Hey guys, I had posted a while ago about my cross country trip I'll be taking starting in may 2010. If you don't already know one of the reasons why I'm doing this trip is to make a unofficial qualitative documentary on pk community development, life styles of traceurs/ses, and to look at controversies in pk. I'll basically be hopping from one community to the next trying to track down and talk with as many traceurs as i can and observe them, talk story with them, and eventually interview some. To prepare for this trip, besides planning and contacting various communities across the nation I want to try doing a documentary on HI traceurs/ses and HIPK's development for practice. I want to streamline this process so that it will take me the shortest amount of time possible to get all the information I want/have enough time talk to "right" people.
I have a rough draft for what questions I want to tackle, operational definitions that will help guide me, but I need to develop a efficient procedure that I can utilize for data collection in other pk communities. I acknowledge that I might have to go about data collection differently for some communities, but I'd like a template that I can build off of for communities that require a unique approach to data collection. So I'd like to use HIPK as my guinea pig to see what works and what doesn't. I have a couple of steps I will go through to developing my data collection template.
First Step
I will be for the next jam or two practice taking field notes, sometimes hand written...others with video camera or even just taking pics. I won't use anyone's real name or image unless I get consent from you personally. So if you see my hanging back not saying much just scribbling in my note book try to just ignore me and do whatever you want.
Second Step
I want to interview a couple of people in-order to get details on training, who you are outside of PK, and commentary on some controversies in PK. Not sure if I just want to interview or actually shadow people for a day or two. I want to talk with a variety of people so I can compare lifestyles across age groups, sex, pk experience, ethnicity, and what ever else seems like it could be relevant.
Third Step
Track down and talk with the founding people of HIPK and some of you guys who were here in HIPK's very early stages.
Fourth Step
Edit it all together and post it up here and see what you guys think about it.
