The Sage Handbook of Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft

The second edition of this landmark volume emphasizes the dynamic, interactional, and reflexive dimensions of the research interview. Contributors highlight the myriad dimensions of complexity that are emerging as researchers increasingly frame the interview as a communicative opportunity as much as a data-gathering format. The book begins with an overview of the history and conceptual transformations of the interview, which is followed by chapters that discuss the main components of interview practice. Taken together, the contributions to the handbook encourage readers to simultaneously learn the frameworks and technologies of interviewing and reflect on the epistemological foundations of the interview craft.

The handbook has been updated to address recent developments, especially in qualitative interviewing. Twenty-six chapters are completely new; the remaining twelve chapters have been substantially revised to give readers access to the state of the art of interview research. Three entirely new sections include "Logistics of Interviewing," "Self and Other in the Interview," and "Ethics of the Interview."

Jaber F. Gubrium is professor and chair of sociology at the University of Missouri. He has an extensive record of research on the social organization of care in human service institutions. His publications include numerous books and articles on aging, family, the life course, medicalization, and representational practice in therapeutic context.

James A. Holstein is professor of sociology in the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences at Marquette University. His research and writing projects have addressed social problems, deviance and social control, mental health and illness, family, and the self, all approached from an ethnomethodologically- informed, constructionist perspective.

Amir B. Marvasti is Associate Professor of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University, Altoona. His research focuses on the social construction of deviant identities in everyday life. He is the author of Being Homeless: Textual and Narrative Constructions (Lexington Books 2003), Qualitative Research in Sociology (Sage 2003), Middle Eastern Lives in America (with Karyn McKinney, Rowman and Littlefield 2004), and Doing Qualitative Research: A Comprehensive Guide (with David Silverman, Sage 2008). His articles have been published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Qualitative Inquiry, Symbolic Interaction, and Critical Sociology.

Karyn D. McKinney is an associate professor of sociology and women’s studies at Pennsylvania State University, Altoona. Her research has focused on the role of race and racism in identity and experience. Her publications include Being White: Stories of Race and Racism (Routledge, 2005), Middle Eastern Lives in America (with Amir Marvasti, Rowman and Littlefield, 2004) and The Many Costs of Racism (with Joe Feagin, Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). In addition, she has published articles in journals such as Race and Society, Social Identities, and Critical Sociology.