Interviewing Interviewers about Interviewing:
The Epistemology of Oral History
Thursday 15 November, 2012
6 - 8pm, $0
Columbia University, Northwest Corner Building
550 West 120 Street, Room 602
In this workshop, Andrea Dixon asks what reliable data or information can be gleaned from interview content, and with what degree of certainty. How do oral history interviewers know what is true or meaningful in their interviews, and how is this knowledge deployed as interviews are translated into other forms of content? Dixon’s ongoing dissertation research concerns epistemological questions as applied to interview-based research, using a microinteractionist theoretical framework to investigate role, mind, and meaning in the interview context. This presentation will draw on preliminary fieldwork interviewing oral history interviewers about interviewing.
Andrea Dixon studies the philosophy of social science, specifically the epistemology of the interview—the cornerstone of her fieldwork and research. Prior to entering the Communications Ph.D Program at Columbia’s Journalism School, Dixon completed her M.A. in Oral History at the Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, submitting a thesis exploring a hybrid of social network and cognitive mapping analyses, mapping individual frameworks of interactivity within a population, as gleaned from oral history interviews. Her previous work experience includes public media production and distribution at Georgia Public Broadcasting as well as with the public radio program This American Life.
Andrea Dixon studies the philosophy of social science, specifically the epistemology of the interview—the cornerstone of her fieldwork and research. Prior to entering the Communications Ph.D Program at Columbia’s Journalism School, Dixon completed her M.A. in Oral History at the Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, submitting a thesis exploring a hybrid of social network and cognitive mapping analyses, mapping individual frameworks of interactivity within a population, as gleaned from oral history interviews. Her previous work experience includes public media production and distribution at Georgia Public Broadcasting as well as with the public radio program This American Life.