Episode 11: Santiago Fieldwork 2015

Mari
Dec 15, 2015
3 min read

In the immortal words of Obi Wan Kenobi, this was not the ending I was looking for.

(Thought that would be appropriate since Star Wars just had its world premier; you're welcome.)

Yesterday evening, after a whirlwind day (onda, I called a participant at work at 10:15 to see if he'd be willing to participate, and he said, 'actually, can you come now?', and I could, so I raced over there!), I finally COMPLETELY finished up!!! More on that later.

However, in more interesting news, this morning over my coffee I got a Facebook message from my friend María, with a news article from La Tercera, a Chilean newspaper, asking if the upcoming airport strike on the 17th and 18th would affect me. Well shoot fire, it would! Only in Chile.

I called American Airlines; they didn't have any official word, but according to the agent I spoke with, "someone knew something," and flights were almost all booked up. Though there were no seats on any flights on Wednesday, there was one for TONIGHT (Tuesday), and I had to decide then and there. I just went for it, thinking that if I didn't get on a flight out after the strike (Saturday/Sunday), I wouldn't make it to LA for a few days and then Chicago for the holidays-- I decided to just go for it and figure out the details later. They did charge me a change fee, since there was no official word, but again, I weighed it a little and just decided it was worth it to me. Raced to the market to do some last Christmas gift shopping, then raced back and packed, cleaned up, triple-checked all my data, and am currently waiting for my airport transfer to arrive. So that's it, folks, fieldwork coming to a close!

All told, I gathered data from 131 people here in Santiago.

As far as my original goal of 60 sociolinguistic interviews + complex perception text, I ended up with a total of 71 interviews and 62 complete complex perception tests. Woot!

I also met or exceeded my 'side projects' goals: I wanted 30 picture control tests, and I got all 30, and I also wanted 30 control perception tests, and got 31.

Until yesterday, I wasn't sure if I was going to make my goals! Socio fieldwork is tough, you have to rely on people, and as I've discussed with friends lately, my time here has not been my own. My schedule has been subject to potential participants' availability, so like yesterday morning, when they were free, I had to just do it!

I absolutely could not have made these goals without my participants, of course, and their generous gift of time and willingness to chat with me and be recorded. I am also thankful for friends and contacts who helped me find these participants, as well as keep me motivated & encouraged along the way!

I am thankful for my friend Julie's recent visit, we had a great time while she was here, and I got to do a bunch of touristy stuff that I hadn't had time to do before, some of which was entirely new to me, including a biking (!) wine tour in the Casablanca valley (about 2/3 of the way to Valparaíso) with La Bicicleta Verde. Just a lovely time to be reminded of how much I love Santiago & Chile, though I haven't had much time to see it's prettier parts over the past few months.