Managing neutrality, rapport, and antiracism in qualitative interviews

Abstract

This study examines interviewers’ practices in managing conflicting institutional expectations of neutrality and rapport in interview interaction which are complicated by the normative expectation of antiracism. By applying conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis to sequences of interaction after interviewees’ possibly racist talk, we demonstrate that the interviewer deploys various interactional resources to orient to antiracism, while maintaining a neutralistic stance and sustaining rapport with interviewees. The interviewer’s orientation towards antiracism becomes more explicit as the interactions unfold. We argue that these practices are both constrained and enabled by the unique institutional features of qualitative interviews. Implications for research on race using interview data are also discussed.