Life Course Data Collection: Qualitative Interviewing using the Life Grid

The life grid, has recently been acclaimed as a accurate method for collecting retrospective data from elderly respondents. Accounts of using this method, which are based upon quantitative studies, however, have not adequately captured the dynamics of grid interviewing. This is, we suggest, because it is much easier to describe technical aspects of a research method than it is to convey how that method works in practice. In this article we set out to portray some of these more ‘indeterminate’ aspects of the life grid interviewing, drawing on our own experiences of using this method in an qualitative study of lifecourse patterns of smoking behaviour among elderly respondents who have a smoking related illness. Focussing upon interaction between researcher and respondent the article explores the reconstruction of the life course as a mutual endeavour and the implications of this for the interview structure and data collection among this respondent group.