The Not-So-Awkward Interviews

How's it going, everyone? I've been surviving my Māori class (our first test was today; pretty easy) as well as kapa haka classes (more on those later) and various extracurricular explorations (let's be honest, I probably won't have time for a separate post on all those). 

Bad news first: my camera appears to have taken its last blurry shot and gone to the great electronics heap in the sky, so all the pictures posted from now on will be from my extremely professional cellphone camera. Or I'll just steal everyone else's photos. Yeah, I think I'll do that.

On the bright side, this is a text-based post (yay reading), since I didn't take any pictures while in the process of...

INTERVIEWING PEOPLE for a class project

For my Anthropology class ("Colonialism and its Legacies in Anthropological Perspective"), we have eight weekly essay assignments based on each week's reading and class discussion, and we have to complete three of them during the term. Pretty simple. Last week's topic was "Postcolonialism as Theory, Method, and Lived Experience," and we had a fascinating discussion on this book, which is basically a montage of experiences among people and cultures (e.g. the Third World) reacting to the official "end" of colonialism.

Anyhow, for last week's assignment we essentially had to address this question: "What does it mean to be a New Zealander?" A very broad question, that could focus on aspects of the country's colonial or Māori history and culture. We had the option of either finding relevant articles online or interviewing real Kiwis.

Since we were feeling a bit ambitious (i.e. uppity), my friend Grace and I decided to go interview people in a local park. We made a big ol' sign that read "Got a minute? Help two students with their project by answering one* short question! *(or more)" and then headed out to get our data.

Here's a gazebo in the park where we interviewed people.

The park also has a giant D. Dartmouth?

We started off by sitting under a tree (for shade) with our sign, and then relocated to a sunnier park bench to attract more customers. Almost right away, we were introduced to a wide range of people: rebellious teens with crazy hair, Japanese tourists, tan shirtless man, Canadian tourists, a guitarist/juggler, a guy with an ambiguous accent, and a Māori/Pākehā man who was probably a drug addict. I was taken aback not only by their friendliness in approaching us but also in their abrupt openness in discussing some pretty intriguing topics. Without too much prompting, these people brought up urban drug culture, the role of nature in New Zealand, multiculturalism in schools, numerous comparisons between countries, socioeconomic disparity, and the difficulty of managing multiple identities (especially when raising children). I could go on and on about the specifics, but I'll spare you the details.

Admittedly, I was initially worried that we, being awkwardly American university students, wouldn't know how to start a conversation with the people who approached us. We did have some trouble with the first one, in explaining what kinds of topics our interviewee could cover while answering the big question. After that, however, we brainstormed some specific prompts to help struggling interviewees (e.g. "What do they teach you about New Zealand in school?") and thereafter achieved much better results.

When beginning to write the paper, I had trouble identifying coherent themes that addressed the question of "being a New Zealander." Therefore, I ended up writing my paper on my impressions of New Zealand "multiculturalism", how it plays into contemporary New Zealand identity, and the difficulty of pinning it down. I'm very hesitant to write or talk about culture in general, but I do enjoy thinking about how different cultures interact, sometimes ignore each other entirely, and very occasionally hybridize. As for what I learned from this assignment...I at least have a lot of new perspectives to apply to my experiences over the next month and a half. It'll be a nice change from the rose-colored glasses that I often don.

On the whole, though, I am really happy that I pushed myself to talk with complete strangers, mostly thanks to Grace and her insistence on doing the interviews. There are a lot of cool stories out there that are waiting to be told.

In other news: Abby is pretending to be a Metapod right now because I buried her in pillows. Good night!

How she puts up with my antics, I'll never know.