Episode 8: Santiago Fieldwork 2015

Para variar, this week has been a whirlwind, including a 6.4 earthquake at 4 am on Saturday morning! Yikes!

This week I really tried to pull out all the proverbial recruiting stops. I followed up with anyone who had ever said they could help me find people, and I had to get over this sensation of bugging people or being pushy. It's been hard! But it is definitely paying off: I am at 48/60!

A few highlights from this week:

Monday: headed up to the Universidad de Los Andes for an interview, then an interviewee's home in Vitacura, then another person's home in Vitacura-- I'm trying to limit myself to 3 'places' or 'things' per day, because otherwise a. I can't get there via public transit in a timely manner and b. sometimes things go over, so I end up having to take cabs. #fieldworkerproblems

The interviews in the V neighborhood have been great.

Tuesday: Also all over the place! Had lunch with a fellow sociolinguist, and we decided to collaborate on one of the side projects I had been thinking about, so that's super exciting! Yay for making research connections!

Wednesday: Two interviews in V in the morning, then headed down to the Universidad de Santiago de Chile to give a talk. I spoke about my research and my methodology to a small group of other PhD students & professors, and it was both really fun to practice talking about my project in Spanish, as well as to feel connected to the research going on here, as well. I also received good feedback on some of the decisions that I had made, so that was also reinforcing!

Thursday: Pivoted like a boss today. Started at one site to recruit, then got sent to 2 others, which I just went for. Got some V control studies done today, that was good, too! This afternoon I had a great interview that turned into a not so great experience when my participant took forEVER on two of the tasks. I had been told that she had to leave at a particular time when it was actually a little earlier, so frustrating all around. I would rather not repeat this particular experience.

Friday: More pivoting & general whirlwind-ness!

Saturday: Had a nice administrative catch-up day, including some Zumba, and then had an interview in the evening in V, which turned into dinner & drinks with the family, which was absolutely lovely. Perhaps my favorite interview to date!

Sunday: Was supposed to have more interviews with the family of a university student, but they got turned off by the time it takes :/.

Generally: I am feeling pretty well. Particular demographics are harder than others to get, specifically 26-41 yo males, and 42+ males. Assumedly they're working, imagine that. I'm willing to work on weekends, clearly, but it's just been tough to find them.

Lessons learned:

1. It's hard to be relying on other people to help me recruit. I'm trying to do everything I can (Facebook postings, visiting clubs & groups, etc.), but I'm also dependent on folks.

2. The V neighborhood is really hard for recording. If people don't invite me to their homes, my recording quality suffers, because we end up in the public library, and interviewees either speak too quietly, or there's too much ambient noise, essentially voiding my recordings for this particular project. Perhaps these interviews could be used for another type of project (i.e. syntactic, morphological, etc.), but not for this one. So this week, one of my tasks is to go through and be really honest about recording quality, and figure out my new "N." I anticipate it will be something like 65. I can do 65!

Totals:

Interviews & original perception test: 48/60

Perception control test: LP: 11/15, V: 3/15

Picture control test: 22/30

Thanks for reading!