Learning from the two gurus: Rethinking semi-structured interviews in sensitive contexts

Semi-structured interviews are often described as flexible tools in qualitative research, yet the contexts in which interviewing occurs can exceed the contingencies of the field that the researcher has anticipated or prepared for. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with acid attack survivors in India, this note examines such contingencies through a fieldwork encounter in which an interview with two survivors unfolded in the presence of family members and through the co-construction of their narratives. What initially appeared as methodological anomalies prompted questions about how contextual and relational realities enter the interview space and how researchers might respond when they cannot be fully anticipated or controlled. Through the metaphor of the “two gurus”—research objectives and research participants—the note reflects on how attending to both can reorient methodological responses to such anomalies. Rather than advocating one or other form of interviewing, it argues that, in sensitive contexts, methodological rigor may lie less in controlling the interview environment and more in remaining responsive to the conditions through which experience becomes sayable.