Interviews
Many people are interested in interviewing participants in the Occupy movement. This page is for resources for interviewers, for example: suggested interview guides, strategies for effective interviews, ideas for how to annotate and share completed interviews, hopefully at some point a link to a shared set of interview transcripts.
Semi Structured Interviews
A semi-structured interview is a technique in which the interviewer refers to a (usually written) set of guiding questions throughout the interview, to provide some structure and gather responses from interviewees around a particular set of issues, topics, or research questions. Unlike a survey, these questions are usually open ended, and the interviewer is free to pursue interesting threads of conversation even if they are not 'in the script.' One advantage of the semi-structured interview is that it permits the person being interviewed to tell his/her story.
Semi-structured interviews are often also accompanied by video and/or audio recording. @bostonjoan's current interview schedule (in no particular order):
- How did you hear about this? (Try to get people to be as specific as possible)
- What does the location of the occupation mean for this city (or town)?
- If you came in from another area or neighborhood, where would you occupy in your area and why?
- What does your participation aim to change?
- What does it mean to "occupy"?
- How does this occupation connect to OccupyWallStreet?
Additional ideas for a semi-structured interview protocol
We can have two types of interviews:
in-site interviews (short interviews during occupations, marches, rallies) and
off-site interviews (long interviews either during or after occupations that are a little bit more formal and occur outside the time and space of protest).
In-site interviews (to be extended, maybe including the @bostonjoan's current interview schedule?) * important: annotate somewhere the number of days of occupation when the interview occurr * (useful for cross-time comparison later on).
- (role of the person with regard to the occupation) are you here camping overnight / as a volunteer during the day / just passing by since your were curious etc. etc.)
- (demographic of the person; to be asked at the end of the short interview) age / jobs (ask the sector of employment; if the job is temporary; if the job includes health insurance...) etc.
Additional interview questions:
- I also would like to know more about why they became part of the movement and how the recession is affecting them, their families, their communities and perceptions of the future. Such surveys as Jeff noted above including the more formal UC Riverside survey can be used to help tailor more open ended questions. Would like to have some agreement on a common bank of questions as I may be in a position to interview Occupy Sydney and Melbourne participants next month. The intent here would be to share and pool results of interviews. Is there a need to get consent from interviewee to participate?
- For those who have been camping at Occupy sites: What is your housing situation outside of the encampment? Where were you living and eating before you came to occupy? I have spoken to a number of campers at Occupy Oakland from a range of backgrounds, some of whom have apartments, and others who are permanently homeless, either traveling the country and staying with family when posible, or living on the streets/in shelters in Oakland. The role of Occupy as a community safe space and caretaker is important, and this is yet another inroad to the interesting personal stories behind occupiers.
Shared Occupy Interview Transcripts
It would be really valuable to have a shared space where people could upload/download/translate/annotate interview transcripts.
Links to additional interview resources