Internet fishing...

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20 Questions (Okay, maybe 30...)

Finally,

My supervisor warned me that ethics clearance to do interviews can take a while, and I should get it done
sooner than later. That was May. I wanted to get going on interviews around July/August, so I thought if I did it in June I'd be in fine shape.

I just got a email saying I am cleared. Three months later. You gotta love university administrations. Lesson learned.

So, now begins the process of interviews. I've been thinking about the process of gathering oral histories; how the interaction between me and the narrator/interviewee is so crucial to building a level of trust that will put everyone at ease and willing to talk and the questions I'll be asking which hopefully elicit some interesting and thoughtful responses.

Charles T. Morrissey wrote an article in 1971 titled On Oral History Interviewing, as a guide to neophyte oral historians. He begins his article by saying that there is no set method to doing interviews: that techniques and other aspects of oral history vary according to the person being interviewed. There are the variables of the interviewer, his experience and chemistry with the interviewee; where the interview is conducted; when the interviewee is questioned (late in the day? Is the person tired?); if you have a fixed amount of time, or can one let the interview go on until it ends of its own accord. According to Morrissey reducing an interview to a fixed set of techniques is akin to “reducing courtship to a formula”: while being versed in a range of techniques is important, experience and intuition should guide you as to what tools to use in order to engage your interviewee. As a beginner, Morrissey stresses that preparation and familiarity with the topic and the community that the interviewee is from can help overcome inexperience.

So, with all that in mind, I have prepared a list of questions I'd like some feed back on. I expect that I won't ask all of them to everyone, and probably will use them more as a framework to work from, ad-libbing when something someone is saying is interesting, or trying to direct the conversation in a certain direction. When a person does that, it usually indicates that they have something they really want to discuss, or thinks is more important than what you are asking; a good historian (Not that I am one, but I'm trying) follows their narrator, because often the prioritizing of subjects means that the subject a person wants to talk about first this is what the narrator remembers best, and also indicates what mattered most to people in thier daily lives.

Please, take a look and comment. What am I missing? Would you change the wording of some questions? Are their any events/places you thing I should mention specifically? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks and have a good evening.

Grant

SAMPLE LIST OF QUESTIONS:

-Name, age, gender, sexual orientation, occupation, relationship status.

- Where are you from?

-How long have you lived in Ottawa? What brought you to the city?

-When did you come out? Why then?

-If not, why are you still closeted?

-Generally speaking, how would you sum up Ottawa as a place to live? Do you like it?

-What do you think are the factors that contribute to your point of view?

-How would you describe it as a place for a GLBT person to live?

-How would you describe Ottawa’s GLBT community, if you were/are a part of it?

-Why were you not a part of it?

-What activities did you partake in (ex: political, social)?

-What and where was your first encounter with GLBT life in Ottawa?

-When you came out, how did straights and Ottawa as a whole relate to/treat queers? How has it changed?

-How were the police?

-What places did you frequent the most? Why? What was/is your favorite place? What was your least favorite?

-Where did you not go? Why?

- Do you think there were a lot of divisions in the community? Do you think they were expressed in terms of who went where?

Who used what spaces? When? Why?

-As you can best remember, what neighborhoods were considered ‘queer’ in Ottawa, and when?

- Could you talk to me about Hull, and how the spots in Hull related to Ottawa’s GLBT community?

- How did you experience Ottawa’s reaction to the GLBT community? Were you ever a victim of violence? Where and when? By whom?

-Did your professional life affect where you went or whom you associated with?

-In your opinion, how did bigger cities like Montreal and Toronto affect the gay community? How did you see/used the communities and spaces in other cities?

-how free did you feel to be open about your sexuality in these places?

-How did you find out about new GLBT spots/clubs ?

-What do you think of the current number of spaces in Ottawa, compared to the past?

-Is it better or worse? Why?

-In your opinion, what caused the decline in spaces?

-How did the activist community create/use spaces? Did those spaces play a role in your life?

-Can you discuss the phenomena of house parties in Ottawa? Did you go to them, why were they seemingly so popular?

-Did you life as a queer person result in any interaction with queers of the opposite gender or transsexual/transgendered people?

-What in your opinion, do you consider the 5 or ten most important events for the queer community that has happened locally?

-How about nationally?

-Do you think different classes (working class, poor, middle class) us space differently? Why? How? Did different classes interact together?

-How did couples/married people use spaces?

-How did bi folks use spaces?

-Was there a very sharp divide between French and English Queers? How was that expressed?

-Did you ever go cruising? Where? When? Did spots you use come and go?

-Ever use a tearoom or a bath house? Which one(s)? Any outside of Ottawa

-What do you think of the village initiative?

What 130 bucks gets you (into).

So the first week of school in upon me and I find myself the victim of excessive grad-school meet-and-greet; I am wildly hungover after hosting the welcome/welcome back history graduate student BBQ at my place. So, rather than pedal over to the archives, I decided I'd share with my readers (all three of you) my excitement over my new purchase: a HP printer.

And staying close to my bed and toilet is pretty appealing today, I must admit.

My old printer died after a surprisingly long life, considering how many times I swore at it, bashed it, and threw things at it when it would take up four pages printing all the web page backgrounds I told it NOT to do. Have a happy afterlife my friend, and frolic with plump toner cartridges , you deserved it.

The new printer I got at best buy, and am floored at what it can do: Color, 2-sided printing, fax photocopy and scanning. Did I mention wireless connection? Hell yeah! What really got me excited, in relation to my thesis and my extended goal is the scanner. It can do letter-sized high-resolution flatbed scans. Good enough for photos and documents. In fact, the posters in my new gallery to the left of this post is mostly the result of me figuring out how to use the scanner properly over an afternoon (2 sided printing is another matter; cue the baptism of the printer in profanities).

In terms of my work, it means I can easily put photos and paper ephemera into my database and hopefully into my thesis. In relation to my mandate to collect and preserve whatever materials I encounter and am asked to find a safe, secure home for, this is awesome. I can scan them, ensuring a long-term record of any fragile materials, and reproduce them for any number of archives, regardless of where they materials are physically kept.

This purchase is timely too: Last week, I was contacted by a person who said that they had 3 boxes of old newspapers, organization documents and photos that are their basement and are beginning to get moldy. The person wants the documents to be preserved and kept in Ottawa, and not sent to the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. My initial response was, "cool, I can scan all the materials I think are really important and give a disk of them to the archives!"

However, with deeper reflection problems present themselves:

- I can scan all this stuff now, but what if I get deluged with material(oh please oh please oh please deluge me)? How much scanning can a 130 dollar scanner do before it's fried?
-do any archives have the technology to use an external hard drive and make the material available for researchers?
-how much time could scanning and sorting add to my thesis time? Ideally I'd like to be done by next August, maybe December. Yet, if I am preserving materials as well as interpreting them for my thesis, can I make the time? Will I have a mountain of work to do after I publish, to keep my promise to myself and to the people whose memories I've been entrusted with? Don't get me wrong, I don't mind doing it, but I am wondering how much I've decided to take on, and if it's manageable in a year.
- Where can I send it, if not to the CLGA? To me, Toronto makes sense for several reasons: it's one of the first places people doing queer history go to when they start research; it has a permanent, funded home with staff and a stable core of volunteers to look after the collections. In Ottawa, I am not sure there is a place that would be both prominent enough for researchers to find materials, and funded and stable enough to preserve materials. Perhaps the Woman's Archive at U of O, or the city archives. Any suggestions?

Finally, I am left pondering how all this commitment will be reflected in my thesis review. Now don't get me wrong, I am not doing this blog/gallery/forum just for marks, but it would be nice if it was considered by my committee. Especially if it's a senario where they go "well, his theory is weak, --he doesn't even mention Foucault-- but look at all the work he's done for the community; let's pass him."

Hell, I'm not fussy: a pass is a pass. So long as you call me Master.