Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 26, No. 1, Spring 2003 ( C  2003) After the Interview Carol A. B. Warren, 1 Tori Barnes-Brus, Heather Burgess, Lori Wiebold-Lippisch, with Jennifer Hackney, Geoffrey Harkness, Vickie Kennedy, Robert Dingwall, Paul C. Rosenblatt, Ann Ryen, and Roger Shuy This article is concerned with “after the interview,” a “strip” of time (Goffman 1974, p. 10) between the end of the formal interview and the culmination of leave- taking rituals. Although there is a considerable and growing literature on qualita- tive interviewing (Arksey and Knight 1999; Kvale 1996; Rubin and Rubin 1995; Weiss 1994), and some corridor talk about the meaning of “off the record” post- interview comments, this topic has received little attention in the published litera- ture (but see DeSantis 1980 and Wenger 2001). And we think it is an important one, since it illuminates the interviewee’s interpretation of the interviewer and interview process, and highlights aspects of the meaning of the topic, and of the interviewer, to the respondent (which is, after all, the endpoint of the qualitative interviewing method). Further, the question of what constitutes after the interview throws into relief the question of what is an interview. KEY WORDS: interview; frame analysis; forms of talk; gender. Our data are “after the interview” comments from respondents in several in- terview studies, all of which used tape recorders (in one case a video recorder), and all of which involved a dyadic structure with one respondent and one interviewer at a time. We also used commentaries by sociologist Robert Dingwall (1997)— who also suggested the central Goffmanic framework for our analysis—family social scientist Paul C. Rosenblatt (2001), sociologist Ann Ryen (2001), and lin- guist Roger Shuy (2001) on their experiences with “after the interview.” Tori’s (Barnes-Brus 2001) interviews were part of an ethnographic study of a women’s quilting group. Lori (Wiebold-Lippisch 2000) interviewed women providing care- giving for their sick or elderly parents, and observed their caregiver support group. 1 Correspondence should be directed to Carol A. B. Warren, Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045; e-mail: cabw@ku.edu. 93 C  2003 Human Sciences Press, Inc.