Topic: Food Allergies

Primary Research Question:
What is it like to live with a debilitating food allergy?

Secondary Research Questions:
Does it prevent you from doing any physical activities?
Does it effect how you interact with people?
Does it cause a sense of embarressment for you?
How does it affect how you eat on the go?
Is it difficult to shop for groceries?

People to Interview:
Liz
Friend of Liz's

This post is in collaboration with Liz Mason

1. What types of food allergies are there?
2. How healthy are elementary school lunches?
3. What is being done to prevent childhood obesity in this country?
4. How much more expensive is it to shop for organic foods?
5. How does one know if an organic item truly is organic?
6. Is it actually healthier to become a vegetarian or vegan?
7. What are the health benefits of various diets?
8. How healthy is the food served in college cafeterias?
9. What effect does preservatives and additives have on the body?
10. How is fast food advertising geared towards younger children?

    The article "What is Oral History" gave me a good idea of all of the aspects of oral history.  Oral history is basically learning about the past through spoken word.  It can range from informal conversations with family members about the past, to recorded interviews, and more.  One section that caught my attention talked about interviews.  "The best interviews have a measured, thinking-out-loud quality, as perceptive questions work and rework a particular topic, encouraging the narrator to remember details, seeking to clarify that which is muddled, making connections..., evoking assessments of what it all meant then and what it means now."(3)  It says that a good interviewer listens carefully to the narrator, gathering information and asking tough questions.
    Chapter 3 in Brown's Like it Was: A Complete Guide to Writing Oral History  the interview process is discussed in depth.  The main points I got from it are as follows:

1. Coming up with productive questions:
Make a list of things that interest you about the person, and then create questions based on them.

2. The author stresses focusing as much as possible on listening to the narrator.

“…Listening well is much more important than consulting a list of questions, especially if your narrator wants to talk.”

But having a list made him more confident and helped  him to get a clear idea of what information he needed out of the narrator.  When making a list of questions, leave them general so that you can personalize them when actually talking to them.  Don’t just read from the paper!

3. Analyzing your questions:

Are they likely to produce boring answers?

Are they leading questions?

Get more perspectives through asking how the subjects’ parents/children/neighbors felt

If you get boring answers, ask follow-up questions

4. Practice!

    Situating Narrative Inquiry by Clandinin goes into great detail about the methods of narrative inquiry.  The first aspect of narrative inquiry discussed was that “…narrative inquirers recognize that the researcher and the researched in a particular study are in relationship with each other and that both parties will learn and change in the encounter.” (9)  This means that a researcher cannot completely disconnect himself from what he is researching.  Each researcher brings their own knowledge and biases into a study.  They will inevitably influence the participants and the participants will be influenced by them in one way or another.  
    The second aspect of narrative inquiry discussed is the change from numbers to words as data.  According to the article numbers are "provide limited representations of what is studied..." (20)  Narrative inquiry instead aims to use words in their research in order to get across the complex emotions and experiences of human subjects.  
    The third aspect of narrative inquiry discussed is the movement from the general to the particular.  Until recently research in the social sciences was done in order to generalize about large groups of people.  "What distinguishes narrative inquirers is their understanding that understanding the complexity of the individual, local, and particular provides a surere basis for our relationships and interactions with other humans." (30)  In other words, narrative inquirers are concerned with specific individuals and subjective research.  It is through this type of research that we gain insight about a wide variety of people. 

    In Narrative Inquiry by Clandinin and Connelly a "three-dimensional narrative inquiry space" is discussed.  The three terms involved in this are “…personal and social (interaction); past, present, and future (continuity); combined with the notion of place (situation)." (50)  In other words, narrative inquiry is inevitably an interactive type of research.  Researchers must interact with other individuals in narrative inquiry.  It is not a solitary activity.  It is further stated in the article that “…as narrative inquirers we work within the space not only with our participants but also with ourselves.” (61)  Researchers bring their personal biases and personalities to any research that they do.   The second dimension mentioned earlier was the past, present, and future.  There are “four directions in any inquiry: inward and outward, backward and forward.” (50)  In any research one may implore occurrences from the past as well as speculate about the future.  At the same time one may look inside themselves or to the outside world for insight.  The final dimension of a narrative inquiry space is the notion of place.  Place has been a huge theme in this course and it proves to be equally as important to narrative inquirers.  The physical place where the research is conducted is very important to the outcome.