Analysing the significance of silence in qualitative interviewing: questioning and shifting power relations

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tea Torbenfeldt Bengtsson ◽  
Lars Fynbo

In this article we analyse the significance of silence in qualitative interviews with 36 individuals interviewed about high-risk, illegal activities. We describe how silence expresses a dynamic power relationship between interviewer and interviewee. In the analysis, we focus on two different types of silence: ‘silence of the interviewee’ and ‘silence of the interviewer’. We analyse how silence functions as an interviewee’s resistance against being categorized as ‘social deviant’, how an interviewer may use silence strategically, and how silence stemming from an interviewer’s perplexity constructs significant data. We conclude that silence constitutes possibilities for interviewees and interviewers to handle the complex power at play in qualitative interviewing either by maintaining or by losing control of the situation.

2021 ◽  
pp. 003802612110144
Author(s):  
Riie Heikkilä ◽  
Anu Katainen

In qualitative interviews, challenges such as deviations from the topic, interruptions, silences or counter-questions are inevitable. It is debatable whether the researcher should try to alleviate them or consider them as important indicators of power relations. In this methodological article, we adopt the latter view and examine the episodes of counter-talk that emerge in qualitative interviews on cultural practices among underprivileged popular classes by drawing on 49 individual and focus group interviews conducted in the highly egalitarian context of Finland. Our main aim is to demonstrate how counter-talk emerging in interview situations could be fruitfully analysed as moral boundary drawing. We identify three types of counter-talk: resisting the situation, resisting the topic, and resisting the interviewer. While the first type unites many of the typical challenges inherent to qualitative interviewing in general (silences, deviations from the topic and so forth), the second one shows that explicit taste distinctions are an important feature of counter-talk, yet the interviewees mostly discuss them as something belonging to the personal sphere. Finally, the third type reveals how the strongest counter-talk and clearest moral boundary stemmed from the interviewees’ attitudes towards the interviewer herself. We argue that counter-talk in general should be given more importance as a key element of the qualitative interview. We demonstrate that all three types of counter-talk are crucial to properly understanding the power relations and moral boundaries present in qualitative interviews and that cultural practices are a particularly good topic to tease them out.


Viruses ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Ian N. Hampson ◽  
Anthony W. Oliver ◽  
Lynne Hampson

There are >200 different types of human papilloma virus (HPV) of which >51 infect genital epithelium, with ~14 of these classed as high-risk being more commonly associated with cervical cancer. During development of the disease, high-risk types have an increased tendency to develop a truncated non-replicative life cycle, whereas low-risk, non-cancer-associated HPV types are either asymptomatic or cause benign lesions completing their full replicative life cycle. HPVs can also be present as non-replicative so-called “latent” infections and they can also show superinfection exclusion, where cells with pre-existing infections with one type cannot be infected with a different HPV type. Thus, the HPV repertoire and replication status present in an individual can form a complex dynamic meta-community which changes with respect to both time and exposure to different HPV types. In light of these considerations, it is not clear how current prophylactic HPV vaccines will affect this system and the potential for iatrogenic outcomes is discussed in light of recent outcome data.


BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. e045235
Author(s):  
Felicity Waite ◽  
Thomas Kabir ◽  
Louise Johns ◽  
Jill Mollison ◽  
Apostolos Tsiachristas ◽  
...  

BackgroundEffective interventions, targeting key contributory causal factors, are needed to prevent the emergence of severe mental health problems in young people. Insomnia is a common clinical issue that is problematic in its own right but that also leads to the development and persistence of psychotic experiences. The implication is that treating sleep problems may prevent the onset of psychosis. We collected initial case series data with 12 young people at ultra-high-risk of psychosis. Post-intervention, there were improvements in sleep, depression and psychotic experiences. Now we test the feasibility of a randomised controlled trial, with a clinical aim to treat sleep problems and hence reduce depression, psychotic experiences, and prevent transition to psychosis.Methods and analysisA randomised controlled feasibility trial will be conducted. Forty patients aged 14 to 25 years who are at ultra-high-risk of psychosis and have sleep disturbance will be recruited from National Health Service (NHS) mental health services. Participants will be randomised to receive either a novel, targeted, youth-focussed sleep intervention in addition to usual care or usual care alone. Assessor-blinded assessments will be conducted at baseline, 3 months (post-intervention) and 9 months (follow-up). The eight-session psychological intervention will target the key mechanisms which disrupt sleep: circadian rhythm irregularities, low sleep pressure, and hyperarousal. To gain an in-depth understanding of participants’ views on the acceptability of the intervention and study procedures, 16 participants (n=10 intervention, n=6 control) will take part in qualitative interviews. Analyses will focus on feasibility outcomes (recruitment, retention, and treatment uptake rates) and provide initial CI estimates of intervention effects. Thematic analysis of the qualitative interviews will assess the acceptability of the intervention and trial procedures.Ethics and disseminationThe trial has received ethical approval from the NHS Health Research Authority. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and lay networks.Trial registration numberISRCTN85601537.


Author(s):  
Lilian Dudley

This article is part of a series on Primary Care Research in the African context and focuses on programme evaluation. Different types of programme evaluation are outlined: developmental, process, outcome and impact. Eight steps to follow in designing your programme evaluation are then described in some detail: engage stakeholders; establish what is known; describe the programme; define the evaluation and select a study design; define the indicators; planand manage data collection and analysis; make judgements and recommendations; and disseminate the findings. Other articles in the series cover related topics such as writing your research proposal, performing a literature review, conducting surveys with questionnaires, qualitative interviewing and approaches to quantitative and qualitative data analysis.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 402-421
Author(s):  
Jayashree Mahesh ◽  
Anil K. Bhat

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to document similarities and differences between management practices of different types of organizations in India’s IT sector through an empirical survey. The authors expected these differences to be significant enough for us to be able to groupa priorithis set of companies meaningfully through cluster analysis on the basis of the similarity of their management practices alone.Design/methodology/approachUsing a mixed-methods approach, 73 senior-level executives of companies working in India’s IT sector were approached with a pretested questionnaire to find out differences on eighteen management practices in the areas of operations management, monitoring management, targets management and talent management. The different types of organizations surveyed were small and amp; medium global multinationals, large global multinationals, small and medium Indian multinationals, large Indian multinationals and small and medium local Indian companies. The differences and similarities found through statistical testing were further validateda priorithrough cluster analysis and qualitative interviews with senior-level executives.FindingsThe management practices of multinationals in India are moving toward Western management practices, indicating that management practices converge as the organizations grow in size. Though the practices of large Indian multinationals were not significantly different from those of global multinationals, the surprising finding was that large Indian multinationals scored better than global multinationals on a few practices. The practices of small and medium Indian companies differed significantly from those of other types of organizations and hence they formed a cluster.Practical implicationsThe finding that large Indian IT multinationals have an edge over global multinationals in certain people management practices is a confirmation of the role of human resource practices in their current success and their continuing competitive advantage.Originality/valueThis is perhaps the first study of its kind to document state of specific management practices across different types of organizations in India’s IT sector and then use measures on these practices to group a priori these organizations for validation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriane K. Michaelis ◽  
Donald Webster ◽  
L. Jen Shaffer

As members of complex social-ecological systems (SES),fishermen navigate and respond to system changes to maintain their livelihoods. These changes often involve dynamic power relationships. In Maryland (United States), commercial fishermen or watermen demonstrate a history of responding to SES changes, including power relationships in which they often feel restricted. We describe how watermen have historically employed tactics, as conceived by de Certeau (1984), to resist and succeed within a constraining system. We considerinvolvement in oyster aquaculture as a recent tactic, and compare data from interviews with watermen and non-watermen involved in aquaculture to understand power relationships and adaptations within this SES. Interviews suggest that, while both watermen and non-watermen aquaculturists perceive similar power relations within the system, only watermen begin work in oyster aquaculture as a tactic in response to these relations (P<0.001). Results illustrate diverse perceptions of power as well as ongoing changes within the SES. More broadly, we introduce the idea of SES adaptations as tactics of resistance and emphasize the need for a more integrative understanding of SES and power.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Ari Wirya Dinata

Fiduciary is one of the guarantees where the debtor has the right to control and take advantage of the goods that are used as fiduciary security objects. Article 15 paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) of Law Number 42 Year 1999 concerning Fiduciary Guarantee regulates the execution mechanism for fiduciary security objects when the fiduciary giver (debtor) experiences breach of promise to the fiduciary recipient (creditor). So far, the execution mechanism for fiduciary security objects regulated in the Act creates legal uncertainty and harms the debtor's rights. Because it gives too much power to the creditor. The imbalance of power relations between debtors and creditors towards the handling of the problem of breach of contract actually causes an injustice in existing fiduciary institutions. The Constitutional Court, through decision number 18 / PUU-XVII / 2019, tries to return the fiduciary institution to the spirit of equilibrium relations between debtors, creditors, and fair fiduciary guarantees. After the decision of the Constitutional Court Number 18 / PUU-XVII / 2019. Has there been a harmonious power relationship between two legal subjects in fiduciary guarantees. This paper examines the pre and post fiduciary guarantee institutions of the Constitutional Court and analyzes the legal consequences that occur. This paper uses a type of juridical-normative research using primary data and primary, secondary and tertiary legal material. While the analysis method uses qualitative methods


Author(s):  
Chris Washington

The judicial bestiary at the heart of eighteenth-century politics has long been evident in Enlightenment social contract debates, as Michel Foucault’s and Giorgio Agamben’s theories of biopolitics show. In this essay, I argue that Wollstonecraft is nonetheless the first thinker of ‘true’ werewolf out-lawry in her final novel, Maria, Or the Wrongs of Woman and in her letters to Godwin. In the novel, Wollstonecraft leverages what we now call new materialism as a feminist critique of heteropatriarchal society. Wollstonecraft’s new materialist thinking also scrambles gender across even human and nonhuman distinctions. To counter microcosmic familial and macrocosmic state heteropatriarchy, Wollstonecraft theorizes what I am calling, following the example of wolves and werewolves, not a family but a ‘pack’. The pack manifests as new spacetimes through what Karen Barad terms “quantum entanglements” that produce love between subjects and subjects but that never strives to reproduce binaristic pairings that reproduce the sovereign family. A pack, as Wollstonecraft’s texts demonstrate, emerges from processes of co-creation that iterate new subjects and objects without dynamic power structures structured around stable gender identities or human and nonhuman power relations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
pp. 576-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janne Tienari

Autoethnography is about studying a community through the author’s personal experience. I offer my autoethnography of moving from a Finnish-speaking business school to a Swedish-speaking one in Helsinki, Finland. This is my story as a Finnish speaker who works in English, develops a sense of lack and guilt for not contributing in Swedish, and enacts an identity of an outsider in his community. My ambivalent identity work as a privileged yet increasingly anxious white male professor elucidates connections between identity, language, and power, and it may enable me to see glimpses of what those who are truly marginalized and excluded experience. I argue that academic identity is based on language, and once that foundation is shaken, it can trigger self-reflection that helps to show how language is inevitably tied in with complex power relations in organizations. I offer my story as an invitation to discuss how we learn to deal with the complexity of identity work and language. My story lays bare how autoethnographies by the privileged, too, can be useful if they show the vulnerability we all experience in contemporary universities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Zürn

AbstractThe omnipresence of radical uncertainty asks for a concept of causality that moves beyond the notion of predicted probabilities. Protean power is a most important contribution to move International Relations research in this direction. Yet, some of the key components need further grounding in existing concepts and debates. First, protean power should include the notion of directionality in order to be power. Second, it should allow for an analysis of the different forms of relation between protean power and different types of uncertainties. And it should focus on features of the power relationship instead of the context in which it takes place to be able to transfer it to contexts other than uncertainty.


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