Words beyond ‘data’: Managing small talk and positionality in North Norway

Abstract

Beyond the boundaries of neatly presented ‘datasets’ are the words said before and after audio-recorders are switched on, small talk that is rarely transcribed or archived. In this intervention, I return to a brief moment preceding a semi-structured interview in North Norway. While I was there to study political relations in the Barents region, the research encounters generated interpersonal connections and surprises. This paper considers first, positionality and the blurriness of the researcher's role as insider or outsider; and second, the nuances often left out of research accounts, such as local dialects, small talk and the relational settings of interviews.