The Experience and Identity Interview: Narrative Therapy in Research Interviewing

In this paper we introduce “The Experience and Identity Interview” (EII) and demonstrate ways that this qualitative research interview can be used to engage participants in talk that scaffolds between their experiences, the meanings they ascribe to these, and their identity (re)negotiations. In doing so, there is scope to generate rich interview data that addresses a range of research questions. Drawing on the paradigm of narrative therapy, the EII generates a collaborative dialogical space wherein both researchers and research participants may co-contribute to the unpacking of normative discourses that shape participants’ usual ways of speaking about their lived experiences, thereby revealing previously hidden identities. In this paper we demonstrate the key phases of the EII and illustrate its efficacy in generating rich qualitative research data. Importantly, we propose that the EII also upholds a crucial ethical principle in qualitative interviewing: to empower participants as active agents in telling the stories of their lives. This is uniquely achieved in the EII through interview questions that invite participants to engage in (re)authoring conversations that reconnect them to key identity narratives that have been lost to dominant storylines. In doing so, researchers are well-placed to mitigate the risk of potential harm through minimizing the reproduction of problematic narratives that can have real effects on participants’ lives.