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Field lessons: The whys and hows of interview-based fieldwork

  • Data, Measures and Methods
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French Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

Face-to-face interviews with political actors can serve many research purposes, but there is an art to securing and carrying them out. This article reviews some of these purposes, and then proposes a set of ‘10 commandments’ of good interviewing. In doing so, the author draws on lessons learned from fieldwork stints in various contexts, notably among labor and party activists and government officials in France, Italy and Spain.

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Notes

  1. See also the useful article in this journal by Dirk Leuffen (2006). Leuffen's target group was French political elites, whereas this article draws on my experience interviewing a wider range of actors in three nations. Thus the present discussion may be viewed as a more general guide to interview-based fieldwork.

  2. For interviewing French (specifically, Parisian) elites, Leuffen stresses the use of a formal letter. I would not dispute the utility of such a formality in this particular context, especially if one has no personal contacts to draw upon (see Commandment 2). In the event of a non-response to one's initial letter, however, an email follow-up reminder – with the initial letter as an attachment – would not likely offend the target person's sensibilities.

  3. Especially is this true with regard to forms of address, viz., familiar versus formal (tu/vous and so on). The safe rule in this regard is to begin by using formal address and then follow your respondent's lead. One can always move from ‘vous’ to ‘tu’, but doing the reverse is highly awkward.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, 60045, IL, USA

    W Rand Smith

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  1. W Rand Smith
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Smith, W. Field lessons: The whys and hows of interview-based fieldwork. Fr Polit 8, 101–108 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2010.1

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