Hey Mielle, its not letting me respond to your post either. I completely agree with you about how we have a responsibility to our community partners not to let them down. I feel this weekly with our calls with our community partners, where we have to have something prepared for our conversation or we feel like we’ve wasted Rosanna’s valuable time. We have been receiving good feedback for our pamphlets for foster parents and biological parents whose children have been taken into care, and its really rewarding knowing that we have the chance to make a difference in the Williams Lake community. So yes, I would really agree that this class differs from other classes that I have done before in the sense that there are more people who will be impacted if we don’t produce a worthwhile final project other than just ourselves.
amy shaw
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amy shaw
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amy shaw
I found Craig’s presentation on his work with military lawyers and his use of interviews to be extremely useful in learning what steps must be taken to ensure that you get the most out of an interview and built trust with your interviewee. Although I have had a completely different experience of life than my community partner in Williams Lake, Craig listed steps to ensure that I conduct a valuable and insightful interview. It is important to do background research, as this demonstrates commitment to their work. Furthermore, it is essential that we present ourselves as experts in the field, name dropping people in the industry. Finally, it is important to remain politically neutral in our interviews in order to get unbiased opinions from our interviewees.
One aspect of Craig’s talk I found particularly interesting was how he built up a strong rapport with his interviewee, really getting to know their personalities and their family lives. However, he struggled to juxtapose this with the military lawyer’s work, which he considered to be legitimizing killing of innocent civilians. He then had to reflect on if his interviews with these people was legitimizing their decisions, or what his work could be used for in the future. It is important for researchers to reflect on their choice of interviewee and who they choose not to interview, but also to understand the context of where you are researching and conducting your interview.
Craig’s talk really gave me the confidence to not be disheartened when I don’t receive a reply from a potential interviewee, and the advice he gave in his talk will really help in future research projects.
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