Emotions and transcripts after a while: An interview with a ‘parachute kid’

Abstract

For the last five months, I was by myself in this house. I was pretty alone and scared for the first half month … I usually go out … with my friends. And then I just come back and then go right in my room. I was by myself, and I was in the bedroom, and I was sleeping … and they [burglars] came in the basement and they took the computer, and they were gone. Luckily, they didn't, like, harm me or anything. Well, the first year I don't really miss my parents because I have a lot of freedom, right? So, I quite enjoy it. Because when I was in Hong Kong my parents were really strict …. The last five months I spent by myself [and] I quite miss them now. All of my friends is like: 'Oh! You're so lucky! You have a big house and you are by yourself.' But I also think, it's not that lucky when you, like, when it actually happens to you … If your parents and your family are away from you, it's really not that great. Really lonely and sad. If you want to talk to someone, you can't.No one [to] support you or anything. I never talk to anyone about, like, really sad stuff. Yeah, I talk to my friends, but I never talk about sad stuff. Last Friday I just got broken in, right? The house. So, actually, it's not a big thing, but I am thinking it's unfair. It's happened to me twice already. And I'm really sad and I think of all the sad stuff, like, [that has] happened since I come to Canada and stuff. Like, I was really sad last Friday. I was really, really sad … And then I called my friends to talk to them … But I can't! [Laughs] | INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH CONTEXTAbove is a short extract from a much longer transcript of an interview with a teenage immigrant. The interview was conducted in 1999 as part of a larger research project (Waters, 2000), carried out by me, a lone researcher in her early 20s studying for a two-year Master's degree. This interview was with Paul [pseudonym], aged 15, conducted in his house in West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I interviewed 15 immigrants under the age of 18, in total, about their experiences of living alone (or with a sibling) without direct, daily adult supervision. The interviews were part of a larger project on transnational families living between Hong Kong/Taiwan and Vancouver. During the 1990s and

Neighbourhood regeneration through a longitudinal lens: Exploring crisis temporalities in Bristol, UK

“…Recently there has been a growing interest in reanalysing data from earlier qualitative studies, which has illuminated how diverse temporalities are implicated in research because of the changes that occur in researcher positionality. Attending to the role of emotions when revisiting old transcripts, Waters (2023) outlines how a researcher's present‐day emotions can enable them to perceive things differently compared to when they first conducted and ‘concluded’ their research. This does not invalidate previous findings but underscores the influence that the researcher's emotional response and stage of life has on the analytical process.…”