Relational Interviewing, Alt-Right Beliefs
I am friends with Andrew (a pseudonym used here for anonymity), an American who lives in rural Virginia, votes Republican, supports Donald Trump, and holds far-right beliefs. My conversations with Andrew are often political, such that on various phone calls with other mutual friends, Andrew refers to me as his ‘liberal friend from Canada’.
I asked Andrew if I could interview him about his political beliefs. After discussing some of the risks and benefits to his participation, Andrew eagerly consented to participate. I conducted the informal interview by phone on July 26th 2020.
I employed a ‘relational approach’ to interviewing as defined by Lee Ann Fujii in Interviewing in Social Science Research: A Relational Approach by “giving up on trying fully to control the interview, and instead recognizing that interviewees are agents in their own right and, hence, partners in the interaction, rather than passive ‘subjects’” (Fujii 2017, 71). Even when Andrew made political arguments I disagreed with, I gave him respect and space to explain his beliefs.
Andrew began the interview by outlining his distrust for established political figures, including Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Donald Trump, and Ralph Northam, because they are part of the “establishment” or “ruling people”. Andrew cited Jeffrey Epstein’s “flight logs that he kept of all of these politicians who visited him on his pedophile island” as evidence that many political elites are “pedophiles”.
In response, I asked Andrew about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the Democratic Representative from New York. Andrew argued that AOC is unqualified because “she had just been a bartender” before being elected to public office. When I pointed out that AOC’s non-elite background might align with his criticism of established politicians, Andrew paused for a while; it was difficult to ascertain what the pause in conversation meant for Andrew without seeing his facial expressions: Fujii notes that “by telephone, the researcher cannot observe the interviewee’s context or read other forms of communication such as physical gestures, pauses, stutters, or facial expressions” (2017, xvi).
I next asked Andrew about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests which are currently happening in the United States by using an interviewing technique in which I provide factual information about the topic before asking open-ended questions (Geer 1991). This approach prompted several minutes of discussion culminating in Andrew admitting that he would “likely protest as well” if he was Black. “People’s attitudes are not static, there is reason to expect some change in them” (Geer 1991, 367) when the researcher provides more information while asking open-ended questions.
Unprompted, Andrew then shared an anecdote about Biden campaign signs disappearing from a rural farmer's property, and speculated that Trump supporters might have stolen them. This opening provided me an opportunity to ask Andrew if he will vote for Trump in the upcoming presidential election: “I’m not sure, Trump has let me down”.
As the interview concluded, Andrew remarked that the experience was "actually pretty cool... I enjoyed it." Relational interviewing seemed to create a comfortable environment for open dialogue across our political differences.
Works Cited
Fujii, Lee Ann. Interviewing in Social Science Research: A Relational Approach (Routledge, 2017).
Geer, John. “Do Open-Ended Questions Measure ‘Salient’ Issues?” Public Opinion Quarterly 55(3), 1991: 360-70.