Charles Taylor Book Award Honorable Mention 2019: Lee Ann Fujii, for Interviewing in Social Science Research: A Relational Approach

Honorable Mention: Lee Ann Fujii (late of University of Toronto), for Interviewing in Social Science Research: A Relational Approach (Routledge, 2018)

In Interviewing in Social Science Research, Lee Ann Fujii successfully takes the wellestablished genre of methodological manual and makes it provocative and counter-intuitive. Rather than presenting an idealized version of interviewing and then accounting for the limitations imposed by practical constraints, this book turns things around. Fujii debunks common myths about interviews and makes us see constraints, limitations, mistakes and the resistance of subjects as “gifts” that can enhance one’s research, instead of liabilities that one must accommodate or patch over. It is a masterful and accessible guide that is rich with examples and vignettes and which, in addition to being an indispensable resource for teaching and research, is an excellent reflection on the work of interpretation as essential for understanding the empirical world. That it draws substantively on Lee Ann’s own experiences of interviewing, which are shared with great honesty and humility, is testament to her outstanding ability to show us that interviewing is a fundamentally human encounter, as well a poignant reminder of her untimely passing that continues to be mourned.

Selection Committee:

Cai Wilkinson, chair (Deakin University)

Andrew Dilts (Loyola Marymount University)

Bernardo Zacka (MIT)