TY - JOUR
T1 - Urgent issues and prospects at the intersection of culture, memory, and witness interviews
T2 - Exploring the challenges for research and practice
AU - Hope, Lorraine
AU - Anakwah, Nkansah
AU - Antfolk, Jan
AU - Brubacher, Sonja P.
AU - Flowe, Heather
AU - Gabbert, Fiona
AU - Giebels, Ellen
AU - Kanja, Wangu
AU - Korkman, Julia
AU - Kyo, Akira
AU - Naka, Makiko
AU - Otgaar, Henry
AU - Powell, Martine B.
AU - Selim, Hedayat
AU - Skrifvars, Jenny
AU - Sorkpah, Isaac Kwasi
AU - Sowatey, Emmanuel A.
AU - Steele, Linda C.
AU - Stevens, Laura
AU - Sumampouw, Nathanael E. J.
AU - Taylor, Paul J.
AU - Trevino-Rangel, Javier
AU - van Veldhuizen, Tanja
AU - Wang, Jianqin
AU - Wells, Simon
N1 - Funding information: LH and PT’s work in writing this article was funded by the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (ESRC Award: ES/N009614/1), which is funded in part by the UK Home Office and security and intelligence agencies (see the public grant decision here: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FV00 2775%2F1). The funding arrangements required this paper to be reviewed to ensure that its contents did not violate the Official Secrets Act nor disclose sensitive, classified, and/or personal information. Commentary 9: The writing of this article was also supported by funding awarded to Henry Otgaar (C1 Grant KU Leuven and FWO Research Project).
PY - 2022/2/1
Y1 - 2022/2/1
N2 - The pursuit of justice increasingly relies on productive interactions between witnesses and investigators from diverse cultural backgrounds during investigative interviews. To date, the role of cultural context has largely been ignored by researchers in the field of investigative interviewing, despite repeated requests from practitioners and policymakers for evidence‐based guidance for the conduct of interviews with people from different cultures. Through examining cultural differences in human memory and communication and considering specific contextual challenges for investigative interviewing through the lens of culture, this review and associated commentaries highlight the scope for considering culture and human diversity in research on, and the practice of, investigative interviewing with victims, witnesses, and other sources. Across 11 commentaries, contributors highlight the importance of considering the role of culture in different investigative interviewing practices (e.g., rapport building, questioning techniques) and contexts (e.g., gender‐based violence, asylum seeking, child abuse), address common areas of cultural mismatch between interviewer–interviewee expectations, and identify critical future routes for research. We call for an increased focus in the investigative interviewing literature on the nature and needs of our global community and encourage constructive and collaborative discussion between researchers and practitioners from around the world to better identify specific challenges and work together towards evidence‐based solutions.
AB - The pursuit of justice increasingly relies on productive interactions between witnesses and investigators from diverse cultural backgrounds during investigative interviews. To date, the role of cultural context has largely been ignored by researchers in the field of investigative interviewing, despite repeated requests from practitioners and policymakers for evidence‐based guidance for the conduct of interviews with people from different cultures. Through examining cultural differences in human memory and communication and considering specific contextual challenges for investigative interviewing through the lens of culture, this review and associated commentaries highlight the scope for considering culture and human diversity in research on, and the practice of, investigative interviewing with victims, witnesses, and other sources. Across 11 commentaries, contributors highlight the importance of considering the role of culture in different investigative interviewing practices (e.g., rapport building, questioning techniques) and contexts (e.g., gender‐based violence, asylum seeking, child abuse), address common areas of cultural mismatch between interviewer–interviewee expectations, and identify critical future routes for research. We call for an increased focus in the investigative interviewing literature on the nature and needs of our global community and encourage constructive and collaborative discussion between researchers and practitioners from around the world to better identify specific challenges and work together towards evidence‐based solutions.
KW - child interviewing
KW - cross‐cultural communication
KW - culture
KW - eyewitness memory
KW - investigative interviewing
KW - memory
KW - rapport
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85121554297&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/lcrp.12202
DO - 10.1111/lcrp.12202
M3 - Review article
SN - 1355-3259
VL - 27
SP - 1
EP - 31
JO - Legal and Criminological Psychology
JF - Legal and Criminological Psychology
IS - 1
ER -