This summer I aim to explore the coming-of-age experience and its subsequent impact on identity formation for lesbians who grew up during the 1950s and 60s. To understand these experiences, I am working with archival interview data conducted in the early 90s by Rochella Thorpe. Access to this pre-existing interview data has sped my research along tremendously- I did not have to spend any time prepping an interview guide, searching out interviewees, and conducting interviews like many of my fellow scholars. But, I have found that archival interview data comes with many of its own challenges. While many interviewees touched on topics I am interested in, Rochella Thorpe had a different research interest than mine. My lack of control over what questions and follow-ups were being asked during the interviews makes the analysis work much more difficult. There is a lot more reading between the lines and missed opportunities to expand upon topics that I am exploring. While the analysis work for these interviews has been tedious, I am grateful that I have been forced to spend so much extra attention on each interview, especially with the extra time I have as a result of having preexisting interview data.
I am looking forward to providing a contemporary analytical perspective on this interview data that was conducted over 30 years ago. Updates soon...