, education)?
•
What do you remember from your childhood (house, neighborhood, friends and neighbors,
region)?
•
How do you speak to your children about violence? How do you express yourself on the
subject?
II. INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
How to end an interview session?
•
Be attentive to the interviewee.
•
Do not stop the camera before the very last second! The greatest discussions
often happen when the interview session is “over”.
•
Discuss the possibility of doing another interview session.
•
Explain the following steps: processing of the recording, DVD and evaluation form
sent by mail, etc.
•
Mention the possibility for the interviewee to get involved in the project (digital
storytelling, public events, etc.)
•
Be grateful, thank, do not leave in a hurry!
II. INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
After the interview session:
•
Label the mini-DVs according to the post-production guidelines.
•
Bring back equipment and mini-DVs to the Centre.
•
Blog: interviewers and videographers should write their reflections about the
interview session within 24 hours ant post their blog in the “Rapport des
intervieweurs” section of Basecamp.
II. INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
The interviewer and the videographer: a team!
•
Establishing a good relationship with your partner is important for the smooth
running of the interview.
•
Discuss the possibility of the videographer asking questions and/or contributing
clarifications during the interview.
•
Team members will be able to switch roles during subsequent sessions if they
wish to do so and if it is relevant.
•
The debriefing after the interview is a very rich moment for sharing and reflection
about the running of the interview and for preparing the next one.
II. INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
Group discussion
Interviewers:
Imagine that you will meet an interviewee for the first time:
•
How will you get ready?
•
How will you present the consent form to the interviewee?
•
What kind of behaviour is appropriate?
Interviewees:
Imagine that you will meet the interviewer and be interviewed for the first time:
•
What are you concerned about?
•
What do you expect from the interviewer?
•
What kind of behaviour (interviewer) would not be appropriate?
*** PAUSE ***
III. LISTENING TO SURVIVORS
III. LISTENING TO SURVIVORS
Survivor, victim, displaced, « rescapé »…
Life in the Open Prison
http://citizenshift.org/node/27732&dossier_nid=22423
00:13:00 à 00:32:03
Leontine Uwababyeyi: Going Places
III. LISTENING TO SURVIVORS
Survivor, victim, displaced, « rescapé »…
•
What is a survivor?
•
Why does this person accept to grant us an interview?
•
Why are we interested in interviewing survivors?
•
What are our questions, our concerns about these interviews?
“Those who went through hell and somehow came out the other side”
(Greenspan, 2006)
III. LISTENING TO SURVIVORS
To be aware of the participants’ psychological and emotional
needs
Remember however that to show sensitivity and empathy does not mean that you
consider the survivors of human rights violations as victims, or that you pity them or
let yourself become angry. Remember that they are stronger than you think.
Nevertheless, you should be on the look out for signs indicating that the interviewee is
having emotional difficulties with the interview. It is encouraged to alert the
organizers so that a follow-up could be done as well as inform again about the
available psychological resources.
III. LISTENING TO SURVIVORS
Principles for listening and interviewing survivors
The experience of the survivors has such a deep impact on the telling and the narrative
that some principles are necessary to interview them.
To be trustworthy, listeners must be strong enough to hear without injury; strong enough
to hear without having to deny the reality of experience or blame the victim; and
ready to experience some of the terror, grief and rage the survivor did (Shay 1994;
Kleinman, Das and Lock, 1997; Langer 1991, 1997 in Uehara et al., 2001).
III. LISTENING TO SURVIVORS
Sharing authority
LEARNING
- about
- from
- with
- together
(Henry Greenspan)
III. LISTENING TO SURVIVORS
Collaborative engagement
•
Interviews are so much more than oral history; it’s a reflection on personal impact,
faith, etc. that is intertwined with history.
•
Two persons working together hard, understanding the reflection of an experience
and wondering what is “tellable” or not, what can be said or not.
•
The goal of life stories is to have a collaborative, interactive and interpretative
environment.
•
It’s a collaboration and being partners in conversation.
III. LISTENING TO SURVIVORS
Wandering and extracting
A good interview:
•
Is to allow the interviewees to take their minds and heart where it will take them and
when needed it is about gently guiding them back to the chronology of their
narrative.
•
Involves a mutuality of engagement, purposeful and yet not rushed which allows the
interviewee to be relaxed to allow memories to come up.
•
Is about pacing and the survivor’s confidence that the rhythm of question and
answer will be developed in concert rather than imposed.
III. LISTENING TO SURVIVORS
Wandering and extracting
•
A good interview is unhurried, somehow both orderly and organic, with an evolving
life of its own. When there is “flow”, let it go, only listen, clarify and so on.
•
The most professional and relaxing interview is bout the interviewer facilitating the
fullest possible articulation of each individual memory, whenever and however it
arises, while returning to the broader context and chronology when the time is ripe.
III. LISTENING TO SURVIVORS
Resonance
•
Allow the words of the life story to flow; the listener has to be very close to and
aware of his or her feelings.
•
Strong emotions may come up
•
These emotional responses when acknowledged and expressed work as a restitution
of a human response that the survivor did not receive during the time of
persecution.
•
By the way you emotionally react you reassure the survivor about the truth of his
story, which often seems incredible to be true and denied by some.
“When I see the emotions on your face, said Mr. V. to the person who is
interviewing him, I know that what I say is true” (a survivor)
•
It is important to show that the interviewee feels understood, held as if in a way you
would have already heard it before.
III. LISTENING TO SURVIVORS
Engaged listening:
•
Being totally focused like everything else goes away (the same way you feel when
you practice sports, listen to music or read a good book). It’s like having the best
conversation, as you are totally engaged.
•
Be sensitive and tolerant to silences, pauses and emotions and allow them to run
their course
Silence: an important way of expressing feelings and emotions; an effective
way to elicit information as it allows the person to think, reflect and recall
memories
Do not try to resume the conversation even if there is a long pause
•
Give time to the story to unfold and allow trust building.
III. LISTENING TO SURVIVORS
“As Fred, a Holocaust survivor said, the memories themselves are endless. But
within the intimacy of a genuine interview, there are also moments that seem like
homecoming, or at least like moments of reprieve.”
(Greenspan, 2006)
Conclusion
•
It is important to show respect and empathy, as well as to create a strong trusting
relationship between interviewee and interviewer.
•
INTERVIEWS ARE ALWAYS LED BY THE INTERVIEWEE.
•
Try not to be thinking of the worst possible scenarios. It is normal to be
apprehensive before your first interview.
•
Your reactions to the interview material are important to acknowledged. It is
important to get support if needed.