Updated Research

We have done the following/talked to the following/ Pictures of the following/Geo blogged of the following/Research in the following places:

People/ Organizations:

1. Talked to Mirjam :Academic adviser.
2. Talked to Harun :Muslim Student organization.
3. Talked to Public Relations at local hospital.
4. Talked/ went to to GP's offices (6): ( collected surveys).
5. Talked to Midwives and Yoga instructor: (collecting surveys).
6. Emailing Zumi: a immigrant Muslim organization.
7. Emailing Sumatu: Muslim women organization.
8. Centrum Mimoza : Muslim Organization

Pictures of the following:

1. All Hospitals and GP's offices
2. Pictures of surrounding community of each hospital and GP's office.
3. Took pictures of Muslim Student building office
4. Pictures of Epidemiology library and Womens History Library

Geo-tagged:

1. All locations visited thus far.

Hard Data Research:

1. Epidemiology Library
2. IIAV ( Womens History) Library
3. cbs.nl ( Central Bureau of Statistics)
4. Nidi.knaw.nl ( Demographics)
5. rivm.nl
6. wiegdood.nl

public scholarship opportunities

Defining Public Scholarship. At the level of the institution, public scholarship means optimizing the extent to which University research informs and is informed by the public good, maximizes the generation and transfer of knowledge and technology, educates the public about what research the University does, and listens to the public about what research needs to be done. This scholarship contributes to the intellectual and social capital of the University and the State (and larger regions), and includes (but is not limited to) the transfer of knowledge and technology that contributes to improved quality of life for significant portions of the populous. ( Taken from the University of Minnesota Web page)


I believe that if our project is successful the data we receive can be helpful to the community on many levels. One: Lauren and I are taking data from community members, trying to figure out how their particular experiences with health access have been throughout their reproductive life. Two: we will than compare there responses to those of health care officials who have dealt with differing types of people. Three: through this comparisons our data might be useful to health officials in making access to health care and health care experiences for different groups of women more successful. This project in turn will help us be better students, by learning how to communicate with different groups of people outside of the academic world and possibly help the community have an improved quality of life through better healthcare.

Third Person/ First Person Outfit explanation

3rd Person:

When she wakes up in the morning she finds that deciding what to wear in sunny Seattle can be very difficult when most of her clothes were meant for the rain and cold. She stumbles around her messy room looking for something clean and comfortable to wear throughout the day. Pulling out of her closet she discoverers her jean peddle pushers with her favorite flower patch that her mom sewed in after taking a nasty spill on her bike. She than pulls out of the mess a plain white t-shirt, nothing special just a long v-neck shirt that will keep her cool but cover her sunburned shoulders. She decides to spice it up with bright yellow round studded earrings that really pop and give the white shirt new flair. She places her watch and her favorite silver bracelet on. She finishes the outfit off with her skinny black sandals that are good for any day in the sun and comfortable enough to walk in for hours.

1st Person:

When I wake up in the morning I look outside of my window to discover another warm sunny day in Seattle. I also realize that my room is a mess and finding clothes to wear in this weather will be a challenge I am not quite awake for. I search around my messy closest to discover my peddle pusher jeans with the floral patch in them. My mom put this patch in my jeans after a nasty spill on my bike a few years earlier. I also pull out a plain white v-neck t-shirt which will be light in the sun but cover my burnt shoulders at the same time. I decide that my outfit is very boring and to make it pop I decide to wear my outspoken yellow studded earrings which bring to life my boring attire. AS I walk out of my room I slip on my skinny black sandals which match everything and are comfortable enough to walk in all day.

Research Question/ conceptual framework

Research Question as of today: What is the difference in access to health care by Muslim women and non-Muslim women?

After discussing our research question in front of the class I can see that there might need to be some reformulation of our question and of our methods. To many people this particular subject is touchy especially in our American culture but i am not as sure of its touchiness in other societies including Amsterdam. Further research will have to be done to decide which particular questions are appropriate and which ones are not. This in turn can change the shape our our research question as a whole.

Conceptual Approach:
Most of the conceptual approaches had to do with observation not interaction with people on an interview or focus group bases which will most likely occur for our research project. If I had to pick an approach that best fit our research project i believe it would be Bals because she discusses how a cultures beliefs can shape how something is perceived to other people. In this sense health care is not only shaped by the government but subcultural groups as well. What one group hears or knows about health care access could be completely different than another group because of its bias and cultural beliefs. So in this sense I believe it is important through Bals work to distinguish how much of the access to health care is being reached to differing groups and is this because of previous attitudes and beliefs. I also believe that Lauren and I will have to come up with another conceptual framework to help us talk about and research our social phenomenon in more accurate terms.

critical questions

1. If something is made by human hands is it ever really considered "natural" or just a representation of nature through art? And is it a museums responsibility to really teach all aspects of a society and culture, or is just a representation that needs further explanation by a teacher and parents? Although I believe that it is always best to tell all sides of a story especially if someone other than that society is doing the representation, I believe that it is difficult especially if your country was shaped through their own representation of themselves in history.

2. Would Society exist without authority and hierarchy of some sort? traditions may be good or bad but without them what would be in their place to shape society?

Mediums: Benefits and disadvantages

The benefits of using a print medium such as Philip did is that it reaches a different audience than Mike Wesch's YouTube video. Thurtle's can reach more to an older and more prestigious audience because often times the older generations do not use YOUTUBE as a source of knowledge. I know that I only started using it in college and would have used print much more. But if you are just talking about the use of video medium it brings people much closer to the research because you can see what the author is trying to say through pictures and words. Whereas through print medium one can only read and try to visulize what the author is trying to portray to the reader.

For my specific research project I believe that print medium makes the most sense. There is nothing to really portray through film that would be beneficial to the audience. Surveys and data collection can most easily be shown through a print medium.

Convolute:hmmmmm

After reading over Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project I came away from the reading a bit confused as to which convolute I believed to fit my project concerning women and health care needs. I looked through all of his central issues bundled together under an over all theme and found that none of them fit our project well, there was nothing as simple as "fashion" to describe our central theme. In fact after reading over what other group members thought of our presentation it seems that Lauren and I need to find our central theme more clearly, to make our project "do-able".
Sine not all the convolute were there to read segments from, I believe that the ones that fit our project the best our (i) and (a). I picked (i) because it discuses reproduction (although i found that lithography and technology really do not fit), which fit the best out of all the convolutions. I am using the word in the literal sense and I am not sure exactly how Walter Benjamin used the word "reproduction" in his terms. I choose (a) because it discussed social movements which does concern women's rights in all countries at some point or another especially when it came to reproductive rights for women specifically.

I do feel that the best thing to do is to make our own convolute that fits our specific project. Here are a few ideas that I would run by Lauren.

a. women, health care access
b. cultural differences concerning women and health care access
c. women, reproduction rights, access
d. difference between men and women's health care access

They all sound similar but I am trying to narrow down the subject to fit better together which will make it easier to research!

Group Presentations: Ethics

Communication/ Media:

Overall question: How do the different kinds of media relate to each other and society? Through their question and through their methods ( Surveys, observation) I believe that they are right on the mark for ethical issues. There really aren't any that they presented that would be cause for minimal risk. Exemption status seems to be be the right course of action.

Tourists vs. Natives:

Overall Question: How do tourists/ natives deal with culture and physical space differently? Although this group thought their project would be minimal risk because of picture taking I don't think this would be the case especially because there is no real ethical issues involved in the pictures themselves. Possibly they can just ask permission for the pictures since their observations and questions will not be invasive in anyway.

Architecture group:

Overall question: How do people interact with space? how does design of structure influence individuals? Methods for this group seemed to be direct observation and the only ethical issues I can see is just to ask for verbal permission to stand in stores and observe people in malls. Otherwise this group seems to just be exempt status.

Branding group:

Overall question: How does branding happen in Amsterdam ( Dutch fashion and gender, women in advertising... After listening to this group I see no real ethical issues, just to ask for verbal permission to stand in stores and to observe. Otherwise I see no ethical issues and therefore exemption status seems right.

Prelimanary Research Question

Our groups question is: What is the difference between Islam women's access to health care in comparison to non-Islamic women.

Possible Research Methods: I am not sure if what you mean are the research methods we talked about in class or read about. But I believe the best way to do this project would be interviews, online database research and, surveys/questionnaire.

I believe that with are project there are many questions concerning ethics. Considering that our group will be questioning a group of women who are not seen as having the same rights of men in their faith there could be a lot of issues concerning whether or not they will be able to participate. For example are they considered persons with diminished authority because they may not have the authority in their culture to sign a consent form, especially if there is the possibility that if they participate without male consent than the could be physically or mentally harmed? When it comes to Justice, I wonder how you decide who is equal and unequal and who will this cause the least harm too especially when concerning the burdens that could possibly be put onto these women if they participate. Another ethically question is if they will truly be able to comprehend what they are giving permission to considering the possible language barrier...will this be helped?

I guess I just feel that there are possibly a lot of issues my group may need to deal with or there may not be. More research on Islamic communities would help because there maybe very liberal Islams who are willing to participate in our survey.

Week 4 Assignment

The question Lauren and I came up with is ,what is the health access for Islamic women compared to non-Islamic women in the Netherlands (Amsterdam specifically).

Some real life examples I found on the Internet was the Dutch Ministry of Foreign affairs. This website explained women's health care and where people go to receive this Health care in various cities in the Netherlands. www.minbuza.nl/en/welcome/netherlands/general.health

Another site I found to be helpful for "physical" research was "Muslim Meds and health care". This article discussed how Muslims view health care. It also discussed an Islamic hospital that is being built in Rotterdam the second largest city in the Netherlands. Maybe we could do some interviews of doctors who are going to work there, or the government planners for the hospital. Also found from this website that 5.5 percent of the dutch population is Muslim and disproportionaly more than half the women in shelters are Muslim women. Shows that Dutch rights are not being accepted by the Muslim community as much as the government would hope this could include health care access.

Another site, US department of State: Showed a poll and statistics concerning women's health care acess and non-Islamic views on health care access.
One polss showed that 70 percent of the non-Islamic population believe that women of the islamic faith are treated unfairly. www.sta/tegov/g/drl/vis/romt/2006/78830.html

Ll of this sites can help in researching in Amsterdam. They gave physical ideas of where to start and what to lookfor when concerning women's access to health care.

Amsterdam project Idea (Women's Issues and Islam)

I felt that I found a lot of information to continue my search for a research area and a research question. Since I am interested in women's issues I decided to look up women's rights and Islam in the Netherlands, abortion, sex education and contraception. I found from reading a few sights that Amsterdam has the leading sex education in the world, the lowest abortion rates, and open contraception. An idea of study from this could be why does the Netherlands have lower teenage pregnancy and abortion rates in comparison to the United States. A good site for this was www.ncbi.nlm.gov/pubmed/7971545

A more interesting subject in Amsterdam is how Islamic women rights are dealt with, considering their faith is not open to sexuality and individual rights such as the government is. How does the Netherlands deal with this in comparison to the United States. www.racematters.com

Environmental Behavior (Greenlake Playground)

Description: Observing the children and parents was very interesting at Greenlake playground. All the strollers in the park where on the same side and where all very similar in style (sporty). I was specifically watching the merry-go-round and the swings which were situated in front of the benches we were sitting on. I was most interested in watching the behavior of the parents interaction with their children, children's interaction with each other, parents and children's interaction with people they did not know, and finally and most importantly I was watching the interaction of girls and boys and the gender roles that they were playing even at such a young age.

While watching the merry-go-round I noticed that young boys would push the merry-go-round over girls continually. I also noticed that dad's were more likely to be there with their sons and older children while mothers were there with more girls and smaller children. If a mother and a father were together, the father played the more physical role of playing with the child, pushing the child on the swings or the merry-go-round. But over all more women were their than men. I also payed attention to the clothes that children wore. Pink and blue stilled played an important role by distinguishing between male and female even though most of the children were old enough that you could tell this difference just by looking at them. I also came to discover that the playground was very family oriented. People did not interact with people they did not know, even if their kids were talking to other kids. Parents kept a close watch on their children and were closed off from everyone else unless they seemed to be in the family unit.

With this observation of behavior are group members came up with a question concerning gender roles: What gender roles do young children portray through their appearance and social interactions/ behavior?

I am not sure if I understand all the methods of observation yet I am still reading about their descriptions. After I read up on all of them I will be able to say which one I used. I am thinking environmental behavior? Other group members think that walk around the block might work for this research/ observation project. But I will update it after I finished reading more.

Thinking about Amsterdam..I would love to do a project on gender roles, on women's issues or something of the sort. This is why the question we decided upon as a group could possibly be applied to a project for Amsterdam.