As i am interviewing, I am perhaps doing a bit too much discourse analysis - noting the language used. For example the fellow whose interview i am transcribing at the moment uses a lot of language, for the if-there-is-no-alumni-program scenario, around death and dying "it will die", "stagnation". I suspect this will probably be outside the scope of my research, but the thought is there now, can't unthink it, so let's see what happens next.
The more interviews I do, the more I realize the unconscious assumptions i had about what the fellows would tell me. I never expected the huge focus on actually wanting to network for advancing their research for helping rural women and other poor farmers. Silly me really, as that is one of the selection criteria. But I guess sitting here in Rome, that hadn't quite hit me.
Each interview that goes by, i have to concentrate more and more so i don't get distracted, asking the same questions again and again. And I have only done 7 interviews!! Imagine if it were 20 or 30! Jees, Louise! I also have to fight myself to really listen to the answers and not be influenced by the previous fellows' responses so i kind of feel like i know what they are going to say. I have to treat each interviewee as though she is the only one. My English language teaching training is useful here, doing oral interviews where half your mind is on the response and registering the content so you can build on it in a semi-natural conversation way, and half your mind is on your next question and how you can best phrase it to get the kind of information you want. In English teaching that was questions to stimulate certain fields of vocab, or certain grammar structures ("if you won the lottery,...?"), here it is trying to stimulate responses that answer my research questions. Without leading of course!
I shared my first assignment with all the fellows who volunteered for an interview. It seemed to me like a courtesy to involve them, and then also as i mentioned in an earlier post, i prefer to see them as fellow travelers, co-researchers. We are talking about amazing, clever women here. They know i am doing research and they know it is about an alumni thing, so they may as well know the whole lot. No? I don't feel like there is any benefit to hiding the research point.
Which maybe brings me to Chris Blackmore's suggestion that i mention the ethnographic tradition in much CoP research. Interesting point. While I can't exactly go and be a participant observer, I am inside the situtation (system) with the fellows and from that perspective it is a bit ethnographic.
Oh, another thing with interviews, is that my least comfortable mode is audio. I am very kinesthetic and visual (and olfactory!!) but listening for me is really tedious. I am fidgeting like mad while listening and talking. Wish i was there. Like the human contact.
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Arwen,
Here I am distracting myself once again from my TMA! (I hate logframes!)
this is a really interesting blog and resonates with the inquiries I have had the opportunity to first support and now rather scarily lead on! I like you, being an E, and probably having a bit of J in me, find it hard to step back and purely listen. I think it is inevitable that you come with a Little bit of your perspectives with you and to some extent the emergence of the unexpected is almost the exciting bit.
I also understand your questionin as to why you pick up on certain bits, and how they have the potential to extend the remit of the work. That is the power of emergence. I think the difficulty with this is in a situation where you are sponsored to do the work that
To some extent I try to deal with this by conducting interviews with two people present. (in my latest review of local informal networks which older people engage in, that help them stay independent, I asked the sponsor and they have provided me with a small project team of social workers and managers, who I am engaging in the interviews - this also supports the learning goal) The two people there also helps with those drifting moments!
What we then tend to look for, and this is something I learned through the initial work I was engaged in with Patrick Hoverstadt, patterns of common or similar statements. The more people who say them, the more likely that there is something more there. I would like to say a sort of 'shared truth'. Somehow it becomes harder to hide when a number of people say it or see it!
I know the dual interviews is probably impracticable for this piece of research, and I think that sending the transcripts to the interviewees is a way around this. We always share the key issues we have identified with them, and ask if these are accurate reflections or if they think we have missed anything.
Anyway, back to TMA2, I emailed Helen earlier and said can't wait to get to the last section on the 'critique'!
Take care
Love
Bridget