Methodological challenges of semi-structured interviews in the study of religiosity in prison

This paper examines the methodological possibilities and limitations of using semi-structured interviewing to study religiosity in the prison context. It is argued that semi-structured interviews are justified for research tasks of reconstructing meanings, processes, and the temporal dynamics of religious experience. This method is suitable for exploration of prison religiosity as a processual and relational phenomenon, emerging at the intersection of individual biography, institutional conditions and power relations, because formal affiliation or the frequency of religious practices are insufficient indicators for capturing its meaning-oriented dimensions. Semi-structured interviews are methodologically appropriate when the research objective is to examine religiosity as a narrative, contextually situated and temporally dynamic experience, while maintaining a minimum level of analytical comparability. The paper also addresses methodological challenges of research in the prison as a “total institution”, including gatekeeping, institutional filtering of access to the field, constraints on privacy and the ethical and epistemological implications of power asymmetries in interviews. Finally, it is argued that the rigor of semi-structured interviewing does not derive from the technique itself, but from the transparency of the research process, the reflexivity of the researcher and the capacity to understand ethical conditions as both methodological and epistemological prerequisites for the production of sociologically relevant knowledge.