Peculiarities of Interviewing Elites in Post-Conflict Societies

Abstract

Those who engage in a task of conducting elite interviews in post-conflict societies must prepare for the context-specific challenges of this environment to mitigate the potentially distorting consequences of the process and the substance. This paper discusses the issues and challenges associated with interviewing elites in post-conflict societies. Examples are drawn from the author’s own experiences gained through conducting over seventy interviews while collecting data on peace processes in Cyprus and Kosovo. Particularly, the issues of sampling, gaining access, and the process of interviewing are discussed with a focus on the issues of the impact of terminology, the use of recording devices, the researcher’s positionality, and the subjective qualities of data.

Keywords

• Elite interviews
• post-conflict societies
• sampling
• gaining access
• researcher’s positionality

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