The salience of a prior relationship between researcher and participants: Reflecting on acquaintance interviews

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the discussion on interviews in qualitative research. More specifically, we focus on acquaintance interviews (Garton & Copland, 2010), that is, interviews in which the interviewer and interviewees have already established a prior relationship. By using data from both authors’ doctoral studies in applied linguistics (Iikkanen, 2020; Roiha, 2019), we illustrate how this prior relationship becomes salient and is made use of in interviews. In this article, we focus on two themes, frame shifting and building rapport. The data excerpts presented in the article exemplify the types of frame shifts that took place in our acquaintance interviews. The findings also suggest that acquaintance interviews can offer researchers a fruitful arena for utilizing the already existing common ground between them and their research participants; a prior relationship serves as a resource to build rapport with interviewees. The ethical aspect involved in acquaintance interviews is also briefly discussed.