Cross-cultural realist interviews: An integration of the realist interview and cross-cultural qualitative research methods

Realist interviews are a data collection method used in realist evaluations. There is little available guidance for realist interviewing in cross-cultural contexts. Few published realist evaluations have included cross-cultural interviews, providing limited analyses of the cross-cultural application of realist methodology. This study integrated realist and cross-cultural qualitative methods in a realist evaluation of an Australian doula support program. The interviews were conducted with Arabic speaking clients of the program. The process included collaboration with a bicultural researcher, philosophically situating the study for methodologically coherent integration, bicultural review of the appropriateness of realist ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions, decisions about language translation and interpretation, pilot interviews, and co-facilitation of the interviews. Integration of the methods was feasible and valuable. This study may support other realist evaluators to give voice to people from culturally diverse groups, in a manner that is culturally safe, methodologically coherent and rigorous, and that produces trustworthy results.