Individual Narrative Interviews .1 Interviews with Adults

Episodic narrative interviews (Squire, 2008) were conducted to elicit people’s personal stories regarding their everyday practices relating to energy consumption; how these have developed over time, and how they relate to specific living arrangements and the wider community with which participants identify. This interview schedule drew heavily on the work of the Energy Biographies Project, with minor alterations having been made to better adapt it to the needs of my own research.Questions were designed to make visible those taken-for-granted everyday practices that consume energy; creating a space for reflection on the goods and services, practices and living arrangements that influence a household’s energy consumption.

Individual narrative interviews took place in participants’ homes between late November

to cover a wide range of topics that related to experiences of energy consumption. The first section of the interview explored participants’ background, the community in which they now lived, and if they were aware of any energy-related interventions in their area.

The second section of the interview involved eliciting detailed descriptions of everyday energy use (i.e. participants’ routines and those of the rest of the household), how this might change at different times of the year (i.e. holidays), and of the similarities and difference between family members within and beyond the household.

The final part of the interview focused on futures, asking participants how they anticipated their energy might change in the future. Participants were encouraged to think about how their lives might change in the coming 5/10 years, and how these changes might impact their energy use. Unsurprisingly, some participants found it easier than others to discuss their future. For example, the Thomases wanted to become homeowners, and to have land to grow their own food and derive their energy from passive sources. Likewise, households with young children could foresee their energy consumption ratcheting up as their children enter their teens, whilst households with older children foresaw their energy consumption drastically reduce as the nest empties. For a few participants however, past experiences of unexpected events, or their current lifecourse stage, made it difficult for them to think of and plan for the future (see also Shirani et al., 2015).

4.2.2 Interviews with Young People

Five out of eleven households in the sample had young people present. Within these households and where possible, I invited young people to ‘opt in’ to the study if they so wished (either individual interview or as a sibling group) after gaining the consent of their parents. Only one sibling group - three adolescents in the Thomas family - took up this offer. After an initial conversation with the siblings to discuss the purposes of the study, what participation would entail, and to offer them the opportunity to ask questions, the siblings verbally assented to participate and collectively chose to be interviewed together (see section 4.1 for a more detailed discussion of this process). Creative methods were not used in the interview given that the siblings did not seem to have any difficulty in discussing energy use and home life in our pre-interview conversation. Moreover, using a

creative technique could have potentially been difficult to control in a group interview setting (Punch, 2002).

The interview was thematically structured around themes of home life (i.e. living arrangement, daily routine, rules and responsibilities); school life (i.e. school day routine, energy use interventions at school (if any)); hobbies and friends (i.e. what sort of hobbies they had (if any), and spending time with friends outside of school). The final part of the interview, much like adult interviews, focused on the future; asking the siblings to discuss what they hoped to do after leaving school, and how it might change their energy use.

The interview was conducted in the public space of the living room. While the siblings’

parents were not present in the room during the interview, they were always in the immediate vicinity.

Going into the sibling interview I had concerns regarding the possibility of older members of the sibling group speaking over or for younger members of the group (Punch, 2007).

While at times this did happen, I tried to encourage quieter siblings to contribute their views (Bloor et al., 2001) without assuming an authoritative role, which could negatively impact their enthusiasm to take part. What surprised me however, was that the eldest siblings, Delyth and Lisa, would at times take on a facilitative role, by asking their brother and sister questions about their experiences and opinions (i.e. “What do you think Alex?”).

As such, I felt that the group interview format worked well, as the siblings would often prompt each other to recall certain shared experiences, and were confident in agreeing or challenging each other’s accounts.

4.2.3 On the Importance of Being Flexible

Adapting interviewing techniques to suit particular individuals, settings and contexts is often considered necessary by those that conduct social research, particularly when the research involves families in the domestic sphere (Bushin, 2007; Punch, 2009). Private space in the home for example is often limited, and the researcher must accept ‘less than ideal’ settings in which to conduct interviews, which may in turn, have consequences in terms of confidentiality (Bushin, 2007). Put simply, while interviewing different household members separately seems simple enough, in practice, the presence of other

household members can be disruptive to the interview process. In my own research, every interview was conducted in a ‘public’ space, usually that of the kitchen/dining room or the living room. Other than the odd interruption of others passing through the interview space, I (fortunately) did not experience many issues with regards to interview disruption from other household members. I did, however, experience scheduling difficulties with two households in particular, which I will now go on to discuss.

Having initially contacted the Griffiths and the Gwilyms to negotiate their participation, I arranged to meet both families at their preferred time and place (i.e. mid-week at their respective homes) to conduct the first round of interviews. Upon arrival I was greeted by Bryn into the Griffiths’ home and Glyn into the Gwilyms’ respectively. Both men proceeded to apologise for their partners’ absence, as they had not yet arrived home from work. Given that their partners were the ‘gatekeepers’ to the household, I was ethically bound to ensure that each participant was voluntarily consenting to participation, and decided to give both men a copy of the information sheet to read and discussed with them what participation would involve (see section 4.1). Upon gaining their verbal and written consent, it was decided that their individual interview would commence, given that neither man was entirely sure when their partner would arrive home, and I did not want to overly intrude on their evening.

In both cases, interviews took place in the social space of the kitchen. Roughly a third of the way through each interview however, the men’s partners arrived home. At this point I stopped the interview (and paused the audio-recording) to introduce myself, to hand over the information sheets and consent forms, and to explain, as I had previously done with their partners, what the research was about and what participation would entail. In both cases however, the newly arrived partners asked if it was necessary to be interviewed separately, at which point I got the impression that time was of the essence. The Griffiths had young children to feed and put to bed, and were preparing their evening meal, as were the Gwilyms - albeit without the presence of any children. In both cases I let the couple decide how best to proceed, that is, whether they would be interviewed separately as planned, or whether the newly arrived partners would join in with the interviews that were already underway. I decided to do this as I recognised that the logistics of conducting separate interviews often means that one person has to ‘keep out of the way’ in their own

of the home and location in which the interview was taking place) (Morris, 2001). In addition, giving participants the choice was also felt to ‘empower’ them (Heaphy &

Einarsdottir, 2012). Offering the choice however, resulted in both couples deciding to proceed in a couple-interview format, which upon reflection, could have been avoided by my offering to return at a later time to conduct the second interview. Proceeding in this way however, did have its benefits, particularly in relation to partners’ jogging each other’s memories and in the creation of richer accounts (Valentine, 1999b). Other than omitting the biographical part of the interview for the missing partners (Megan and Eluned), interviewing these two couples together was not felt to have adversely impacted the data.