Abstract
While there is extensive literature on researcher positionality and other aspects of qualitative and ethnographic research, interview location is more commonly discussed as a place to collect data than as a source of data. This paper addresses how interview location can provide valuable insights into the interview participant and the interview topics. In it, I draw on interviews that I collected as part of a study on reentry from prison. The study design included four community-based interviews with each participant. I discuss three types of interview locations: (1) private spaces (homes), (2) paid third spaces (cafes and restaurants), and (3) free public spaces (parks and libraries). Each of these sites offers the potential for different insights into research participants and research questions, which also may vary across individuals, projects, and research projects/questions. Less important than the specific interview location is how interview locations and the social interactions they engender shape the dynamics of the interview or insights into the participant’s experiences. After discussing each of these in turn, I develop two extended examples of how interviewing an individual across multiple locations makes visible different aspects of that person’s personality and experience.
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Notes
There is much to say about a prison or jail as an interview location. In the interest of space, I do not discuss that here, though I do address it some in Leverentz (2020).
All names of interview participants are pseudonyms.
I went to court with Wallace the day he got the GPS monitor removed and heard the judge agree to remove it because Wallace voluntarily chose to have it.
Wallace referred to the woman he was currently living with as his girlfriend and as his wife. This is the same woman from whom he temporarily split up.
Reading back over those notes and transcripts, the notebook itself seems like evidence that Wallace did think a lot about what he was doing, in at least some cases.
Avoiding ‘people, places, and things’ related to drug use was common among those who, like Pablo, had a history of addiction.
Unfortunately, Quentin died before we could meet again.
It is part of the Panera chain of restaurants. The Boston location—the final one—closed in 2019. Brenna Houck, “Panera’s Utopic Pay-What-You-Want Restaurant Dream is Dead.” Eater, February 5, 2019. https://www.eater.com/2019/2/5/18212499/panera-cares-closing-pay-what-you-can-restaurant. Accessed January 30, 2022.
This was my first time in a Panera Cares and I was previously unfamiliar with the concept. I was also a little confused by the rules of the restaurant.
The ubiquity of Dunkins in Boston did lead to some near-misses when there was confusion over which one in the area we meant and we went to different ones. Twice, for example, Richard and I went to different Dunkin’s in the same intersection near Government Center in downtown Boston and had to connect by phone.
A research assistant interviewed him the first time but left the project before he could interview him again.
In the first post-release interview, I gave participants $60 in cash ($30 each for the first two interviews). Frederick was wary to have that much cash on him. He was afraid he would be tempted to use it to buy drugs, so he wanted some of it in a gift card.
When I met James, a white man who stayed there shortly after his release, there, we met in a common area in the shelter. I described it as ‘it wasn’t terribly private, but no one paid much attention to us (except when James said something to them).’ There was a loud TV in one corner and a handful of other men in the room. James pointed out multiple indignities in the rules and the people enforcing the rules at the shelter.
The Boston Public Library website states that room reservation requests need to be submitted in advance. Most of the rooms listed are larger lecture halls or auditoriums, with a few listing study or conference rooms as well. The primary audience for these are non-profit or community groups. Reserving a room three weeks in advance was never feasible for these interviews. See https://www.bpl.org/reservable-community-spaces/. Accessed February 12, 2022.
A research assistant interviewed her the first few times, including once at this same library branch. When the RA graduated, I took over her interviews.
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Acknowledgements
This project was funded by the National Science Foundation (grant number SES 1322965).
Thanks to Sofya Aptekar and Eric Schoon for feedback on earlier versions. An earlier version was also presented at the 2022 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting and benefited from audience questions and comments.
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Leverentz, A. Interview Location as Data. Qual Sociol 46, 489–514 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-023-09548-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-023-09548-4