Nicholas Olson

Covington Point

Middle Branch Park. These are the two main locations that we have conducted our interviews at so far. We started in the late afternoon and finished once the sun fully set, and yet people were still showing up to fish.

In the fourth week of the Workforce and Development internship I began interviewing fishers in Baltimore as part of the Alternative Urban Food Provisioning Networks (AUFPN) project. The fisher interviews are a big part of our project, so it is important that we reach our quota of 50 interviews for this summer. Critical thinking is important when conducting interviews because you want it to feel natural for the participants. Considering it was our first few attempts at interviewing people it took me a bit of adjusting to the process. A lot of people go fishing to find solitude and don’t necessarily want to get interviewed, but their experiences are invaluable to us. Thus, a good elevator pitch was essential in convincing people to help us. Then, once you get past the elevator pitch you have to be quick on your feet when conducting the interview to keep their attention. I am making the interview sound difficult, but it really wasn't. It just took some warming up to.

At the end of the week we finished with 16 interviews total which was much more than we expected to get. There were certain people who only spoke Spanish which complicated things for the other interns and graduate students, but luckily Dr. Jose-Luis Izursa was able to talk to them. The language barrier is an obstacle that we need to overcome despite not being able to speak Spanish. These people are really important to our research because they represent the diversity of the community who share a common resource in Baltimore. I am excited for the interviews to come in the future and learn more about the needs of the fishing community in the city.