ABSTRACT
Ethnographers may access unsolicited accounts both by participating in exchanges in which they occur and by overhearing them. Subsequent ethnographic critics of naturalism have often retained an interest in insider accounts, but they have adopted a variety of attitudes towards them. These ‘naturally occurring’ oral accounts can be a useful source both of direct information about the setting and of evidence about the perspectives, concerns, and discursive practices of the people who produce them. Naturalism has also encouraged ethnographers to favour nondirective interviewing, in which the interviewee is invited to talk at length in her or his own terms, as opposed to more directive questioning. For one thing, neither non-directive interviewing nor even reliance on unsolicited accounts can avoid reactivity. Interviewing can be an extremely important source of data: it may allow one to generate information that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain otherwise – both about the events described and about perspectives and discursive strategies.
