Abstract
I identify the difficulties encountered in the process of social research interview as produced through the ongoing interaction between the interviewer and the respondent; the unexpected outcomes from this interaction could sometimes interfere in the smooth accomplishment of the interview itself. From the standpoint of positivism, which is often taken for granted, as the basis for the sociological fieldwork, these difficulties are supposed to be eradicated by means of, e.g., the good rapport, appropriate ordering of questions and the good manner on the part of the interviewer. However, in terms of the dialogical social constructionism, these apparent difficulties are not nuisances but necessary resources for clarifying the interactional details.
Through the critical reading of one of the leading fieldworker's self-referential work, it will be made clear that it is impossible to separate the interviewer and the respondent. Indeed, the ongoing communication between the two constructs the process of the social research dialogically. This leads to the birth of the dialogical social constructionist approach in social research. This approach sensitizes the problem of power constituted through the interaction between the interviewer and the respondent. This power can be more clearly analyzed in terms of the model story, according to which both parties are enticed to mold their narrative against the fluctuating social interaction. And it is the model story which will accomplish power effects over the interaction between the interviewer and the respondent, so that it becomes important to pay attention to the emergence of a unique outcome which often betrays the model story.
