Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Episode Title: How to Conduct Interpretive Research: Insights for Students and Researchers
Podcast: New Books Network – Interpretive, Political, and Social Science Series
Host: Nick Cheeseman
Guests: Colette Einfeld (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, ANU) & Helen Sullivan (Dean, College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU)
Book Discussed: How to Conduct Interpretive Research: Insights for Students and Researchers (Edward Elgar, 2025)
Date: January 27, 2026

This episode explores the motivations, challenges, methodologies, and emotional dimensions involved in conducting interpretive research, as discussed by the editors of a new collection aimed at students and early-career scholars. The conversation touches on the diversity of interpretivist traditions, the value of reflexivity, influential chapters within the book, and the hopes and uncertainties facing interpretive research and academia.

Main Themes & Discussion Points

1. Origin and Motivation for the Book

• Personal Journeys and Academic Needs

  • Colette Einfeld describes the inspiration for the book as stemming from her own struggles transitioning from a positivist background into interpretive research during her PhD.
  • The lack of resources addressing the lived experience of early-stage interpretive researchers prompted the creation of a practical guide bridging the gap between methods books and research guides.
    "I was feeling increasingly, like, uncertain that doing an interpretive PhD was the right thing to do… the workshops… just didn't cover the sort of experiences that I was having…" – Colette Einfeld (02:42)

• Collaborative Dynamic

  • Helen Sullivan emphasizes the importance of including both new and experienced perspectives in the book to offer a broad range of insights.
    "Bring together the perspectives of people who are new and just finding their way with people who've been doing this… for a lot longer." – Helen Sullivan (04:33)

2. Selection of Contributors and Book Structure

• Conscious Diversity

  • Contributors were selected to represent a wide variety of backgrounds, academic experiences, and global contexts (including those outside of North America and Europe).
  • The editors aimed to reflect the significance of context in interpretivism, not restrict the conversation to familiar Western traditions.
    "We were really keen to start [from Australia], but also to make sure that we were understanding context in all of its significance and diversity." – Helen Sullivan (06:02)

• Organic, Adaptive Organization

  • The structure of the book emerged from ongoing dialogues with contributors, shifting away from chronological or rigid organizational schemes.
    "It wasn't a pre planned, this is what it's going to look like… it was very much an organic [process]." – Helen Sullivan (09:22)

3. Interpretivism’s Multiple Meanings and Traditions

• Flexible Definitions

  • Interpretive research encompasses various traditions, and contributors were encouraged to articulate their own engagements with interpretivism.
  • The editors sought to balance respect for foundational canons with an openness to new, local, and critical approaches.
    "We were very prepared to give people the space to decide for themselves how they were going to describe interpretivism." – Helen Sullivan (11:09)

• Encouraging Curiosity

  • The importance of maintaining scholarly curiosity and not reducing interpretivism to a single set of techniques or readings is emphasized.
    "You want interpretive scholars to continue to be curious about, well, what are the other ways of thinking about this…." – Helen Sullivan (13:18)

4. Key Elements of Good Interpretive Research

• Messiness, Flexibility, and Emotions

  • The book stresses embracing the “messiness” of social life and being methodologically flexible, while not abandoning rigor.
  • Emotional experiences of researchers—often undervalued—are discussed as both data and as part of the process.
    "The experience of doing interpretive work is emotional. The experience of doing a PhD is emotional." – Colette Einfeld (15:36) "We're not saying that interpretivism... is not the same as saying, well, you don't actually need to be disciplined…" – Helen Sullivan (19:45)

• Critical Reflexivity

  • Reflexivity is presented as central for understanding both the practice and the evolution of interpretive research.

5. Speaking “Interpretive” and Managing Academic Belonging

• Language as Inclusion and Boundary
  • There is a necessary process of “learning to speak interpretive” both to gain acceptance in academic communities and to clarify one’s methodological commitments.
  • The importance of cultivating an evolving and welcoming interpretive ‘language’ is underscored to prevent exclusivity.
    "You have the knowledge and the expertise to be able to produce a PhD… Part of that is learning the terms and the words to show that…" – Colette Einfeld (22:30)

6. Emotions as Analytical Tools

• Beyond Researcher Experience
  • Emotions are not just part of the researcher’s journey, but can themselves be significant data and analytical lenses for understanding social phenomena.
    "Emotions are knowledge… the analytical lens is absolutely vital for trying to both understand what you're seeing, but also seeing differently." – Helen Sullivan (28:00)

7. Noteworthy Chapters in the Book

• Chapters Highlighted by Editors

  • Helen highlights:
    • Stephen Jeffer’s chapter: “Don’t Overcook the Turkey,” on the dangers of over-structuring in interpretive work (30:45).
    • Sara Long’s chapter: Fieldwork on indigenous land claims in Cambodia, emphasizing ethnographic and political complexities.
  • Colette highlights:
    • Fieldwork chapters from recent PhDs—Saro Harley Aprimadia and Tamara Malharen—for their “raw” and emotionally reflective accounts (32:30).
    • Stephen Griggs and David Howard’s chapter on “moving in and out of the field.”

  "Any chapter that does that, I'm very happy to read. So I thought that was a…also a fantastic chapter." – Colette Einfeld (33:44)

8. The Role of Story and Concrete Experience

• Editorial Brief
  • Authors were encouraged (rather than required) to draw on lived experience, which organically led to concrete and cathartic storytelling.
    "It did feel a little bit like that. I think there are a lot of stories that people want to tell. We've captured a few…" – Colette Einfeld (35:28)

9. Challenges and Hopes for Interpretive Research

• Academic Pressures & Grounds for Hope

  • Themes of precarity, underfunding, and ideological pressure (particularly post-COVID) are acknowledged, but the community’s growing critical mass gives grounds for optimism.
  • Interpretive work offers alternative ways of understanding, potentially enriching both public policy and applied research.
    "We've got reasons to be cheerful." – Helen Sullivan (38:05)

• Relevance Outside Academia

  • Colette notes that interpretive approaches enrich consultancy and applied research by embracing the complexity of real-world contexts.

10. Engagement with AI and the Future

• Tentative Reflections
  • Both guests express uncertainty about the impact of AI on interpretive research and scholarship, noting they are still “grappling” with its implications.
    "Part of me is terrified as a teacher. A lot of me is terrified as a researcher. And I'm sort of equally uncomfortable with the way that sometimes people talk about the way these tools can help us." – Helen Sullivan (39:04)

11. The Co-Editorial Relationship

• Mutual Learning
  • Both editors express gratitude and admiration for what they learned from each other in the process—a rare, supportive dynamic bridging supervisory and peer roles.
  • Emphasis on the value of “asking the questions that, maybe because… you’ve just taken for granted” (Helen Sullivan, 40:47).

12. Book and Novel Recommendations

• Helen Sullivan recommends Desolation by Hassan Asghari, describing it as a “fabulous, fabulous novel” that resonates with interpretive themes (42:40).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Motivation:
  "[The special sauce is] frustration, annoyance, despair, uncertainty… I was seeing methods books, and I was seeing how to do research guides, and these two aren't meeting in the middle."
  – Colette Einfeld (02:42)

• On Diversity of Contexts:
  "We began from Australia. What does the world look like? Well, the world looks rather different, and our region is really important. And so we were really keen to start there, but also to make sure that we were understanding context in all of its significance and diversity."
  – Helen Sullivan (06:02)

• On Messiness:
  "Part of coming to interpretive work is actually recognition of the messiness. But then also, how do you represent it and how do you research it, and how do you get something out of it that is therefore useful for other people…"
  – Colette Einfeld (18:42)

• On Emotions as Knowledge:
  "Emotions are knowledge. And so therefore, if you're trying to understand, trying to analyze a situation… then being attuned not just to the emotion of the moment… but also recognizing… those emotions are in and of themselves shaping that encounter…"
  – Helen Sullivan (28:00)

• On Community and Catharsis:
  "It did feel a little bit like that. I think there are a lot of stories that people want to tell. We've captured a few, but I think there is a need to just sort of share these things and tell these stories and these emotions and these experiences."
  – Colette Einfeld (35:28)

• On Hope for the Field:
  "There is now, I think, a sufficient both corpus of knowledge that's recorded, but also just a mass of people who have learned about, learned from, learned through these experiences..."
  – Helen Sullivan (36:44)

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:42] Colette’s origin story for the book and interpretive research challenges
• [04:33] Helen’s perspective on collaborative editorship and the book’s multigenerational approach
• [06:02] Rationale for choosing diverse contributors and contexts
• [09:22] Book structure and organic development
• [11:09] Defining interpretivism and giving contributors autonomy in their approach
• [15:36] On reflexivity, emotion, messiness, and the need for support networks
• [18:42] Messiness in research and implications for systematicity
• [22:30] “Learning to speak interpretive” and academic inclusion/exclusion
• [28:00] Integrating emotion as an analytical lens
• [30:45] Editors on standout chapters: structuring, fieldwork, and ethnographic insights
• [35:28] Catharsis and the storytelling aspects of the volume
• [36:44] Optimism about the interpretive field’s growth and resilience
• [39:04] Reflections and uncertainties about AI’s impact
• [40:03] Mutual learning and support as co-editors
• [42:40] Helen’s book recommendation: Desolation by Hassan Asghari

Takeaways for Listeners

• The book aims to demystify interpretive research for students and new scholars by foregrounding lived experience, emotional labor, and the productive messiness of fieldwork.
• Interpretive research is diverse and context-sensitive, valuing stories, reflexivity, and openness over rigid adherence to method.
• Emotional and intellectual support is crucial for those beginning this kind of work, and belonging to a community can profoundly affect both scholarship and well-being.
• Despite institutional and technological challenges, there is hope for interpretive research’s continued vibrancy and relevance—both inside and outside academia.