Toda first at 10am I was going to speak to Michal and then to Melin. The first interview went amazing, I was so happy with it and really proud as I was able to speak to a really amazing photographer creative person which he creates projects that I admire. The process was really easy I introduced myself as said on the sheet, I separated the screen into two so first one I can see Michal but then the sheet was open on the other to read through questions and keep the structure going. He answered everything question with so much knowledge and I was able to learn from him. I asked questions about his projects and how he felt about them. Every question he answered very clearly and I think he understood all of them as I never had to repeat or reword them. Once we went through each question he wanted to follow my design account and said he would like to see the end result. It was a huge moment for me as I was able to speak to a creative that found my project really interesting and expanded my thoughts about home and belonging. Told me many stories that relates to home language that he experienced when he was doing this projects. It was very beneficial to me and I think it will help a lot in the future of this project. The next step was to write up his transcribes and annotate the answers.
The next interview was with Melin, this also went really well first of all it was great to speak to Turkish designer as we had couple things in common like the food we like and our experiences. I’m much younger than her much we did have similarities, the questions went really smoothly and she was able to explain her thoughts. We had some technical issues where our house wifi turned off and I quickly connected to personal hotspot to solve the problem. I apologised to her for the short delay and carried on with the interview, she gave me lots of things to think about and also I was having an issue with emailing Memet Ali it kept saying wrong email so I also mentioned that she corrected my mistake so I will also email him later on.
The next thing I need to do:
-Write up Melin’s interview
-Annotate the interviews – evaluation
-Research more papers related to migration.
-ISTD research on publications.
-Visual Research
INTERVIEW ANNOTATIONS
Today I listened both interviews and created a transcribe for all before this I researched how this process works as there’s different methods. I chose to listen the whole interview and write down the answers as I went along. I didn’t include the pauses or extra bits of information that is not needed. I included the main parts of the answers and like word repetition or mistakes I didn’t include so it’s refined but all answers are their words. I did this for both Melin and Michal and I realised how long this process is I had to stop every second to write down as sometimes they would talk too fast so it was a long process but it was really good to listen back to these as I was in the interview I was thinking about everything so I wasn’t able to really understand and evaluate the conversation. This process is really important for my project.
I colour coded each category such as belonging, home positive, home negative, memory, identity. These were the main themes that came up in the interviews, I also highlighted really impactful and interesting parts as maybe I can use them as quotes in the zine/publication.
I was speaking to Michal he suggested I should message Lias Kitchen, his friends project that focuses on importance of food he said I mentioned your project to her and she found it very interesting so she is willing to speak to you. I was really happy to have another person to speak too as he said she has also lived in Turkey before and knows the culture. I messaged her introducing myself she quickly responded and I organised a zoom call with her next friday.
I also emailed Memet Ali again and this time it did go through so I am waiting for a response from him to see if he will have this talk with me. It’s a very exciting process as Michal mentioning my project to someone allowed me to get to know a new creative person that can contribute a new things to my project. I’m really excited to speak to her and hopefully I will hear back from Memet Ali soon.
I had the zoom call with Lia today and it went really well, she was a lovely lady that had so many insightful stories and experiences. We spoke about home, food and I really did appreciate speaking to her as her memories were also related to home and she said she doesn’t have the same connection as her parents do as first generations but she does miss the memories she had there however it’s not the only home for her. I will be evaluating all interviews at the end but overall it was another different perspective that made me question a lot of things and my own thoughts about migration and home as well.
I also had the zoom interview with Memet Ali today and it was a really good experiences first of all he’s a celebrity a famous actor that i get to speak too as a student I think that’s really cool. In addition, we had a really nice chat I went through all of my questions he was a very calm and collected person, answered every question very in-depth and it was overall a great experience that i think i will always talk about to my friends.
EVALUATIONS.
Firstly, I believe all interviews went really amazing and it all felt so relaxed when we fully got into it as I was very nervous at the start. I structured the interviews so its short and simple questions then more complex and personal questions about home, food and language. Each question led to other one smootHly and I felt like they also enjoyed the interview. My findings were really interesting, exciting but also eye opening. It allowed me to reflect on my initial thoughts at the start of the project. This is mainly started with Michal Iwanowski, he has projects which himself focused on home and it was amazing to speak to him. This project was suppose to be on migrants missing home and using food and language to connect and i was going to use these interviews in the publication. It was simple and I was familiar with the notion. But once I spoke to Michal, his thoughts on home is different to my experience. He challenges the borders, territories, concepts created by people. He calls everywhere his home. He doesn’t miss home, his home is Cardiff and he explained it as I made it my home by everything in it choosing the colours where everything should go. For someone to miss “backhome” they need to consider that place as home or homeland. My experience and the starting point of this project was my own personal experience, these interviews were completely opposite. I thought migration meant always wanting to connect back as well I guess in my childhood thats how we was. He told me your experience was different because you were a child and your framework was your parents they chose right and wrong. I think this sentence will shape the project because I realised all of these designers, artists experiences are different because they don’t see home like my community did or people around me. The have expanded and went beyond the limits and none of them miss back home. So they were not the right people and I realised what am i trying to communicate it gurbet. It took me weeks to figure it out and I realised after all of these interviews. These people come from middle class backgrounds they have high professions and they don’t have deep rooted emotions like many migrants feel. They are part of this society so they don’t have to connect back to somewhere they don’t live anymore.
I wanted a chat with my aunty who is also interested in sociological topics, she suggested I should do a “Reflexivity is the process of becoming self-aware. Researchers make regular efforts to consider their own thoughts and actions in light of different contexts. … By being reflexive, case study researchers self-critique their frame of reference, cultural biases, and the ethical issues that emerge in field work”
This is a completely new method which I have never done before, however I realised i am part of this project because it started off as a project that was created from my experience and if the answers I got are not similar to my experience then it is where I need to solve the challenge or the problem,
Following the image below, as the researcher I expected all of the interviewees to give me similar answers as my experience was because that’s the migration life and beliefs I know. I assumed that they are all cooking and eating traditional foods, I assumed they all get excited or felt the force to go speak to a random person just because they are from the same country or speak to same language. I assumed they all visit the home land and bring foods and items back. I thought they follow the same culture as before. However I realised these thoughts and assumptions were all narrow and closed minded. I didn’t think about the interviewees socio-economic backgrounds, the reason they left the country. I realised there isn’t one migrant experience and this is all depends on factors such as culture, job, socio-economic factors and your connection with homeland. After all of these thoughts I got really stuck because I didn’t know what to do with all of this information. Should i show the differences between home concepts or shall I focus on the missing homeland concept and do more research into it.
I think the next thing I need to do is figure out who am I focusing on?
What am I trying to communicate?
Busra Yildiz 