1. What is the focus of the research?
2. Whose perspective would benefit the research? A public figure, a lay person, middle class, upper class, from what cultural group? The questions go on and on. There are so many minute considerations.
3. What questions will be asked? How do you frame them so they are not leading? Is the source reliable?
4. Where will the interview take place? A public place? An office? A private home? Will others be around? Will they be vested listeners or unknowing observers?
5. What if the narrator's perspective on an event is inherently different from others? Is the narrator lying or is it just a difference in perspective?
These are just few of the many questions a researcher has to consider prior to the interview. During the interview, it's important to have background information and a set of questions. But, it is just as important to allow the narrator to reveal information outside of the area in question, as long as it enhances the research. There's a balance between keeping the narrator "on track" and allowing the information to flow naturally.
I like that the website provided concrete examples of each area to consider. I especially liked the interviews of the former slave, and how the interview went in completely different directions solely because of WHO was interviewing the woman. One white interviewer, and one African American interviewer, and the answers were completely different - yet, they were all "true." That was the most amazing part for me. I didn't feel as though the narrator was lying about any of her answers, she simply provided different perspectives to the researchers, in my opinion, based upon what the researchers wanted to hear. The white interviewer got to hear the tales of horror that a former slave witnessed and lived through. The African American interviewer heard her perspective on how she felt she was "saved" by being introduced to Christianity. She seemed to convey the idea that, even though slavery was a terrible condition, through the condition of slavery, many African Americans found religion. She said, "Dose black ignoramuses in Africa forgot God, and didn't have no religion and God blessed and prospered the white people dat did remember Him and sent dem to teach de black people even if dey have to grab dem and bring dem into bondage till dey learned some sense."
I was actually struck by this, it's not the first time I've read interviews like this in the archives, I did it for US History, but her words were so direct as compared to others I've read. She seemed almost thankful about having been put into the condition of slavery, as she would have never found religion without it. She went on to tell how her "master" (the word makes me cringe) was a good, Christian man, and she didn't want interviewers talking down about him. Yet, in other interview, with similar questions and guidelines, her story told of the horrors she witnessed as a slave. Why? Was it because this is what the interviewer wanted to hear? Did she sense that? Was she lying in one interview, and not the other? I have a feeling all of it was true, but her perspective changed due to the focus and the perspective of the interviewer.
These are all things we will have to consider when we begin our narrative inquiry and oral history interviews. I don't believe that we'll uncover any one "truth" because I subscribe to the idea of multiple truths. Five people can witness the same event and tell five different stories about it. It may or may not be because one or more of the witnesses is lying, it may simply be the fact that none share the same set of eyes. We all have our own viewpoints. As interviewers, we can only attempt to limit the influence we have on our subjects, but we will have an influence, it's just a matter of degrees.