Interviewing fathers and sons together: Exploring the potential of joint interviews for research on family farms

The use of joint interviews - interviewing two people together focussing on the same topic - has been a relatively underutilised research approach. Whilst the pages of this journal have demonstrated the vitality of research utilising more qualitative research methods, the research therein has reflected the wider social science literature in which the use of joint interviews has been a relatively ad hoc application, with little critical reflection on what such an approach might offer the research process. Drawing on interviews with farming fathers and sons in Hampshire and West Sussex (UK) this paper fills this research gap by exploring the interview dynamic(s) and narratives that joint interviewing might bring forward. It is seen that processes of co-narration can add to the research encounter not only through the material that it may reveal, but also in terms of how such narratives are constructed, shared and (re)worked within the interview. In addition to seeing a second interviewee as a co-narrator, the paper also shows that they may provide an audience which challenges their partner to reflect on their own interview contribution as well as providing a second interviewer-interviewee dynamic through which they may reflect on and rework their own contribution. Set within the literature influenced by the 'reflexive turn', which recognises that the interview is a site of performance, the paper considers how joint interview narratives might be used to develop particular subject positions and illustrates how this a conjoined process between the narratives of fathers and their sons.