Since I can't show you my actual study participants, I can show you this glamorous office where I conducted almost all of my research interviews!
I am proud to be a “qualitative researcher.” Yes, you are not the first to meet this phrase with raised eyebrows and a cocked head. All that means is that rather than analyzing numbers (so-called “quantitative research”), I analyze words.
Qualitative research is ideal for gathering information-rich data. This data can then be used to write surveys, design social or health services, and more. I conceptualize qualitative research as swimming in a pool that is only 2 feet in diameter but very, very deep, whereas quantitative research could involve a vast ocean of data — but one that is only a foot deep!
Suffice to say it takes a lot of interviews to get such “information-rich data.” I have done a total of 26. This summer I did a relatively large number of interviews in a relatively short period of time — 15 interviews conducted about five weeks, with interviews ranging from 30 minutes to nearly 2 hours. At the beginning and the end of almost every interview I was left pondering how startlingly surreal it is for me to conduct research interviews of this type.
As I have discussed in other posts, my research entails interviews with transgender women — that is, people who were born male but now identify as female. Here’s the surreal part: imagine that all of a sudden someone you have never met, with a transformative personal experience vastly different from your own (I’m not transgender), shows up to tell you extremely personal details about their life, health and so on.
This person could be from any walk of life — they might not have finished middle school or they might have a Ph.D. They might have been living as a woman for three months or for 25 years. They might be extremely proud to identify as transgender or they may be “stealth,” meaning that very few people know they have ever had a gender identity different than their current one. After the study participant shares this highly personal information with me, I don’t prescribe them a medication, or suggest a dietary change, or order an X-ray. Instead I pay them $30 and they go back out into the world. And we are both at least a little bit changed — me for having heard their story, and them for having told it.
During the course of conducting the interviews, many interviews made me sad, upset or angry. I heard countless stories of hardship, including stories of sex work, prison, childhood abuse, intimate partner violence and suicide. However, there are also many stories of healing, personal transformation, evolving self-love and truly caring partners, physicians, nurses and therapists.
Research is hard and, frankly, can be frustrating in countless ways. Starting a research project involves countless bureaucratic hurdles, forms filed and grants sought. But these interviews have been, for me, the highlight of the research process: the chance to try to truly understand someone’s story. The chance to have the gentle but powerful role of witness. In a cliche sense … it is what makes all the hassle worth it!
And now I am faced with my next task: turning all of these interviews into something that will serve the population I have spent so many hours interviewing.