Episode 10.5: The Struggle is Real

Taking advantage of having completed 64/64 long interviews (!!!!!) to write this mid-week blog post-- again, a special request! :)

(If I'm being honest, I've actually done about 70 interviews, but only 64 of them will count for a variety of reasons... boom.)

Fieldwork can be tough! I'm including here a short list of things that I've found challenging, both life- and work-related, throughout my time here:

1. The first two weeks were really tough! I did way more networking and way less actual recording than I had anticipated, due mainly to Chilean independence day that basically shuts down the whole country lolz. That left me feeling uncertain about being able to meet my goals. However, the fruits of those first two weeks are still paying off, months later. I just needed to be patient with myself.

2. Getting stood up or rescheduled on by participants at the last minute is frustrating. I don't actually think there was anything that I could do about that; I'm thankful to have had the time/possibility to reschedule when people cancelled. Other than that, it was just being frustrated, but then rolling with it & moving on.

3. I will never again only do part of the interview, or 1 of the 3 tasks at a time. I've done that a total of 3 times, and only one of the three showed up to do the follow-up. I probably needed to be a little less desperate, and hold out for a time when the participants could complete the whole thing.

4. My particular tasks include: 45 minute sociolinguistic interview + story retelling (can take anywhere from 2-10 minutes), and a perception test (self-paced, so can take anywhere from 15 to 30ish minutes), then demographics (2 minutes at the end). People have been initially turned off by the amount of time it takes. Also, especially in the older demographic, I’ve had it take almost 2 hours because they took a long time on both the story and the perception task. Yeesh.

5. The differences between the 2 communities I've been working in have been pretty stark. Not just income, but willingness to participate, as well as flexibility. There's more wariness in V of strangers/outsiders. I have had to pretty much only use friend-of-a-friend approach in this neighborhood. Also, folks in this community tend to have jobs that take up much of their time, so it's hard to get them to want to help me out for up to 90 minutes.

6. Sociophonetics fieldwork in particular requires a high-quality recording. At the university I had access to the sound booth, and in LP I had one (mostly) sound-controlled site, but everywhere else, I was constantly worried about other people coming in, birds chirping, car alarms going off, dogs barking, sirens, etc. In some cases I had to lengthen the interview just to make sure I had enough usable material. Even within a site, sometimes I was shuffled/shuttled around among different spaces. Sometimes it was frustrating to have to pack up & re-set myself up multiple times a day.

7. Banks are only open from 9am -2pm (?!). There've been times I've needed to exchange bills (for small ones to pay participants), or pay my rent, etc., and have had to make special trips in order to find myself within that small window.

8. One of the toughest things has been the need for flexibility in terms of scheduling. At times, in the morning or the day before, I had no idea what the next day would hold. I'm happy that I was able to go with the flow, but I also look forward to returning to some semblance of routine :)

9. There are lines everywhere! Grocery shopping & other errands just take longer… waiting in line at grocery stores to weigh fruits/veggies, have to grab a number at pharmacies even when there's no one else actually in line, no one-stop-shopping place (except maybe Jumbo)... I am anticipating a serious trip to Costco when I get home :P

10. I’ve learned how many people can actually fit in a Zumba class—oh no, wait, here come 3 more! Personal space is not a thing in gym classes. Which means you really have to be able to follow when to slide left & when to grapevine right. This same principle also applies on public transportation. Particularly at rush hour.

Thanks for reading! More to come later this weekend, I'm off to continue finishing up & to get ready to welcome my friend Julie for a visit! :)