Shift in power during an interview situation ... - Wiley Online Library

Nursing Inquiry 2008; 15(2): 169–176

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Shift in power during an interview situation: methodological reflections inspired by Foucault and Bourdieu Lena Aléx and Anne Hammarström Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden Accepted for publication 29 October 2007.

ALÉX L and HAMMARSTRÖM A. Nursing Inquiry 2008; 15: 169–176 Shift in power during an interview situation: methodological reflections inspired by Foucault and Bourdieu This paper presents methodological reflections on power sharing and shifts of power in various interview situations. Narratives are said to be shaped by our attempts to position ourselves within social and cultural circumstances. In an interview situation, power can be seen as something that is created and that shifts between the interviewer and the interviewed. Reflexivity is involved when we as interviewers attempt to look at a situation or a concept from various perspectives. A modified form of discourse analysis inspired by subject positioning was used to reflect on power relations in four different interview situations. The analyses indicate that reflection on the power relations can lead to other forms of understanding of the interviewee. The main conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that power relations are created within an interview situation and therefore it is important to be aware of dominant perspectives. Researchers and nurses face the challenge of constantly raising their level of consciousness about power relationships, and discursive reflexivity is one way of doing this. Thus, reflexivity is an important part of the qualitative research process. Key words: discourse, gender reflexivity, intersectional perspective, interview situation, power.

Our own experience of interviewing men and women has led us to reflect on power sharing and shifts in power in various interview situations. This paper presents methodological reflections on how various interview situations can be affected by power dimensions. It consists of two parts. The first part presents the theoretical framework and methodological considerations in relation to the concepts of power and reflexivity in interview situations. The second part presents an analysis of four different interview situations in terms of shifts in power related to various discourses.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS The theoretical framework of this paper is influenced by both gender theories and an intersectional framework. Gender Correspondence: Lena Aléx, RNT, PhD, Department of Nursing, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]

researchers stress that all societies have a gender order constructed by multiple ideas about what is seen as feminine or masculine (Connell 2002). Thus, there is not just one femininity but several femininities, which are constructed by individual women in relation to historical, social and cultural circumstances (Moi 1999; Aléx et al. 2006). Doing gender is an ongoing activity embedded in everyday social interaction (West and Zimmerman 1987). Gender research is increasingly devoted to intersectional perspectives, focusing on the interaction between several different power asymmetries such as gender, ethnicity, class and age. In this paper, the gender and intersectional perspectives are interpreted in the light of the theories of Foucault and Bourdieu. Foucault and Bourdieu point out that we live in historical, social and cultural contexts that influence the way we can write, think and talk about social objects. Foucault (1993) shows that we are related to various discourses and that dominant discourses lead us to move, speak and think about ourselves in specific ways. For example, when participating in an academic seminar, we speak and act in a way that is identified as academic discourse. Discourses can be described

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L Aléx and A Hammarström

as power-related structures of how we understand reality. Foucault was interested in the extent to which discourses permeate society and stressed the importance of uncovering discourses in everyday practices (Oliver, Serovich and Mason 2005). We have the option of positioning ourselves in relation to accessible discourses, but when the dominant discourse is seen as too powerful or is not seen at all, the possibilities for positioning oneself and influencing what happens are limited. Bourdieu (2001) describes how our habitus (how we think, sit, speak and move, etc.) is formed by the access we have to economic, social and cultural capital. When habitus encounters the social world that produced it, it is like a ‘fish in water’, but when habitus encounter an unfamiliar social world, it can change and transform (Reay 2004). These theories of Foucault and Bourdieu underlie our analysis of power in interview situations. In qualitative research (or when a nurse makes assessments), data are often collected in an interview situation, and the data are often people’s experiences as expressed in narratives. Many researchers emphasize the importance of being sensitive and flexible during interviews and stress that the narratives given to a researcher are influenced by the interview situation (Sandelowski 1991). The narration shifts depending on the available power positions during the interview, and discourses such as age, education, gender and ethnicity influence what is narrated and how the narratives are interpreted (Davies and Harré 1990). Qualitative researchers emphasize that the researcher and the participant collaborate in the construction of knowledge (Wilkinson 1988; Campbell and Bunting 1991; Gordon 1998; Fahy 2002). Every person has many perspectives on the same event, and what is narrated depends on the context, the listener and the intentions. The interviewer can thus be considered a co-actor in the created narratives. Narratives are formed from how one positions oneself in relation to social and cultural circumstances (Mishler 2004), and the narration and the interpretation of the narration are dependent on age, class, gender, ethnicity and the historical context (Riessman 2003).

Power and reflexivity According to Foucault (1993), there is power in all moments and in all relations, and thus power is changeable. Power can be seen as dominant and repressive, but it can also be seen as local, progressive and capillary, in which case it is productive rather than repressive (Fraser 1989; Fahlgren 1999; Foucault 2002). This study shows that power is productive and changeable, depending on various social and historical circumstances (Davis 1981; Hammarström and Ripper 1999; George 2001; Lycke 2003; Molina 2004). Ramazanoglu (1993) 170

makes the point that the fact that power is not sustained by one person or by something special does not mean that it is equal and available to all. But, where there is power, there is always resistance. Power is always present in the transaction of an interview, as it is in all human interactions (Nunkoosing 2005). Thus, during an interview, power is created and probably shifts. Feminist qualitative researchers have emphasized the importance of being conscious of the power hierarchy between the interviewer and the interviewee and yet still striving for a meeting between two agents (Campbell and Bunting 1991; Gordon 1998; Fahy 2002; Aléx and Hammarström 2004). However, despite this awareness, there is a risk of the interviewee becoming an object for the researcher. Despite the best intentions, the interview situation may be experienced as, and may in fact be, a form of abuse. Practising reflexivity can be one way to minimize such experiences in interview situations. Reflexivity is important for awareness of the complexity of how knowledge is created. However, this approach to knowledge production has been criticized as subjective and non-scientific (Harding 1986). Our point of departure is that one’s own personal view of knowledge can and does affect the interpretation of research. Therefore, researchers ought to engage in reflective activity in order to account for their flashes of insight and their growth in self-awareness (Cutcliffe 2003). In so doing, reflexivity fulfils one of its purposes in qualitative research, at least in part, by enhancing the credibility of findings by taking into account the researcher’s values, beliefs, knowledge and biases. Cooper and Burnett (2006) argue that discursive reflection on an interview makes the researcher more conscious of being a co-creator of the narratives and situates the researcher more firmly in the research process. By locating discursive strategies within the interview, reflexive thinking may become an essential part of establishing quality in qualitative research. Thus, we regard reflexivity as an important part of the analytical process. There are different understandings and formulations of the concept ‘reflexivity’ (Cutcliffe 2003). It can be defined as systematic study of the researcher within the research process (Wilkinson 1988), in which it is important to analyse one’s position as a researcher (Long and Johnson 2000). Oliver, Serovich and Mason (2005) describe reflexivity as a way to uncover the manoeuvrings of power. In this study, reflexivity means that the interviewer must be able to look at a situation or a concept from various perspectives and to reflect on his or her own changing positioning within the discursive circumstances. Reflection often starts when an interviewer feels stuck, frustrated, sad, angry or dissatisfied with the outcome of an


Reflections on shifts in power

interview (Taylor 2004). It can also start when an interviewer is concerned about problematic episodes and incidents in relation to the interviewee (Cooper and Burnett 2006). Reflection often occurs at the end of the interview when the participant has said something unexpected, or when the interviewer becomes aware of a certain feeling and cannot tell why this feeling has arisen (Cutcliffe 2003). Although the biography or self-awareness of the researcher may not be central to the research process, Marchbank (2005) regards it as inherent in all that researchers do. Reflexivity therefore needs to be explored in terms of social positioning, showing how the social location of the researcher and the researched influence the investigation process and outcomes (Buckner 2005). This perspective is in accordance with a poststructuralist point of view which stresses that knowledge and narratives are not static but change depending on their historical, social and cultural context (Reay 2004).

The interview situations The data are drawn from the first author’s (LA) own experiences in 2002, when as part of the Umeå 85+ study (cf. Nygren et al. 2005), she interviewed people aged 85, 90 and 95 years and older in rural communities (Nilsson and Fisher 2006; Bergdahl et al. forthcoming). These interviews with the oldest old dealt with issues such as important life events, their experiences of aging and loneliness, their spiritual experiences, difficult and positive experiences, and experiences of comfort. The interviews were conducted as part of a larger research project that did not have a feminist approach. The interviewer wanted to show respect to the very old people whom she was interviewing and felt that they would find it unacceptable if she became too personal such as sharing her own experiences or thoughts with the person being interviewed. After each interview, the interviewer listened to the tape-recorded interview, made notes about her own experience of interviewing and reflected on the interview situation. The primary purpose of these notes was to enhance the interviewer’s ability to conduct interviews and increase her awareness of power dimensions in an interview situation. Accordingly, these notes are written below in the first person. The analysis focused on four interview situations (two with women, two with men) where the interviewer reacted in some way to an utterance or an action by the interviewee. It concentrates on shifts in power between various discourses. Most often, these situations occurred at the end of the interview. The production of power in the interview situation became apparent when the person being interviewed said something unexpected or reacted in an unexpected way.

The starting point for reflection was my own experiences of being regarded — positioned — by the interviewee as young, a woman or a Swede, rather than as a researcher.

Discourse analysis and subject positioning Discourse analysis and subject positioning were used to analyse power positioning in interview situations. During an interview, discourses develop around specific power-related dimensions such as gender, class or ethnicity (Davies and Harré 1990). Subject positioning is a way of analysing the production of power within various discourses. The same person can be dominant in one situation, but inferior in another situation. Mouffe (1992) argues that the subject — the actor — is constructed in relation to various discourses and that it is important to look at one’s own positioning as a subject. Sundin-Huard (2001) shows how the theory of subject positioning can facilitate the interpretation of meetings in health-care by showing how power positioning influences meetings. She describes a case that illustrates how various discourses influence how a nurse seeking to convince a doctor that a child is suffering and in pain positions herself by choosing various subject positions, including the competent nurse, the caring nurse and the advocate. Subject positioning is a method that can be used in discourse analysis. Hardin (2001) describes how we position ourselves in narratives from several perspectives. Nunkoosing (2005) makes the point that as an interviewer, I am not just an interviewer, but also possess other identities that serve to legitimize my actions. As a middle-aged, female, nurse researcher, I was striving to position myself as a researcher when interviewing old persons, but consciously and unconsciously, I probably also acted in other positions, as analysed below. Sundin-Huard (2001) argues that subject positioning offers an explanation of an individual’s ability to occupy and move between various identities, or subject positions, within an interaction, depending upon the power dynamics and context.

ANALYSIS AND REFLECTIONS The four different interview situations were analysed in terms of the following discourse combinations: age, gender and education; ethnicity and education; class, age and body; and age, gender and ideology. Thus, issues of intersectionality were dealt with in the analyses, which are written in the first person. Different, interwoven power perspectives could be identified in the analysis of each interview, with some interviews revealing a greater number of power asymmetries than others.


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The discourses of age, gender and education I had been interviewing an 85-year-old man for about 3 hours when we were interrupted by a telephone call from his grandchild, who was at a big rock concert in the south of Sweden. When I told him that my youngest son was at the same concert, the man clearly reacted, looked at me, wondered how old my son was, and commented: ‘Then you can’t be especially young.’ He seemed a little worried; concerned that he should perhaps be ashamed about how he had talked to me. He wondered whether he should have shown me more respect. He then asked, ‘The doctor who was here earlier, she was young, wasn’t she?’ (I confirmed that she was indeed young — 27 years old). The man’s reaction to his misjudgement of my age led me to reflect on whether and how our meeting might have been influenced by such factors as age and gender. The interview had been easy and I had found the man nice and positive. His comments meant that I suddenly experienced myself as being relegated to being a young woman with whom a man could banter (again!). The man’s words and his reaction could be interpreted as indicating that age was important for him in meeting with a woman. On reflection, I understood that I had been seen as young. If the man had known that I had worked as a nurse and a teacher for many years and that I had raised three sons, his view of me and his respect for me as a person may have been different. The important discourse for this man seemed to be age and life experience. The young doctor who had been there before me seemed to have limited status for him. Academic education, perhaps specially when represented by a ‘young’ woman, did not seem to be a significant factor for him. As a woman, my initial response to being perceived as young was positive. I felt flattered. But a more reasonable reaction would have been to feel offended! From a gender order perspective, emphasizing male dominance (Connell 1995), I can recognize that this man probably dominated the interview. On reflection, it was not encouraging to experience myself as relatively young rather than as a mature researcher. How should I as a gender-conscious researcher behave when interviewing? This interview had been conducted on a glorious summer day, and I had been dressed lightly, perhaps girlishly? Is the gender order strengthened when women express their own desire to have the right to dress and behave as if young (cf. Bourdieu 2001; De Beauvoir 1949)? The ideal woman is conceived of as young, beautiful and easy-going. If I am still seen as young, do I as an interviewer have to accept being exposed to the discourse of the male glance (cf. Foucault 2002)? From another perspective, I may 172

possibly have used my experience and knowledge of how to succeed in interactions with older men and men in superior positions (as, for instance, during the annual inspection of my car by the Swedish Motor Vehicle Inspection Company). Probably, my being and behaviour (habitus), when meeting with old men, is incorporated in my body (Bourdieu 1977) and a way of unconsciously reconstructing myself as a woman (Reay 2004). Being over the age of 50, I had thought I could leave my gender out of account and just be a researcher. During the interview, I did not reflect on the fact that the interviewee was at least 30 years older than I was, and that the man could look upon me as young. To some extent, I seem to have accepted the discourse that (at my age) the concept of ‘woman’ is deconstructed and can be neglected (Fahlgren 1999). I thought that I did not need to relate to the ideal picture of womanhood. Instead, I focused on just being human and an interviewer. After the interview, I felt naive (possibly also a gendered reaction) as a woman and as an interviewer in that I had thought that an old man and a middle-aged woman could meet on the same level. Not being taken seriously as a human being (disregarded in terms of both gender and age) shows how difficult it is to escape society’s discourses of gender, age and education.

The discourses of ethnicity One woman’s behaviour during the interview was interpreted as compliant (perhaps almost obedient). She seemed to want to answer each question as sincerely as possibly. However, just before I left, she remarked: ‘You were a nice Swede’. Initially, I took this comment as positive and confirming (‘Yes, I am a nice person, and I am indeed good at talking to people, and of course I am a good interviewer’), but during the interview I had experienced both of us as Swedes. The woman did not mention any Sami heritage and did not emphasize any Sami connections. On reflection, the comment, ‘You were a nice Swede’ could be interpreted as marking a shift in power. At the end of the interview, the woman wanted to convey a message that she had access to specific cultural capital which I as the interviewer lacked (cf. Bourdieu 1977). From the power perspective of Foucault (1993), the woman recaptured power. After having been the one dominated (and peppered with questions), she recaptured a dominant position. I did not anticipate this statement, which implied that not all Swedes are nice and suggests that the woman may have been prejudiced against Swedes. The interview could never have ended with the interviewer with a comment like ‘You were a nice Sami’. Given our access to different ethnic heritages, we also had access to



different discourses. For this woman, the Sami discourse was the discourse from which she formed an opinion of herself and of the interviewer. It is important to elucidate what is often considered to be ‘natural’, such as the way we have learnt to look with the eyes of the dominant discourses, and to consider how this influences the way we look at ourselves and our lives (Foucault 1993). The utterance ‘You were a nice Swede’ made me reflect upon being looked on as the other (Mead 1934; Goffman 1959), which felt unaccustomed and surprising. Despite the fact that this woman did not in any way belong to the dominant group (the reindeer owners) in Sami society, she saw herself as a subject (actor) within the Sami discourse, while she regarded me as belonging to ‘the others’. The image of Sami culture is continuously reproduced through people who experience, define and narrate about themselves as Sami. From a social construct perspective, the Sami woman produced and reproduced the Sami discourse when she said, ‘You were a nice Swede’. My thinking and acting were probably affected by the Swedish discourse emphasizing equality and assuming that it is possible to move beyond colonial interactions (Sawyer 2002). The meeting can also be seen as positive and rewarding for both the Sami woman and the interviewer. Our meeting can be seen from the perspective of Bourdieu (1992) who speaks of ‘a room of possibilities’. Meetings between people are possible, independent of history, culture or social factors. A room of possibilities implies that it is possible to achieve good contact between people despite their different access to economic, social and cultural factors.

The discourses of class, age and body One 90-year-old woman who was interviewed was interpreted as negative towards authorities in general and academics, and urbanites in particular. She stated that she did not understand how the questions could be of any use. She told me that after another interview, at another time, she had insisted on asking the interviewer a question. She had put a finger on the interviewer’s stomach and said: ‘You have asked me so many questions, and now I have one for you: How can anyone get as fat as you are?’ This question/ statement clearly shifts the power in the conversation. The woman had probably experienced dominant discourses formed in cities, in academe and in other power centres in society. She protested against these discourses by calling attention to a rural discourse regarding simplicity and hard life. Possibly because of her age, she felt free to state that the interviewer was fat. Calling attention to the other’s ‘weakness’ in contrast to one’s own positive quality shifts the balance in

the interview situation. She was not overweight and was probably not at risk of becoming so, or she had accepted the discourse of slimness, which has existed since the nineteenth century and emphasizes the desirability of women (and particularly middle-class women) being thin and healthy (Foucault 2002; Johannisson 1995). This woman’s words and action can be interpreted as if she was adopting the social discourse that sees the ‘fat’ rather than the person, and I responded negatively. Like many other women, I have experienced myself as large and overweight compared to my mother and my three sisters who are below average height and weight. I perceived the woman as insolent and as not acting in accord with the spoken and unspoken rules of society. Yet at the same time, I could see how her statement was an assertion of her own status and that she was not inferior to the interviewer. Had she possibly experienced the questioning by the researcher as humiliating? In Bourdieu’s terms (1999), the old woman had no access to the economic or academic capital of the first interviewer. But by pointing out the interviewer’s flaw, she emphasized that she had access to the cultural capital of being thin, which the interviewer lacked. The woman’s account of her provocative behaviour left me unfavourably disposed towards her. I found her behaviour unfair, humiliating and unpleasant. Despite much effort on my part to ignore this statement while conducting my own interview, I felt antipathy towards her. When our interview ended, she semi-accused me of dying my hair, which was sun-bleached at the time. I interpreted this accusation as an attempt to shift power, and responded using a method that may also be seen as exercise of power. I decided to excuse her behaviour and commented favourably on the fact that her own hair was still dark, although she was 90 years old! With these words, I gave her power. Yet from another perspective, my behaviour can be seen as another way of asserting my superiority. Being aware of someone’s lower status and accordingly behaving with extra tolerance can also be a way of practising power. Foucault problematized the notion that extra tolerance should be shown towards people with lower social status (McHoul and Grace 2002).

The discourses of age, gender and ideology Another interview was conducted with a 90-year-old man, who thoughtfully and scrupulously answered all my questions and told me about the hard experiences in his life, including losing four children and his attempt to save his oldest son’s life when the son had fallen into a crevasse. At the end of the interview, he told me: ‘You have every chance of succeeding ... You have Christian values and that is worth a lot. And you have developed on your way.’ He believed that I


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had revealed Christian attitudes during the interview and continued: ‘I mean just your way of being ... just continue the way you walk!’ I had made no statement about whether I was or was not a Christian. However, on reflection, I wondered whether and how my experience and knowledge of Christian rhetoric had influenced the conversation. If a Christian is talking to another Christian, she may talk or shape their narrative in a special way. If the interviewer is not a Christian but is interpreted as being one, is there a risk of narratives being told that were perhaps not intended to be told? The interviewee’s statements can also be seen from an intersectional perspective, in which religion is seen as one factor among others (here principally represented by age and gender) that influence our way of acting in various encounters. Appelros (2005) argues that the religion itself is hierarchic and authoritarian in that it takes into account such factors as having more or less access to divine authority; having walked a longer or shorter way on the spiritual path; and having more or less insight into the divine. The man may thus have interpreted me as being on my way in my religious development, but probably thought that he had gone further. The man’s statement can then be interpreted from a power perspective as a marker of his religious status. He may also have been drawing on the fundamentalist view that men are religiously superior to women in that they are closer to God, closer to the divine and the true faith (Appelros 2005).

CONCLUDING REMARKS This study set out to reflect on power and shifts in power in different interview situations. The shifts were related to various discourses such as age, gender, education, body, ethnicity and ideology. These discourses influenced the interview situations and the kind of narratives told. An analysis that sees power as being created in interview situations and not mainly as dominating and oppressive involves reconsideration of our view on power. When one becomes frustrated in an interview situation, practising reflexivity about the power relations can lead to another form of understanding of the person being interviewed. Our analyses indicate that in a meeting, we behave in various ways: as young or old, educated or uneducated, female or male, Swedish or belonging to an indigenous group. Increased awareness of the power relations in interactions may be one way of counteracting expectations related to the dominant discourse. For example, as an interviewer, one can strive to avoid presenting symbols related to a dominant discourse, such as styles of dress and academic language. Elucidating power relations and positioning oneself within various discourses can be seen as a way to behave ethically. 174

According to Foucault, to act ethically is to practice freedom through being an actor as well as by acting in relation to discursive possibilities (Foucault 1993; Flaming 2006). Our study implies that reflecting on power relations within the interview situation is one way of acting according to the discursive possibilities, that is, of acting ethically. To be able to do that, you have to have knowledge about yourself and to know who you are, and need to have knowledge about acceptable ways of being and behaving. Ethical behaviour also means that you will not take advantage of your superior position as an interviewer (for instance, by not listening to what is being told and by interrupting) (cf. Flaming 2006). The ethics of being human involves constructing the self in everyday life. Reflexivity as a pattern of behaviour ought to be striven for not just by interviewers but by everyone in order to raise our awareness of how conversations are affected by discourses such as age, education, class, gender, ethnicity and ideology. We are often unaware of the frames that limit our behavioural repertoire. These frames are so much a part of us that we cannot see them. The ability to perceive ourselves as recipients of somebody else’s ‘gaze’ is related to our ability to reflect on our own behaviour (Hardin 2001). The main conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that power relations are created within an interview situation and that it is thus important to be aware of dominant perspectives. As nurses or as researchers, we face the major challenge of continuously raising our level of consciousness about power relationships, and discursive reflexivity offers one way to do this. It is an important part of the qualitative research process.

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