Unfortuneately it has been a really busy week so this post is slightly late in being posted. Tuesday was such an awesome research day for our group.
This morning Shirley and I met with Julie to discuss the progress of our project. I think things are going well for us. We definitely haven't wasted any time.
A couple of the most current setbacks: The MSLM exhibition is on the road currently yet they have cancelled their trip to Amsterdam, so there is no way for us to see the exhibition. Our plan was to go to Rotterdam on Tuesday but because of this setback, we have changed our plans regarding Rotterdam. Another setback is that pretty much the entire academic city is on vacation. I tried to get a hold of a professor from UvA that specializes in exactly what we are interested but I got an automatic response saying that she is out town till the end of the month. The final set back is that Atef Hamdi (the Mosque guy) is currently out of town. Pretty much all of the contacts that were available to us are temporarily unavailable and it will be up to us to get this project put together. Oh well, this just allows for additional creativeness!
Julie gave us some suggestions. She recommended trying to talk to men as well as women, which should be interesting.
At 10a, I headed into the crash course classroom to accompany Julie, Paul and Clifford on introducing ourselves to the group. It was nice to hear myself sum up my project with confidence. After that experience, I really am confident that our project is going well. I am not stressed out at all.
After the brief presentation, I hopped on my bike and headed the Amsterdam Historical Museum to check out a fashion exhibition. The museum was recommended by the tour guide at the Jewish Museum. I arrived at the museum and bumped into Shirley. The exhibit that was recommended to us was not exactly what we were expecting. It was mostly focused on the history of fashion, textiles and fashion houses in Amsterdam from the mid 1900s through 2000 (?). Shirley and I walked through it finding nothing pertaining to our research. Then I approached the cashier at the museum store to ask her if there was anything pertaining to our topic in the museum. She nicely pointed out a book about Muslim fashion because there had been an exhibit there about 6 months ago and said that there might be a small section on the top floor. Shirley and I took her suggestion and headed to the top. We found nothing more than a summary about the Turkish workers that had come to Amsterdam.
I wish that I had had time to explore the museum but because of our drive to get some field research done today, Shirley and I left the museum. Shirley told me that on her way to the museum she had walked past a Moroccan Restaurant, so we walked back to it together. Unfortuneately, it was closed, so we parted at this point. She went back towards the dorms/Oost and I walked back to my bike at the museum.
While I was walking back to the museum, I found Julia parking her bike because I think she was thinking about visiting the museum. I told her that I was going to go explore Amsterdam West, and she decided to join me. So together we rode our bikes to
the westside (LOL sorry). I brought a map with me but it wasn't a very good map. Irina had recommended to visit Mercatoplein and Bos Lem Lommerplein. Earlier in the morning, she had drawn for me on the map where they were but the map was aweful. It had not street names, so I decided to start asking people. It worked out well. People were really nice. First, Julia and I landed on kinkerstaart at the Market. It was pretty cool. We walked around, and I took lots of pictures!
Then from there, I was on a mission to find Mercatoplein so we left the market, and headed into the direction of it. On our way, I was looking into businesses to see if there were any Muslims women inside of them. I got lucky. I found a travel agency where one of the agents was wearing a hijab. I walked into the agency and asked her if I could interview her. She said that another day would be better for her, so I told her that I would be back next Tuesday.
Then we continued on our mission to Mercatoplein. While we were parking our bike a lady walked up to the bike racks so I double checked with her that we were at the right place, and we weren't. So she pointed in the direction that we wanted to go. Shortly after that, we arrived at a busy street that had a sign for mercatoplein on it. We parked out bikes and decided to walk around. I started going into shops and found I would have been better off if I had brought a voice recorder. In one of the shops that we walked to was a young girl worker. I approached her to ask her when I could find Muslim women to talk to. She said she was Muslim (but she wasn't wearing a hijab). I asked her if I could interview her on a future date and she told me that it was her last day working
there. I asked her if she could possibly answer some questions for me and she told me she was too busy. But she told me that I shouldn't have any problems because everyone is the neighborhood is Muslim. So we walked around and I continued to take pictures. Then, we got back on our bikes and decided to head home.
On our way home, we stumbled upon the other market that Irina had suggested. We walked around the market for sometime. Julia tried to get some food at one of the fastfood Turkish restaurants in the square but she recieved really poor service so we decided just to head back.
We made it back to the dorms, took a quick little break. Then Julia and I headed over to one of the fieldsites that Mirjam had recommended for her project. We explored the island (I don't know its name but is just north of us to the right) for a while but she didn't find what she wanted so we decided to get out of there.
Julia had never been to Amsterdam Oost, so I suggested that we go there because she was still hungry and the kebab place is amazing. We got some doners and started walking through the market. We bumped into Shirley who told me that the interview hadn't worked out but she was still exploring. Shortly after that I decided to branch off on my own and go looking for people to interview. Luckily, I bumped into Shirley again and we decided to head towards Zeeberg back to the Islamic shop and possibly stop by the Moroccan girl who had asked us to translate the questions into Dutch and tell her that we would be sending those out to her shortly.
The best part of the day happened during this time. We stopped by the Islamic shop. The owner remembered us and so we stayed here for about two hours talking to him and another male customer/friend, while customers came in and out. It was nice to have the owner there because it made the customers feel safer answering our questions. It was awesome! We learned a lot.
Inside the store, there were two sisters, one of which wore a headscarf and one that didn't. We briefly asked them some questions but they weren't really interested in stopping whatever they were doing to talk to us. The male customer/friend that was there definitely had a lot to say about the topic so we talked to him until new custo
mers came in. Transcriptions of what was said will be up asap. Also during this time, the owner gave us some contacts to other people that we could talk to, one of which is young man that had recently covereted to Islam. Oh yea, the men decided that it would be in our benefit if we tried on a hijab. We both did and took pictures of it. During this time, they both described to us how they find women that cover up themselves to be much more attractive than those that expose too much skin. Lots of interesting finds were found today. I definitely now understand that choosing to wear a hijab is a personal choice but no matter what the male friend had to say I think there are external factors that contribute to women's choice to wear it.
So it looks like the day was a success (again). Our group rocks!
This morning Shirley and I met with Julie to discuss the progress of our project. I think things are going well for us. We definitely haven't wasted any time.
A couple of the most current setbacks: The MSLM exhibition is on the road currently yet they have cancelled their trip to Amsterdam, so there is no way for us to see the exhibition. Our plan was to go to Rotterdam on Tuesday but because of this setback, we have changed our plans regarding Rotterdam. Another setback is that pretty much the entire academic city is on vacation. I tried to get a hold of a professor from UvA that specializes in exactly what we are interested but I got an automatic response saying that she is out town till the end of the month. The final set back is that Atef Hamdi (the Mosque guy) is currently out of town. Pretty much all of the contacts that were available to us are temporarily unavailable and it will be up to us to get this project put together. Oh well, this just allows for additional creativeness!
Julie gave us some suggestions. She recommended trying to talk to men as well as women, which should be interesting.
At 10a, I headed into the crash course classroom to accompany Julie, Paul and Clifford on introducing ourselves to the group. It was nice to hear myself sum up my project with confidence. After that experience, I really am confident that our project is going well. I am not stressed out at all.
After the brief presentation, I hopped on my bike and headed the Amsterdam Historical Museum to check out a fashion exhibition. The museum was recommended by the tour guide at the Jewish Museum. I arrived at the museum and bumped into Shirley. The exhibit that was recommended to us was not exactly what we were expecting. It was mostly focused on the history of fashion, textiles and fashion houses in Amsterdam from the mid 1900s through 2000 (?). Shirley and I walked through it finding nothing pertaining to our research. Then I approached the cashier at the museum store to ask her if there was anything pertaining to our topic in the museum. She nicely pointed out a book about Muslim fashion because there had been an exhibit there about 6 months ago and said that there might be a small section on the top floor. Shirley and I took her suggestion and headed to the top. We found nothing more than a summary about the Turkish workers that had come to Amsterdam.
I wish that I had had time to explore the museum but because of our drive to get some field research done today, Shirley and I left the museum. Shirley told me that on her way to the museum she had walked past a Moroccan Restaurant, so we walked back to it together. Unfortuneately, it was closed, so we parted at this point. She went back towards the dorms/Oost and I walked back to my bike at the museum.
While I was walking back to the museum, I found Julia parking her bike because I think she was thinking about visiting the museum. I told her that I was going to go explore Amsterdam West, and she decided to join me. So together we rode our bikes to
the westside (LOL sorry). I brought a map with me but it wasn't a very good map. Irina had recommended to visit Mercatoplein and Bos Lem Lommerplein. Earlier in the morning, she had drawn for me on the map where they were but the map was aweful. It had not street names, so I decided to start asking people. It worked out well. People were really nice. First, Julia and I landed on kinkerstaart at the Market. It was pretty cool. We walked around, and I took lots of pictures! Then from there, I was on a mission to find Mercatoplein so we left the market, and headed into the direction of it. On our way, I was looking into businesses to see if there were any Muslims women inside of them. I got lucky. I found a travel agency where one of the agents was wearing a hijab. I walked into the agency and asked her if I could interview her. She said that another day would be better for her, so I told her that I would be back next Tuesday.
Then we continued on our mission to Mercatoplein. While we were parking our bike a lady walked up to the bike racks so I double checked with her that we were at the right place, and we weren't. So she pointed in the direction that we wanted to go. Shortly after that, we arrived at a busy street that had a sign for mercatoplein on it. We parked out bikes and decided to walk around. I started going into shops and found I would have been better off if I had brought a voice recorder. In one of the shops that we walked to was a young girl worker. I approached her to ask her when I could find Muslim women to talk to. She said she was Muslim (but she wasn't wearing a hijab). I asked her if I could interview her on a future date and she told me that it was her last day working
there. I asked her if she could possibly answer some questions for me and she told me she was too busy. But she told me that I shouldn't have any problems because everyone is the neighborhood is Muslim. So we walked around and I continued to take pictures. Then, we got back on our bikes and decided to head home. On our way home, we stumbled upon the other market that Irina had suggested. We walked around the market for sometime. Julia tried to get some food at one of the fastfood Turkish restaurants in the square but she recieved really poor service so we decided just to head back.
We made it back to the dorms, took a quick little break. Then Julia and I headed over to one of the fieldsites that Mirjam had recommended for her project. We explored the island (I don't know its name but is just north of us to the right) for a while but she didn't find what she wanted so we decided to get out of there.
Julia had never been to Amsterdam Oost, so I suggested that we go there because she was still hungry and the kebab place is amazing. We got some doners and started walking through the market. We bumped into Shirley who told me that the interview hadn't worked out but she was still exploring. Shortly after that I decided to branch off on my own and go looking for people to interview. Luckily, I bumped into Shirley again and we decided to head towards Zeeberg back to the Islamic shop and possibly stop by the Moroccan girl who had asked us to translate the questions into Dutch and tell her that we would be sending those out to her shortly.
The best part of the day happened during this time. We stopped by the Islamic shop. The owner remembered us and so we stayed here for about two hours talking to him and another male customer/friend, while customers came in and out. It was nice to have the owner there because it made the customers feel safer answering our questions. It was awesome! We learned a lot.
Inside the store, there were two sisters, one of which wore a headscarf and one that didn't. We briefly asked them some questions but they weren't really interested in stopping whatever they were doing to talk to us. The male customer/friend that was there definitely had a lot to say about the topic so we talked to him until new custo
mers came in. Transcriptions of what was said will be up asap. Also during this time, the owner gave us some contacts to other people that we could talk to, one of which is young man that had recently covereted to Islam. Oh yea, the men decided that it would be in our benefit if we tried on a hijab. We both did and took pictures of it. During this time, they both described to us how they find women that cover up themselves to be much more attractive than those that expose too much skin. Lots of interesting finds were found today. I definitely now understand that choosing to wear a hijab is a personal choice but no matter what the male friend had to say I think there are external factors that contribute to women's choice to wear it. So it looks like the day was a success (again). Our group rocks!
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