Gendered encounters in a postfeminist context: Researcher identity work in interviews with men and women leaders in the City of London

Studies of interviewing highlight asymmetrical power relationships between interviewer and interviewee in elite, cross-gender interviews. Such interviews are said to have distinctive power dynamics which position the interviewee as the dominant party. Drawing on the notion of postfeminist encounter, I argue that the research hierarchy in interviews is not static and that the power dynamics are better understood as fluid with control constantly moving between interviewer and interviewee. Concentrating on researcher subjectivity, I investigate my identity work in interviews with men and women leaders in the City of London drawing out the variability in my subject position. I depict the subjectivities of academic, wife and therapist which I was called into during interviews. Through this set of subjectivities which emerged via the calibration of the masculine enactment of academic expertise and the feminine performance of listening and empathising, I make visible the changing power dynamics which characterised these elite interviews.

Keywords: Elite Interviews, Leaders, Postfeminism, Postfeminist Encounters