1JZGauQ

AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
away from any such connotations. It was my hope to reach across different
age groups and include people from both sexes with the people that I
interviewed. This proved more successful in my fieldwork in Italy/Slovenia
where seven of the informants where women aged from their 30s to 80s and
seven were men aged from their 40s to 80s. In the Czech Republic and
Austria the interviewees were, however, almost exclusively male and their
ages ranged between their 30s and 60s. This is mainly due to the fact that
the people I reached and gained information from here were often those
who had had a connection with the military sites along the border, something
few women came in contact with. As the Berlin case is not as extensive
as the other two studies I did not have the opportunity and time to
interview many people here. The interviews in my two study areas were not
meant as a full ethnographical study including large numbers of people but
rather as an additional source, often deeply connected with the materials
and sites that I visited.
How much researchers write about the interviewees tends to vary
between different studies depending on how much is required as well as
personal taste. I have used first names and have also provided information
on gender as well as approximate age and ethnicity partly to help the reader
obtain some background and for the simple fact that it actually reads better
and makes it easier to follow. Although knowing the person’s gender does
not necessarily add anything it also does not take anything away from the
study either. Ethnicity helps to understand what background the interviewee
has which is important as ethnicity is often featured as an important
factor in cultural identity in border areas such as those that I describe (for a
discussion on ethnicity and borders see Lundén 2004, McWilliams 2011).
The approximate age is added to understand the interviewees’ historical
background as life in the study areas changed throughout the Cold War
period. Exact age, however, has not been mentioned in order to help to keep
the anonymity of the people I have spoken to. This is also the reason why I
have given them different names in the thesis even though many of them
would have been happy for me to publish their actual names. This is an
important factor that should always be considered in studies where interview
material is used. Even though they may have given their consent to
publish their words they do not have any control of the way that the
researcher uses the interviews or in the conclusions he or she may draw
from them. That responsibility lies solely on the researcher and therefore it
is important to protect the anonymity of the interviewees. To respect the
people that we interview and to make sure we do not leave them open to
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