‘Some of Our People can be the Most Difficult’. Reflections on Difficult Interviews

This article questions the methodological convention in the social sciences that the interviewer must never disagree with a respondent in qualitative research. The issue arose during research on the British Serbian community when some participants sought to justify, exculpate or reject Serbian liability for atrocity. My initial response not to demur but to simply move onto the next question morally tainted the research, as it seemed to collud in a denial of Serbian responsibility for atrocity in an understanding of war (1991-99) in which the Serbs were always the victim. I discuss, through an extended excerpt from an interview conducted later in the research, my attempt to challenge respondents over this claim. I set the moral and methodological case to object to the denial of atrocity against the practical dangers present in doing so: the risk of a loosing track of the spine of a prepared script of questions as a fruitless argument develops and the intricacies of the subject matter are exposed. But I also allow for an interpretation that would suggest that my response was altogether too cautious. My conclusion, such as one can make one about such a complex matter, is that to object in such a kind of instance is legitimate.