Refining semi-structured interview schedules as a foundation for criticality in grounded theory: Co-constructing migrants’ identities in India

Constructivist grounded theory (CGT) offers a flexible yet rigorous approach to qualitative inquiry, challenging conventional objectivist assumptions and promoting contextually situated inquiries. Emphasizing the co-construction of data between participants and researchers, CGT foregrounds marginalized perspectives and promotes critical engagement with power asymmetries. This paper illustrates how CGT’s commitments, including methodological self-consciousness, can guide iterative revision of a semi-structured interview schedule (SSIS) in an ethnographic CGT study of rural-to-urban migrants. The discussion develops into three interlinked themes: (1) bridging theoretical constructs with lived experience to enhance ecological validity and resist externally imposed categories; (2) recognizing participants’ subjectivity by refining SSIS in ways that protect and preserve heterogeneity of accounts; and (3) cultivating theoretical sensitivity toward saturation through memoing, reflexive monitoring, and category refinement. Ultimately, aligning SSIS reconstruction with CGT’s principles deepens its transformative potential and advances more equitable qualitative knowledge claims.