Second Set of Fieldnotes!

I had gone out on the 22nd of October around noontime in hopes of finally catching one of the main prayer times and finally being able to meet with members of the culture. I was lucky enough to arrive around a 1pm prayer time, and meet with the Assistant Imam at that! Below is my analysis of my second set of fieldnotes. Much like the last set I'll be answering a few questions about what I saw and the notes I took!

What surprised me?
This in general was an extremely surprising journey. My last set of fieldnotes had me thinking that the culture of the mosque was going to be very toned down and much like something I was used to, boy was I wrong! Upon actually meeting with members of the culture I was given a crash course as to the realities of these extremely dedicated few that I was lucky enough to observe and talk to. One of the most interesting surprises were a few of the ideas that the assistant Imam, Shabaz, had put forth to me. I had spoken to him briefly about having never been initiated into a religion myself, in and response he went off to detail how children are considered Muslim before entering puberty, regardless of what religion they followed in their brief lifetime. This came to be very interesting as apparently it meant that if children died before growing up (something which happens much too often in some war torn countries), they were considered to be Muslim. I had also been surprised when I asked about the role of the Imam in Islam. I was under the initial impression that the Imam acted much like a priest, as an intermediary between the individual and the creator. This turned out to not be the case according to Shabaz. It seems that Islam is a much more personal affair, he told me that there is only the creator and the individual, a much more individualistic view than the one shared by many Christian denominations which suggest the priest, or the pope, is a closer link to God and an adviser to the public of sorts. Shabaz told me that Muslims were actually not allowed to confess their sins in the way that one would to a priest.

What intrigued me?
 Both of the things that intrigued me especially came not from any cold facts, but from the perspectives which ended up being revealed through them. The first of the intriguing matters was the notion Shabaz put forth on children having a close relationship to the creator from nature of birth, which was the given explanation for why all children were considered Muslim. This greatly interested me as it seemed to corroborate a theory that I had found parallel in many other systems of belief, this idea that children have a much more powerful connection to a "source" of sorts. We see this represented in western popular culture in horror movies, where children are the ones to see spirits or have odd spiritual phenomena surrounding them. This can be seen in many esoteric and spiritual circles as well, it can be broadly defined as the idea that children have a special quality about them, or lack of quality, which allows them greater connection to the mysteries of the universe. We can see evidence of such a thing even without taking a more metaphysical view; we have common ideas and phrases involving seeing the world through a "child's eyes" or the "heart of a child". The fact that I found this view in Islam as well gave me a great swell of interest as it demonstrates that it is not only a western creation, and children are considered to have special qualities worldwide. The second bit of intrigue came from the separation of men and women in the mosque. It was a strict separation and it was expressly forbidden for men and women to see each other during prayer. Shabaz had told me that the only time it was acceptable was when both parties were first learning about how to pray and about Islam, but once they knew what they were doing they must be separated. Shabaz seemed to see it as more a matter of separate but equal than subordination to men. At first I didn't believe it to be equal, as the Imam was a male and the women were not allowed to see him or speak to him during prayer, but once I saw a bit more I began to change my mind. Shabaz had put forth the idea to me that the Imam held no special power or connection to the creator, so was it really a privilege to be able to pray alongside him? When I saw it in this perspective, it seemed much more equal. This idea seemed to hold even more ground as time progressed. During their prayer I noticed that regardless of age and demographic, the men lined up and prayed together, all performing the same ritual, and without lineup in regards to status. The children were in no special positions relating to the others, and the Imam was only in front in order to speak briefly into the microphone, but prayed in the same manner as all others. With this new take on the duty of the Imam, the separation of women and men seemed much more separate but equal to me, and this way of thought was extremely intriguing.

What disturbed me?
Last time I found myself not disturbed by much, but this time I was able to identify at least one thing that I found disturbing, and that was my own initial assumptions. I'm a stickler for outliers. I'm usually the kind of guy to point out that there's no point in generalizing people as you could meet the one outlier out of millions that follow the trend on the street someday and make the incorrect judgement. Regardless of how I usually thought, I found myself expecting exactly what the Assistant Imam ended up looking like. Before he came to greet me, I expected a man of Middle-Eastern descent with an accent and a long beard, and that's exactly what I got. It seems like there was no harm done since I was correct in the matter, but the way I see it, it's more of a shocker to remind myself that I really don't like thinking that way personally.

Too bad I had to end on the note of disturbing things, not a great way to end the analysis of fieldnotes for one of the most interesting things I've done in a long while. For that reason I decided to write this little conclusion saying how great of an experience it was. The opportunity to travel to another world of sorts that I would have never imagined resided within Rhode Island was definitely worth all the writing and research I had to do to get there. My journey is nowhere near finished though, so stay tuned!

The Digital Landscape!

Due to the incredible technological of humanity, culture is no longer only a physical place, it can also be a place made up of code, images, and bits of data. I'm talking of course about the digital landscape! My fieldworking is about Islam in Rhode Island, but more specifically the Masjid Al-Islam in North Smithfield, Rhode Island, as such I checked around online to find out a bit more about the digital footprint of the community I hope to learn more about. I chose a couple sites to look at, but mainly the wordpress website of the mosque itself. Taking a look at the graphics and photographs on the page can tell a lot right from the start. In the upper area of the site we can see a picture that I believe was taken looking at the dome and minaret of the mosque. In addition to this, important dates are laid out in an almost similar style to my own blog, albeit with more flare and pictures. Posts are assigned in order by the day they were made, with the most recent ones being at the top. At this time one of the first main posts is an advertisement for a "Hajj Workshop" with a picture of what I believe to be the grand mosque in mecca front and center. This post in particular draws my attention as it's obvious care was taken to make a custom graphic to advertise the event. On top of that, invoking the grand mosque front and center makes me think that this is likely an extremely important workshop. Taking a look at the text on the page it's extremely clear that this is a site for a local mosque. While the font seems to be a basic font such as Times New Roman or Comic Sans, there are many words taken from Islam, anglicized words, and graphics containing what I can assume to be Arabic font. The author of the website is the Imam of the mosque, who appears to run it himself. The site is a wordpress site, a free blog much like my own. It's a very basic site spruced up with a bit of Islam-related graphics, but the audience is obviously those who attend the mosque or who are looking to learn a bit more about it. At the top we have links to prayer schedules for each month, as well as links for newsletters, and a biography of the Imam of the mosque. The blog gives off a bit of a mystical feeling, or at least attempts to. The background is white but all the graphics lend towards the idea that this is religious or esoteric in nature. In the main graphic of the grand mosque we see what appear to be wisps of air and something which sparkles flaring out around the mosque itself. We also have a heavy use of symbolism with graphics to convey that each promoted event is one that is religious is nature. Despite all of this it is still very obvious that it's a project with limited resources, as it's a simple wordpress site in the end, and it appears the general settings weren't tampered with too much. After searching around a bit more, I found a little bit more about the culture, but not in a way I would have hoped. An quick search yielded that the community had asked for greater protection from police after their mosque was vandalized in the same weekend as an infamous attack on a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin. Both of these incidents occurred in August of 2012 and while time has passed, I will have to tread a bit more carefully as the community might still be on guard against suspicious outsiders such as myself. A lot about the culture can be learned right from the Imam's bio on the wordpress site. We can see where he received his training, as well as his personal history and what sort of initiatives he works on outside being an Imam and a Mufti. One thing that struck me in particular about the site, is that every mention of "Allah" is followed by the abbreviation (S.W.T) I wondered a bit about this and had to look elsewhere for explanation, but found quickly on wikipedia that it stands for "Subhanahu wa ta'ala" which can be translated roughly to "Glorified and Exalted be He". It seems that it's a form of respect and reverence for their god Allah to give praise to him whenever his name is spoken or even typed. It's pretty amazing how much I was able to discover from just taking a close look at the website of the mosque. With digital culture and the "space" of the mosque now covered, it'll be time for me to finally make contact with the community!

First Set of Fieldnotes

After a good few weeks of preparing I was finally able to get out and begin the exploration into my fieldsite and culture... sort of. The first time I went to begin my adventure I found the mosque to have absolutely no one around it at all! I had believed I went right before one of the daily prayer times, but maybe it was due to Columbus Day that no one was there? Regardless it turned out that the front door was open so I was able to do a bit of exploration and learn a great deal about the culture just from interacting with the environment! I'm going to go ahead and answer a couple of reflective questions about my first set of fieldnotes and my first foray into the culture.

What surprised me?
Well, right off the bat the first surprise was that there was nobody there! I wouldn't have expected Columbus Day to interfere with the daily prayer, but maybe it was just due to the Imam of the mosque being away on a pilgrimage for a bit. Nevertheless the answering machine indicated the daily prayer times, so I had assumed that they would still be held. Apart from the solitude I ended up with, I was surprised by a great multitude of things, mainly among them was the type of community that the mosque ended up being. In Rhode Island where I'm from, the catholic faith is in the majority. Even though I've never attended a service or been to a church around here myself, I'm well informed that many churches turn into almost community centers of commerce. I've heard from friends and family about many notices, bulletins, and advertisements; usually near the church entrances, that serve to promote local businesses and the like. I'm unsure of why I expected a mosque to be any different. It was likely just because of how Islam in my mind was a much more foreign and almost pure religion. I pictured places of worship unfettered by restaurant ads and listings for karate classes, but I found the exact opposite! In this way it seems that this mosque serves as a center of community as well, and the same type of community at that! Juxtaposed with this very modern and capitalistic concept, was the other surprising fact of gender segregated prayer rooms. I had known from prior research that Islam usually stresses that men and women should pray in separate areas, out of sight from one another. Despite this I had also learned that mosques in the United States were usually much more lax with many traditions in order to meld with the rest of American society. This was not the case in this mosque, there was a separate prayer area upstairs for women, and it was very likely that they were not allowed into the men's area for normal prayer, nor were men allowed into the women's area, but this is unconfirmed as of yet.

What intrigued me?
The two things above gave me a combined sense of surprise and intrigue, generally things that surprise me will also intrigue me, and visa versa. When trying to think of something that just intrigued me, my unwillingness to venture into certain areas would definitely take the cake. I should preface this by reminding readers that I don't believe in any sort of omnipotent God. Despite this fact I found myself thinking that it would be disrespectful to explore the upstairs, as that is a space for women. When I caught myself thinking this I was a bit stumped. I asked myself who I would be disrespecting... as I was completely alone. It made me realize that I placed a value of power and almost sentience on the sacredness of the building and tenants of Islam, despite not believing in them myself. My friends usually joke I'm a horrible atheist when I begin talking like this, and this experience made me wonder if there was truth to their joking!


What disturbed me?
So far I didn't find anything that has disturbed me, due to my unique upbringing I've seen my share of crazy things, and it will usually take a great deal to even phase me in the slightest. Though if one could substitute confusion for being disturbed, the fact that no one was there would fit the bill. As of my writing this I still don't understand why no one was around in the hour that I was there. The parking lot was only used for cars turning around to get on the other side of the road as the prayer time came and went. I spent a great deal of time wondering the reason behind this and was worried that I'd be out of luck. Luckily due to a keen eye and an analytical state brought on by near-starvation, I was able to learn a lot just from being alone in the space.

All in all my first set of fieldnotes were a very interesting foray into the culture, specifically the idea that I was able to explore the space without any sort of human interference or assistance, and see what I could glean from my own knowledge. I'm eagerly awaiting finally making contact with the people of the culture in my next set of fieldnotes, and will be updating within the next week with my results! 




 

A Brief Background

Before the process of research even begins, it's important for me to do a bit of self reflection in order to recognize the lenses through which I'll be seeing this new world. I'll be breaking this down into three categories, the first being general facts about me, the second being the life experiences and background which aided my formation, and the third being the type of language I use.

I'm Cameron Evans, a 19 year old man born in the early days of October, the 5th to be exact.Ethnically I'm descended completely from Europeans, mostly English and German, I identify as white but it doesn't mean much to me past the fact that family history lies in America and Europe. I was born in the Newton/Wellesley Hospital, within the same 20 mile radius as my father's side as family has been born dating back over 16 generations. For the first few years of my life I lived in Ashland, Massachusetts before moving to Barrington, Rhode Island with my mother where I've lived for most of my life.

My life experiences have been a bit out of the ordinary from many around me, which has left me as a bit of an outsider to my own culture. Contrary to many other Americans, and Rhode Islanders especially, I was never a part of any sort of faith or religion. It wasn't a matter of my parents being religious and me taking a backseat to it all, I was purposefully kept from being initiated into any sort of faith at a young age. My parents never married making me an illegitimate child of sorts. Living with my mother and aunt alone and having to travel back and forth between my father's house and her own taught me responsibility at an early age. With no other siblings and my mother very busy with work I mainly raised myself and learned how to take care of myself without anyone looking over my shoulder for the most part. By age 13 I was on my own even in buying and making my own food, though I was provided money. With no religious guidelines and no strict moral system set out by my parents, I was in a unique position to develop ideas completely my own. These ideas were usually not considered by many of my peers for being too "crazy" or not taking the social contract of authority into account, but they always seemed to work out in the end for me because of my persistence. While I'm a part of American Culture, I'm a bit of an outsider to it, I don't watch television or know anything about sports or the popular culture of the day. I spend more time watching things in the Japanese language than I do my own. I can recognize a lot of what subjectivities I hold due to this background. Due to my upbringing all of my role models had been fictional characters who were written to be nearly flawless, this gave me an idealistic lens of the world where I don't compromise on the things that I want, suffice to say it made me a very stubborn person. Yet at the same time the lack of an ingrained belief system from when I was young allowed all of my beliefs to be gained through my own personal whims rather than passed down from others, which makes me receptive to new ideas while being stubborn at the same time, an almost contradiction of sorts. Due to my separation from American mainstream culture I have never identified with any groups that I didn't myself start, and this has left me extremely individualistic, self-aware, and conscious of my own place in the universe. So in summation my subjectivites are a position of individualism in every aspect of my being. While writing this analysis of myself I recognized one new thing: I have a great interest in cultures and people that are pushed to the wayside by what the majority is doing, and I almost wonder if in that lies a primal desire to find those like myself. As much as I love being independent, I wonder if I'm looking for a place where I won't be an outcast for once. While Islam and I might not have much in common and likely won't satisfy this, what it's believers and I do share is a view of the world not accepted by the mainstream American culture.

The third and final position relates to the language I use when speaking and typing. Despite growing up in the northeastern United States, I slang most of my words. I regularly will intermix large and complicated words with "gonna" "woulda" "coulda" and "shoulda". I mainly talk and write in the first person and don't have any qualms about asking difficult questions or speaking to figures of perceived authority. As a child I used to be considered brazen and a troublemaker for correcting teachers and speaking to them as if they were on an equal level as me, as I always believed they were. My language in my fieldworking will definitely reflect this. It's likely that readers will notice that I'm not at all afraid to share my feelings, and will likely gain the same sort of depth in return. Another thing readers will notice is that I hate grouping. When someone speaks about "Muslims" the first thing I think of is "Individuals who share the trait of practicing Islam" rather than Islam as their collective defining feature. Due to this my writing will contain lot of different viewpoints and Islam will be analyzed through each person separately rather than combined rhetoric.