ABSTRACT
The analysis of various aspects of people’s attitudes towards the past and how these are formed constitute a major area of heritage research, and interviewing is one of the most commonly used methods in such studies. It is, therefore, important that we explore the use of interviews as a method in heritage research and the expectations about the insights that this method raises. In particular, the understanding of interviews as a means of gaining information about complex and abstract relations, thoughts and feelings should be considered by heritage researchers and if necessary the method should be adapted to the needs of the specifi c research involved, rather than predetermined by its existing applications and formats. Interviewing as a method is often discussed separately from its fi eld of application, apparently assigning it a position as simply a social science method; in practice, however, it is clear that interviews are both formed and affected by the knowledge and insights that are pursued. Moreover, it also seems that several features of the interview, such as expectation about what the aims should be and about the proper conduct of the interviewer, are affected by the different fi eldwork traditions that can be found within the social sciences. For instance, the archaeological use of interviews is usually framed in terms of the gathering of factual information, whereas the social anthropological approach towards the interview, whether explicitly stated or implicitly embedded within how it is performed, often seems infl uenced by the long tradition of participant observation within this discipline. This causes the anthropological interview to become a matter of listening: emphasising the importance of the interviewer actively avoiding infl uencing
and biasing the conversation, with the role of the interviewer as a listener echoing the tradition of the unobtrusive presence of the participant observer. In contrast, disciplines such as psychology and psychoanalysis are raised on a tradition of ‘digging deeper’ and of exploring the apparent resistance to questioning. Their approach to interviewing, as discussed further below, often takes the form of an exploration in which the interviewer plays an active role in asking and pursuing questions and responses. Interviews are therefore not just one method shared and approached in the same manner throughout the social sciences. Further still, there are more possibilities and more diversity than are suggested by the coarse distinction between ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ interviewing methods, and it would signifi cantly enhance the fi eld of Heritage Studies if individual researchers were more aware of such differences, feeling confi dent in their choice of methods and in their ability to adjust or elaborate on existing methods. The methods indicated by the term ‘interview’ should be thought about as adjustable tools rather than fi xed recipes, but the freedom brought with the rejection of fi xed methods also creates new demands about being explicit, rigorous and refl exive when one is working through one’s methodological positioning.
