Dominance through interviews and dialogues

The article discusses common conceptions of interviews as dialogues and the extensive application of qualitative research interviews in a consumer society. In the first part, an understanding of research interviews as warm, caring, and empowering dialogues is questioned by highlighting power asymmetries in interview relationships. Agonistic interview techniques, which play on contradictions and power differences, are outlined. The second part of the article points to the prevalence of dialogues as exercises of power in politics, management, and education. The third part outlines the interview production of knowledge for consumption in a postmodern society. The article concludes that recognition of power dynamics by the social construction of knowledge in interviews is necessary to ascertain objectivity and ethicality of inter-view research.