There are some issues about interviewing that may mean different approaches work best in different settings. Here are some questions that your group may want to discuss before you begin the interview process. You may have other issues that you want to debate as you decide how to proceed with your project.

• Do interviews go better when a woman is interviewed by another woman and a man by another man? Do people of the same gender share more common understanding about issues and skills?
• Is it better when Elders are interviewed by older people rather than younger – because older people have more knowledge and similar backgrounds and forms of spoken Inuktitut? Or are Elders happy to talk to young people because they are able to pass on important knowledge that youth might not otherwise hear about?
• How does the relationship between young and old affect the interview? What about the social rules about communicating with Elders:
  • Questioning Elders
  • Initiating topics
  • Disagreeing
• How do strict time-schedules and deadlines affect the quality of an interview?
• How do the values of modern social institutions, such as churches, legal systems and education systems, affect people’s view of the past?
• How do issues of power and status affect an interview? Are the interviewees able to be open and honest if they are interviewed by someone they see as being in a position of power? Or is the interview more meaningful if the interviewer is seen as a peer and an equal? Would you, as literacy group members, be able to get a more honest and open interview than a professional interviewer from the south?