Going through the motions: Space, sound, and the

interview

Tom HallBrett Lashua

setting up the interview• Where the interview is to take place in the field, the

researcher loses much control over the arrangement. This means there is an added danger that things can go wrong. Through whatever means, though, the researcher needs to try to get a location for the interview in which they will not be disturbed, which offers privacy, which has fairly good acoustics and which is reasonably quiet … the desirability of such a venue should be conveyed to the person arranging the interview room.

The Good Research Guide (Denscombe, 1998)

• You want a setting as free from interruption and as comfortable and non-distracting as possible. You want to avoid interruptions by phones, by noise from outside, by other people. Ideally, this usually would mean an ‘interview room’. Qualitative Research Interviewing (Wengraf, 2001)

• Earth: Electr. The ground considered as the medium by which a circuit is completed. Hence used for: Connection of a wire conductor with the earth, either accidental … or intentional (as for the purpose of providing a return path for a telegraph current, etc.). (Cf. GROUND n. 15b.)

going to ground

alongside

• b. side by side,    (a) (also side for, to side), close together and abreast of each other; in later use also of things, and freq. const. with; also (hyphened) as attrib. phr. Hence side-by-sideness … 1614 J. KING Vitis Palatina 30 They that walk side to side, and cheeke to cheeke, walke as companions … 1908 Daily Chron. 29 Nov. 9/5 The side-car..has the advantages of ready convertibility, low cost, and high speed..together with the far greater sociability afforded by the side-by-side accommodation.

diversions

• a. lit. The turning aside (of anything) from its due or ordinary course or direction; a turning aside of one's course; deviation, deflection … c. An alternative route by-passing a road that is temporarily closed. … c. A turning aside or diverting of the attention … 3. Mil. A maneuver to draw off the enemy's attention from the operation on which they are engaged, by a movement or attack in an unexpected quarter …

…in passing• That goes or passes by … 1974 Daily Tel. 18 Jan.

(Colour Suppl.) 19/1 A child..may see the nose of a passing bus come into his line of vision … (a). passing phase, a temporary situation or trend; spec. a temporarily difficult or unhappy period, esp. in the life of an adolescent … b. Done, made, or shown in passing; casual, cursory …  b. The action of going or moving on, through, or by; an instance of this; the process or fact of changing from one state to another. Also: movement, motion (obs.) … 1842 G. W. FRANCIS Dict. Arts s.v. Peirameter, The amount of resistance offered by the surfaces of roads..to the passing of wheel carriages … c. in passing (also in passing by) [cf. French en passant]: by the way, incidentally; briefly and casually in the course of speech or writing; parenthetically.

acknowledgments

• Economic and Social Research Council

• Cardiff University School of Social Sciences

• QUALITI at Cardiff – ESRC National Centre for Research Methods