Research Interviews in Historical Practice

A key difference between collecting life stories and doing research interviews is the role of the interviewer. While training in oral history may focus on using standard scripts to take a life story, research interviews are motivated by specific questions that arise from particular historical projects and are often not primarily focused on the biography of the interviewee. Therefore, the research interview can be seen as being both less personal with regard to the personal life story of the interviewee and more personal with respect to the foregrounding of the specific interests of the interviewer. Soraya de Chadarevian has been one of the first historians of science to systematically reflect on this and other differences between life story interviews and research interviews. In this contribution, Lara Keuck, who has herself made use of interviews in her research, interrogates de Chadarevian on her approach to research interviews in her historical practice. They discuss how de Chadarevian's personal approach has developed and changed over the past three decades and reflect on the methodological implications that can be distilled from this experience.