You will conduct a semi-structured interview with a person who is either living, or lived in the Neighborhood that you are assigned to, or someone who is currently working in the neighborhood. Your interviewee can be anyone as long as they meet the criteria. This project should be considered as providing a personal element of the knowledge you gained through site visits. If you choose this project, pay close attention to the Tuck (2009) reading.
Semi-structured interviews have a less rigorous set of questions than structured interviews, allowing the interviewers to open up new ideas brought up by the interviewee, and change the planned questions based on the interviewer’s judgement. This does not mean the interviewers do not prepare interview questions before the interview. In fact, the interviewer in a semi-structured interview generally has a framework of themes to be explored.
Lets say you want to know about what your interviewees experience living in the Central District before the Seattle tech boom in the 80s and 90s. Perhaps, you planned questions like: How did the Central District change over time? What were the shops in the neighborhood? Who were your neighbors? How affordable was the rent or mortgage? How busy was the street? Then, your interviewee started to talk about his/her/their experiences in the late 60s being in neighborhood guards and Black power movement. If you think this is an important story to incorporate in your understanding of the Central District, you might want to shift the direction of your interview, and ask your interviewee more questions about that experience.
Before you set up an interview, you must let your interviewee know that the interview will be recorded, and the recorded data will be used as a class project. You cannot use this interview analysis for written publication or oral presentation outside this class. Also, you must explain that you will protect your interviewees identity. The interviewee has a choice between choosing a pseudonym or using their own names. You must set up a virtual interview with your interviewee. It is okay to conduct interviews outdoors, but your recording may have lower quality if done outdoors. Please do NOT conduct interviews indoors for an extended period of time since it has a high risk of transmitting covid-19.
Components of Interview Analysis:
Outline must include your semi-structured interview protocol. The protocol includes how you will set up an interview (outdoors or virtually), how you will inform your interviewee about protecting their identity, and recording. It should also have the main theme that you want to explore, and the list of questions that you wish to ask your interviewee.
The length of the interview analysis should be 5-6 pages, 12-point font, single-spaced, Times New Roman or Arial font. It can be longer than 6 pages, but 10 pages at maximum.
The list of final questions that you asked your interviewee in the order that they were answered, and the description of interview procedure (e.g. recruitment, consent, how the interview was conducted, and where, etc) (1page).
Introduction: how you recruited your interviewee, the context of the interview, and the main topic/question/thesis that you wanted to explore through the interview (1page).
Body: This section should be organized by the themes that emerged from the interview that helped you understand your topic/question/thesis of interest. Please use subheadings to indicate transitions. This section must use direct quotes from your interviewee as an evidence to support your argument. Please make at least three connections to the readings from the syllabus. These connections should be explicit and clearly cited and explained. Please do not just write a quote, and state this is an example of a community of learners. Tell us why in detail! This section is very similar to the Interpreting your Experiences section if your field report (3pages).
Conclusion: describe how this interview helped you deepen your understanding and knowledge about the particular neighborhood that you are assigned to (1page).
Reference page: APA style
