Urban Spaces

– My interviewee was a Swiss Pedagogy Master Student – Carmen, whom I met through a friend of a friend – early in my exchange. She agreed to meet me at the Polyterrasse Bar BQM, and answer a few questions about her Swiss heritage and her understanding of the Swiss culture.
– When we first met, she was energetic and looked relaxed. Prior to me starting, she reinforced what she already mentioned multiple times – that she isn’t exactly across all Swiss cultural norms and traditions, but will help me nonetheless.
– I prepared a standard set of questions I was seeking to ask her, but otherwise intended for the interview to be informal and unstructured. In doing so I was hoping to raise interesting insights through the prepared questions, and then to sway away from the structured interview, to hone down on the insights by asking follow-up questions
– The first few prepared questions were very standard to get Carmen to relax and open-up more.
– When we started, she responded in single words or very brief sentences. This had me slightly nervous as we were burning through the first 5 standard questions I prepared in less than 3 min. „Where were you born?“, Which country do you live? How long have you lived in Switzerland for? What do you study? Do you enjoy living in Switzerland?
– To slow her down and get her to talk in more detail, I prompted Carmen with the question „do you want to elaborate on that?“
– The real jackpot occurred when she mentioned about her exchange experience in California during High School. I used this experience of hers to help her highlight the cultural aspects unique to the Swiss, having lived in another, drastically different culture for that long. I was hence trying to understand which elements of her exchange, delivered the greatest culture shock.
– Many times when reflecting over her exchange experience she mentioned she could not quiet remember – but my strategy was paying off. She began reflecting in elaborate details of her most vivid memories of the large cars or „trucks“ as the Americans refer to them, religiousness and conservatism, overconsumption, patriotism and lack of cultural awareness.
At this point, the interview was very informal and I began to sense she was opening up and being less formal then at the beginning of the interview. The overall conversation lasted about 25 minutes. I told Carmen I had enough and we both parted our ways.

– I’ve met with Carmen at the Pollyterrasse Bar on Friday at 4pm after her class.
Which I would like to see at the end of the interview, which I would like to see at the end of the interview to intently and not to formulate a follow-up question in time.
– The setting was informal and social and attempted to remove a factor of artificiality from the interview.
Carmen was speaking, so I pulled out my phone and recorded everything instead ,
– My interview was initially structured, where I hoped. Although an interview with a friend, I found this method to be very appropriate.
– Although the premise of this activity was to interview a stranger, I found issues with this for multiple reasons. Firstly, it would be
resorted to a friend to submit herself for a half-hour discussion on her origins, which and I both enjoyed and did not find daunting (at least I hoped).

• Throughout the course, the focus is oriented towards understanding. In fact, Switzerland does not exist within a physical realm. Given that the country has acquired so many traditions, language and culture from its neighboring countries – one may question Switzerland does not have its own unique identity.
• Although the first two of my works have been largely focused on the Swiss society, and in particular among a younger generation of adults to gather their behavior in public places – the third work took a sharp contrast to focus on the Swiss identity at large – by other than the swiss themselves, on what they are who defines who they are.
What is it for? What does it mean to be a member of my generation, or nonetheless?
• My discussions with Carmen on an exchange semester in high school. This experience helps to understand the unique aspects of the Swiss culture.
• The Drastic Differences in Peoples Public Behavior, Sense of Public Duty, Neatness, Pompousness and Inherent Cultural Awareness, Including the Knowledge of Multiple Languages ​​highlighting yes, the Swiss Do in fact has a unique cultural identity and Switzerland as a nation has emerged beyond a sheet amalgamation of territories and language of its neighboring states, into its own unique culture.
• I asked Carmen if all Swiss felt this way about themselves? if say, I asked another Carmen from Geneva the same questions? Carmen would be French – she too would share the behavior and cultural norms of the German Carmen I interviewed – because the rural areas are as existent in the French part as they are in the German part.
• In other words, Switzerland has become more than the sum of its individual parts and managed to develop a unique culture deep within itself. The norms it developed in help it maintain a distinct and separate image in the world. La Suisse existe!

After walking around Rosenhof for 15 minutes and having heard several polite ‘no sorry’ ‘s to my interview requests my attention fell for an elderly woman walking slowly. She did not seem to be in a hurry which gave me the feeling that this could be a potential interview. She agreed on helping me.

She was 56-years old and moved from Germany to Zwitserland 30 years ago with her husband. She has lived in Zurich since then.

Words that in her opinion described Switzerland would be, beautiful, expensive, home.

She told me that me loves travelling and has been in most parts of Switzerland. Switzerland is full of beautiful landscapes. When visiting family in Germany once in a while, she clearly notices the difference in prices overall between Switzerland and other foreign countries. She associates Switzerland with home because she has lived there most of her life and found her own place within the community, something that was hard for her when she first moved to Zurich.

Tolerance and neutrality were words that she used to describe the Swiss identity. In her opinion Swiss people are highly tolerant in general and mostly neutral. Not only the individuals but also the country itself from an international political point of view.

She associates the Swiss culture with the different festivals in Switzerland. Throughout the whole year there are several weeks dedicated each to with their own theme. Such as a film festival of the spring festival in Zurich.

My interviewee told me that she and her husband take part in the carnival festival each year. In february Swiss people celebrate carnival by dressing up in customes and with different kinds of music. These customs represent Swiss to a certain extent as Switzerland in her opinion is also a country of freedom which these customs emphasize. On the other hand she described a weird festival in which people throw sausages, which she believed was hard to understand for non-swiss people.

Finally, in her opinion Swiss people are perceived by foreigners as boring and bureaucratic.

This interview has made her look at her own national identity and culture in a more  criticizing way. This helped her own understanding and her identity in the society.

The interview was the only assignment with direct interaction with people. In the past assignment we had taken pictures of people rather than go and have a talk with them. Finding someone to conduct my interview was quite hard and took me some time. Some people politely said no while others told me they were in a hurry.

While conducting the interview I aimed to make people feel comfortable by laughing with them and having conversations not related to the topic with them. This would enlarge the chance of getting reliable honest data. Furthermore I had to make the decision on how to take notes of the interview. I could either record the interview or write down quick notes that would help me later. I decided that writing notes on my phone would be the best option. I think that people knowing you are recording them might not make people feel comfortable and possibly even the change the potential answers on certain questions.