Interviewing Elites, Experts and the Powerful in Criminology

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Olga Petintseva, Rita Faria, Yarin Eski

   Pages 1-7

3. Interviewing ‘the Powerful’ in Crime and Crime Control

   • Olga Petintseva, Rita Faria, Yarin Eski

   Pages 9-27

4. Interview Models and Researcher’s Self-Positioning

   • Olga Petintseva, Rita Faria, Yarin Eski

   Pages 29-58

5. Their Reign, Their Game? Accessing the Powerful

   • Olga Petintseva, Rita Faria, Yarin Eski

   Pages 59-90

6. Prepare, Prepare, Prepare

   • Olga Petintseva, Rita Faria, Yarin Eski

   Pages 91-104

7. Conducting the Interview

   • Olga Petintseva, Rita Faria, Yarin Eski

   Pages 105-136

8. Making Sense of the Data

   • Olga Petintseva, Rita Faria, Yarin Eski

   Pages 137-164

9. Back Matter

   Pages 165-166

   PDF

This book offers practical advice on designing, conducting and analyzing interviews with ‘elite’ and ‘expert’ persons (or ‘socially prominent actors’), with a focus on criminology and criminal justice. It offers dilemmas and examples of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practices in order to encourage readers to critically asses their own work. It also addresses methodological issues which include: access, power imbalances, getting past ‘corporate answers’, considerations of whether or not it is at times acceptable to ask leading questions and whether to enter a discussion with a respondent at all. This book will be valuable to students and scholars conducting qualitative research.

• qualitative criminology
• research methods
• research methods social science
• research methods criminology
• interviewing practitioners
• researching the elite
• interview skills
• interviewing policymakers
• interviewing police
• policing

“The handbook provides exceptional strategies, recommendations, and guidelines for researchers who seek to conduct interviews with the powerful. … This handbook is appropriate for a large audience including graduate students and all researchers/professors who seek to conduct quality qualitative analysis with powerful actors in a variety of disciplines. Overall, this book is exceptional, and I highly recommend it to those in the criminal justice field.” (Megan J. Parker, Crime Law and Social Change, June 23, 2020)

“The book is particularly useful for those preparing for fieldwork who are not planning to study the kind of people the penal system is designed to detect, judge and lock up – the kind of people criminology is designed to study.” (Ignacio González-Sánchez, European Journal of Probation, May 13, 2020)

“This book is destined to become a classic in interviewing approaches and techniques. The material is essential for all students, academics, or practitioners interested or engaged in qualitative research. Interviewing powerful people involves understanding the complexities that are fully explored and explained in this reader-friendly work. The who, what, why, and how of using interviewing methodologies and learning from failures and successes are essential to the substantive power of the text. Readers will appreciate the detail, organization, and big picture moments that apply to numerous social science fields. Kudos to the authors for their inspiration and successful efforts” (Mary Dodge, PhD, University of Colorado Denver, USA)

“The book by Olga, Rita and Yarin succeeds in combining methodological reflection on elite and expert interviews with practical guidelines on how to prepare, conduct and analyse these interviews. Their book provides students and scholars alike with a well structured and easily accessible textbook on when and how to use elite or expert interviews. Although it has a certain focus on criminology, the book will serve a much wider social science audience” (Prof. Leo Van Audenhove, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)

• Department of Criminology, Criminal Law and Social Law, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

  Olga Petintseva

• Faculty of Law, School of Criminology, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

  Rita Faria

• Department of Political Science and Public Administration, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, North Holland, The Netherlands

  Yarin Eski

Olga Petintseva is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Ghent, Belgium. Her expertise is located at the intersection of criminology, migration studies and socio-linguistics.



Julie Tieberghien is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Ghent, Belgium. 


Rita Faria is Assistant Professor at the School of Criminology, University of Porto, Portugal. Rita does research in white-collar crime, research misconduct and the use of qualitative methods in Criminology. 


Yarin Eski is Assistant Professor at the Knowledge Hub Security and Social Resilience of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He obtained his PhD in 2015 from the University of Glasgow. 

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