Nondirective interviews can surface racism that institutions actively deny

Evidence

Eliciting accounts of racism provides a wealth of information otherwise invisible to scholarly eyes. In a project about everyday racism at a so-called integrated South African university, then still during the period of apartheid, we tested the method of careful listening and inquiring about observations of racism in order to expose hidden racism at the very university that claimed to have nondiscrimination policies. A racially diverse group of students, black, “colored,” Asian, and white, were instructed to interview black fellow students about their experiences in college. In preparation for the interviews the students studied reading materials about racism - the teacher wanted them to have sufficient general knowledge about racism before they were allowed to engage in fieldwork. The students were instructed to elicit extended information about experiences of racism, not by attacking the interviewees with quick accusations of oversensitivity but by nondirective probing for overt and hidden signs of racism, inviting the interviewee to “tell about it as much as possible in detail” (Louw-Potgieter, 1989:311). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1498

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader interest in how institutions deny hidden harms — echoes the medical-dismissal-of-pain themes noted elsewhere, and interview-method literature generally. — connects to: Participant interviews disclosed worker anti-Semitism where polls could not — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1556; Victim accounts are valid data because racism is covert and routinely denied — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1500