Interviewing Victims of State Violence In The SAGE Handbo.docx

Interviewing Victims of State Violence
In: The SAGE Handbook of Criminological Research Methods
By: Elizabeth Stanley
Edited by: David Gadd, Susanne Karstedt & Steven F. Messner
Pub. Date: 2012
Access Date: November 17, 2019
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Ltd
City: London
Print ISBN: 9781849201759
Online ISBN: 9781446268285
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446268285
Print pages: 231-243
© 2012 SAGE Publications Ltd All Rights Reserved.
This PDF has been generated from SAGE Research Methods.
Please note that the pagination of the
online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.
https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446268285

ElizabethStanley
Introduction
Criminologists have increasingly turned their attention to state-
led violence against civilian and military
populations. Authors such as Green and Ward (2004),
Parmentier and Weitekamp (2007) and Rothe (2009),
among others, have enhanced criminological thinking with
writings that question the fundamental nature
of states, violence, human rights and justice. These authors have
identified the criminological reticence to
engage with crimes conducted by state officials; they have also
exposed the massive suffering and harm that
often results from state violence.
Fortunately, given criminology's stance to ‘explain crimes and
the behaviour of offenders and victims’
(Parmentier and Weitekamp, 2007: 110), and given the diverse
methodological skills held by criminologists,
the discipline is well positioned to advance thinking on a whole
range of violent acts, including those directed
by state agencies. To give just one example, criminologists
Hagan, Rymond-Richmond and Parker (2005)

have recently used victimization survey data from third-party
sources to show how the Sudanese Government
directly supported the killings and rapes of Darfurians. Through
statistical and regression analyses, they
illustrated the racial targeting of African Darfurians by state
actors and, in doing so, bolstered the case
for naming these events as state-sponsored genocide. Their
study presented a unique analyses of crime
(genocide) that has strong theoretical and policy implications; it
exemplified the usefulness of criminologists
to the area of state violence.
This chapter focuses on the author's own qualitative
contributions to debates on state violence. In particular,
it examines my research on/with victims of torture. This work
has emerged over the last decade with projects
that have focused on the implementation of ‘transitional justice’
bodies within South Africa, Chile and Timor-
Leste. Transitional justice bodies refers, in my studies, to the
court processes and truth commissions that
are established to provide truth and justice in states that are
‘transitioning’ from extensive (often state-led)
violence to more democractic situations. My focus has attended
to how these truth and justice mechanisms

have been experienced by the individuals who have suffered the
most serious of state violence, torture, and
who are still alive to ‘tell the tale’.
The following section evaluates the ways in which torture has
been researched by criminologists, as well
as by colleagues in related disciplines such as law, psychology
and history. This broad-brush overview is
followed by a reflexive exploration of doing research ‘on’ those
who have survived torture. Given that the focus
here is a population made vulnerable by state actions and
structural forces, the repercussions regarding the
practical approaches of doing research are detailed. Attention is
paid to some of the challenges and questions
raised in my most recent interviews, with victims of torture in
Timor-Leste. Finally, the chapter establishes
SAGE
2012 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
SAGE Research Methods
Page 2 of 21
some future methodological challenges of pursuing this kind of
work, especially in terms of questioning the

transformative potential of producing knowledge about state-led
violence and oppression.
Researching Torture
Torture is a specific form of state violence. According to the
UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Art 1.1), to be
defined as torture, an act must encompass a
number of factors: (i) it must cause severe pain or suffering,
whether physical or mental; (ii) it must be inflicted
by a public official or person of official standing, or undertaken
with their consent/acquiesence or at their
instigation; (iii) it must be intentionally inflicted, for a purpose
such as to obtain a confession or information, or
to punish, intimidate or coerce a person or another party; and,
(iv) the pain or suffering should not arise from,
or be an incidental or inherent feature of, any lawful sanction.
In practice, the boundaries of torture are subject
to vigorous debate–for instance, does a tortured person have to
be detained? Can rape be a form of torture?
Where does psychological pressure, or degrading treatment, end
and torture begin? These questions cannot
be answered here but they illustrate the ongoing contentious
nature of how torture is defined, legitimized or

challenged.
Many academics will ‘know’ about torture through reading
social literature–media reports, ground-breaking
exposés (such as Danner, 2004), documents from human rights
bodies (like Amnesty or Human Rights
Watch) or books (such as Ortiz, 2002) that highlight personal
experiences of torturing regimes. Fewer
academics have actually studied this violation in more detail.
One reason for this is that doing research on
torture is, as Rejali (1994: 2) noted, something of ‘a
methodologist's nightmare‘. If torture is ongoing, countries
can be ‘black boxes to the outside world’ (1994: 2). States tend
to deny their involvement in torture. The
vast majority of perpetrators do not wish to be identified, and
those who attempt to expose them can find
themselves subject to threats, attacks and even death. For
different reasons, victims of torture are also often
hidden, they can be in positions of extreme vulnerability and
many victims prefer to remain silent about what
has happened to them. Doing primary research on this topic is
not easy. Nonetheless, academic attention to
torture has continued to grow and develop. Box 15.1 highlights
some of the perspectives that can be found in
the criminological, and related, literature.

Box 15.1 Academic Research on Torture
Academic writings on torture are largely positioned around a
number of approaches,
including analyses on:
• The historical use of torture. Rejali (1994) undertook
documentary analysis to
illustrate the historical use of torture (and subsequent reforms)
within Iranian
SAGE
Page 3 of 21
punishment systems while, in an analysis of the documentary
archives from ‘S-21’
(a torture and death prison in Cambodia), Chandler (1999)
establishes how torture
can be institutionally legitimized.
• Torture and the law. Evans and Morgan (1998) chart the
development of European

law and administrative services to counter torture while Sands
(2008) shows how
law can be circumnavigated in the support of torture.
• The institutional, societal or structural basis of modern
torture. Huggins (2010)
provides a ‘torture essentials’ model that illustrates the
conditions in which torture
operates, across all kinds of political states; Rejali (2007)
establishes how stealth
techniques of torture have become entrenched within modern
democratic states;
the edited collection by Crelinsten and Schmid (1995)
highlights the institutional,
social, political and psychological frameworks in which torture
is practiced.
• The socio-psychological underpinnings of torture. The
experiments of Milgram
(1974), who highlighted the propensity of individuals to follow
orders from those
presumed to be in authority, as well as Zimbardo (Haney et al.,
1973) who
exposed how individuals could enact authoritarian/sadist or
rebellious/passive
(prison officer or prisoner) personalities, are well known in this

regard. While these
studies would struggle to advance beyond current University
Ethics Committees,
researchers continue to focus on how individuals can be drawn
into torture. For
instance, from interviews with ex-military policemen and their
victims in Greece,
psychologist Haritos-Fatouros (2002) develops an analysis of
the psychological
origins of torturers and their supporters while Huggins et al.
(2002), in work on
Brazil, show how torturers make sense of, or justify, their
violence.
• Studies on victims' health and social needs. The journal
Torture advances research
on the range of social, medical and psychological repercussions
faced by torture
victims, their families and communities.
My work has built upon many of the approaches identified in
Box 15.1. It has focused upon the social,
political, legal and cultural impact of experiencing torture, and
it has assessed the specific needs of victims
in relation to the concerns of truth and justice. With regards to
the latter, I have sought to understand

the official ‘justice’ responses to torture. Truth commissions
and international courts are now relatively
commonplace bodies; indeed, they are now almost a knee-jerk
response to deal with state violence. Yet, while
academic analyses on transitional justice has developed, it tends
to focus on debates of international law, the
institutional difficulties of gathering ‘truth’, the problems that
transitional justice professionals will face, and
so on. Strangely, victims' experiences–or community-wide
experiences–of these mechanisms are regularly
absent. Thus, my research has examined how victims of torture
have experienced these commissions and
courts.
SAGE
Page 4 of 21
Overall, my research has aimed to address a number of research
questions:
How has torture been experienced by victims? (How was torture

used? What was the impact of
torture on victims, their families and communities? How was
torture resisted?)
How, if at all, have transitional justice institutions provided
‘truth’ and ‘justice’ for victims? (What do
victims know about these institutions? How have they
experienced them? Have these institutions
fulfilled victims' needs?)
How do torture victims experience life in the wake of violation?
(On a longer-term level, how does
torture link with other forms of violence?)
Given these aims, my research centralizes victims' experiences
and needs. Subsequently, my work operates
at a personal, interpretive and contexual level–a position that is
relatively rare within the torture literature.
Research as a Challenge to Torture
At a personal-political level, my research has been based on a
belief that human suffering in all its forms
should be acknowledged and, preferably, responded to in ways
that will alleviate its causes and conditions. It
reflects a consideration that research may assist towards
breaking down the ‘cultures of denial’ that surround
acts of violence (Cohen, 2001). Over recent periods, when the

methods and calibration of torture have
been discussed with seemingly little concern for victims, as if
there is no terror or pain, such research on
torture may have value. I have consequently aspired to write
‘against rather than simply about’ human rights
violations (Sim, 2003: 247).
Critical criminologists (such as Scraton, 2007; Sim, 2003;
Tombs and Whyte, 2003) have exposed the need
for research that emphasizes ‘the view from below’, to highlight
the experiences of those who are silenced
or misinterpreted through popular and official channels. The
reason for this approach is that ‘mainstream’
ideologies frequently work to conceal ‘the processes which
oppress and control people’ (Harvey, 1990: 6).
In relation to torture, for instance, victims can be denied their
victimhood through common depictions that
they are deserving of their treatment because they are
‘terrorists’, ‘subversives’, ‘dangerous prisoners’, and
so on (Huggins et al., 2002; Stanley, 2004). My research
position has been that these ideological boundaries
are unhelpful, at the very least, and that there is a need to ‘dig
beneath the surface of historically specific,
oppressive, social structures’ (Harvey, 1990: 1) to illustrate
violations and victims for what they are.

A critical analysis also requires an understanding that events,
identities and the formation of knowledge
are ‘derived and reproduced, historically and
contemporaneously, in the structural relations of inequality and
oppression that characterise established social orders’
(Chadwick and Scraton, 2001: 72). Subsequently,
within this critical approach, it is apparent that torture, as a
form of state violence, cannot be examined
in isolation from other forms of ‘structural violence’ or
‘pathologies of power’ that underline and obscure
violations (Farmer, 2003). State violence is often ‘embedded in
entrenched structural violence’ (ibid. 219). It
tends to be directed to those who hold the most vulnerable
positions–for instance, towards those who may
SAGE
Page 5 of 21
be poor, or marginalized on ‘racial’, gendered or other grounds.
Torture can also be directed to those who

are made vulnerable by political or social exclusion; for
instance, many Chilean torture victims were middle-
class professionals–academics, health professionals, legal or
media workers–who were depicted as political
‘subversives’ by the Pinochet regime (Stanley, 2004).
It also soon becomes apparent that these forms of violence are
sustained across global power dynamics. For
example, the lived realities of Indonesian-led torture in Timor-
Leste could not be understood without analytical
tracking of the Indonesian Government, political organizations
in Timor-Leste, other states, the UN, the World
Bank, corporations, militia members, among others, as well as
of the structural priorities that give rise to gross
inequalities across the world.
As shown in Box 15.2, a critical approach presents an
opportunity to unpack the ways in which torture is
undertaken, experienced, talked about and resisted. It is an
opportunity to counter the taken-for-granted
attitudes about torture, truth and justice. However,
acknowledging such ‘views from below’ is difficult when
faced with a hidden and often silent group of respondents.
Box 15.2 A Critical Approach to Researching Torture
Taking a critical framework, researchers can:

• ground their work in historical, political, social, economic and
cultural analyses;
• reflect on the structural determining contexts (for instance,
linked to class, ‘race’,
gender, age, ability or political status) that underpin the use of
torture;
• examine how political and ideological factors obscure the
reality of torture, and
lead to its legitimization;
• expose the ‘voices’ of those who are commonly silenced,
ignored or obscured
within discourses on torture;
• be self-conscious about their own values and status, and the
political purposes of
their research;
• engage in strategies of resistance, such as to direct their
research to struggles of
prevention, acknowledgement or accountability.
The Silencing Context of Torture
I have previously detailed how and why torture victims often
remain silent about their experiences (Stanley,
2004). There are a host of reasons for this silence, including

that many victims want to protect themselves and
others, or they may not want to be recognized as a victim. In
addition, victims face problems in communicating
their experiences to others. This, of course, raises a
fundamental methodological challenge.
SAGE
Page 6 of 21
To understand this silencing requires some reflection on
torture's use. Torture is often used to spread fear,
humiliate, control or punish particular groups or individuals.
However, it also focuses on communication–one
common understanding is that torture is used to retrieve
information from individuals. Through the application
of physical or psychological pain, torturers seek to control who
says what, when and how. In these respects,
the ‘voice’ of the victim is simultaneously directed and
destroyed by the torturer (Scarry, 1985). Through pain,
torturers can make victims ‘talk’. For the victim, talking (or not
talking) can become an issue of survival–and

silence can be a chosen form of resistance (Ross, 2003). In this
context, talking about torture–even in the
safest of spaces–is difficult. The experience of this violence,
that can destroy the body, mind and voice, is
such that speech becomes useless to provide an insight into
pain. The experience can become impossible to
re-tell (Stanley, 2004).
This ‘impossibility of telling’ about torture represents a
personal position in which victims can find no way
to explain their experience. Yet, the language to explain torture
only really exists ‘within a collectivity’ (de
Saussure, 1974: 14). Communicating about torture is not just
about the victim's ability to articulate pain and
stress, it is also about the ability of others to listen. Stories of
torture can be silenced as victims sense that
listeners cannot take in their account of what happened. There
can be a social and institutional retience to
hear painful or chaotic stories that challenge common-sense
notions of state protection. The ‘public’ also want
testimonies to be easily digestible, chronological and sensical
yet how victims talk about state violence can
be scattered, ad hoc and disjointed; some things do not ‘make
sense’. Silence can be attributed to the way

in which audiences shut out or do not hear difficult stories. It
might also derive ‘much more from the others’
need to forget and to not have to deal with the pain involved in
encountering survivors of violence' (Rosenthal,
2003: 926).
This silencing may also result from continued fears about
renewed victimization from the state. For example,
in work on a recent Chilean Commission on Torture, Bacic and
Stanley (2005) showed that many Chilean
torture victims continued to maintain their silence, decades after
their violation. Despite changes in
government, and the seemingly benign attempt by the state to
expose testimonies of torture and to make
amends, victims continued to remain fearful and suspicious of
government initiatives. Many victims felt that
government officials could not be trusted to represent their
needs and that, to talk, would compromise their
future safety. Such an example illustrates the very different
implications of being a victim of state violence
compared, for instance, to being a victim of ‘ordinary’ violence.
After all, when individual state officials engage
in violence, they represent the whole state system. Trust is
broken on individual, social and institutional levels.
In these circumstances, there is a concern that public attention

on torture might just augment state power.
Following evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib, for instance, the
exposure on torture did not readily equate to
increased support for, or understanding of, victims. Instead, the
discourse (dominated by politicians, military
officials, legal personnel, academics, corporate workers and the
few highlighted perpetrators) revolved
around the questions of the deviance or limited training of
officers and the legitimacy of torture or ‘torture lite’
in the face of threats to the state. Little was reported from the
victims' perspectives and connections were
more clearly drawn with the perpetrators–seen, for example, in
the websites that allow individuals to post
SAGE
Page 7 of 21
photographs of themselves in poses similar to those taken by
particular torturers (Stanley, 2009).
A related issue is whether research and subsequent writing on
torture actually serves to insulate bystanders

from the horror of state violence. Any publications on torture
might have ‘the effect of softening and cleaning
what went on’ (Chandler, 1999: 144). Certainly, in describing
agony and emotions, writers struggle to depict
torture in a way that correlates with how it is experienced. In
this context, the role of critical research may be
just that of ‘bearing witness’, of ‘breaking the silence and
calling … atrocities … by the name they deserve’
(Becker, 2004: 9).
The ‘Storytelling’ Remit
Storytelling is a foundation for human interaction. The stories
people tell about themselves and their lives both
constitute and interpret those lives (Ewick and Silbey, 1995).
Indeed, the act of attempting to tell a story is
part of the process of making sense of situations, it is ‘at the
core of constructing interpretation and memory’
(Hackett and Rolston, 2009: 360). Stories do not occur
naturally; rather, they are shaped and told and re-told.
In their re-telling, they provide an opportunity for less powerful
actors to build or regain control over definitions,
experiences and discourses. Further, a storytelling approach can
counteract the tendency to fracture peoples'
experiences–in avoiding a reduction of individual experiences

to a ‘question and answer’ format, storytelling
can demonstrate the complexity of peoples' lives in ways that
relate individuals, and their experiences, to their
social and structural contexts.
In this sense, stories are ‘saturated with meaning’ (Lawler,
2002: 252). They have the potential to reveal truths
that have previously been silenced or denied. For instance,
stories of life in places such as Timor-Leste, Chile
or South Africa, have exposed the ‘breadth of degradation’
(Ross, 2003: 48) during periods of repression.
State violence–from direct acts of physical violence through to
the everyday intrusions of the state and the
continuing, normalized fear of state officials and their powers–
can be uncovered.
Nonetheless, storytelling is not without its ‘troubles’. As a
researcher, I have been faced with stories that
contradict each other, that expose misunderstandings of events
or are just factually wrong. Further, all stories
are mediated and victims will always be engaged in some form
of self-presentation (Hackett and Rolston,
2009). Like any teller, victims will speculate on what a
researcher wants and tailor their stories to meet a
receptive audience. They sometimes downplay events or mask
the wider political, social and ideological

realities in which their lives are contextualized (Huggins et al.,
2002). Stories, like all forms of collated data,
are imperfect. Yet, taken together, ‘multiple stories … have the
capacity to undermine the illusion of an
objective, naturalised world which so often sustains inequality
and powerlessness’ (Ewick and Silbey, 1995:
198–9).
Storytelling can, then, be problematic for researchers. However,
this is equally so for the teller. If done
carelessly, the experience of storytelling might contribute to the
victim's sense of inequality or alienation.
Victims of state violence can face numerous repercussions in
exposing their story. For instance, in drawing
SAGE
Page 8 of 21
attention to themselves as ‘victims’, they simultaneously
highlight that they, or their friends or family, were
implicitly regarded by the state as being threatening or

suspicious. In turn, they may face future mis-
recognition as being potentially polluted or dangerous figures
(Ross, 2003).
Moreover, stories made public can contribute to fixing the
teller's identity–the torture victim becomes forever
known as ‘the torture victim’. Specific acts of violence, that in
real time might account for a fraction of a life,
begin to dominate a whole life story. Stories can freeze
identities and victims may lose the nuance of their
range of identities as survivors, family members, lovers,
workers, and so on. Victims also sense that they
may be subsequently regarded as being weak, damaged,
emotional, biased or non-analytical (Hackett and
Rolston, 2009). Similarly, the recorded story can also become
‘freeze dried text’ (Plummer, 2001: 234). That
is, the experience of torture can be fixed so that the victim's
interpretation, at a particular time and in a specific
context, becomes the defining story of violence. In the face of
these problems, many victims choose not to be
identified as having suffered (Stanley, 2009).
Nonetheless, many victims do want to tell their stories. Part of
the reason for this is that storytelling also looks
to the future–what people say, how they say it, and who to, is
often dependent on emotive, political, legal

or moral expectations. The process of storytelling becomes a
social practice itself, demonstrating cultural
values, power relations and aspirations (Ewick and Sibley,
1995) and victims can have clear motivations with
regard to their participation.
During my research, individuals frequently connected the wider
acknowledgement of their stories with social
change. Numerous victims told their story to me in a bid to tell
‘Western states’ of their collusion in violence.
Timorese victims, for instance, continually highlighted the role
of the British Government in the ideological and
military support of the Indonesian Government; similarly,
Chilean victims were quick to point out the British
bolstering of the Pinochet regime. Victims also used the
opportunity to argue for prosecutions, reparations
and social change.
So, while storytelling has an emotional and personal resonance,
it is also intensely political. In some
instances, stories can even be used to send messages to a wider
‘community’. For example, in Timor-
Leste, Antonio agreed to be interviewed on the proviso that it
was to take place in the yard outside his
office. The actual story was then related not just to myself and

the interpreter, but to approximately 20
other individuals. As Antonio told his story, the audience would
listen, sometimes nod, and occasionally add
further comment. Politically attuned, Antonio turned his
storytelling into a public narrative; a means to express
opinion, persuade others and progress social debate (Stanley,
2009).
At the same time, a story marks the boundaries of what
individuals are prepared to tell (Graham, 1984). In
seeking out victims of state violence, I have met numerous
victims who have refused to engage with my
project, sometimes because they had already told their story (to
aid agencies or lawyers or truth commissions)
and they felt disillusioned about the lack of subsequent action.
Other victims saw that stories can just be re-
appropriated by others for their own ends, stories can be used
for the advancement of others, and there is no
personal benefit to be gained from relating a painful past once
more.
SAGE
Page 9 of 21

Interviewing Victims of Torture in Timor-Leste
My primary research on Timor-Leste was conducted, over three
fieldwork visits to the country, from February
2004 to December 2005. During this period, I undertook
interviews with 74 individuals (21 victims of torture,
18 legal workers, 16 truth commission workers and 19 workers
from human rights groups and other non-
governmental organizations (NGOs)). In addition, I directed a
project for a local NGO, the Judicial System
Monitoring Programme, in which outreach staff conducted
interviews with 15 torture victims. Alongside
interviews, I observed criminal justice and truth commission
proceedings, and undertook informal meetings
with victims, transitional justice workers and other individuals.
Of course, such data belies the messy reality
of actually doing the research.
In many ways, this research was often a case of ‘making it up as
I went along’; however, there were some
particular concerns that I faced. In particular, these revolved
around how I might access respondents, respond
to power differentials, deal with difference and distance,

communicate with speakers of different languages
and cope with emotions.
Accessing Respondents
The journey from Wellington to Dili is reasonably long, and it
would generally take me over 24 hours from
leaving home to standing on the Dili tarmac. In retrospect, this
journey was relatively easy compared to some
of the interview travel within Timor-Leste. Within Dili itself,
the standard US$1 cab fare for short trips around
town–while unattainable for many locals–was relatively cheap
for me. These taxis were not, however, always
reliable as drivers did not have the money or skills to repair
broken cars (which were often damaged from very
poor road conditions or the heat). On one occasion, when I was
late for an interview about a kilometre away,
I travelled in five taxis to get to my destination; the first four
all broke down en route. Over 90 minutes late,
after consolingly inspecting each broken car with its driver, I
jubilantly arrived to discover that my interviewee
had gone for a long lunch. I walked back. Outside Dili, the
roads are much worse and often inaccessible,
particularly when it rains. All journeys were hot and slow, and
regularly accompanied by ‘logic problems’

of building makeshift bridges to cross certain sections. Yet,
besides the company of fellow travellers, the
beautiful scenery more than compensated for protracted,
winding drives.
Of course, the issue of ‘access’ is not just about travel, it also
involves convincing others to spend their
time with you and ‘open up’. In this regard, access to
professional workers was relatively easy. The main
issue, here, was that they were all incredibly busy so timing and
flexibility on my part was crucial. However,
negotiating access to victims was, as one might expect,
considerably more difficult. I primarily negotiated
access through two local NGOs (the Judicial System Monitoring
Programme and the International Catholic
Migration Commission) that operated outreach programmes with
survivors of serious violations. After a range
of informal vetting procedures, through which organizational
workers basically ‘sussed me out’, I was provided
with a list of potential interviewees and their general location.
SAGE
Page 10 of 21

Following this, I would attempt to find the individuals and
explain the research. This was, by no means, simple:
most Timorese have no access to phones, there is no effective
postal service, most roads do not have names,
directions were often vague, given names would sometimes be
unrecognizable to local people (as it is not
unusual for Timorese people to have a variety of names) and
potential interviewees would be at work or
had moved. And, of course, when I did find some individuals,
they did not always want to talk to me. This
latter response resulted from a variety of factors–it reflected the
personal stance of individuals (why, after all,
would anyone really want to talk about their torture to a
complete stranger?), however it could also emerge
because people were sceptical about my credentials.
Occasionally, my work could also be downgraded by
association–for instance, one respondent would not speak to me
because he did not like the person who had
put me in touch with them.
Connections also came through other unlikely sources including
from the cleaners of the small hostel in

which I twice stayed. While I generally enjoyed a good
relationship with them, these three women ‘warmed’
to me on the thirteenth anniversary of the massacre at Santa
Cruz; principally, I suspect, because I was an
‘international’ who knew about it and had tried to talk to them
about it, through poor Tetum and mime. When
they subsequently discovered my research topic (and found out
that I had also had a Catholic upbringing),
they escorted me to their friends and family who had been
victimized. In these instances of direct connection,
interviewees were always open to the research. Trust, in these
circumstances, is a crucial factor.
The range of interviewees, and their own personal
circumstances, meant that interviews were conducted in
various settings: offices, homes, restaurants, my hotel room,
school rooms, courtyards, gardens, under trees
and even on a beach. Essentially, if the interviewee was
comfortable with the situation, I would speak with
them anywhere. With the exception of six interviewees
(principally legal workers) all interviews were recorded.
Unanimously, victims were happy to be taped and often stressed
the importance of the recording.
Responding to Power Differentials
The economic, social and environmental conditions in which

this research progressed has inevitably
advanced reflexive questions about my own position within the
research. After all, ‘What we do and how we
do it is informed by who we are, how we think, our morals, our
politics, our sexuality, our faith, our lifestyle,
our childhood, our “race”, our values’ (Clough and Nutbrown,
2002: 70).
The ability of Western researchers, to ‘give voice’ to people's
suffering and to re-write stories for their own
ends, illustrates privilege. The reproduction of victims' stories
reflects the researcher's own status and power.
Indeed, that most researchers can ‘study, rather than endure’
torture is a reminder of the benefits that follow
for some from the ‘nature and distribution of assaults on
dignity’ (Farmer, 2003: 224). Research has to be
undertaken with an acknowledgement of the positioning and
status of those involved. Even in the best of
circumstances, this can be an unequal exchange (Skeggs, 2002).
Historical experience indicates that Western researchers can
readily position themselves as ‘those who
know’. ‘Data’ can be readily re-appropriated into a commodity
and interviewees can lose ownership over their
SAGE

Page 11 of 21
stories. There are significant questions on who ‘owns the story’
as the dissemination of painful experiences
can become ‘wholly cut off from the life of the teller’
(Plummer, 2001: 216). This issue is intensified by unequal
resources and access to global information flows in which
stories (that are repeatedly circulated in the media,
on the Internet and reproduced by scholars around the world)
are not accessible to interviewees (Ross, 2003).
These realities led to a situation in which, unsuprisingly, many
victims were outspoken with regards to their
concerns and scepticism about the cultural capital that western
academics, with ready access to publishing
sources, possess. They understood the nature of the work–that I
would return to a prosperous country and
then produce publications that, while having next-to-no direct
impact on their lives, would probably deepen
my cultural resources further. In addition, a number of victims
also challenged me on how my status had been

achieved thus far. For example, Fransisco remarked that my
education had probably been paid from monies
derived from British Ministry of Defence sales. For him, my
status, as an academic born and educated in the
UK, was clearly linked to the suffering of the Timorese people.
This argument, that I could not contest given
extensive weapon sales from the UK to Indonesia, illustrated
the everyday expressions and enactment of
power relations. There were times in this research when power
relations changed and the interviewee held
more power than I, the researcher (Huggins and Glebbeek,
2003). In this instance, Fransisco claimed power
in response to the values and meanings he attributed to me, as a
white, British, academic female.
In the midst of such challenges, I took on the mantle of an
‘involved outsider’, ‘one who is personally
connected’ to victims through a stance that violations are
wrong, and that victims' demands for truth and
justice are paramount (Hermann, 2001: 79). I approached with
‘a sort of political certificate of honesty’ (ibid.
84) in which I emphasized that my research did have an
academic ‘agenda’, that it would admittedly ‘not
change the world’ but I would communicate findings in diverse
ways and push for change for Timor-Leste.

I, like Bell (2001), maintained criteria of ensuring that the work
had practical value and that respect for
interviewees would override any of my own research objectives.
In terms of the latter, I prioritized victims'
needs during, and in the wake of, interviews. In many respects,
Timorese people thought this too and
individuals regularly asked for some financial or social
assistance. At its bluntest, I had indicated that I wanted
to expose and change ‘the view from below’, so how committed
was I? In response, aside from my academic
contributions, I gave money to individuals and organizations,
put victims in touch with rare support groups
and also helped out with domestic chores. These actions never,
however, felt adequate.
My status raised tensions with some victims; however, it
permitted far clearer access to professional workers.
While this was not a homogenous group, my background was
generally viewed as a mark of approval
and, indeed, some Timorese individuals later claimed that they
had failed to access some of these workers
because, as they saw it, they did not share my international,
professional status. As Green (2003: 173) notes,
‘Being foreign, always to some extent on the outside looking in,
is probably more of a help than a hindrance’.

Further, I am also certain that being a relatively young woman
combined with other features ‘to help secure
some interviewees and to produce among them some greater
openness’ (Huggins and Glebbeek, 2003: 372).
It was evident, particularly with some male professional
interviewees, that I was viewed as an unthreatening
character, one that would not merit suspicion or a guarded
approach.
SAGE
Page 12 of 21
Dealing with Difference and Distance
Throughout the research, I faced the generic research issues of
building rapport, being non-judgmental,
assuring confidentiality and establishing trust. Part of my
strategy, here, was to establish active listening
principles. Thus, I took an approach to ‘decipher what the
interviewee has said’, signal my ‘interest in
understanding more’ and show a ‘willingness to be open to the
other's feelings' (Rosenthal, 2003: 919).

Nonetheless, given the cultural, social and economic differences
between our ‘worlds’, interviews were
inevitably fractured. Similar to the human rights research
undertaken by Lambert et al. (2003: 42), I
sometimes found myself in a situation in which ‘Words slipped
and fell about … [because] we did not have
shared meanings built from shared histories.’ Our very
identities, understandings and experiences meant that
the research was limited as it lost the nuance and complexity of
life. Active listening strategies could not
always break through our differences so that I might fully
understand the meanings of what was being said.
Agger and Jensen's (1996) landmark text, on interviewing
torture survivors and Chilean therapists (many
of whom had been traumatized by political repression),
provided a guide for my thinking on responding to
difference. They establish the distinction between ‘empathetic
listening’ (that any individual might do) and the
listening required in research practice. The latter requires
empathy with the listener, however it also needs
the researcher to continually reflect on their place within the
research, and to acknowledge the difference and
distance between research parties.

The difference between our lives meant that I was not always
sure how far I might ‘push’ or ‘probe’ into
victims' experiences. Moreover, sometimes, questions that I
would anticipate to be ‘difficult’ for victims–such
as on sexual torture–would be directly and fully answered while
other questions, that I would consider to be
‘lighter’–say, on political connections–would endure strained
responses. These events highlighted the limits
of my understanding about the long-term harmful, or
discomfiting, outcomes of repression. Acknowledging my
ignorance, the best I could do was to take care not to ‘work
against the interviewee's defenses' (Rosenthal,
2003: 919).
Communicating across Languages
The storytelling approach allows individuals to speak in their
own language and in their own words (Graham,
1984). Many of the professionals working in the truth
commission and serious crimes process were English-
speakers, making communication comparatively
straightforward. While I learnt Tetum (a principal indigenous
language in Timor), clear communication with Timorese people
was not so easy. There are different reasons
for this. First, my Tetum was very basic and I regularly mistook
words with Te Reo MāBori, which I had

also been learning after arriving in New Zealand. Second,
despite the relatively wide use of Tetum, there
are over 20 indigenous languages in Timor-Leste and many are
quite localized. Third, at the time of my
research, there was some conflict over official languages–
Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesia and English were
each used by administrators (the former two languages now
have ascendancy). Given all this, my much-
needed interpreters regularly struggled to circumnavigate the
discussions, and they had to hold a strong
SAGE
Page 13 of 21
knowledge of numerous languages.
The interpretation of discussions brought its own issues which
skewed the research process. Even the best
translations can be problematic, as they ‘unavoidably impair the
authenticity of the data, and hence the validity
of [the] analyses’ (Hermann, 2001: 83). Translations can

regularly fail to expose the cultural nuances and
complexity of language or meaning that may be more apparent
in direct communication (ibid.). This is an
issue that researchers using interpreters always face.
Concerns about the use of interpreters were intensified in the
context of this research on torture in a still-
decimated country (in which over 90 per cent of all
infrastructure had been destroyed when Indonesia
left the region). In Timor-Leste, there are few professional
interpreters and these individuals were already
occupied under more lucrative UN contracts. Added to this,
given recent circumstances, Timorese people
were suspicious of those they ‘do not know’–there were
continual questions about what people had done or
not done, who they were related to, could they be trusted, and
so on. As Brounéus (2008: 64) comments,
‘Two risks arise if there is a relationship of distrust … first, the
interviewee may choose to not speak freely;
second, the interpreter may hide facts or distort information
according to their own opinion. In both cases the
interview material will lose its value.’
The withholding of facts is, undoubtedly, one of the most
serious of risks in the use of interpreters. This

occurred during this research, although it emerged from the
sensitivity of an interpreter who managed his
translation so as not to offend. During one interview, a torture
victim spent a few minutes in an animated
flow of speech. During this time, Casimiro, the interpreter,
nervously glanced at my expression and smiled
at me. He then started to look agitated as the speech continued.
Finally, I intervened and asked him to
translate. He shrugged his shoulders, smiled again, and quietly
said, ‘She says that your country has caused
much destruction in Timor. She says that the UK is responsible
too.’ Casimiro later admitted that he had not
wanted to translate the parts that he saw as an affront to my
nationality as he thought it would make me
upset. This occurred despite the fact that I had previously
spoken to him about my critical approach and my
understanding of the role of the UK Government. His personal
and cultural commitment to ease tensions, and
look after me, overtook his focus on a neutral translation.
Coping with Emotions
Within the storytelling approach, it is hoped that while
interviewees might relate painful or problematic pasts,
they will finish their story by talking about good, secure areas
of life (Rosenthal, 2003). Yet, Timorese people

have little personal security; during interviews, Timorese
victims talked about their constant economic worries,
health problems, housing troubles, and many were anxious
about the possibilities of renewed violence.
Insecurities included threats of direct physical violence and
structural violence (linked to the lack of food,
water, shelter, health services, and so on). Most interviewees
continued to have an uncertain future. This
was clearly illustrated in the surge in violence during 2006–
after the completion of my data collection–which
left many Timorese in refugee camps and without homes once
more. These insecurities frequently led to a
SAGE
Page 14 of 21
questioning of research ethics–for instance, should I actually
undertake research in situations of continuing
insecurity? In response, I clearly answered ‘yes’ as I saw that
my work might assist Timorese people, or other

populations who have faced torture. However, this led to a
second question: how can I do research that does
not cause further harm?
While interviews were always conducted to create the least pain
possible (for example, by encouraging
interviewees to bring along support people, or by connecting
interviewees to social or religious support
organizations), the exposure of torturous events undoubtedly
brought feelings of anguish and trauma to the
fore. After all, it is impossible to conduct research that details
exactly what state violence means and ‘feels
like’ to victims, without emotion and to some extent harm. This
is intensified when victims, having opened the
trauma, have to return to a difficult environment in which
violence continues albeit in different forms.
Emotional involvement means that researchers need to
acknowledge the ‘unpleasant emotions and self-
doubts’ that are generated by requesting such accounts of harm
and violence (Huggins and Glebbeek,
2003: 378). These feelings affect everyone involved–the teller,
the interpreter and the researcher. This
research was, then, attentive to the forces of emotionality as a
central methodological issue. Like Pickering's
(2001: 498) experiences in Northern Ireland, I have experienced

a wide range of emotions through these
interviews–including joy, pain, horror, sadness, shame, disgust,
fear, guilt, amusement, anger, disbelief and
outrage. I have also been confronted with strong emotional
expressions by interviewees and interpreters that
could not go unacknowledged.
Furthermore, I have been forced to re-invigorate my conscious
engagement and to continually question my
ideas about what interviewees ‘are like’. Certainly, I have been
confronted by the vast differences between
victims. Despite what I have read and thought I understood
about violence and victimhood (for instance,
that victims of political violence may also be perpetrators of
violence within the private sphere), I have been
challenged by the ambiguous status of some interviewees, who
could be both oppressed and oppressing.
During one interview, I had to rein in my despair and disgust to
one male victim of torture who would
occasionally ‘bark out’ instructions to his bruised and sullen
wife. Alternatively, in other instances, I have had
to question the ‘seduction’ of certain interviewees' stories
(Robben, 1995). That is, some interviewees have
been thoroughly engrossing, persuasive and moving in their
stories, so much so that I am certain that my

critical engagement was diminished.
While my experiences have made me somewhat hardened to
hearing about state brutality, confronting
reactions can emerge at the most unexpected times. Like Agger
and Jensen (1996), I also faced days during
the research process when I had an urgent and overwhelming
need to sleep, my body essentially shut
down. Now, years after my primary research, I often wonder
about whether I said or did the right things in
relation to particular victims; I regularly struggle to watch
television news about state violence elsewhere
without wondering about the human experiences of those on the
ground or how particular interviewees are
faring today; and I often feel (poor me!) status-based guilt
about my pleasant life while Timorese populations
continue to face survival struggles on a daily basis.
SAGE
Page 15 of 21

This emotionality has had a number of outcomes. On a personal
level, it has pulled apart my own ‘expert’
status (Pickering, 2001). It gave me concerns about my own
inadequacies as a researcher, as my
experiences certainly did not fit with mainstream social
research texts that often cast researchers as being
efficient, objective and non-emotional. Yet, at the same time,
my basic ‘human’ responses have meant that
I have retained my attention on victims, and their human
experiences. In many ways, our emotions have
ensured that I have little trouble in formulating and sustaining
my analytical framework and focus.
Future Methodological Challenges
Human rights research, and studies that traverse geographical,
political, social and cultural boundaries, are
becoming more common within criminological literature.
Increasingly, criminologists are doing research with
marginalized communities within their own state or are packing
their bags to travel abroad for research
outside their nation-state borders. In this way, criminologists
are undertaking interviews with groups
representing diverse cultures, languages, histories and
experiences; and, research on state violence is

developing. With this in mind, there are some methodological
issues that are worthy of further consideration.
First, criminologists might be mindful of maintaining a critical
agenda. Research about state violence has
expanded exponentially over the last decade or so. However,
doing research on human rights, or torture,
or transitional justice does not necessarily equate with critical
analysis. For instance, the advance of
governments, transnational agencies and corporations to fund
such research adds a layer of concern that
researchers can be used to build non-reflective and ‘state-
approving’ knowledge that enhances power
inequalities. Further analysis of state power is required here.
Moreover, the ‘cheerleading’ that often exists
about the benign nature of human rights or international justice
measures can ‘blind’ researchers into thinking
that these advances are unproblematic. A closer inspection can
reveal that institutions like truth commissions
or international courts may actually make matters worse for
victims and their communities–they can entrench
global discrimination, and inequalities of power or access to
justice in new ways (Stanley, 2009). Thus, critical
reflection is imperative–particularly on the things that, as a
researcher, you might support most.

Second, criminologists might continue to hone an honesty, or
awareness, about the political nature of their
work. After all, ‘Research that focuses on serious civil disorder
… and the use of state-legitimated force, and
negligence by those in authority, is conceived, formulated and
realised in volatile circumstances. Its agenda, a
priori, is political’ (Scraton, 2007: 11). State violence is
politicized–and this will impact on any kind of research
regardless of whether it is undertaken with a critical agenda or
not.
Third, criminologists might re-invigorate their thinking on how
research really impacts on the people and
communities that they research. Through this research, I have
faced many questions on this, such as: How
might research be ‘improved’ to ensure that people
(interviewees, researchers) feel supported and safe,
and that they are not unduly stressed or harmed by research?
How may interviewees be engaged in more
hybridized research ventures, in which respondents truly guide
and participate in the project? How can
projects be structured so that they do not result in colonizing or
ethnocentric research? How can research
SAGE

Page 16 of 21
be undertaken in a way that has clear boundaries about the
‘ownership’ of stories? Further, in a world in
which academics are increasingly forced down a route to
disseminate their work in specific spaces, how might
research on state violence be used to propel positive change at
individual, community, national or global
levels? That is, how can research be undertaken in a way that
moves beyond good analysis? All of these
questions need to be asked before, during and after the research.
Conclusion
In many respects, the critical methodology that has underpinned
this author's work brought an ‘additional
burden of high expectations’ for continual direct action during
the research process (Sim, 2003: 248). How
far I might ‘stand on side’ with those facing troubles came
down, ultimately, to daily personal decisions. The
issue of actually doing this research revolved around a
consolidating awareness of global politics; the process

was certainly not a ‘hygienic affair’ but one that evolved from
my ‘own personal values’, understandings and
aspirations (Clough and Nutbrown, 2002: 68).
At an individual level, the research has encompassed change.
However, the question remains whether such
work can lead to ameliorative actions for respondents. As
Farmer (2003: 226) details, the role of academic
researchers can be called into question,
No more adequate, for all their virtues, are denunciation and
exhortation, whether in the form
of press conferences or reports or harangues directed at
students. To confront, as an observer,
ongoing abuses of human rights is to be faced with a moral
dilemma: does one's action help the
sufferers or does it not?
My research has attempted to bolster the idea that we are
implicated in each others' lives and to progress
the stance that the first act to take against torture is an
acknowledgement that it is not acceptable … even
for those who might challenge us with their own violence. This
recognition of commonalities, as well as
differences, is what enables individuals to take steps to progress
social, political and economic change, and

to take actions that demonstrate care for others (Cohen, 2001).
Conversely, ‘Not to look, not to touch, not to
record, can be the hostile act, the act of indifference and of
turning away’ (Scheper-Hughes, 1992: 28).
In summary, this work has been based on a transformative
recognition, not just for the struggles that continue
in Timor-Leste but also to those that will duly ‘flourish’ in
future ‘brutal regimes’ (Huggins et al., 2002: 18).
In this regard, criminologists have positive skills to offer, and
extensive opportunities for further analysis and
action.
Recommended Reading
The article by Huggins, M. and Glebbeek, M. (2003) ‘Women
Studying Violent Male Institutions: Cross-
Gendered Dynamics in Police Research on Secrecy and Danger’,
Theoretical Criminology, Vol 7, No 3,
SAGE
Page 17 of 21

363–387, is both analytically and practically useful. It
highlights issues that emerge when females research
powerful male officials and male-dominated state agencies.
Pickering, S. (2001) ‘Undermining the Sanitized Account:
Violence and Emotionality in the Field in Northern
Ireland’, British Journal of Criminology, Vol 41, No 3, 485–
501, provides a reflexive account of the emotional
impact of researching conflict zones, and explores the
theoretical and epistemological consequences of
ignoring emotion in research.
Readers might also wish to consult Scraton, P. (2007)
‘Challenging Academic Orthodoxy: Recognising and
Proclaiming ‘Values’ in Critical Social Research' in Power,
Conflict and Criminalisation (London: Routledge).
This work details the emergence of a critical research agenda to
the social sciences, and encourages
academics to break the silence on repressive or discriminatory
practices.
Finally, the edited collection by Tombs, S. and Whyte, D. (eds)
(2003) Unmasking the Crimes of the Powerful:
Scrutinizing States and Corporations (New York: Peter Lang)
provides a range of invaluable case studies,
from around the world, on researching the powerful.

References
Agger, I.Jensen, S.B.(1996) Trauma and Healing under State
Terrorism.London: Zed Books.
Bacic, R.Stanley, E.(2005) Dealing with Torture in
Chile,Nuremburg Human Rights Centre, Available at:
http://www.menschenrechte.org/beitraege/lateinamerika/Dealing
withtorture.htm.
Becker, D.(2004) ‘Dealing with the Consequences of Organised
Violence in Trauma Work’, in Berghof
Handbook for Conflict Transformation, available at:
http://www.berghof-handbook.net.
Bell, P.(2001) ‘The Ethics of Conducting Psychiatric Research
in War-Torn Contexts’ in Edited by: Smyth, M.
and Robinson, G. (Eds) Researching Violently Divided
Societies.London: Pluto.
Brounéus, K. ‘Truth-Telling as Talking Cure? Insecurity and
Retraumatization in the Rwandan Gacaca
Courts’, Vol 39,(2008)No 1,55–76.
Chadwick, K.Scraton, P.(2001) ‘Critical Research’ in Edited by:
McLaughlin, E. and Muncie, J. (Eds) The
Sage Dictionary of Criminology.London: Sage.
Chandler, D.(1999) Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol
Pot's Secret Prison.Berkeley: University of

California Press.
Clough, P.Nutbrown, C.(2002) A Student's Guide to
Methodology.London: Sage.
Cohen, S.(2001) States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and
Suffering.Cambridge: Polity.
SAGE
Page 18 of 21
http://www.menschenrechte.org/beitraege/lateinamerika/Dealing
withtorture.htm
http://www.berghof-handbook.net/
Crelinsten, R.Schmid, A.(1995) The Politics of Pain: Torturers
and their Masters.Boulder: Westview Press.
Danner, M.(2004) Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and
the War on Terror.New York: New York
Review Books.
De Saussure, F.(1974[1959]) Course in General Linguistics,
trans: Baskin, W. London: Fontana.
Evans, M.Morgan, R.(1998) Preventing Torture: A Study of the
European Convention for the Prevention of

Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment.Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ewick, P. Silbey, S.S. ‘Subversive Stories and Hegemonic
Tales: Towards a Sociology of Narrative’, Vol
29,(1995)No 2,197–226.
Farmer, P.(2003) Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights,
and the New War on the Poor.Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Graham, H.(1984) ‘Surveying through Stories’ in Edited by:
Bell, C. and Roberts, H. (Eds) Social
Researching: Politics, Problems, Practice.London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul.
Green, P.(2003) ‘Researching the Turkish State’ in Edited by:
Tombs, S. and Whyte, D. (Eds) Unmasking
the Crimes of the Powerful: Scrutinizing States and
Corporations.New York: Peter Lang.
Green, P.Ward, T.(2004) State Crime: Governments, Violence
and Corruption.London: Pluto Press.
Hackett, C. Rolston, B. ‘The Burden of Memory: Victims,
Storytelling and Resistance in Northern Ireland’,
Vol 2,(2009)No 3,355–376.
Hagan, J. Rymond-Richmond, W. Parker, P. ‘The Criminology
of Genocide: The Death and Rape of Darfur’,

Vol 43,(2005)No 3,525–561.
Haney, C. Banks, W. Zimbardo, P. ‘Interpersonal Dynamics in a
Simulated Prison’, Vol 1,(1973)69–97.
Haritos-Fatouros, M.(2002) The Psychological Origins of
Institutionalized Torture.London: Routledge.
Harvey, L.(1990) Critical Social Research.London: Unwin
Hyman.
Hermann, R.(2001) ‘The Impermeable Identity Wall: The Study
of Violent Conflicts by Insiders and Outsiders’
in Edited by: Smyth, M. and Robinson, G. (Eds) Researching
Violently Divided Societies.London: Pluto.
Huggins, M.K.(2010) ‘Modern Institutionalized Torture as
State-Organized Crime’ in Edited by: Chambliss,
W., Michalowski, R. and Kramer, R. (Eds) State Crime in the
Global Age.Cullompton: Willan.
Huggins, M.K. Glebbeek, M. ‘Women Studying Violent Male
Institutions: Cross-Gendered Dynamics in
Police Research on Secrecy and Danger’, Vol 7,(2003)No
3,363–387.
SAGE
Page 19 of 21

Huggins, M.K., Haritos-Fatouros, M.Zimbardo, P.G.(2002)
Violence Workers: Police Torturers and
Murderers Reconstruct Brazilian Atrocities.Berkeley:
Lambert, C., Pickering, S.Alder, C.(2003) Critical Chatter:
Women and Human Rights in South East
Asia.Carolina: Carolina Academic Press.
Lawler, S.(2002) ‘Narrative in Social Research’ in Edited by:
May, T. (Ed.) Qualitative Research in
Action.London: Sage.
Milgram, S.(1974) Obedience to Authority: An Experimental
View.New York: Harper Collins.
Ortiz, D.(2002) The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture
to Truth.New York: Orbis Books.
Parmentier, S.Weitekamp, E.(2007) ‘Political Crimes and
Serious Violations of Human Rights: Towards
a Criminology of International Crimes’ in Edited by:
Parmentier, S. and Weitekamp, E. (Eds) Crime and
Human Rights.Oxford/Amsterdam: JAI Press.
Pickering, S. ‘Undermining the Sanitized Account: Violence
and Emotionality in the Field in Northern Ireland’,

Vol 41,(2001)485–501.
Plummer, K.(2001) Documents of Life 2: An Invitation to a
Critical Humanism.London: Sage.
Rejali, D.(1994) Torture and Modernity: Self, Society and State
in Modern Iran.Boulder: Westview.
Rejali, D.(2007) Torture and Democracy.Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Robben, A.(1995) ‘The Politics of Truth and Emotion among
Victims and Perpetrators of Violence’ in Edited
by: Nordstrom, C. and Robben, A. (Eds) Fieldwork under Fire:
Contemporary Studies of Violence and
Survival.Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rosenthal, G. ‘The Healing Effects of Storytelling: On the
Conditions of Curative Storytelling in the Context
of Research and Counseling’, Vol 9,(2003)No 6,915–933.
Ross, F.C.(2003) Bearing Witness: Women and the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission in South
Africa.London: Pluto.
Rothe, D.(2009) State Criminality: The Crime of All
Crimes.Plymouth: Lexington Books.
Sands, P.(2008) Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the
Betrayal of American Values.London: Palgrave.

Scarry, E.(1985) The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking
of the World.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scheper-Hughes, N.(1992) Death Without Weeping: The
Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil.Berkeley:
SAGE
Page 20 of 21
Scraton, P.(2007) ‘Challenging Academic Orthodoxy:
Recognising and Proclaiming ‘Values’ in Critical Social
Research’ in Power, Conflict and Criminalisation.London:
Routledge.
Sim, J.(2003) ‘Whose Side are We Not On? Researching
Medical Power in Prisons’ in Edited by: Tombs, S.
and Whyte, D. (Eds) Unmasking the Crimes of the Powerful:
Scrutinizing States and Corporations.New York:
Peter Lang.
Skeggs, B.(2002) ‘Techniques for Telling the Reflexive Self’ in
Edited by: May, T. (Ed.) Qualitative Research

in Action.London: Sage.
Stanley, E. ‘Torture, Silence and Recognition’, Vol
16,(2004)No 1,5–25.
Stanley, E.(2009) Torture, Truth and Justice: The Case of
Timor-Leste.London: Routledge.
Tombs, S.Whyte, D.(2003) ‘Scrutinizing the Powerful: Crime,
Contemporary Political Economy, and Critical
Social Research’ in Edited by: Tombs, S. and Whyte, D. (Eds)
Unmasking the Crimes of the Powerful:
Scrutinizing States and Corporations.New York: Peter Lang.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446268285.n15
SAGE
Page 21 of 21
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446268285.n15Interviewing
Victims of State ViolenceIn: The SAGE Handbook of
Criminological Research Methods
In-Depth Interviewing and Psychosocial
Case Study Analysis

In: The SAGE Handbook of Criminological Research Methods
By: David Gadd
Edited by: David Gadd, Susanne Karstedt & Steven F. Messner
Pub. Date: 2012
Access Date: November 17, 2019
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Ltd
City: London
Print ISBN: 9781849201759
Online ISBN: 9781446268285
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446268285
Print pages: 36-48
© 2012 SAGE Publications Ltd All Rights Reserved.
This PDF has been generated from SAGE Research Methods.
Please note that the pagination of the
online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.
https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446268285
In-Depth Interviewing and Psychosocial Case Study Analysis
DavidGadd

Psychosocial Criminology: Something Old, Something New
Although the psychosocial approach has emerged relatively
recently as a specialism within criminology, it
is possible to chart a history of delinquency research that
addressed the relationships between inner-world
psychological and outer-world sociological issues dating back
to the 1920s. Often, this work is dismissed
for its limited empirical basis and Freudian orthodoxy
(Radzinowicz and King, 1977). In some cases this
criticism is justified (Hamblin Smith, 1922; Glover, 1960), but
it should not cause us to forget the endeavours
of a number of early twentieth-century writers to put
psychoanalytic concepts to the empirical test. Take, for
example, E.W. Burgess' (1930) analysis of the defensiveness of
Clifford Shaw's (1930) Jack-Roller; John
Bowlby's (1946) case notes on ‘juvenile thieves’, variously
traumatised by experiences of war, estrangement,
illness, institutional care, abuse or neglect; or Mark Benney's
(1936) critical autobiography of working-class
life and how it contributed to his life as a thief. The best of this
work used empirical evidence to engage with
the wider social scientific debates that have always mattered to
sociological criminologists–crime, its causes

and consequences, and their relation to poverty, politics and
social control–while at the same time taking the
complexity of criminal subjectivities, their potentially
conflicted nature and the possibility of motives that were
not always consciously accessible to the individuals concerned,
very seriously.
By way of contrast, contemporary criminology is more
exclusively sociological in focus, concerned with
the cultures, structures and modes of social control to which we
are all subject, but not so much with the
peculiarities of how these intersect with individual biographies,
or the meaning making involved when they
impinge upon, or are resisted by, particular individuals.
Criminological psychology has done little to rectify this,
risk-focused crime prevention merely compounding the problem
with a model of the offender that reduces him
or her to the aggregate of ‘factors’ liable to instil a ‘propensity’
for offending. All of this is rather unfortunate
since some of the most interesting developments in social
theory over the last 20 years have come from
those willing to explore a rapprochement between sociological
work attendant to the intersections between
power and knowledge and the kind of psychodynamic thinking
that the different strands of psychoanalysis

are variously concerned with (Du Gay et al., 2000; Henriques et
al., 1984). Across the social sciences these
theoretical developments have given impetus to a new field of
‘psychosocial studies’ which seeks to explore
how the psychological and social constitute each other, without
collapsing one into the other. The website of
the UK's fledgling Psychosocial Network, for example, defines
the focus of psychosocial studies as the ‘the
tensions between and mutual constitution of the social and the
psychic’, while the website of the International
Research Group of Psycho-Societal Analysis draws attention to
the ‘dialectic between inner experience
and the social conditions of people's lives, paying attention to
the conflictual and dynamic nature of both
psychological and social processes and their mutual effects on
social action and change’. This is not the place
SAGE
Page 2 of 21
to chart the debates that gave rise to these formulations (Clarke,

2006; Frosh, 2003; Layton, 2008), but two
features of it are worthy of note. First, that in order to posit
human subjects with depth and complexity, those
working within psychosocial studies have tended to find it
necessary to assume unconscious motivations
inaccessible to the individual but nevertheless having effects on
their behaviour and their relationships with
other people. Second, that in the process of addressing the
irreducible relationships between the psychic
and the social, psychosocial theorists and practitioners have
often turned to criminological subject matter
for answers. For them, the problems of crime and violence,
racism and fundamentalism, abuse and how
it is remembered, fear and anxiety, retributive sensibilities,
what lies behind them and what it is like to be
subject to them, require approaches that engage with issues of
social structure, power and discourse, without
requiring us–as academics, practitioners, and researchers–to
assume that particular people inevitably think
or feel in particular ways simply because of the things they have
done, the groups they belong to, or because
of the times and places in which they have lived. Breaking with
these assumptions is particularly difficult for
academics schooled in criminology, not least because so much

of our discipline is rooted in governmental
projects that presume that certain segments of the population,
especially the poor, share a common outlook
because of their structural positioning; that is, that people
offend because they have experienced ‘strain’, have
inherited poor self-control from the ‘problem families’ in which
they were raised, or because they have been
labelled as deviant by law enforcers or other agents of social
control (Jefferson, 2002). Capturing agency,
without resort to rational choice models, is something
criminologists have yet to prove very adept at, some
notable exceptions notwithstanding (Katz, 1988; Sykes and
Matza, 1957).
Producing Rich Enough Data
At the time of writing, readers looking to begin their enquiries
with a new body of psychosocial criminology
imbued with a more agentic model of the subject have only a
small body of literature to contend with. Until
relatively recently the psycho-social criminological literature
was largely theoretical (Anderson and Quinney,
1999; Brown, 2003; Hood-Williams, 2001), confined in its more
empirical instances to the analysis of case
material produced initially, not for academic research, but in the
course of criminal justice processes and/

or in the course of journalistic enquiry (Evans, 2003; Hollway
and Jefferson, 1998; Jefferson, 1997). In this
context, Hollway and Jefferson's (2000) account of how they
sought to develop an adequately psychosocial
approach to researching the fear of crime, Doing Qualitative
Research Differently, established itself as the
pioneering text with respect to methodology, although there are
other psychosocial methodology texts worth
engaging with beyond the criminological domain (Clarke et al.,
2008a; Hollway, 1989; Kvale, 1996; Wengraf,
2001). Within this wider field of psycho-social studies there is a
marked preference for material that is
richly textual, the advent of portable tape recorders and,
subsequently, digital recording devices, making it
possible for a new generation of researchers to not only test out
hypotheses about subjective inner-world
reactions in a way that was near impossible when
psychoanalysis was first conceived, but also to evidence
their arguments about them through the production of highly
detailed interview transcripts. Doing Qualitative
Research Differently capitalised on this moment. It was the first
book in 40 years to make a sustained case
for the production of criminological data informed by
psychoanalytic hypotheses. It was also a text that

SAGE
Page 3 of 21
resuscitated what had become a long dormant, but nevertheless
invaluable, tradition of life-story work within
criminology, the methodological tenets of which had never been
properly articulated (cf. Carlen, 1980; Shaw,
1930; Soothill, 1999). More than anything else, however, it was
a book that underlined the importance of
attending as carefully as possible not only to what people say
about themselves, but also how they say it,
what they struggle to say and what they cannot or do not (quite)
say. What mattered most to Hollway and
Jefferson was the ability of their approach to produce analyses
that did justice to the complexity of the people
they were researching: their guardedness and their bold
assertions; their principles and their prejudices; the
tensions between their values and their desires; the
contradictions between what they claim and their actual

experiences. Adapting ideas from the psychoanalytic work of
Melanie Klein, Hollway and Jefferson adopted a
model of subjectivity that has anxiety at its core. Essentially,
we are all anxious beings and much of what we
say and do is motivated by a desire to defend against the
feelings of vulnerability this anxiety arouses in us.
For them, incomplete, contradictory or confused sentences are
just as important as wordperfect responses,
since both can read as evidence of the character structure of
inherently defended subjects. What was most
critical was that complexities in the data were treated as
evidence of the nature and depth of the people
under study, and not written out of the analysis as mere
idiosyncratic noise of no criminological interest. For
Hollway and Jefferson it is only when both the unique and the
culturally common features of people's lives are
adequately grasped that they become truly recognisable,
enabling us to see which aspects of our experiences
are akin to our research participants' as well as what it is that
makes us different.
In writing their own methodology book, Hollway and Jefferson
took inspiration from a then emerging body
of German sociological research being conducted on Holocaust
survivors and service personnel who had

served the Nazis during the Second World War (Bar-On, 2004;
Breckner, 1998; Rosenthal, 1993; Rosenthal
and Bar-On, 1992). Noting how the methods used in that
research elicited rich material from interviewees who
had good reason to deceive both themselves and the researchers,
Hollway and Jefferson (2000) spotted the
potential of narrative methods to grapple with the more
commonplace phenomenon of human defensiveness.
Troubled by a British policy debate that assumed that people
ought to be able to calibrate their fearfulness
according to what is known about their risk of victimisation,
Hollway and Jefferson elaborated on the dangers
of research that failed to take the issue of subjectivity seriously.
In the 1980s people who ticked the same
boxes in the British Crime Survey were assumed both to be
‘telling it like it is’ and to have meant the same
thing, with no checks being made to test the validity of these
unquestioned presumptions. Arguing that the
problem was not so much the public per se, but about a failure
to anticipate in the design of research
instruments how the public experience crime and fear, Hollway
and Jefferson began to develop an alternative
methodological approach that would encourage individuals to
convey the complexity of their experiences and

preserve as much of the uniqueness of what was disclosed in the
course of the data analysis.
Through the use of a narrative-focused, experientially
responsive approach to interviewing, Hollway and
Jefferson attempted to ‘transform’ themselves ‘from the highly
visible asker[s] of … questions to the almost
invisible, facilitating catalyst’ of their interviewees' ‘stories’
(ibid. 36). The essence of their approach was to
encourage people to tell their own stories and then to ask
questions that invited participants to elaborate
further about their own particular experiences. Rather than
asking people to score how safe they felt walking
SAGE
Page 4 of 21
around their neighbourhoods at night, Hollway and Jefferson
encouraged their interviewees to recall whatever
came to mind–even if seemingly irrelevant to the topic–when
invited to talk about how crime had impacted on
their lives since they had been living wherever they were. As

the following extract reveals, participants often
rose admirably to this invitation, introducing aspects of their
experience that would not have been elicited
using closed questions, and narrating those experiences with the
kind of meaningful disclosures that have to
be taken account of if one wants to understand why some people
are more fearful than others.
Extract 1: Interview Conducted by Tony Jefferson with
‘Arthur’,
October 1995
TJ: Can you tell me about how crime has impacted on your life
since you've been living here?
A: Well the only thing that you've got to be wary about really is
er, like at the moment I've er, I've
got a disability because–on account of this injury at work I had
to retire and now I'm having to walk
about with a stick. (light laugh) [TJ: Yeah.] And I dread–you
know, I'm a bit nervous about going out
at night. [TJ: Um hum.] Er, you never know who's at back of
you. Whereas when I were fit it wouldn't
have bothered me. [TJ: Mmm.] But there is a lot of er, things
happen on this estate that er, you know,
last few years it's got really worse. [TJ: Um hum.] I don't know
whether that answers your question

but, it don't em, it don't bother me really but only thing you
worry about is if you go away, you never
know when you'ree gonna come home er, who's been in your
house.
TJ: Can I just take those things one at a time that you
mentioned?
As the extract reveals, the strength of this approach was in its
capacity to generate the nuanced material
needed to make sense of how particular individuals feel about
crime and the disjunction between this and
what, in certain circumstances, they might be prepared to say
about it. Tony Jefferson's invitation to Arthur
to tell him how crime had impacted on his life enabled Arthur to
explain that he is not so much afraid but
‘nervous’, and not necessarily on account of having been
victimised. On the one hand, Arthur was ‘bothered’
about being out at night and leaving his house unattended now,
but he had not always been so back in the
days before he was injured at work, lost his ‘fitness’, and
retired; changes in his life which he considered to
have coincided with when the ‘estate … got really worse’,
whatever that meant. On the other, we learn that
Arthur was either not unambiguously bothered or, perhaps more
likely if his ‘light laughter’ is read as ‘nervous

laughter’, that he did not want the interviewer to think he was,
hence his retraction, ‘it don't bother me really'.
Making sure that such ambiguities and tensions are retained as
data to be made sense of within the analysis
is critical for researchers trying to undertake psychosocial
analysis. Hollway and Jefferson, in particular, refer
to this as the Gestalt principle (an idea they borrow from the
German methodologies discussed earlier),
meaning that the whole of any one case–including how it is
organised, presented and structured–is always
greater than the sum of its individual parts.
In terms of how the Free Association Narrative Interview
Method works, the dialogue between Tony Jefferson
SAGE
Page 5 of 21
and Arthur illustrates well the nature of the ‘free’ or
spontaneous ‘associations’ that are being sought. Having
facilitated Arthur's responses to the opening question through

the use of a string of very minimal cues–‘Yeah’,
‘Mmm’ ‘Um hum’, Jefferson's next prompt prepared Arthur to
go back through his initial reactions, ‘one at a
time’. The full version of the transcript (available via the
Economic and Social Data Service's website listed
at the end of this chapter) reveals that Jefferson achieved this
through a combination of techniques that
became the principal tenets of the Free Association Narrative
Interview Method: presenting elements of what
Arthur had disclosed back to him (his ‘disability’ feeling a ‘bit
nervous about going out at night’ the ‘things’
that ‘happen on the estate’) in the order Arthur had revealed
them; asking Arthur to say a bit more about
these; reflecting back some of Arthur's reactions in order to
encourage him to elaborate further; and by posing
further narrative-eliciting questions that used Arthur's words
and phrases as prompts.
Importantly, for practitioners of the Free Association Narrative
Interview Method, these follow-up questions
are never ‘why?’ questions. In this method, ‘why?’ questions
are explicitly avoided because in asking
participants to explain things they may not be able to explicate,
‘why?’ questions have a tendency to elicit
clichéd rationalisations, further obscuring the uniqueness of the

interviewees' biographical experiences from
view. Often interviewees do not know very much about the
problem under study–at least when expressed
in the policy-relevant terms through which research projects are
increasingly conceived–and are hence
uncertain both as to what caused it and what should be done
about it. As Adorno (1950) once perceptively
noted, and as a swathe of psychological research in the social
identity tradition now confirms (Branscombe,
1999), when pressured to give an opinion, respondents who are
otherwise unsure in their viewpoints can
feel inclined to express authoritarian attitudes so as to avoid
appearing like naïve outsiders (see also the
chapter by Roberts et al., this volume). The same can be true of
people's understandings of aspects of
their own personal experiences. As Hydén (2008: 125) remarks:
‘The significance of the difference between
“having been through a lot” and “knowing about” what
happened is that of reflection and giving meaning to
experience.’
In criminological research it is not uncommon to encounter
people who have not benefited from this kind of
knowledge-enhancing reflection, who do not know why they did
what they did, nor why terrible things have

happened to them. In such circumstances, it is rarely productive
to pressurise interviewees into providing
an explanation. At the same time, it is not always easy to find
narrative-eliciting questions to ask such
interviewees, especially when the focus of the research is on
behaviour that is illicit, attitudes that are taboo,
or experiences that are potentially shameful. Not everyone who
agrees to participate in this kind of research
finds it easy to tell–or construct afresh–their stories. Most need
the interviewer to help facilitate and many
need to be convinced that they are genuinely allowed to
introduce any aspects of their experience they deem
relevant. As Hollway and Jefferson explain:
Interviewees' preparedness to open out intimate material also
reflects the building up of an
expectation that stories are what the researcher wants–that they
are interesting, relevant and
valued. This expectation has to be actively built because the
normal expectation is otherwise; that
is the interviewer will come round with a batch of questions, for
which one-word or short replies are
SAGE

Page 6 of 21
required (Hollway and Jefferson 2000: 44).
The beauty of the Free Association Narrative Interview Method
is that with skill and practice even short
one-word replies can be used to elicit accounts that might
otherwise have proved inaccessible to research.
Consider, for example, the extract from an interview I
conducted with a former far-right activist that follows.
The numerical values in square brackets signify the length of
paused silences in seconds.
Extract 2: Interview Conducted by David Gadd with ‘Frank’,
April 2004
DG: I was wondering if you could start by sort of telling me the
story of your life in Stoke-on-Trent,
obviously start as far back as you can remember and take as
much time as you need. What I'll do
is, I'll take some notes so that I can ask you some questions as
we go along.
F: Well, I was born in [mining estate], come off a family of
seven, five brothers and one sister. [16

second pause] Basically I don't really know what you want like.
That's the thing about it. I mean a lot
has gone on in me life like. What specific points, like?
DG: Well if you, I mean, perhaps you could tell me the story of
growing up in [mining estate] to start
with.
F: Growing up, well, we had nothing, never had nothing like,
you know coming off a big family (DG:
Hm, hm). Me dad wasn't too kind to us.
DG: He wasn't kind?
F: No not really. [3 second pause] Always fighting at school,
you know. Cos me dad said so (DG:
Hm, hm). [25 second pause]. What basically do you want to
know, like?
DG: Well what you've told me so far is that, you told me, you
had nothing and your dad wasn't kind
and you were into fighting at school, got into fighting at school.
So maybe we could start with that. If
you could kind of tell me how having nothing kind of impacted
upon your upbringing.
Even in this highly reticent retort, littered as it was with
painfully long pauses, the interviewee, Frank, provided

several leads through which further narration could be pursued.
From it, new narrative questions could be
formulated about the estate where Frank was born, his family,
his siblings, or even about the whole ‘lot’ that
had ‘gone on’ in his life. I initially responded with a narrative
question about life on Frank's estate, then with
some reflection (‘He wasn't kind?’), some minimal
encouragement (‘hm, hm’), toleration of long pauses, and
then by offering back, as a narrative-evoking question what
appeared to be one of the more meaning-laden
of Frank's initial disclosures, namely that his family ‘never had
nothing, like’. My response was not perfect.
The reflection might have been more precise had it been
phrased: ‘Your dad wasn't too kind?’; and one of
the questions clumsily exposed Frank to my disarray, ‘Well if
you, I mean, perhaps …’. But in combination the
techniques did ultimately elicit many more in-depth disclosures
from Frank, a man who was not accustomed
SAGE
Page 7 of 21

to talking about himself in this way, but who nevertheless had a
very important story to tell (Gadd, 2006).
Of course practitioners of the Free Association Narrative
Interview Method also run the risk of being
overwhelmed by the extensiveness of what is revealed when
interviewees begin to ‘freely associate’.
This may be especially likely to happen in research with
participants who have been waiting to tell
somebody–perhaps anybody–about things they have done or
have happened to them, safe in the knowledge
that assurances of confidentiality will be honoured. It is not
uncommon for novice researchers to approach
this challenge with the view that it does not matter if they do
not hear and remember what the interviewee
tells them because they can always listen to the recording later.
There is an element of truth to this. The Free
Association Narrative Interview Method works by returning to
participants for a second follow-up interview,
informed by an analysis of the first interview–a process to
which this chapter returns. Nevertheless, it is a
mistake to assume that the first interview is not compromised
when the interviewer fails to demonstrate to
the interviewee–by accurately utilising the their words and

phrases to pose further questions–that they have
listened attentively to what has been disclosed. Re-expressing
what the interviewee has disclosed in words
that were not their own can make them feel misconstrued, or,
worse still, prejudged for their particular mode
of expression; and this, in turn may make them much more
guarded than they would ordinarily be in terms of
what they are prepared to say and how they are prepared to say
it.
Learning to take notes while retaining a level of eye contact
with the interviewee is one of the more difficult
skills practitioners of the Free Association Narrative Interview
Method must develop if they are to gain the
interviewee's confidence. Being able to keep eye contact at the
same time as taking notes is often crucial in
the opening moments of the interview because, if captured
accurately, what is revealed when the interviewee
does begin to open up can be utilised to structure the rest of the
interview. Consider, for example, how many
lines of enquiry were opened up by the following response to an
invitation to Alan–a 39 year-old man on
probation for a racially aggravated assault–to tell his life story.
Extract 3: Interview Conducted by David Gadd with ‘Alan’,
May 2004

A: I'm the youngest boy out of ten children. I got a younger
sister. And everybody else is older than
me. I've got five brothers, four sisters. Em, my mum was from
Stoke on Trent, and me dad was from
South Wales. So I'm half Welsh, half English. Em. Earliest
memories is infant school, which is now
closed, em moved on to … Middle School, and then … High
School. Em, I got into football at an
early age. I went to me first. I'm a big Stoke City fan. Went to
me first football match when I was
ten. And I, I have been crazy about Stoke City ever since and
that has played an integral part of
me life. Em … Went off the rails, early teens. From being quite
a bright lad I just got no interest in
school whatsoever. I was bunking off to work on the markets,
em ice cream vans and things like
that to earn some cash. [DG: Hm, hm] I got into the punk rock
movement in me early teens. Em,
followed me through until I left school, basically … I left
school at 15. I vastly under achieved. Got
into drinking again while I was still at school. Going to local
pubs and that. Started getting into trouble
just after I left school. Em basically, em drink related incidents
and football hooliganism. … Eh … Got

SAGE
Page 8 of 21
sentenced, got sent to detention centre, when I was 19, for 3
months … That was for fighting on the
pitch at [away game]. 1984. Em, come out of there, drifted from
one job to another. … Em lost me
driving licence through drink driving. Signed meself up in
college and got my City in Guilds in painting
and decorating. That was me line of work then for, until like 6
years ago. Em I've suffered mental
health problems some very severe. Em, one in 2000 lasted about
three to four months and again in
2002 which lasted a similar time. Em I've suffered from
depression again since me teens, em I've
dabbled with drugs. Er, oh, alcohol has always been a big
problem in me life. Em about me two spots
of mental illness, em we're not talking just depression there.
We're talking severe psychotic bouts.

[DG: Right.] A: Em probably caused by long term cannabis and
alcohol abuse. Not 100% certain on
that we're not, but it's the probable cause of it. Em, … I'm sorry
mate, I'm blanking here, I'm, I could
do with more questioning.
This extensive disclosure is testimony to the richness of human
experience that can be captured with the right
methodological approach. In it Alan provided enough material
for the interviewer to map out a provisional list
of questions that exceeded what was possible within the
confines of a ninety-minute interview. Responding to
Alan's request for more questioning, while being guided by the
ordering of his disclosures, a Free Association
Narrative interviewer could respond by asking Alan to ‘tell the
stories of’: growing up in a large family of five
brothers and four sisters; his schooling; getting into football;
going to his first match aged ten; ‘going off the
rails’ and ‘losing interest’ in school; working on the markets,
ice cream vans and ‘things like that’; getting into
punk rock; drinking, drug use, and/or football hooliganism;
being arrested and detained; drifting from one job
to another; getting his ‘City and Guilds’; his experiences of
psychosis and depression; or more specifically
his ‘two spots’ of mental illness and their possible connection

to drink and drug abuse. With a forthcoming
interviewee like Alan, the interviewer was almost sure to elicit
detailed narrations that could be probed even
further, as long as the questions posed invited more stories and
accurately utilised his meaning frame.
Box 3.1 Key Tenets of the Free Association Narrative Interview
Method
• Before the interview commences prepare the interviewee for
the kind of research
encounter that will follow.
• As the interview commences reassure the interviewee that
what they have said
has been interesting and that you would like to hear more of
their stories.
• Ask narrative-focussed questions wherever possible.
• Avoid ‘closed’ questions and ‘why?’ questions.
• Do not interrupt the interviewee when they are talking or fill
their pauses and
silences when they are thinking.
• Keep notes while remaining attentive.
• Facilitate with minimalist cues. This can mean simply
nodding, saying ‘Hm, hm’,

SAGE
Page 9 of 21
‘right’, or encouraging the interviewee to ‘go on’.
• Reflect back the interviewee's sentences or phrases in order to
facilitate further
disclosures while showing that one has listened properly to what
has already been
divulged.
• Use the interviewee's frames of meaning to pose new narrative
questions.
• As far as possible, ask questions in an order that mirrors the
way the interviewee
has ordered their disclosures.
Preparing Follow-Up Interviews
While questions left over from the first interview can be
pursued in the second interview, this is not the
primary purpose of the follow-up interview. For those using the
Free Association Narrative Interview Method

the analysis starts when the first interview ends. What is
gathered in the first interview is used to formulate
provisional hypotheses about the interviewee which are tested
in the second; ‘to interrogate critically what
was said, to pick up on the contradictions, inconsistencies,
avoidances and changes of tone’ (Hollway and
Jefferson 2000: 43); and to think about what more one would
like to know and how best to ask about it.
Both for reasons of continuity and to minimise the risk of losing
contact with the participant, most people
using this method tend to arrange follow-up interviews within
two weeks of the first interview. The available
time between interviews can, therefore, put constraints on how
thoroughly one can prepare for the second
interviews. It is worth remembering this when scheduling both
research encounters. If it is possible to
generate a full transcript of the first interview ahead of
preparing the questions for the second, this is worth
doing. If not, listening to the recording several times may be the
best substitute. In order to make sure
the dynamics of the interview remain in view, transcripts need
to be as full as possible, incorporating half
finished words and sentences, noting changes of tone and/or
accent, gesturing and other non-verbal and

non-linguistic modes of expression.
There are no hard and fast rules for working on the data
produced in the first interview, not least because what
one picks out will always be partially informed by the focus of
the research being undertaken. That said, this
is not the kind of research that is best undertaken completely
alone. Often, how the interviewee comes across
at interview, on tape and through the transcript will vary, and
this should be the subject of reflection among
the research team during the preparation for the follow-up
interview. It is often helpful for the interviewer to
develop their own working hypothesis, hunches and queries,
informed both by the substance of the interview
and any other information they picked up about the interviewee,
and then to share this with a supervisor, co-
researcher, or interested group of scholars who are willing to
either listen to the recording, read the transcript,
or both. At this stage it is not necessary to resolve differences
of opinion with regard to the interpretation of
the first interview, and some of those using this approach have
found that such differences can be fruitfully
harnessed in print as a means of conveying both the complexity
of the people studied and the risks inherent in

Interviewing Victims of State Violence In The SAGE Handbo.docx

Interviewing Victims of State Violence In The SAGE Handbo.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

More from vrickens

More from vrickens (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Interviewing Victims of State Violence In The SAGE Handbo.docx