The PhD confirmation, or upgrade stage, is a key requirement and rite of passage for most doctoral students. Yet despite its significance high-stakes nature, little attention has been paid to students’ experiences this stage the journey how it influences development their researcher identity. Through semi-structured interviews with students from range disciplines who had recently successfully c...

This article explores the particular challenges facing researchers interviewing political elites in a divided society. With evidence from interviews with former ministers in the Northern Ireland power-sharing government from 1999 to 2002, I demonstrate that researchers must consider a number of concerns relating to identity, bias and the polarised positions of politicians in a divided society. ...