Who's driving?

September 25, 2005

I find it so interesting to listen carefully to the tapes and to see where the interviews go. On Friday I transcribed my conversation with June. She was quite emotional in the interview and we even stopped. What it interesting is that I didn‘t lead her to that place. We were on another topic and she brought us back to her mother. She needed to tell me. It is amazing. An image that resonated with me from this interview is that she took a picture of a license plate to represent her identity. It had four numbers on it and she said that she is one of just a few in her state and school. Very interesting.

While I am transcribing I am also constantly wishing I had gone a little further, wishing I had asked just one more question to go a little deeper. Interestingly, the interview will often go back to those deeper questions later on. It is like a spiral—we revisit a similar theme or idea but go in deeper and talk about it more completely, round out the picture a little better.