Collecting data from elites and ultra elites: by Juan Pardo

A RT I C L E

Collecting data from elites and ultra elites: telephone and face-to-face interviews with macroeconomists

NEIL STEPHENS Cardiff School of Social Sciences

Q R

A B S T R A C T This article explores the author’s experiences of conducting both face-to-face and telephone interviews with elite and ultra-elite respondents. It draws upon the author’s PhD research that uses a Sociology of Scientific Knowledge perspective to understand the social construction of macroeconomics. The article demonstrates how this perspective, and contributions from broader methodological texts, shaped the evolving research practice. The author reflects upon the distance between themselves as a relatively novice researcher and the high status position of the elite and ultra-elite respondents. This is followed with a discussion of several practical issues that arose from the research experience that would usefully inform the work of any researcher considering utilising telephone interviews. The article concludes that telephone interviewing with elite and ultra-elite respondents is both a productive and valid research option.

elites, qualitative methods, Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, telephone and face-to-face interviewing, young researcher

K E Y WO R D S :

This article presents some reflections upon interviews conducted as part of my PhD research with a group of macroeconomists. Reference will be made to the established literature on elite interviewing, but in the main the article explores two specific issues untouched or rarely touched elsewhere – interviewing elites and ultra elites as a relatively young and inexperienced researcher, and reflections on the differences and similarities between telephone and face-to-face interviews with elites and ultra elites. The article will first outline the theoretical and empirical setting of my research in order to make explicit the methodological problems I faced, before exploring how well face-to-face and telephone interviews addressed them. My PhD is titled ‘Why Macroeconomic Orthodoxy Changes So Quickly – The Sociology of Scientific Knowledge and the Phillips Curve’ (Stephens, 2005). It uses a Social Studies of Science and Technology perspective to explore the social construction of macroeconomic knowledge. Since the 1970s, scholars DOI: 10.1177/1468794107076020 Downloaded from http://qrj.sagepub.com by Juan Pardo on March 20, 2008 © 2007 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

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in the Social Studies of Science and Technology have been interviewing physicists (e.g. Collins, 1975, 2004; Shrum et al., 2001), and biochemists (Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984), following the debates between government radiation specialists and sheep farmers (Wynne, 1989, 1996) and Federal bodies and natural history museums (Star and Griesemer, 1989), conducting ethnographies at the cutting edge of regenerative medicine (Hogle, 2003), tracking the development of all manner of technological developments (Pinch and Bijker, 1987; van Oost, 2003), and conducting observations in laboratories (Knorr-Cetina, 1999; Latour and Woolgar, 1979; Law, 1994) in order to understand how scientific and technological debates are shaped by socio-cultural practices. In my case I interviewed macroeconomists who had an interest in the relationship between Unemployment and Inflation, often referred to as the Phillips Curve. I was interested in exploring how my interviewee’s political opinions impacted upon their academic work on the Phillips Curve and the social processes involved in closing and reopening debates about the form the Phillips Curve should take.1 Within the spectrum of sub-genres and schools of the Social Studies of Science and Technology my PhD work is most closely aligned to that of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK). In keeping with its prescribed methodological approach I used qualitative methods of enquiry with macroeconomists on differing sides of a debate, and, through the adoption of ‘methodological relativism’, looked at how wider cultural values influenced their work. Methodological relativism in SSK was developed by Collins (1981, 1983, 1992) and refers to the sociologists’ alternation between competing constructions of reality, or Wittgensteinian ‘forms-of-life’ (Winch, 1958; Wittgenstein, 1953). Wittgenstein’s ideas inform the central argument in SSK analysis that cultural context is integral to the meanings associated with acts and ideas (Collins, 1984). The taken for granted form-of-life provides the framework of all understanding, and understandings can only be shared if aspects of these forms-oflife are also shared. Methodological relativism allows sociologists to immerse themselves first in one position in a scientific debate, i.e. one form-of-life, to understand the norms and values that underpin it. Second, they can repeat the procedure in a competing position and form-of-life. By alternating between the competing positions the analyst can explore the differences and similarities between the norms and values held by each group. There are only a small number of STS studies of economics, examples include Breslau (1997), Evans (1997, 1999), MacKenzie (2003, 2006), Stephens (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006) and Yonay (1994). Because of this, from the outset my supervisors and I decided that my research should cover a lengthy time period to provide a substantial historical contribution to the field. We chose the Phillips Curve debate from its inception in 1958 until the early 1980s. With this decision came methodological implications – it meant limiting my research tools to documentary analysis and interviews with older macroeconomists about events that had happened decades earlier.

Stephens: Collecting data from elites

Interviews with macroeconomists are elite interviews. Whether elite is defined in terms of social position relative to the researcher conducting the interview in these instances, or relative to the average citizen in society, they are still clearly in a position of power and raised social stature. Zuckerman (1996) uses the term ultra elite to refer to her interviews with Nobel Laureates. Not only were her respondents an elite compared to the public at large, they were also an elite compared to other American scientists. I interviewed four economics Nobel Laureates as part of my PhD, three face-to-face, one on the telephone. Telephone interviewing was not initially intended as one of my research tools. Like many researchers may, I suspected that the medium would inhibit the establishment of rapport so essential for in-depth qualitative interviewing. It would not allow the space for probing and explorative questioning so essential in many sociological research projects. Instead, the interviews were to be conducted face-to-face with macroeconomists based in the UK who I would visit to interview â&#x20AC;&#x201C; one facet of interviewing elites is that they are rarely willing to travel to you. However, the opportunity to present a paper at the Social Studies of Science Society Conference in November 2001 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, allowed me to conduct some face-to-face interviews with eminent American macroeconomists (Stephens, 2001). These interviews proved compelling with excellent data on Anglo-American relationships in macroeconomics. I became keen to conduct further interviews with American participants. The obvious financial constraints on travelling to America once more led me to reconsider the potential for telephone interviewing. What follows are my reflections first on conducting elite and ultra-elite interviews face-to-face, and the transformative effect of attempting similar interviews via the telephone.

Conducting face-to-face elite and ultra-elite interviews The interviews were semi-structured qualitative interviews. The longest stretched for nearly three hours and the shortest slightly under an hour. Most ran for around an hour and a half. The face-to-face interviews were all conducted in the respondentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s departmental office, except one held in their home. One benefit of interviewing elites and ultra elites is that they typically have suitable space available in which to conduct the interview. Semi-structured interviews were adopted for a plethora of reasons. Their applicability was obvious throughout, and no alternative interview technique was seriously considered. Semi-structured interviews provided the best window into the norms and values experienced by the participants during the Phillips Curve debate. The literature on the strengths and weaknesses of this interviewing style is broad (Atkinson, 1990; Coffey and Atkinson, 1996; Denzin and Lincoln, 1994; Gilbert, 1993; Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995; Warren, 2002). The consensus on semi-structured interviews, and the reason why I used them, is that they provide the opportunity to gain an account of the values and experiences of the respondent in terms meaningful to them. The

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agenda brought to each interview by the researcher ensures all necessary topics are discussed, while allowing the interviewee to introduce issues they conceive as important. Through prompting and probing the interviewer can elicit detailed responses to their questioning, and challenge the respondent to make explicit their taken-for-granted norms. In the context of my research, the semi-structured interview fits well with the practical limitations of geographically dispersed interviewees who could not spare lengthy periods of time. There is an establishing literature on conducting elite interviews. Charles Morrissey highlights the importance of flexibility in time-tabling interviews with members of busy elites (Morrissey, 1970). Susan Ostrander prioritizes the adoption by the interviewer of a dominant position in the interview through non-verbal cues and direct questioning (Ostrander, 1993). Others stress the importance of expecting gate-keeping questions, as frequently the elite status is based upon the possession of knowledge and prestige (Cassell, 1988; Dexter, 1970; Hunter, 1993; Zuckerman, 1996). Odendahl and Shaw (2002) provide a very full exploration of the elite interviewing literature. Their discussion highlights the breadth of social groups often defined as elites in sociological research. With such breadth comes an equivalent range of issues confronting researchers and strategies for addressing them. Macroeconomists fall into what they call the professional elite, a category still sufficiently wide to include the clergy, lawyers and celebrities. Even as a subset of a wider literature, the elite interviewing texts still consider a broad range of participants with individual constraints and preferences. Zuckerman (1996) provides a detailed account of the methodological issues closely related to those faced here in her study of Nobel Prize winners. As noted above, she considers her respondents to be an ultra elite because they are considered an elite group among other high ranking individuals and organizations that many of the studies noted by Odendahl and Shaw (2002) would consider elite groups in their own right. Many of the constraints and solutions faced by Zuckerman are similar to those encountered in my research, including the problems of locating specific individuals as opposed to representatives of a social group, and the importance of studying their histories and works in preparation for the interviews. Zuckerman, however, did receive more active indications of positive support for the interview than in my case; examples being offers to book hotel rooms and detailed travel directions. Furthermore, Zuckerman often faced a greater degree of gate-keeping questions testing her knowledge of their science than I experienced. Zuckerman notes that such testing questions were a continuous presence throughout many of her interviews. However, despite these similarities in respondent, the one particular contribution that stood out from the broad elite interviewing literature, and has been central to informing the approach I adopted, was based on research with a different subsection of Odendahl and Shawâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (2002) professional elite; Anglican clergy-men and women. Alan Aldridge (1993) argues that many methodological discussions of elite interviewing focus upon endemic differences between

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the researcher and participant. Instead he suggests an awareness of both commonalties and divergences better supports effective interviewing. Aldridgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research discusses how in the localized setting of the Anglican clergy, gender has a great significance due to the sensitivity of the ordination of women into the priesthood at the time. An awareness of issues like this, and their negotiation in the localized setting, is essential to attaining rapport. The article elaborates this point by discussing the nature of prestige. Elite status is considered a product of localized social negotiation, and not a stable social hierarchy. Thus, an understanding by participants and interviewer of the cultural positioning of each other, both in difference and similarity, facilitates a better interview. Aldridge opted to employ unstructured interviews. He considered the more apparent scientistic nature of the structured interview would cause tension by pointing to socially poignant differences between social science and theology. Equally, he argues, there are many cultural similarities between clergy-men and women and social scientists. Here he identifies class specifically. There are also differences among the clergy that need consideration. For example, Aldridge, as a male researcher studying attitudes towards the ordination of women, focused upon negotiating gender positions. Good rapport then, according to Aldridge, must be negotiated through a balanced awareness of the characteristics of both interviewer and interviewee. In the case of my research the similarities were plentiful. Both interviewee and interviewer were social scientists sharing a prevailing academic attitude. There were shared expectations of research processes manifest in expectations of research competency and intellectual curiosity. All interviewees were also middle class caucasian men, as is the researcher. This demographic is not surprising; indeed, Breit and Hirschâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (2004) work collating autobiographical texts of 18 economics Nobel Laureates has an entirely male group of contributors. The obvious differences between myself and my participants are age and experience. The oldest participant was 65 years older than me, and the youngest was maybe 20 years my senior. Odendahl and Shaw (2002) note that a big age difference can make it difficult for the interviewer to be taken seriously. Furthermore, from Nobel Prize winners to established lecturers, the status gap in the interview setting was also pronounced. This is considered another barrier by Odendahl and Shaw. In all research the interview setting is inevitably a social interaction. Given this, the sets of categories actors bring to any interaction will be mediating the interviewing relationship. In the light of the characterizations presented above and taking a lead from Pearson (2002), it appeared clear that, as a young PhD researcher, the existing category the respondents would most likely use to locate me was either as an undergraduate or postgraduate student. This is true of even the most famous participants in the debate, as even though academics at the very top of their profession often stop engaging in many of the tasks undertaken routinely by the majority in their profession, such as administration and undergraduate teaching, they still take very seriously their role in PhD supervision

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(Zuckerman, 1996). A relationship mimicking the supervisor/PhD student form had clear benefits for the interview setting, but also needed to be moderated closely. In its favour it instantly makes the interviewee comfortable discussing the topics and prevented the age gap becoming a barrier as feared by Odendahl and Shaw (2002). All the respondents were articulate and free speaking individuals. There was no need for techniques to provoke conversation. Of course existing categories of social relationships provided problems of their own, as experienced when the interview would adopt the pattern of a lecturer/student relationship where the interviewee would frequently lean towards teaching the technical issues of macroeconomics as opposed to placing values upon them. This led to some occasionally lengthy periods of interview being unrelated to my research questions. Another concern was the potential for the teaching voice to depersonalize the account, and often I would have to resituate the conversation onto the personal position of the interviewee in the debate, rather than recounting the consensual ‘perceived wisdom’. The final issue is that many respondents were confident speakers, familiar with adopting the leading role in a conversation and dictating the topic. In numerous instances the respondent would want to draw the conversation away from the Phillips Curve to alternative or presentday debates. In these instances I had explicitly to reassert the topic or lengthy periods of the interview would be off topic. However, on occasions it was considered more fruitful to allow the respondent to express these views to, if we can risk dropping into the vernacular, get it out of their system. I, in the role of the young researcher, listened politely to the deviation and then steered the respondent back to the topic. Before each interview a schedule was devised. These were specific to the individual in response to their own experience, as paralleled in Zuckerman (1996). However, the general template followed the chronology of the debate and the professional life history of the respondent, as discussed by Atkinson (2002). This was a useful strategy to help the respondent bridge the historical gap between the time of the interview and the time when the events discussed occurred. In addition to this, copies of a number of each participant’s articles were frequently brought to the interview. Often the interviewees reread their texts for the first time in many years. In practice this proved not only to provide a contextual awareness but also increased the participants’ enthusiasm for the interview. Several expressed to me their enjoyment in recalling their earlier career in the closing exchanges of the interview. The format the interview schedule adopted changed as I understood more about the macroeconomists’ work and as my confidence grew. All research is a lived experience and mine was no exception. In the early interviews a gold letter etched Cardiff University A4 ring binder was taken to each containing quantities of photocopies and notes as well as lists of prearranged questions should I find myself struggling. This symbolism may have aided my confidence but was not necessarily of any practical use. By the later interviews social fluency deemed an A5 jotter pad sufficient and the schedule amounted to

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little more than approximately five topic titles and some specific background information. My competency was now represented by my manner as opposed to the amount of paperwork I brought to the interview.

Conducting telephone interviews with elites and ultra elites The decision to conduct telephone interviews was inspired by the success of the fieldtrip to America. Prior to this they were considered unsuitable as rapport and the subsequent depth of qualitative questioning would be hard to maintain on the telephone. However, I decided that an attempt to gain this potentially rich data was a worthwhile pursuit. This resulted in five telephone interviews, which were largely successful. The academic literature on research methods explores telephone interviewing of non-elite samples, and elite face-to-face interviews, but there is no standard reference work on elite telephone interviews. This is not because it has never been attempted before, Wasserman’s (2000) work on eminent women scientists being one example making use of telephone interviews. However, the disadvantages of relying on methodological texts written for non-elite settings is obvious in reading Shuy’s (2002) discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of telephone interviewing. The observation that is perhaps Shuy’s most central still resonates in the context of my research – that telephone interviews are usually cheaper and quicker to conduct as they remove geographical limitations. Indeed this is more pronounced in my research and many elite settings than in the cases discussed by Shuy as my geographical boundaries were the Atlantic Ocean and vast areas of the USA and Canada. However, many of Shuy’s benefits of telephone interviewing had little utility in my research. For example, Shuy suggests the large centralized telephone facilities allow a comparison between interviews thus limiting interviewer effects, and that telephone interviews improve researcher safety as they prevent the researcher from having to visit dangerous neighbourhoods in the evening. Shuy does, of course, acknowledge that different researchers with differing circumstances will seek varying utilities from the technique. Given the state of the elite-telephone interviewing literature, a commentary on the issues raised in the use of telephone interviews in this research is provided below. Each issue is considered in turn. Interruption:

Topic control:

Due to the lack of visible cues any out-of-turn utterance became a direct interruption. Frequently the utterance was not heard properly, as the respondent was also speaking, and the question would be ignored where they would not have been in a face-toface setting. However, it was not perceived that the participants considered such interruptions as rude. The status of unsolicited utterances as interruptions altered the nature of probing and shaping the conversation. Small inflections would either be

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Qualitative Research 7(2) ignored or undermine the fluidity of the conversation entirely. Lack of visual communication: The above points are compounded by the lack of visual communication. First, interruptions were not observed before they were spoken. Second, the normal role of non-verbal communication in directing the conversation towards the listeners needs was absent. For instance, in face-to-face communication the speaker can respond to expressions of interest or confusion by the listener. The latter is especially relevant in elite interviewing of this sort as the subject matter is often highly specialized and expressed in a multitude of different terms. Sometimes clarification on technical meanings was forfeited rather than risk undermining the fluidity of the speech. Articulation: There was a need for a clearer articulation of the questions than that necessary in face-to-face communication. Fragmented or improvized sentences were less tolerable than in situations where hand and facial gestures can consolidate their meaning. However, the need to pause and articulate also caused problems. Lacking the visual cues to demonstrate the articulation process the respondent would take the instant non-response as a request to continue to speak. Holding the telephone: A hands-free telephone was not available for the interviews. Holding the telephone introduced more unanticipated problems than any other influence. Having only one spare hand problematized writing notes and reading preparatory literature. This is compounded as the hand typically used to hold the telephone is also used to write. Other seemingly insignificant issues proved consequential, for example removing the pen top and having a drink prepared suitably in advance. If I ever do telephone interviewing again I will buy a hands-free set to help deal with such unexpected eventualities. Controlling the environment: Unlike the face-to-face interviews that were held in the respondentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s space, I could organize my space in advance so I felt comfortable. However, there is no control over the space of the respondent. So I decided that at the beginning of each telephone interview I would ask the respondent if they were ready, or if they would prefer to be called back after a short amount of time. This allowed them to prepare their environment so they too could be comfortable for the duration of the interview. Bringing preparatory materials: It was noted above that in the face-to-face settings I frequently brought copies of my respondentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s papers with me to the interview. This aided memory and added to their enjoyment of the interview. Obviously

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Recording interviews:

telephone interviewing prohibited such a strategy. Such materials could have been posted in advance if necessary, but the interaction over essentially visual materials would be limited. I did not post such materials to my respondents. I recorded all my interviews onto mini-disc. A small device frequently called an in-line recorder can be bought to allow telephone conversations to be recorded. The in-line recorder is a length of telephone wire that can be easily plugged into either between the wall socket and the telephone or the telephone and the hand-set. It has an audio-out wire that can be plugged into any recording device that takes a microphone.

Reflections on face-to-face and telephone elite and ultra-elite interviewing My experience of telephone interviewing was a successful one. Of the five interviews, four attained a friendly rapport equal to any of my face-to-face interviews. The remaining one was of a less friendly tone but still provided excellent data. As I conducted the interviews I quickly learnt the nuances that distinguish telephone from face-to-face interviewing, as listed above. With these came simple strategies to negotiate them. The researcher should place a different set of expectations upon their own role in steering the conversations. A face-to-face interview, perhaps more than many experienced interviewers may realize, affords the interviewer the opportunity to continually re-mould the interaction to their needs and interests through visual cues and small utterances. This is not the case in telephone interviewing. Instead, the medium lends itself better to less frequent but more directive shaping. This is not to say that interviewer interventions should be used rarely. Such interventions are only less frequent compared to visual cues in face-to-face interviewing that allow a continual moulding mechanism. The interviewer may wish to consider using a slightly more structured interviewing approach, with a number of questions written in advance to ensure they are clearly spoken and direct the respondent accurately. Since the interview is via the telephone the respondent need never know the questions are being read. Of course only a proportion of questions can be prepared in advance as many will only become apparent in the interview situation as the respondents account unfolds. In these instances the interviewer should use an explicit turn-taking device to ensure the respondent is aware that a question is being articulated and that they should not continue speaking. Simple examples include “ok, could you give me a moment to phrase my next question …” or “ah, that’s very interesting, umm …”. Interjections such as ‘um’ and ‘er’ are common in speech and even when interviewing elites were not perceived as markers of incompetence.

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Earlier I discussed the utility of Aldridge’s (1993) commentary on the importance of a balanced awareness of the characteristics of both interviewer and interviewee. The non-visual nature of telephone interviews compared to face-to-face interviews may impact upon the negotiation of this balance. Judgements regarding similarity and difference can be informed by the visual impression given by each individual in a face-to-face interaction. This of course is missing in telephone interviewing. In my case this did not have an overly pronounced effect. As noted above, the similarities between myself and my interviewees were a shared academic attitude, expectations of the research process, class, gender and ethnicity. The differences were of age and experience. Although my respondents could not see that I was younger than them, I am sure that the process of negotiating access – where I stated that I was conducting my PhD research – and the sound of my voice in conversation, left them with no ambiguities about my approximate age and professional stature. These differences could thus be negotiated as in a face-to-face setting. One interesting, and ironic, difference between my face-to-face and telephone interviews regards my differing techniques for negotiating access. While negotiating my face-to-face interviews I would routinely use the internet to find potential participants’ current contact details, and then send them an email informing them of my interest in their work and saying that I would telephone them in the next few days to discuss the possibility of an interview. I found this a successful technique for giving the respondent advance warning of my interest and making it difficult for them to turn down my telephone request – a format much less easy to ignore than an email or a letter alone. However, in contrast, when negotiating the telephone interviews I relied only upon written formats – letter, email and fax – and did not telephone the potential respondent at this stage. The reasons for this cut across several of the themes already developed in this article about the differences between telephone and face-to-face interviewing, and elite and ultra-elite interviews. First, there is the important issue of distance – a significant motivating factor in choosing telephone interviews in the first place. My potential telephone interviewees were sufficiently far away that we crossed significantly different time zones – in one case as much as 11 hours. As committed to my PhD as I was, I did not wish to regularly spend the early hours of the morning repeat calling potential respondents hoping to request an interview while I waited for them to finish a meeting or get back from lunch. Second, there is the issue of elites and ultra elites. Most of my interviews with respondents based in the USA were with the ultra elite among my sample. Due to their raised stature I had already decided to approach them with formal letters as opposed to emails. Of course it was exactly the rarity of such members of the ultra elite in the UK that had fuelled my desire to conduct interviews – and then telephone interviews – in the USA in the first place. It is also worth noting that, in the context of academics, it is often the case that with ultra elites (as opposed to the elites) the first contact with a potential interviewee will be through a personal admin assistant, not the interviewee themselves.

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When pondering my experiences of the relative benefits of these two approaches I again find myself contemplating a specific feature of the face-to-face vs telephone interviewing issue. The approach used for face-to-face interviews of an initial email and follow-up phone call had a higher response rate. However, both the significance and the reason for this again repeat central themes of this article. The reason is in part because I put less effort into persisting to contact each potential telephone interviewee. This is because the lack of geographical boundaries inherent with telephone interviews vastly increased the number of potential interviewees available to me. For my UK-based face-to-face interviews, living macroeconomists who published in the Phillips Curve debate became a scarce resource, making the successful negotiation of access essential. With telephone interviews the lower response rate mattered little among such a wider array of potential participants. The different approaches to negotiating access, and their required success rates, reflected the same dynamics that distinguish the strengths and weaknesses of telephone and face-to-face interviewing. It is worth noting that my experiences of face-to-face and telephone interviews are not directly comparable. The telephone interviews were conducted after the face-to-face interviews and subsequently would have been informed by them. As a young researcher this experience would have increased both my confidence and competence, as well as providing me with an insight into my respondents’ form-of-life that I lacked in the early stages of the face-to-face interviews. Such a background may have enabled me to make more from the limited breadth of a telephone conversation than I otherwise may have. Certainly in Aldrige’s (1993) terms it would have allowed me to have become assured in my assessment of the cultural similarities and differences between me and my group of respondents before engaging with them on the telephone. This discussion, of course, is specific to elite and ultra-elite interviewing, and academic elite and ultra-elite interviewing in particular. Subsequently, the observations and recommendations noted should be interpreted as such. The characteristics particular to academic elite groups that most facilitate the strategies discussed above are a willingness to talk articulately, and often at length, about a particular topic and a willingness to participate in, and an understanding of, research processes and values. It is likely that with a different set of participants some of the advice above – such as the less frequent directive questioning style – would be less successful. It is the role of each researcher to assess their own situation. My experience demonstrates that telephone interviews with elite and ultra-elite respondents are a valid and useful methodological tool that can provide important data for geographically dispersed samples. NOTE

1. The technical aspects of the Phillips Curve are complex. Fortunately, this discussion requires no prior understanding of the relationship. However, should any readers be interested, a useful introduction can be found in Snowdon et al. (1994). Since I have started introducing background texts about issues that are related to my

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Qualitative Research 7(2) research, but not intrinsic or necessary for this particular article, I will also suggest Jasanoff et al. (1994) and Sismondo (2004) as decent introductions to the wider issues in the social studies of science (and an insight into the disagreements between the authors grouped together so casually above). REFERENCES

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Qualitative Research 7(2) Stephens, Neil (2006) ‘Political Interpretative Flexibility and the Unemployment/ Inflation Trade-off ’, Paper presented at the History of Economics Society Conference, Grinnell, IA, June. van Oost, Ellen (2003) ‘Materialized Gender: How Shavers Configure the Users’ Femininity and Masculinity’, in Nelly Oudshoorn and Trevor F. Pinch (eds) How Users Matter: The Co-construction of Users and Technology, pp. 193–208. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Warren, Carol A.B. (2002) ‘Qualitative Interviewing’, in Jaber F. Gubrium and James A. Holstein (eds) Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method, pp. 83–102. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wasserman, Elga (2000) The Door in the Dream: Conversations with Eminent Women in Science. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press. Winch, P. (1958) The Idea of a Social Science. London: Routledge. Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell. Wynne, Brian (1989) ‘Sheep Farming After Chernobyl: A Case Study in Communicating Scientific Information’, Environmental Magazine 131: 33–9. Wynne, Brian (1996) ‘May the Sheep Safely Graze? A Reflexive View of the Expert-Lay Knowledge Divide’, in Scott Lash, Bronislaw Szerszynski and Brian Wynne (eds) Risk, Environment and Modernity: Towards a New Ecology, pp. 27–83. London: Sage. Yonay, Yuval (1994) ‘When Black Boxes Clash: Competing Ideas of What Science is in Economics, 1924–1939’, Social Studies of Science 24: 311–42. Zuckerman, Harriet (1996) Scientific Elite. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. N E I L S T E P H E N S completed his PhD at the Centre for the Study of Knowledge, Expertise and Science (KES) at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. He remains active in publishing on the social construction of macroeconomic knowledge. He now works at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, at the ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (CESAGen), where he is conducting an ethnography of the UK Stem Cell Bank focusing on the standardization of regulatory practices in a controversial science. He is also conducting an ethnography of the teaching of Capoeira – a Brazilian dance form/martial art – in the UK. Address: ESRC Centre for the Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (CESAGen), Cardiff University, 6 Museum Place, Cardiff CF10 3BG, UK. [email: StephensN@ cardiff.ac.uk]