Interrupted interviews: Learning from young people's lived environments in Lebanon

Abstract

In this paper I explore the possibility that interruptions in in situ interviews can support understandings of power and social relations in research. I base my discussion on an extract from a study of young people's experiences of rapid urbanisation in Central Beqaa, Lebanon. The extract is from an interview with a young man who was continually interrupted by his mother. I problematise a tendency to silence these interruptions in the research process by considering how interruptions can reveal the social architecture in which young people are embedded.