Losing Ground: Identity and Land Loss in Coastal Louisiana

Appendix

136 APPendix General Data, the Interview Guide and Methodology Location in Narrative Where Respondents First Introduced Land Loss First Portion Second Portion Last Portion Not at All Grand Isle 10 3 5 2 St. Bernard 16 7 2 5 Terrebonne 13 8 2 0 Plaquemines 2 5 4 9 Lake Catherine 7 6 3 2 Delcambre 3 3 1 8 Totals 51 32 17 26 Table 1: Frequency of where respondents first brought up coastal land loss in their narratives. Coastal Land Loss as a Running Theme in Place Narrative 1st and 2nd 1st and 3rd 2nd and 3rd All 3 Parts Grand Isle 1 5 3 4 St. Bernard 1 2 3 12 Terrebonne 2 0 6 10 Plaquemines 0 0 4 3 Lake Catherine 1 0 3 6 Delcambre 0 0 3 1 Totals 5 7 22 36 Table 2: Frequency of respondents who discussed coastal land loss across all major portions of the interview. 137 Appendix inTerview Guide, ConSTruCTed By dr. pamela JenkinS in CollaBoraTion wiTh The reSearCh Team 1. Where did you grow up? Can you tell me about that? 2. What did your parents do for a living when you were young? Can you talk some about that? 3. Did you know your grandparents well? What were they like? What did they do? 4. Where did you go to school (elementary, high school)? What were those years like? 5. What was the first job you had? Talk about life since then. b. Are you married? Do you have children? Tell me about that. c. What do you like to do when you aren’t working? 6. What places are important to you? a. What do these places mean to you? Why are they important? 7. Tell me about the first hurricane you remember. a. Did you know the storm was coming? How did you prepare? b. Talk about what happened during the storm. c. Talk about what happened after the storm. What was recovery like? 8. What hurricane sticks out most in your mind? How old were you and where were you? Tell me about that. a. Preparation for you? Community? b. Talk about what happened during the storm. c. Talk about what happened after the storm. What was recovery like? (Is it different from the storm they remember most as an adult?) 9. How has this place changed over your life? a. Roads (development)? b. Oil industry? c. Fishing industry? d. Tourism (if applicable)? 138 Appendix 10. Are there any other ways (name of community/place) has changed physically ? Tell me about that. 11. What are your hopes and dreams for (name of community/place)? a. For yourself? b. For your family? 12. What do you think you have learned in your life that has stayed with you? SummaTion of General daTa Providing some specific details can illuminate the importance of land loss to residents and add to the data in the tables presented above. The interview, as it was constructed and disseminated, can be broken down into three parts. In 126 interviews, land loss was introduced and discussed by residents 51 times (40 percent) during the first part of their narrative when they were asked to talk about personal and family history (see Table 1 above). During the second portion, when residents discussed personally important place(s) and their experience with storms, land loss was brought up (for the first time) in 32 interviews (25 percent). The final third of the interview addresses changes to place and hopes for the future. Land loss was approached in this final portion by 17 (13 percent) of the respondents. During constructing the interview, we believed that if respondents did not mention land loss up to this point in the interview, then it would be somewhat unlikely that they would bring it up during this last portion which, asking about changes to place, implies more physical aspects of their communities. The low number, 17 out of 126, as compared with the first two portions, appears to be indicative of this assertion. Again, out of 126 interviews, only 26 respondents, or 21 percent, failed to raise the issue of land loss. Seventeen of these respondents came from Plaquemines Parish (9 respondents) and the community of Delcambre (8 respondents), which is located in southcentral/western Louisiana and at the time of the interviews, pre-Katrina/Rita, experienced significantly less land loss in comparison to southeastern Louisiana. As...