I think I need to get better at talking to strangers. As a social science
researcher, it would seem an appropriate skill. It just makes me feel
guilty. People have suggested that I go talk to people in the mall, just
walk up to them and tell them what I'm doing. This is probably a great
idea, but know that when I'm shopping, what I'd really like to do is find
what I need and get out, not hang out and talk to a stranger about something
that I may not care about at all.
I thought that Canada Day celebrations would be a good
place to maybe test out my stranger-approaching skills.
I thought maybe I'd head down to the fireworks and try
to chat with people while they waited--after all, they're
not exactly busy. There was one significant problem,
though: Fort McMurray has Canada Day fireworks on the
night before Canada Day. I suppose this makes sense in
that people can sleep in on July 1st, while they likely
can't on July 2nd, but to those of us who celebrate holidays
on the actual date of the holiday, it's very frustrating.
I love fireworks. Well, they scare me a little bit, but
they're pretty fun. Especially when there hasn't really
been anything fun happening.
I did manage to catch the local parade. I was a little
surprised that there weren't more ostentatious floats
from the big companies. If I made a billion dollars in
profit last year, I'd sure want to make myself a big
fancy parade float. But that doesn't seem to be the focus
here. The parade appeared mostly to be a marching advertisement
for local businesses. A few people handed out little
Canada flags, but the crowd appeared more excited about
Wednesday's All-You-Can-Eat-Ribs. Overall, the parade
was fairly pathetic for a community with so much money,
but the kids seemed to enjoy it--they did get free candy.
Organizations I've been approaching lately are not really
interested in participating in research. Their answers
tend either to the "I know too much about this,
I would be biased and your research would basically suck," or "I
don't know anything, I wouldn't be able to help you." I
try to explain that I'm looking for a variety of perspectives
on health and environment, experts, non-experts, anywhere
in between, but it doesn't work. I think this may just
be a convenient way of blowing me off but sounding nice
about it. I suppose I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm
starting to feel a bit desperate about actually getting
enough interviews conducted. I am supposed to be doing
research here, after all.
Once again, this week I am resolving that next week's
efforts will be more aggressive. My time here is starting
to run out, and there are quite a few people I would
still like to talk to. Maybe it will help if I loosen
the purse strings on the funding money that I got; I
have some money to pay people for interviews, so I guess
I might as well use it.
Those interviews that are getting done are going well.
I'm starting to see that no two people think the same
way about environment and health here. My results may
not make for an easy paper, but I think it will be interesting.
There are so many factors that inform the way that people
think about their bodies and their surroundings, and
so far, very little of that influence comes from the
opinions of experts. So far, it seems that residents
are concerned about things that they feel they experience,
or that their friends and family experience, rather than
what environmentalists or politicians or industry PR
guys tell them is happening. This seems to be consistent
with the library research that I did before leaving for
Fort McMurray--which is a relief. It's nice to feel like
I may have some small idea of what it is that's going
on here.
|