Purposeful Entanglements: A New Materialist Analysis of Transformative Interviews

• In Event: Examining the Practice and Place of Interviewing in Qualitative Research

Abstract

Using data from two separate interview studies on masculinity and biraciality, we used Barad’s (2007) Agential Realism to explore the materiality of the interview process and our attempts to transform our participants’ identities through purposeful entanglements of discourses and bodies. Drawing on Barad's framework, we analyzed how our researcher bodies were positioned by our participants and how the material-discursive intra-actions in the interview worked with and against our aims to unsettle identity and foster ‘flickers of transformation’ (Way, Zwier, & Tracey, 2015) and critical resistance (Hoy, 2005). Our analysis brings a post-humanist understanding to the idea of transformation and materiality during the interview process.

Authors

• Travis Marn, University of South Florida

• Jennifer R. Wolgemuth, University of South Florida