Interview as Social Practice: How Can Nexus Analysis Enhance Reflexivity?

Abstract

This article suggests that the understanding of an interview as a social practice can be enhanced by the notion of social action mediated by language and material tools as proposed in nexus analysis methodology. Interviews can be viewed either as a source of gathering information or social practice. The latter approach advocates for a greater sense of reflexivity about the interview situation. This article suggests that nexus analysis methodology can help concretize the greater reflexivity about interactional resources of an interview in different ways. One such way is to explore how parties in an interview interaction use material places to bring out discourses that may otherwise not have been triggered if conventional qualitative interview approaches were used. This is illustrated with interviews about the impact of gold mining on human well-being in the Ahafo Region of Ghana, carried out on a gold mining site. This article concludes that paying attention to the interview site has an unrealized potential to strengthen the reflexivity about the interview situation.