First of all, I wasn’t quite sure where to find people knowledgeable about my topic to ask questions, so I instead chose to ask a random person about their opinions. I figured I would be able to write down any answers rather than tape-record (and have since decided that, next time, I’m definitely going to tape record).
Interviewee name: Danielle Chan
Place: The Quad, by Smith
Date: 5/19/07
Gender: Female
Age: 21
Education: Currently a UW student (junior)
Ethnicity: Chinese
Place of Residence: Dorms, Haggett
Place of Birth: Seattle
Occupation: Student
Religion: unknown
Politics: Democrat
Note: Some of this is paraphrasing. Some of it is direct quoting, but most is paraphrasing as I can’t write fast enough or legibly enough to be completely accurate.
Q: What are your opinions on the legalization of prostitution?
A: I don’t think there is much point in making it illegal. Child prostitution, of course, should be illegal, but I don’t really see why people should be arrested for having sex, whether it’s paid sex or not.
Q: What do you think would be the benefits of having governmental controls on prostitution?
A: *pause* Um…Well, prostitution can be dangerous. If it’s legal, it might be safer for the prostitutes. It could reduce the control pimps have over prostitutes too. Also, sexual disease control—the spread of sexual diseases.
Q: How would you think the government would be able to control the spread of sexual diseases?
A: Well, perhaps by requiring health check-ups. At least the prostitute would know that they had a certain problem. Maybe the government could require that those with certain diseases like HIV tell their customers. Though that probably wouldn’t work so well. They probably wouldn’t be willing to stop working or to tell their customers. *Shrugs*
Q: Do you think that there would be some people who would not want to be under governmental control and would not follow the directions of the government?
A: Yeah. There are always people like that.
Q: Well, thanks for talking to me.
A: You’re welcome. Bye.
Q: Have a nice day.
Reflections: My subject did not really seem too inclined to talk, though she was nice enough to do the interview. I thought that I might be able to get a little more out of her, but she seemed to be getting a little tired of my questions, so I stopped. I suppose some of the problem was that she probably didn’t know too much about the topic. However, this interview has cemented the idea that I really need to interview people with a tape recorder and that I probably need to pick and choose the people I want to interview rather than randomly going up to someone.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Buruma Reaction
First of all, my reaction to the Buruma book. I had to read the chapters over again as I read the book at the beginning of the quarter and have now entirely forgotten the specifics of what was in which chapter. However, a new perusal of the book was interesting. For one, I’d really like to comment that Buruma chooses some awesome quotes from everything said during or after the trial. The quotes seem to put it all in context—here are these people who are still at a loss: how could such a thing happen in our country, to such a person, by such a person. They seem confused and somewhat disoriented and Mohammed’s illogical speech, stated calmly and with hardly any tribute to the pain of anyone hurt by his actions, certainly didn’t help matters. I thought that was a very interesting part of the book. I also found the foray into Mohammed’s background to try and explain some of his actions interesting in a different way. One comment I found particularly interesting (and yes, I have now used interesting three times in the last three sentences) was Buruma’s note about Mohammed’s reaction to 9/11: “Violence, he told friends, was not the solution” (p208). Somewhat ironic, no?
As a side note, I find a cactus memorandum as extremely amusing for some reason.... And I have absolutely no idea what questions I have for Phil Shekleton. Mainly because I don’t really know what his talk is going to be about. Well, I suppose I will find out tomorrow. ^_^
Hmmm…I feel like sleeping. I guess I will be posting the interview assignment in the morning…
As a side note, I find a cactus memorandum as extremely amusing for some reason.... And I have absolutely no idea what questions I have for Phil Shekleton. Mainly because I don’t really know what his talk is going to be about. Well, I suppose I will find out tomorrow. ^_^
Hmmm…I feel like sleeping. I guess I will be posting the interview assignment in the morning…
Monday, May 14, 2007
Questions and more Questions make the World go 'Round
Okay, so I have ... just a few questions for my research project:
Questions
1. How will we find interviewees? Legal sex workers will probably be hard enough to get interviews with (though, thanks to Clifford and Julie, we have at least one likely interview), but illegals will probably be practically impossible to get interviews with, let alone find. One possible way to get around this is to interview people who have had contact/know a lot about illegal sex workers. Also, perhaps anonymous questionnaires are a possibility, but then the question would be how we would get the questionnaires to them. Additionally, what kind of interview questions would best get at the root of our topic? What would be the best way to phrase said questions?
2. How can we incorporate technology into our study? Clifford mentioned that it seems as though many legal sex workers in the Red Light District were using their cell phones for messaging and such. Also, technology is a good way to spread information, so even if we were unable to use it in gathering the information for our study, we might want to set up a website or something of the sort to help fill any gaps in the information that sex workers have easy access to.
3. Could we include some element of observation in our study? It would be nice if we were able to do so, and thus get another perspective on the topic. Where would good places for observation be? What would we be looking for specifically? If we were looking at behavior patterns of prostitutes in, say, a health clinic, how would we identify a sex worker?
Questions
1. How will we find interviewees? Legal sex workers will probably be hard enough to get interviews with (though, thanks to Clifford and Julie, we have at least one likely interview), but illegals will probably be practically impossible to get interviews with, let alone find. One possible way to get around this is to interview people who have had contact/know a lot about illegal sex workers. Also, perhaps anonymous questionnaires are a possibility, but then the question would be how we would get the questionnaires to them. Additionally, what kind of interview questions would best get at the root of our topic? What would be the best way to phrase said questions?
2. How can we incorporate technology into our study? Clifford mentioned that it seems as though many legal sex workers in the Red Light District were using their cell phones for messaging and such. Also, technology is a good way to spread information, so even if we were unable to use it in gathering the information for our study, we might want to set up a website or something of the sort to help fill any gaps in the information that sex workers have easy access to.
3. Could we include some element of observation in our study? It would be nice if we were able to do so, and thus get another perspective on the topic. Where would good places for observation be? What would we be looking for specifically? If we were looking at behavior patterns of prostitutes in, say, a health clinic, how would we identify a sex worker?
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
E-research
What is e-research? Well, actually, I’ve been wondering about that. Considering that it is hard to verbalize a decent definition of research (as seen in class yesterday), tagging on the e doesn’t help matters. Personally, I think research is a scholarly endeavor in which new knowledge is created with the purpose of adding to the overall knowledge of the community on the subject. Mayhap that is not a very accurate description, but that is how I think of it. E-research is the use of information technology to support said research or the study of the use of information technology in research. Again, this is probably an erroneous view, but there it is.
As for the part that e-research might take in my project…I think that it would be hard to base my project off research. Health information needs for sex workers isn’t, in my view, something that can be easily research online or by digital means. Perhaps some research could be done by looking up personal commentary on the matter, though I doubt that many sex workers sit down and start a blog or the like about their information needs. If anyone has any better suggestions for the incorporation of e-research into this topic, I’d be quite grateful ^_^
As for the part that e-research might take in my project…I think that it would be hard to base my project off research. Health information needs for sex workers isn’t, in my view, something that can be easily research online or by digital means. Perhaps some research could be done by looking up personal commentary on the matter, though I doubt that many sex workers sit down and start a blog or the like about their information needs. If anyone has any better suggestions for the incorporation of e-research into this topic, I’d be quite grateful ^_^
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