HistoryProjectInterview

DonGoss? recommends reading ''Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities & Social Sciences''

Materials

• [ ] The subject may give you some materials -- photos, documents -- so you should have something to put them in - an envelope, box, file folders etc.
• [ ] You will want to make notes on the materials, so a pad of Post-Its is very very handy.
• [ ] A pen and notepad
• [ ] Release form saying that the stories that the subject shares belong to them (in Canada, irrevocably) but the recording belongs to the Halifax Rainbow Encyclopedia
• [ ] Your audio or video recorder, tested, spare batteries, tripod, and a second one to be running at the same time if you are not 100% confident of its reliability.

Here is a list of questions to ask HistoryPeople when you're interviewing. As of May, 2004: severely under construction.

Short Form

• Sometimes you can find a biography from some other source, e.g. the section of a book or for an event
• Collect vital statistics for the person
  • 1 sentence for When and where born, interesting facts about parents if appropriate
  • 1 sentence about school (any schools you care to mention)
  • Optional: Early interests
• And, most important: document the relationships between this person, and existing queer events, people and places and things in Halifax.
• Add references if possible.
• A picture (with a caption saying when and where taken) adds immensely to a page. DanielMacKay or one of the other editors can get items scanned and promptly returned to the owner.
• Make sure the page is marked PersonCategory and if it needs further work, leave it marked with NeedsBioCategory

Early Life

• What pronouns do you use?
• What year and where were you born?
• Where did you grow up?
• Brothers and sisters
• Were you close to a larger family?
• What was high school like for queers?
• Occupations
  • What was your first job?
  • What careers have you had?
• When did you come out? Why? How?
  • What was that like?
  • Who did you hang around with when you were coming out?
  • What were your family relations like then? Now?
• Who were your gay and lesbian role models? Were there any gay and lesbian role models for you to look up to?
• What are the stories you often tell someone when you first meet them? Salacious stories are awesome!
• What are the stories your friends have asked you to retell?

Community

• When were you first active in the community in Halifax?
  • What was Halifax like then?
  • what was going on with gay liberation elsewhere? Do you feel that what was happening in other centres was having an impact here?
  • also NS society and politics and life in general.
• Were you ever gaybashed?
• What organizations were you involved with?
• Did you ever hear of -- (maybe go through HistoryProjectTodoList)
• What does Halifax mean to you? Is Halifax an accepting community, both from other gays and lesbians and from people in the wider community?
• Did you come from away (other parts of Canada, NS)? Was the social environment of Halifax different from where you came from, if so how was it different?
• For ones the subject was involved with:
  • How did you get involved? When?
  • What were your roles?
  • What stories do you have about the organization?
  • When and how did you stop working with it?
• Volunteer work

Then can take them into their key areas of interest.

In closing

• Other questions that may arise in conversation during the interviews.
• What materials do you have that would be good for the archivs, or that we could scan for graphics for the encyclopedia?

Drag Queen Stuff

Performance/Personae

• What is drag, are there more one type?
• Tell me about how you started your own act. How did you pick a name? Describe your drag character; what is her/his personality, her/his style, his/her image? What music does she/he perform do? Where does she perform and when?
• Has your drag character evolved over time? How?
• What is the difference between your personality and the personality of the drag performer (stage/off-stage personality)
• Do you see a difference between drag queen/drag king and female/male impersonator? If so what is it?
• How did one earn a reputation as a top drag performer? (what is that called?)

Drag community

• Is there a "drag community"? How do you define it? How do you feel about being part of it (if you do)?
• What kinds of performances do queens/kings do?
• Do you ever perform for money?
• Do you perform for fundraising? Why is this significant and important?
• Where do people perform? How do the different venues affect performance? How do queens/kings transcend boundaries if they are seen as an "NRG queen/king" or a "Reflections queen/king"
• How do queens/kings interact with each other (language, relationship with lesbians)?
• Is there a hierarchy of queens/kings? How does this work?
• Tell me about drag mothers/daughters or drag fathers/sons. Is this an apprenticeship culture?
• How do queens/kings see how other gays and lesbians regard them? What is the LGBT community like? How open is it? How prevalent is homophobia? Who do you see as activists/ who are they? What do they do? Do they work with feminists or African-NS activists?
• What is the role of the use of drugs and Alcohol within the club scene?
• Race; are there First Nations or black queens, other ethnic queens?
• Social status/Class (does it cross boundaries)
• When somebody wanted to retire or become inactive, how did they make that known?
• How do queens/kings see themselves being perceived in the wider (read straight) NS/HRM community?

History

• any changes in attitudes towards drag queens between then and now?
• Drag queens have often been seen as trailblazers in the quest for gay rights. Did you have the sense you were opening doors for others as a drag queen? What do you think was liberating about drag?
• What was the perception of drag beyond the gay community in your opinion? Did that perception impact your desire to do/keep doing drag?

After The Interview

Interviewers should consider and document:

1. Does this interview contain personal information such as a physical address, healthcare information, a phone number, a social security number, or anything else that potentially poses a future privacy risk?
2. Does this interview contain confidential or sensitive information (about anyone) that the Nunn Center should consider prior to making this interview available online? Examples include discussions of personal tragedies, medical conditions, sexual abuse, or violence. Consider this: if this interview were your story, is there anything in this recording that you would not want made searchable or available online?
3. Does this interview contain criminal allegations against another party?
4. Does this interview contain potentially slanderous or libelous language pertaining to another living person?
5. Does this interview reveal institutional, trade, or corporate secrets?
6. Does this interview use culturally insensitive language?

A “yes” answer to any of the above questions does not mean that we will automatically reject, restrict, or censor interview content. A “yes” answer will trigger a process of heightened examination of flagged content, responsible documentation, and a carefully considered institutional response. 1

Here's a form for capturing the interview meta-information

Transcribing / Indexing

• Find a program for listening that lets you jump back with one keystroke. In the 2020-ish times, the program "VLC" was good.
• Bring up this page which lists all the pages in the HRE, and you can quickly find-in-page for the topic name.

This page is part of the HistoryProject and is in the HowtoCategory

This page is on the HistoryProjectTodoList

• tighten up questions
• adjust questions to be focussed on recalling events and facts and telling stories?