It's just been brought to my attention that I have yet to explain what it is I'm doing here in France. Well, that's a great question but I'm afraid the answer requires some explaining. How about I start with explaining what I'd ideally like to accomplish while I'm here and then follow that up with what realistically might happen? Cool?
I'm here doing a field study through BYU on Muslims in France and how certain aspects of their religious beliefs affect their integration (or lack of integration) into French society. Islam has always fascinated me as well as Muslims in diaspora so I'm really excited.
What I'd ideally like to see happen is that I will produce, through observing and interviewing members of the community here in Clermont Ferrand, a great piece of academic research that will provide some insightful information about Islam in contemporary European society and hopefully contribute something to the already highly researched topic of Islam in France, Europe and the West.
What realistically might happen is that I'll suck. I've never done a project like this before. I really don't know what I'm doing or how to do it and I really don't have anyone to help me. I'm fully prepared for this to not turn out ideally. But you know what? I think that's okay. I don't need this research project to go well to graduate or get a good grade in a class. It's more for the experience of trying something new and seeing what comes out of it. As long as I try my best and work my hardest I'll be happy with what comes from it. Honestly.
But things are going a lot better already than I could have ever imagined. I've been here for less than a week so far and I've already located and visited every mosque in the city, made several friends within the Muslim community here and weaseled my way into being able to volunteer and help in the construction of the new enormous mosque their building that should be done around the end of august. I'm super pumped about how things are turning out. I'll make sure to keep everyone up to date with what's going on as things happen. Cool? C'est bon? طيب؟
1 comment:
Hey Kyle! I followed the link you put on Facebook to check out your blog. This sounds like a really cool project. It's a subject that is also very interesting to me, so I will love hearing about your experiences with this project. You'll do great I know! Can't wait to hear more!
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