Semi-structured In-depth Interviews

Semi-structured interviews were always part of the original research design, but as I revised the aim of the research to focus solely on the participants’

experiences of having a family member in prison, interviews came to take on a more important role in forming the main data on which my analysis would be based. The underlying reasons for this choice of research method, however, remained consistent despite my changing research focus. Seidman (2013: 9) notes: “At the root of in-depth interviewing is an interest in understanding the lived experience of other people and the meaning they make of that experience”. This is consistent with my overall approach to this research based on a critical realist approach, while also drawing on elements of interactionism.

3 ‘Positive Prisons? Positive Futures…’ is a third sector organisation in Scotland whose work is informed and led by people with experience of the justice system. Their aim is the appreciation of people with convictions as citizens and they campaign in this regard.

The choice of semi-structured interviews as my main research method brings in elements of interactionism, where the interview is seen as a way in which the interviewer and the interviewee are able to construct narratives and “generate data which give an authentic insight into people’s experiences” (Silverman, 2001: 87). It is accepted that “research cannot provide the mirror reflection of the social world that positivists strive for, but it may provide access to the meanings people attribute to their experiences and social worlds” (Miller and Glassner, 2004: 126).

As I have noted above, in interviews, as in all social interaction, meanings are constructed rather than simply communicated (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2014).

Holstein and Gubrium (1995) point out that knowledge and meanings are constructed during the interview process rather than simply existing in an interviewee’s head ready to be extracted by the interviewer. Paget (1983) referred to the in-depth interview as a “search procedure” (p. 78) where both the participant and the interviewer work together to uncover aspects of the interviewee’s experience in which the researcher is interested.

Semi-structured interviews therefore allow a greater freedom for the interviewee to take the interview where they feel is most important compared to more structured forms of enquiry. They are also more consistent with the wish to place the young people at the centre of this research. Within semi-structured interviews it is possible to construct the interviewee in the role of expert by allowing them to lead where the interviews go rather than being led by an entirely pre-determined interview schedule. Though I acknowledge that this ‘leading’ is done within boundaries, where the wider themes to be covered are still chosen by the interviewer.

Conversely, however, these interviews also allow the interviewer an element of control compared to entirely unstructured interviews, allowing a focusing of the conversation on issues that are relevant to their research and the questions it poses and wishes to explore (Brinkmann, 2018). As I reflect later in the thesis, in response to the data, particularly from the interviews with the young people in the YOI, an initial focus in the interviews on experiences of family more widely (rather than just when a member is in prison) may have been helpful.

Instead, the interviews tended to focus more on the imprisonment and its impact specifically, for example, around aspects of communication with the imprisoned family member, experiences at school of social support, and stigma, rather than the context of the family more widely (see Appendix C for a sample interview guide).

This interview guide was created following attendance at some of the KIN sessions and following some background reading of the familial imprisonment literature. Reflecting on its strengths and weaknesses, the ability to create this guide having spent time with those who had lived experience of familial imprisonment was beneficial. However, as the research continued and evolved it became clear that the members of the KIN group spoke to a specific subset of familial imprisonment experiences, as is captured in much of the literature. It is representative of young people who mainly had good relationships with their family member prior to the imprisonment and who continued to remain in contact during this period. Therefore, the basing of the interview guide (particularly with the young people from the YOI) on the results of these interactions could also be said to be a weakness in some respect. A further weakness could be seen by some through its preparation after only a limited reading of the literature, although given the basis of the analysis within a grounded theory approach, this was essential and could conversely be viewed by others as a strength where pre-determined priorities or focuses did not dominate. Overall, where there were some inherent strengths or weaknesses in the guide, the semi-structured nature of the interviews allowed these to be mitigated to some extent as the research progressed.

While it could be argued that qualitative interviews generally, and semi-structured interviews in particular, place the participant and their importance at its centre, there are still limitations and elements of a power imbalance in this method which must be acknowledged. In respect of the power relations in interview situations, these can be mediated by the interviewer, both through their behaviour and through practical concerns of location and atmosphere for the interview itself. Despite this, there can still be an underlying power imbalance. The researcher chooses the topic, initiates the interview, poses the questions, follows up on answers and (usually) ends the interview. There is a predominantly one-way dialogue, with the interviewer asking the majority, if

not all, of the questions and the interview does not happen as an event for its own sake but instead is a means to an end of the interviewer gathering data.

The interviewer also tends to have a monopoly on the interpretation of the data even if some feedback or sense-checking takes place (Brinkmann, 2018).

Further limitations of interviews, and something which is touched on in other areas of the thesis (see particularly Chapter 4) is the interviewing of people while or because they occupy a particular subject position. For example, the KIN young people took part both as a young person with a family member in prison and as a member of a group exploring this of which I was also a part. There is therefore likely to be an assumption made around my priorities and aims which make, for example, the wider exploration of family or of themes away from the dominant narrative of familial imprisonment more difficult. For those young people who were in a prison themselves, their location and previous experience of being ‘interviewed’, in whatever form, may again have instilled preconceived ideas of what I required or wished to hear. The construction of an interview as a social situation and performance also introduces limitations into this method as, regardless of the interviewees’ ideas of what I may want to hear, the young people could also choose to construct their narratives in specific ways given our interaction (see Chapter 4 for further reflection on this).

Despite these limitations however, the semi-structured interview as a method is still preferable, and more suited to answering the types of research question posed in this study, than a structured interview or survey.