By Ilayda Yildirim
Monroe Community College
Hello!
My name is Ilayda! I am Turkish American, and I am going to Paris to do my research this June. I just graduated from MCC, where I got my degree in photography. I love watching people fall in love with their image. I started off just doing nature photos then documentation and now portraiture. I have a background in STEM as I was convinced that I would become a programmer or software engineer throughout high school but, now I can use my science and my art background to create work I am proud of. If you told me last year that I would be taking pictures of people, I’d laugh in your face. I always preferred empty shots but, this year I fell in love with people feeling good about themselves after receiving their image from me.
The topic of my research is the interaction between Parisians and Tourists. I want to analyze their relationship and how they interact with shared spaces like historic sites and markets. I plan to people watch to understand the mannerism differences. I really want to understand how Parisians feel about the tourism as I have an understanding that they don’t appreciate specific actions that some tourists do. So far, my research has shown that the government tries to make both parties happy by creating spaces specific to the locals and tourists. I noticed that many sources mentioned that Parisians have the most discomfort with non-European tourists. I’d like to get to the bottom of how they feel and what changes they would like to see in their city. I will also do the same with other tourists and share how they feel about the separate spaces. I also want to know what brought them to Paris and their rating of places to then compare it to how Parisians feel. I mention a rating system as I will be asking everyone I talk to, to rate an activity or experience. This is inspired by my research as a study analyzed Yelp reviews during peak tourist times and low tourist times to see how locals felt during that time and most of reviews felt that they were the most uncomfortable around tourists. However, this doesn’t prove that all Parisians hate tourists but that the ones that chose to write a negative review that day outweigh the good ones. I believe that people ever express their discomfort in reviews versus a good experience so I would like to get as close to the true perception of the French.
This is going to be the first time I research in another country, so I am very excited to see a new culture and really surround myself with everything. I am worried about missing a good opportunity to talk to someone due to my anxiety but this is going to be the best way to research so I am hoping that I can do my best and be confident when I speak and not embarrassed when I mess up a French word, which will definitely happen so its ok I got it.
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