Elite Interviews

Neil Stephens and Jasmin Tregidga presented on elite interviewing at the last cafe on 21-11-07. Neil's talk was entitled 'Interviewing Elites and Ultra-elites as an early career researcher'. His paper was an opportunity for him to reflect upon his experiences of interviewing elites and ultra-elites during his PhD at SOCSCI and in his subsequent job. Based on Neil's paper recently published in Qualitative Research, he discussed why, for a young and relatively inexperienced researcher, it can be intimidating conducting interviews with important, famous, and sometimes notorious individuals. However, by stressing the importance of recognising similarities as well as differences he suggested ways of facilitating greater confidence and more productive interviewing.

Jasmin's presentation 'Interviewing the Policing Elite: A Researcher's Progress' briefly discussed some of her experiences of interviewing top ranking police officers and leading members of police authorities in 2005-2006 - a period within 'public' policing characterised by sustained political pressure for profound organisational restructuring.
The presentation touched on issues such as negotiating access to the police at such a turbulent time, and highlights the impact that such political and structural uncertainty had on the process of conducting interviews, and the nature of the data that was generated from these interviews. Finally, Jasmin's talk provided a reflexive account of a young(ish) female researcher entering and operating within a traditionally conservative, male-dominated organisation such as the Police Service.

The talks were well received, with a stimulating question and answer session.