Key-Informant Interview

The key-informant interview is a purposive in-depth interviewing technique in which the ethnographer works closely with a small number of especially knowledgeable or well-positioned community members rather than a representative sample. Key informants are people who, by experience, role, or position, can articulate cultural knowledge a typical member could not. The method centers on selecting such people well, building genuine rapport, eliciting their expertise through ethnographic questioning, and cross-checking what they say against other informants and observations to guard against bias.