Facing Privilege in Qualitative Interview Settings

Autor(en)

Christoph Novak

Abstrakt

Most people are bestowed with social privileges, whether they want them or not. Carrying specific racialised and gendered characteristics, being associated with some religious groups, being raised in certain socio-economic conditions, being categorised in specific age groups and performing a certain professional role come with different, context specific advantages. Manifestations of such privileges not only show in social interactions (e.g. being attended well by a waiter), but also influence lived-realities (e.g. never having experienced sexual harassment) and problem perspectives. Often privileges appear unremarkable and natural, so that one does not only take them for granted for oneself, but one is inclined to assume that one’s privileged experiences constitute social norm for most people, rather than an exception for a narrow caste. In recent years, investigations of privilege and privileged groups have become more popular, and eventually resulted in the foundation of Privilege Studies under the influence of Peggy McIntosh. Nevertheless, researchers’ assessments of their own privilege are only slowly making their entry into critical research practice.
This chapter addresses this gap by identifying some areas in which privilege can have a problematic impact on data generated in one-on-one research encounters, particularly qualitative interviews. The issues raised relate primarily to situations in which privilege differentials between researchers and research participant exist. In the second part of the chapter, based on reflections of my own research practice, I develop the A-B-C-D-approach, which ought to help researchers integrate a critical self-assessment of privilege in research design, data collection and analysis. The four steps proposed are (1) the assessment of privilege, (2) the balancing of the influence of privilege through research design, (3) the clarification of the reflexive process in conversation with the research participant, as a way to control for its influence, and (4) the deconstruction of the influence of privilege throughout data analysis.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Politikwissenschaft

Band

15

Seiten

23-54

Publikationsdatum

2019

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

504021 Migrationsforschung, 504007 Empirische Sozialforschung, 504031 Diversitätsforschung, 504023 Politische Soziologie

Schlagwörter

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/facing-privilege-in-qualitative-interview-settings(db8318dc-db7f-4c35-ac0b-f6fd3aaf3a98).html