Questions for my friends #0: intro

I've been thinking about this little project for a while, and having a blog platform feels like a good opportunity to start. It involves interviews with my friends around topics loosely related to political engagement or activism, and for that reason my aim is to talk to people with whom I feel that we've shared experiences of political action.

Here's what I send to them when I ask them to participate (and I'll include this at the start of each post):

The idea for this project is that I’m interviewing my friends and people I feel close to, who inspire me. There’s obviously a difference between this ‘on the record’ discussion, which will be published online for anyone to read, and the normal ‘off the record’ conversations we’d have as friends. I’m interested in the ways I might get to know you more through this slightly more ‘formal’ format and the choices you make in representing yourself. I’m also interested in oral history as a form, and in ways to preserve and archive intimacies and relationships in time and space.

Please come up with how you want to be called: name, initial, or pseudonym. I’ll be “Jiaqi Kang.”

The questions below are the 6 main questions I’ll ask you, but your answers will probably prompt some follow-up questions. Your answers can be as long or short as you want. The interview will be conducted orally, then transcribed using Loom and edited for length and clarity. You’ll get to take a final look at it before it goes up, and of course I can take it down anytime you like in the future (although it’s on my blog+newsletter which means that it will also exist in people’s email inboxes).

1. Please introduce yourself and your background, in any way you’d like.

2. How did you become politically engaged?

3. How did you and I meet?

4. What does the word ‘care’ mean for you?

5. What are some things you’re currently looking to learn, or learn about?

6. Is there anything else you’d like to say, or to ask me?

Thank you <3

A lot of desires and ideas and feelings and sources converged behind the impetus for this project, too many to even list. But I think paying attention to the interviews will make apparent what has been on my mind as well.

I guess what I could say here is I don't necessarily intend these to be educational per se, that I'm not coming into this trying to be extractive or productive or to create a historical source. I just think that people's experiences, and the way they talk about them, is always going to be endlessly interesting, and I also have always found the process of interviewing someone to be impactful on myself as well.

I can't figure out how to format pullquotes and perhaps I shouldn't try to, perhaps I should just let the text speak for itself - let me know what you think about this, maybe I could just bold certain sentences that really resonated with me in the transcripts? What would you prefer?