Känsla och självkännedom. Tal om känslor i intervjubaserad forskning

Authors

• Camilla Kronqvist

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30666/elore.79018

Abstract

What can be learnt about emotions and self-understanding by paying attention to the different roles that emotions have in conversation? How does this contribute to our understanding of the moral demands inherit in the meeting of the interviewer and interviewee in the context of qualitative research interviews? Emotions on the part of the interviewer can be seen as a pre-requisite for understanding, but emotions, and in particular unacknowledged emotions that the interviewer may resist to accept, wish to subdue or deny, since he or she feels that they are too shameful, or in other ways unwelcome, may also be a hindrance to understanding. By turning to questions of what it is to know oneself and one’s emotions as a researcher, the author questions the Cartesian assumption that people have direct access to their mental life, and thereby, as it were, always know themselves best. The article shows what kind of difficulties may be connected with coming to know oneself, as well as one’s emotions.