Intersectional positionalities across gender, race, ethnicity and immigrant status in qualitative interviews

Abstract

This article addresses the implications of intersectional qualitative interviews across identity categories of gender, race, ethnicity, and immigrant status. Responding to the research gap on the intersectionality in qualitative interviews and informed by the intersectionality framework, this reflective critical discourse study shares an analysis of two interviews conducted by a female minority researcher. Using the analytic methods of critical discourse analysis, the study examines how the interviewer and interviewee enacted, resisted, and negotiated diverse positionalities and power imbalance within the interview space. Particularly, the analysis demonstrates the researcher’s challenges, vulnerability, and mitigating efforts in resisting the powered position taken by the interviewee in light of gender, race, and immigrant status. It also reveals how identity convergence allowed the participants to inhabit the space as collaborative insiders despite the tension in other layers of intersection. Methodological dilemmas and implications for intersectional interviews will be discussed.