Bridget Duffy

Me and Luna at Plantation Park Heights, where I had my internship evaluation

Hello! My days have been filled with fieldwork for my research project since my last blog post. We have been working in communities, and with a ton of outreach. But with this outreach definitely comes a set of challenges. We cannot control what people say to us, who wants to talk to us, or the type of information we can get. We have struggled a lot with the ideal amount of survey information we want and the realistic amount that people are both willing and have the time to give. One of our big assignments of the week was going out to fishing spots in Baltimore and interviewing as many fishers as we could. The three biggest issues we faced during these interviews were a language barrier, a lack of interest, and the heat. There was a large percentage of people at the site we visited that spoke little to no English, so we weren’t able to conduct the interview without a translator, which we didn’t have at the time. There are people on the team that are able to translate back and forth, but not enough for all of our interviews to have that option. The lack of interest was probably the most frustrating. There were so many people who seemed so dedicated to fishing, so they were our ideal group, but we were a nuisance to them, so we were rejected. It was hard to keep going, and asking over and over again with no success until someone eventually said yes. But, we were able to keep each other positive and created a supportive atmosphere. The heat was the toughest to deal with because there wasn’t really much of a solution. We made sure to take plenty of breaks, stay in the shade as much as possible, and kept stopping for water breaks. But it was so hot that everyone was irritable and low on patience. This made the information we were able to get from the fishers brief and with few details. There was success of course, and we were able to get a good amount of interviews done because of our determination. Although I don’t think it would have been possible unless we stayed together while we did it. 

Sunset over Middle Branch Park, where we conducted interviews