You mentioned that you grew up in Warsaw. I don’t know a lot about what life was like growing up there.
Can you tell me more about that?
You mentioned using water to prepare for prayer as a Muslim. I’m interested in learning more about that.
Could you explain that in more detail?
See Bridges (2001) and Tinker and Armstrong (2008) in Chapter 3.
Thompson (2000) and Portelli (1997) offered a
perspective as oral historians, supporting the argument that there are some benefits to outsider research.
Portelli (1997) commented that outsider researchers tend to elicit more narrative and information, whereas insider researchers elicit explanations, theories and judgments.
Country of origin water memories - Childhood - Adulthood
Take a few minutes to think about your childhood / time as an adult in [location].
If direction is needed:
You might think about places where you lived or visited. Your family and friends. The activities that filled your weekdays and your weekends. Whatever was important to you.
Is there a memory of water that comes into your mind as you think about this time of your life? Please
Anderson & Jack (1991) argued “if the participant is to have the chance to tell her own story, the interviewer’s first question needs to be very open-ended”.
It is also important to send the participant the message that they will be given adequate time to reflect on and respond to questions (OHA 2009).
take your time and describe it.
Can you describe where you lived as a child?
- Rural, urban, village, city, house, apartment
What kind of work did your [parents, guardians, extended family] do?
Did you go to school and for how long?
What kind of work did you do in [insert country / city]?
Though I emphasized open-ended questions throughout the interview, I began with concrete personal context questions when it seemed that the participant was reticent and needed to be set at ease. This strategy was helpful for one participant whose level of English was at Canadian Benchmark 5, making it difficult to engage in complex conversation. Because these questions are relatively simple to answer, they helped to establish trust and rapport, and prepared the participant to answer more complex
questions later in the interview (Yow 2005).
For other participants it was possible to skip this question category and instead elicit these details when exploring the participant’s water narrative through the open-ended water memory question.
Water context:
- Childhood - Adulthood - Broader context
Can you describe where you got your drinking water / wash water from?
Can you tell me about any time you have spent at creeks, rivers, ponds, lakes, oceans or any other
This question category will serve as a reminder of possible areas to explore further through probing questions,
depending on the topics elicited through the open-ended water memory question.
How was water a part of your daily life?
How typical do you think [the experience you just described] was?
Were there issues in your household, village, region, city, country, community that affected your water experiences?
themes that arose from the interviews were water rituals, and parenting.
Water narratives When you think about the stories, either true or not, that you were told when you were growing up, did any of the stories have water in them? Can you tell me about the ones that included water?
Because of the richness of the participant’s personal memories and reflections about water, I decided not to use the responses to this question in this research.
Comparison Open-ended example:
“We’ve talked a lot about your experience of water in Kampala. How do you compare this experience with your experience of water in Canada since you moved here two years ago?”
Focused approach building up to a comparative question:
According to Yow (2005), a broad comparative question is useful and effective in the following situations: when the participant is invested in the success of the interview;
when the participant has likely already considered this question; and/or when the participant has reason to be particularly interested in this type of question, such as having an analytical personality. Broad comparative questions may not be appropriate or effective when the participant has not thought about the question before and
Following a series of questions about water memories from before moving to Canada, ask questions about parallel experiences with water in Canada.
Examples (in response to a participant who has spoken extensively about their memory of water scarcity as a child, with emphasis on their own and their parents’ emotional response):
Can you tell me about water availability in your home in Canada? How is water a part of your daily life in Canada? How has this water availability felt to you? How do your own children feel about water use at home?
Final broad comparative question after series of focused questions:
Thinking back to your experience of water as a child and your experience in Canada as an adult and a parent, how do you compare these two experiences?
is not accustomed to an analytical approach. In the latter case, the interviewer should ask a series of focused questions about the experiences to be compared, and end by asking the broad question.
Further We talked the last time we met about what an oral The purpose of oral history projects is to record people’s
participation option: public oral history element
history project is. Many people are interested in learning from others’ stories. For example, I have met with local water professionals and activists, and they have said they are interested to hear about the water experiences of immigrants. While I assure you that none of your stories will be shared without your permission, I would invite you to share some of your stories with a larger group of people. Are you interested in sharing some or all of the stories you have shared with me with a larger group of people?
There are many different ways that people share stories publicly these days. Some ideas might be to share your stories with other research participants, to use some of the recordings at a public event, to create a website that features some of the
recordings, or to create a book. How do these ideas sound to you? I would like to get your ideas about ways of sharing stories that would feel most desirable to you, but I can’t commit at this point to helping with any one particular approach, until I
experiences, so that they are not forgotten, and so that others can learn from them (OHA 2009). Oral history is both a process and a product, with the product being a preserved personal narrative (OHA 2009). It is important to me as a researcher to invite participants to share their stories publically, but only if they desire to, and only in the manner in which they are comfortable doing so.
have talked to other participants.