Making a Scientist: Discursive "Doing" of Identity and Self-Presentation During Research Interviews

Abstract: Participating in an interview is taking part in an activity system that is often very different from the daily lives of most individuals. Grounding ourselves in an activity theoretic perspective, we regard the interview event and who or what these agents become during that process as an out­come of the activity of "doing interviews." In con­trast to the modern concept of identity, a stable and characteristic feature of an individual, we under­stand identity as arising from social interactions—identity and activity are said to be in a dialectical relationship. Interviews are thus occasions where­by identity and issues of self-presentation have to be managed by agents primarily through discourse processes. By further regarding interviews as "topic" in this article we make salient their co-con­struc­tive nature qua social interaction rather than as a neutral data gathering tool. Our case study of an interview with a renowned environmental scien­tist demonstrates how identity and issue.... https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/655

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Making a Scientist: Discursive "Doing" of Identity and Self-Presentation During Research Interviews ; volume:5 ; number:1 ; day:31 ; month:01 ; year:2004 ; Forum qualitative Sozialforschung ; 5, Heft 1 (31.01.2004)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Lee, Yew-Jin ; Roth, Wolff-Michael

Further information

• DOI: 10.17169/fqs-5.1.655
• URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0401123
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:35 AM CEST