Interviewing Elite-Experts: When the Few Matter More Than the Many

In this methodological essay, we discuss the ontology and epistemology of research interviews. We anchor our methodological reflection in our experiences interviewing elite-experts. Our goal is to highlight the strengths of research interviews, particularly elite-expert interviews, as well as the importance of using a qualitative rather than quantitative logic when conducting and analyzing such interviews. In discussing this case, we reflect on qualitative research and take a critical stance toward practices that undermine the field of qualitative research. Specifically, we reflect on the process of analyzing interviews—what we refer to as “the quantification of qualitative research”—and how it has become tainted and poorly executed due to a fixation on counting codes to construct patterns under a quantitative epistemic logic. This essay is written in the form of a dialectic between reflections on interviewing elite-experts and the qualitative logic this requires.