Shifting Identities, Policy Networks, and the Practical and Ethical Challenges of Gaining Access to the Field in Interventions

Abstract

This chapter explains interviews as an illustrative example of the effects that a violent or illiberal context can have on how informants or interviewees are accessed. It points out that what is shared in an interview is influenced in particular ways by certain contexts and on meta-data in interviews about war and mass violence. The chapter focuses on Roland Kostić, who shows how interviewing intervention elites brings about its own series of challenges and dilemmas. It discusses Kostić's interview-based research with international intervention elites in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It also shows how long-term research is crucial for opening the door to elite networks in a way that has allowed for behind-the-scene insights and information that are far beyond a formal expert interview situation.