Researching relationality: Reflections on the use of concept cards during in-depth interviews

Abstract

This article reflects on the use of concept cards during in-depth interviews when researching reproductive decision-making in the context of neoliberalism and postfeminism. As existing literature has shown, card methods are valuable in centring participants’ individual experiences through increased control and inclusion during data collection, and attention has been drawn to their use as an ethically attentive method that can elicit richer, more complex narratives than interviews alone. While these strengths initially led me to consider the cards as an appropriate ‘fit’ with my feminist methodological approach, on reflection, the cards also illuminated the relationality of experiences that my research was concerned with. I view this as occurring in two ways. First, participants’ use of the cards helped to uncover the intertwining of their reproductive decisions with the social and political world, therefore complicating the neoliberal prioritization of the individual. Second, the cards brought the relation between myself and the participants, and between the participants, to the forefront. The reflections in this article therefore offer new insights into what concept cards can achieve, as not only validating individual accounts, but as enhancing the relationality of knowledge production.