Say my name? Anonymity or not in elite interviewing
Open accessAbstract
This article discusses anonymizing elite interviewees. Based on our experiences with interviewing professional elites and ultra-elites in different research projects, we describe how the types of conflicts involving analysis and publication change when interviewees are not promised anonymity. We discuss how contextualizing the elite positions of anonymized interviewees becomes increasingly difficult in interviews with persons who hold prestigious positions of authority and are interviewed in their official capacity. Masking interviewees can create conflicts with regard to the researcher’s presentation of results, the transparency of the research and the ability of interviewees to talk back. We show how working with non-anonymized interviewees – and even using excerpts from interviews on public radio – can be an option in qualitative research. However, non-anonymized interviews with elites should be considered only in some instances and may seriously hamper the validity of the material in other cases.
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There is a lack of consensus and uniformity among scholars concerning criteria and rules for assigning pseudonyms.
“Finally, there is a lack of uniformity and unanimous rules in assigning pseudonyms to the research participants.”
From Safeguarding Participants: Using Pseudonyms for Ensuring Confidentiality and Anonymity in Qualitative Research (2025) · cites this paper as Ellersgaard et al., 2021
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- Authors
- Ellersgaard, C. H., Ditlevsen, K., & Larsen, A. G.
- Affiliations
- Copenhagen Business School (DK)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Roskilde University (DK)
- Corresponding author
- Ellersgaard, Christoph Houman
- Venue
- International Journal of Social Research Methodology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2021-06-06
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 673-686
- ISSN
- 1364-5579 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-5300
- OpenAlex
- W3171364946
- Cited by
- 31
- References
- 59
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 7.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- International Journal of Social Research Methodology (publishedVersion)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- CBS Research Portal (Copenhagen Business School) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- RUCforsk (Roskilde University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- The Independent Research Fund Denmark
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Focus Groups and Qualitative Methods
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Data Analysis and Archiving
- Keywords
- anonymity, elite interviewing, professional elites, research ethics, research transparency
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