Introspective interviewing for work activities: applying subjective digital ethnography in a nuclear industry case study

Subjective Evidence-Based Ethnography (SEBE) is a family of methods developed in digital ethnography for investigation in social science based on subjective audio–video recordings using first-person perspective. Recordings are used for self-confrontation (collect subjective experience, discussion of findings and final interpretation). Several studies applying SEBE methods mentioned “introspection” as a process occurring during self-confrontation and discussed it without providing evidence of its occurrence. This article aimed at clarifying introspection and its occurrence in SEBE. After a literature review addressing introspection, the process of introspection in SEBE was analyzed, depicted and illustrated by a case study. Conditions for introspection to occur in SEBE and the related mechanisms were proposed: it was found that indirect introspection could actually occur but not frequently and could go unnoticed without lessening the quality of the analysis. A refined analysis of introspection during or after the interviews was not identified as an added-value for the activity analysis.