we're in amsterdam!

we've all been in amsterdam for over three weeks now. everyone is in the final stages of their projects, we have our practice conference tomorrow and everyone seems pretty stressed out. but so far it's been really fun.

mark and my research has gone really well, we came in with an open project topic and the collection of the data went pretty well. I think staying open to new information and allowing ourselves to focus on areas that we found the most interesting let us stay positive and not caught up and resentful of the structure of our research.

the trip has been great! i've gotten to know some really great people, and we've all had fun going out and on excursions all over. the program will be over on saturday which is pretty sad, but hopefully it'll continue next year and other people will be able to come back and study in the freakin amazing city of amsterdam

-love sathi

Just making sure I did all the assignments

It seemed sometimes when I read other people's blogs over the quarter that there were random assignments that somehow slipped by me, so I figured I would go back and make sure to do them.

Reaction to Buruma:
I as many of the people in the class finished reading Buruma early in the term, so I had to go back and skim before writing this reaction.
My main reaction to the Buruma book simply has to do with the intersection between cultures, and the issue that hit the Netherlands hard and likely will other Western countries as well. We pride ourselves on our multiculturalism, it's politically correct to accept people of all cultures, backgrounds, and ethnicities. But what happens when the cultures you want to accept seem to be ones that fight directly with values you hold and consider extremely important freedoms. Should it be regulated? How can it be without marginalizing a group of people of which the majority is actually made up of good law abiding citizens. If the Koran says women are lower than men when a fundamental feature of our society is that the sexes are equal should we stop it, can we stop it? These are pretty complicated issues. What do you do when multiculturalism just seems to have bit you in the ass essentially? Can we say it's a bad thing? Or that it needs to be regulated? How so? Who gets to decide what's right and what's wrong? It's a pretty complicated issue, and I certainly don't have any answers....

Zeisel reflection:

Zeisel has actually ended up being one of the most useful readings Mark and I have integrated into our projects. His methods and use of 'traces' as a means for studying people is almost exactly what we would like to do in our project. I've learned a lot about different methodologies, and what works/doesn't work when it comes to them from this paper. As far as learning about observing physical traces as well as enviornmental behavior this has become one of the most important readings of all of them for me personally. It would have been useful to have read this before embarking on our 'reading the city' assignment because we simply just blindly went into the assignment without really knowing what we were looking for. Now we know to pay closer attention to traces people have left as well as the subtleties in their behavior.

INTERVIEW.

Interview, my field notes:

Conducted 5.20.07 approx. 4pm
Subject: M.B., Female, Age 21, Undergrad at University of Puget Sound, economics major, Resides in Tacoma, Wa, has been a student for 3 years.

Interview took place in downtown Seattle, at the Pike Place Market while attending the annual cheese festival. Subject was a friend of a friend.

Chronological description of events:

First I explained the nature of our study, and told her about the assignment and why I wanted to interview her, she agreed to do it. She said she wouldn’t mind having her name recorded but since it doesn’t seem essential to our study to identify her in anyway I simply recorded her initials for identification.

Q:What kinds of transportation do you use on a regular basis?
A: I drive my own car, sometimes get rides from other friends, sometimes the bus when we’re in Seattle and I’m visiting friends there. Recently started riding my bike around because “I can’t drive drunk to the bars”…(this then led into a conversation about how it was in fact quite possible to ride a bike drunk because riding a bike is programmed into your memory..and how it was pretty much as easy as walking, but faster)

Q:What kinds have you used in the past?
A: Used to drive back home, before I got my drivers license my parents drove me

Q: Are there certain kinds you prefer? Public vs. Private?
A: Well since we usually drive I never really need to ride the bus, so I guess private, it’s much easier in Tacoma.

Q:What are your opinions of transportation in the Puget Sound area? Including anything from the metro system to how roads and road signs are set up?
A: There really aren’t enough buses in the South Sound, and they’re not accommodating to younger people – they stop running really early. The street lights in Tacoma are really inefficient, they’re set on timers…I did a project on it for my enviro-sci class. We went down 6th, from union to mildred street a few times a week for a month, the time added on when you get stuck with a red light is really significant, time, as well as fuel costs. We have the most inefficient street light region in Tacoma…like you can go down an entire street and hit every red light.
And I hate Seattle, I like Tacoma a lot better because it’s on a grid system. I don’t really understand Seattle, and the one-ways make traveling really inefficient I think.

Q: What do you notice about your environment when you’re driving in your car?
A: uhmm, not sure
Q: Does it differ according to situation?
A: Well, I’m more cautious of the outside when it’s a difficult driving condition. I notice a lot less while driving than walking, of the environment… I always forget how I got places when I drive or don’t notice things.
Q: Do you think it’s different like when you’re in Tacoma vs driving in some unfamiliar place?
A: yeah, I’m more focused on driving when it’s somewhere unfamiliar, and although I try to notice my surroundings, I usually don’t. I notice a lot more now that I’m more comfortable with driving in Tacoma, but I’m still kind of programmed to getting where I need to go..and it’s so fast, its hard to notice what’s outside.


In general some stuff I learned from this assignment:
Clifford wanted us to post something about how we found the person we were interviewing, so I'm adding that here:
Since I wanted to just ask an average person rather than an 'expert' it seemed good to just find a random person, but I'll admit it, I can be pretty shy and just going up to some random person at a bus stop and asking them questions was kind of freaky, so instead I was going to go out with some people who are friends with one of my friends and asked one of them if they would let me interview them. I feel like this is probably the easiest way to find someone. A friend of a friend, or a contact of a contact rather than just going up to someone on the street.

It can be really hard to stay on topic with someone, especially when it seems just really conversational instead of a formal interview. And to know when to just let them keep on talking or move on to the next question. I had a hard time coming up with good questions that seemed relevant to our topic and didn’t stray too far into ‘what would you change about the seattle public transportation system’ or something like that. And while talking to other college students it can also be kind of hard to keep things serious I found, but I don’t want formality to stop people from really telling the truth…so some sort of happy medium will have to be found. I’m not sure exactly what kind of information Mark and I can hope to get out of an interview…it’ll probably be easy to find complaints about transportation, but quite a bit harder to find anything about how people interact with their environment in terms of transportation just by asking people about it…so I’m not sure. We are definitely going to have to work on some good questions if we attempt to use interviews in our research.

a few questions relating to ethnography and our research

1. Since many people have suggested we add some type of interview or at least contact some of the people running transportation blogs (blog from Portland, buschick in Seattle, etc) How would we go about doing this? What questions would we ask? What information exactly are we trying to learn from them? Should we only interview these types of people, or also include random people actually using transportation? and again, what do we ask?

2. We originally wanted to focus our research on just observation and taking various photographs of places in both Seattle and Amsterdam. How are we going to analyze them exactly? If we add video how again will that be analyzed? Are we trying to study people's perceptions of public transport? How and why they use certain types of transport? Or just use transportation as a means of studying the way people interact with their environment?

3. What kind of conclusions are we really going to be able to make from our observations? It seems as though it may be difficult to find and take pictures of similar areas in both cities when we are first going to be in Seattle and then in Amsterdam without being able to go back to Seattle to take more photos/videos before presenting our work in Switzerland, how are we going to account for this? Are we simply going to have pictures stand alone and make conclusions about them?...

I feel like although we seem to know what we want to do, we haven't fully discussed how we're going to do it. Where are we going to take pictures/videos (are we going to do video?) are we going to go back to the same few places over and over again? or try to go to a number of places? Once we've taken photos, what kind of field notes will accompany them? If so what questions are we going to ask people? About what they are doing? What they are thinking about in terms of the space they are in?....What will we do with all of our notes in the end? I'm feeling a little bit unsure about what conclusions we can really make about people or about a culture from our simple observations...

e-research

As far as I understand e-research is either the use of the internet or other web applications as a means to do research or find information. So it would be the use of online sources like e-journals and e-publications or the use of search engines. Or it is the actual study of the use of these kinds of processes. From what I'll admit is a pretty confused understanding of what VKS is and does I think they are more about the latter. It is the study of the internet and how it is used, etc that they consider to be e-research. Not even sure if I'm on the right track....

For instantiating it into our project we've already talked about looking into online communities like flickr and youtube to find examples of visual manifestations of our topic, to take it further we could do a deeper analysis of how people have used these websites to post their photos/videos.

irony

The topic of irony seems particularly relevant to both Buruma’s book and to the society of the Netherlands in general. The first quote is particularly true of Theo van Gogh. He seemed to use irony as an escape from any blame in his work; everything was a joke, not meant to be taken seriously. But clearly was meant to be taken seriously. His death itself was ironic; van Gogh was one who ‘supported anyone…who defied conventions, who rebelled against social and religious constraints.” (108) while his killer may not have deviated from religious constraints his actions most definitely defied social ones. Yet these actions that van Gogh so previously would have supported in fact ended up killing him.

For the religious attire, I think that this use of religious clothing/jewelry/etc as an assertion of difference as much of a sign of devotion is something that occurs in all countries where people find their culture or religion to be in the minority. I’m not sure how ironic it is, but there is often a strong desire in people to stand out from the crowd but at the same time belong to a community. By wearing a headscarf women in Holland or in America can say that they are proud to be Muslim, proud to be different from the norm, but at the same time conform to the social norms of other Muslims. With either choice, choosing to wear it or not to wear it, they are conforming to one norm and defying another. So how important is the choice really?

I find the quote about rappers to be interesting. The Dutch are supposed to be both tolerant, yet also are pro free speech. Rappers are allowed to use words to say things that they would never actually do in real life. Their words are like weapons in a sense. Is music or art, like irony or use of irony in these medias simply another way to escape blame for our actions?

I’m having a harder time tying Wouters and Beaulieu’s article with this idea of irony…but perhaps after reading it over again I will come up with something and add more here….

As far as Buruma’s theory of the alienation of the 2nd generation, I’m not sure how much I buy it. Speaking from the viewpoint of the child of immigrants I’ve felt my fair share of alienation, of not fitting into either of the worlds I’m forced to live in, and I have not yet felt myself being forced to affiliate myself with extremist groups. Perhaps Islam is more at odds with Dutch society (I mean obviously it is) than Hinduism (my parent’s religion) is with American society, but I would think that 2nd generation Muslims in the Netherlands would be able to find communities with each other rather than being forced into something more extreme.

i hate pants.

Part 1
Subject: Likely college student, attending class
Sex: Female
Age: Late teens, early 20s
Race: South Asian
Religion: No visible markers, but because of South Asian ancestry likely Hindu or Muslim, possibly Christian

Clothes: Subject wore a brown mini dress over black leggings and black flip-flop shoes. Had no jacket or other outer garment. Both dress and leggings seem to be made of cotton or some kind of blend. She wore no patterns, but all clothing was solid colored with the exception of her tote back containing textbooks, this had a slight floral pattern and appears to be made of a natural fiber, such as linen or hemp. Overall dress is extremely feminine and fits very close to the body. Cut of the dress shows ample cleavage, but is contrasted with the leggings which actually provide a lot of coverage of the legs. Is this because she is lazy? Didn’t feel like shaving? Is she modest? Stuck in the 80s? or really into this new trend that seems to have popped up over the last few seasons? Yet what’s with the cleavage then if the issue is modesty? Confusing. The day is nice for the spring, so lack of jacket/sweater makes sense. Clothing was clean, and relatively well kept except for the tote bag which had signs of wear and an incredibly large orange stain on one side. From what? On the feet are black flip flops. It’s Seattle, does she know where she is? It rains here. But realistically this is pretty common college student garb in Seattle.

Hair: Subject had very long black hair. Looks untreated by color, yet is curled indicating that a relatively high level of maintenance is required to keep it. There are no other hair accessories however, and hair is simply worn down slightly parted to one side.

Accessories: Include a silver right on ring finger of right hand, a silver watch with bright blue face on left hand, a simple silver ball as the nose screw sitting on her left nostril, and when hair is pushed back behind ear extremely small diamond studs are visible in ear lobes, if one looks very closely two more lobe piercings become visible yet have no jewelry in them, and there appear the scar tissue remains of some cartilage ear piercings gone wrong, both in the helix and tragus areas of the ear. Seems to show an interest in body adornment, but all jewelry is very simple and silver.

The overall look is very feminine, wearing a dress, no less a mini dress, with long hair worn down. Is she very conscious of the feminine norm?

Part 2
Let’s see. Realistically I am a pretty generic femi fem type of girl. Just did all my laundry this weekend (woah three loads) so I had pretty much the choice of everything in my entire wardrobe as to what I was going to wear that day. Pretty indicative then of what I like to wear the most. As I was recently explaining to Mark, I really hate pants (jeans, khakis, etc…anything with a zip up fly basically) they are all uncomfortable. Especially those society decided would be great for females to wear. What a bitch, wearing tight pants. Although I wouldn’t consider myself a slave to fashion, I am definitely into following trends. Exactly why I’m not sure. Perhaps a left over from having friends that were also interested when I was in junior high and high school, or the fact that there was nothing to do in the Eastern Washington town I grew up in except go to the mall and eat at Taco Bell. But in any case I like to keep up with trends. So I own many a pair of expensive designer jeans that I hate to wear because pants suck.

I must have very strong opinions about strange things about clothing. Such as with the flip flop thing, doesn’t seem that unusual because everyone in college wears those. They’re easy, you don’t have to tie anything…etc. I wear them because I think ‘real’ shoes are constricting. I must really hate being constricted, the jeans, now the shoes. Strange. I wonder what this says about my personality?

Now for the cleavage yet legging thing. I love leggings. This trend is great. I wore leggings back in the 80s and early 90s when I was five years old, and they are awesome. Comfortable, trendy (I suppose?) and slip them under a previously slutty mini dress and you’re no longer a slut. Perfect! The cleavage thing…likely because my boyfriend or I guess exboyfriend just broke up that Sunday (day right before class) and hey now I can go around attracting other men all the time, might as well start now by showing off the boobs, they are pretty good boobs. All in all this outfit is one I believe as one that physically shows off what I consider to be my best features while hiding the ones I think to be my worst and still being relatively fashion forward, comfortable, and simple. Don’t like showing off the legs…either because I actually hate my legs or as some kind of effect of growing up in a conservative Indian family where my mom said showing off legs was well…for sluts. But then why am I ok with showing off boobs? Going off with the Buruma reading…being the child of immigrants must have confused me….

This post is getting long…so I should probably stop now…I bet no one even read this far. I love potatoes. Jewelry. I don’t like to wear a lot, simply because I think a lot is physically unattractive/tacky. So I keep it simple, but interesting. Seems pretty plain from far away but if you look close the ring has a nice pattern. And I had a period in my life where I was really into piercings…cause it’s sort of deviant behavior. But not really? Like I like to push the envelope as long as it doesn’t hurt my social status? But then some infection set in a few times and I decided ‘eff piercings, infection is annoying.’ I hate constriction. So that’s that. Overall interesting assignment, insightful.

Research Question/Abstract

A Comparative Visual Study of Use of Urban Transport in Seattle and Amsterdam

In the city, urban transport is crucial to infrastructure and viability. People often generalize their environment, and this obscures their ability to notice the detail of their surroundings. In our study we plan to explore the interaction between individuals and the overlooked aspects of their environment, specifically related to public and private transport. How do people interact with these aspects of their environment, and how does it differ between people in Seattle and Amsterdam? We will take photographs of similar urban transport areas or items contained within this setting in both Seattle and Amsterdam. Proposed field sites will include various bus stops, bike racks, parking lots, train stations and tracks, and other related areas. Through analysis of these photos we will note the differences in the subtleties of both cities’ transportation systems. This analysis will be coupled with our observations of people within these environments at different times of day and different days of the week. We will also do an online exploration of photo communities such as flickr and video communities such as YouTube to see what others have noted about urban transport. We will incorporate analysis of these visual medias into our study.

(note: although Mark and I didn't specify it in our abstract, he is going to try to focus a bit more on public transport while I will focus on private transport...we figured it would be more interesting if we weren't doing the exact same thing)

uhmmm just saving something here

this isn't actually my assignment...i just wanted to store an interesting link so i could come back to it later http://content.msn.co.in/Lifestyle/Moreonlifestyle/MoreonLifestyle_070307_0401.htm

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifestyle/trancedjs08.shtml

reading seattle

Mark and I left the UDistrict in his car originally intending to go somewhere in Capitol Hill, thought maybe the IDistrict would be interesting, and then just ended up somehow driving downtown and situated ourselves in the Starbucks on 4th and Pine, right in the middle of the commercial shopping district. Since our umbrella issue has to do with public transportation we thought it would be interesting to watch a few bus stops and see if we could learn anything from them (how they are used, who uses them, what do people do around them?)

One thing I thought was particularly interesting that I also think could be important to our study in Amsterdam was the fact that when we were sitting in the coffee shop which seemed like a good idea because we could stay there comfortably for a while and just watch the very first notation I made was ‘no benches’ which seemed weird because most bus stops in downtown have benches. We both made a bunch of observations from this viewpoint including how interesting it was that people did indeed situate themselves the way Prof. Ryan said they did by trying to get up on some higher ground and lean their back against things. We even noticed that we in fact had done that exact thing, from our viewpoint we could see over the whole little square that our bus stop was situated in.

Then Mark and I decided to move closer to the actual stop and I realized that there was a whole sea of benches back there, they were just blocked from our original view. So a simple change in position, a different angle of perception completely changed my view of the stop and how it was planned. With all the benches it fit right into the atmosphere of the square that the stop was located in. We had in fact blocked off from our view the exact place where some of the most interesting interactions were going on. We wanted to see who was riding the buses, what they did while they waited, what did they do in the space they were in, did they really interact with it? Or was it such a standard to them to be there that they just ignored it and delved into their own world of music from their ipod and tetris on their cell phone? But we couldn’t even do this until we had moved in really close. I think this would definitely have to be implemented into our research in Amsterdam, if we are going to observe a place it is definitely going to have to be done from various angles.

I found it interesting that people always seemed to need to occupy themselves. Even when waiting for the bus they just couldn’t sit and stare, and if they were it had to be at an interesting building or sign, or more likely another person. Even during our observations Mark and I found ourselves watching the people walk by in front of us and watched what and how they were doing whatever they were doing. It is as though if you have no other way of distracting yourself the next thing to do is to just occupy your time by watching other people. Even if you are going down to the square just to relax or ‘hang out’ with friends, no one really seems to be able to just sit somewhere. There has to be a book, or you have to be napping, or you have to have someone you are talking to.

I noticed that although the buildings down there are pretty impressive that most people just didn’t pay attention to them at all. It was as though all they saw was whatever destination they were headed for. Which I suppose the point of this assignment was for us to slow down and stop doing that exact thing. No one really takes in their environment anymore, we create our own spaces wherever we are and that is what we believe the environment is. I’ve been to that exact place before, had coffee at that same Starbucks a million times and had never even noticed the arch in the square or all the potted plants, or really the intersection of classy hip young Seattleites with the homeless.

As for applying what we learned to study in Amsterdam, we’re really going to have to go to a place with a clear idea of what we want to observe because Mark and I easily spent at least three hours on our trip and felt like we didn’t even get that much information, it was easy to get distracted and not actually pay much attention to what was going on. But also the idea of slowing down and really watching, and even if we have a certain focus to still make sure to notice other things because for all we know we could be ignoring some of the most interesting interactions around. This assignment was surprisingly hard, I wasn’t sure about what we were observing…and what exactly to write about it, but it’s definitely something I would like to do again.

Online manifestations

From Public Transportation to……..Prostitution?

I had an extremely hard time finding any seemingly worthwhile information about public transport other than various descriptions of the types of public transport that exist in Amsterdam and in other cities throughout the world. Sunil gave me a link http://portlandtransport.com/archives/netherlands_trip/ to a blog that described in detail types of public transportation in the Netherlands but I couldn’t really link it to anything else that seemed particularly promising….so I eventually just decided to search on technorati about another topic I became more interested in after listening to Haley’s ideas and thinking about a book I read a few years ago called Brothel written on the topic of legal brothels in Amsterdam…I am particularly interested in the stigmatization of prostitutes as I know this exists in the state of Nevada even though prostitution is legal in its brothels…some links I found were:

http://jizzbuzz.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/legalized-prostitution/

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=14643863&blogID=229771544

http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=12632&department=BLI&categoryid=dotcommentary

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/mhvpim.htm

http://sextradeworkers.blogspot.com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3900361.stm

http://www.newint.org/issue252/whore.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_Netherlands

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/netherl.htm

http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/

I found a lot of general blogs (often just one entry) about people's views on legalizing prostitution, there were the classic views against (oppresive towards women, stds, drugs, etc) and those for (actually lowers stds, not a correlations with drugs...women do it anyway might as well regulate it)...

I also found a lot of information tying prostitution to human trafficking, and the increase in this phenomenon in the Netherlands and Europe.

I also found some interesting articles and opinions on stigmatization of prostitutes which is the issues I am most interested in pursuing after searching through google.nl. So far that seems to be the best source of information I have found so far, but I feel as though not being able to speak or read Dutch is definitely going to hold me back as far as finding information.

As far as analyzing the online manifestation of my topic I guess I would have to create categories, such as simple onetime blog posts, entire blogs devoted to the topic, separating out information focused on stigmatization rather than just legal information, separating anti vs pro, etc. It seems difficult to quantify this type of thing especially because there is so much more information out there...

research groups and ideas con't

First off how did anyone add pictures to their profiles? I definitely couldn't figure that one out....

On the issue of topics, I feel pretty similarly I think to a lot of others in the class..which is sort of lost and overwhelmed by the vast number of possible subjects to study. I feel like everything is so interesting, and trying to narrow it down to just one topic that I can stick with for our entire time is difficult, actually commiting to something is going to be rough...

Now for the assignment:

a&b) As far as research groups go I came to the realization that I wasn't as interested in studying sustainabilty issues as much as I originally had thought I was, after listening to everyone elses ideas and coming up with others myself I decided not to join Alex and Julia's group about ecofriendliness and sustainabilty.

Mark and I have thrown around a few ideas about urban planning and public transport, one of my TAs in another class studied in Amsterdam for almost a year and talked about the segregation of housing by race, and the dutch conceptions of race, I think it could be interesting to tie in the implementation of public transport as a research topic. In general we both seem to be leaning towards some kind of issue in urban planning. (Whether that will involve the use of parks, or public transport, housing, etc...I am still not completely sure) I am definitely still interested in issues of art.....but am still not sure if it would even be possible to tie that in, or if just visiting galleries on my own will be enough to satisfy my own curiosity and interest without doing a formal research project with it.

I think the general research idea would focus around urban planning...and perhaps my own study would be on public transportation. How effective is it? Does it keep certain groups separate? Is it easy to get from certain neighborhoods to certain areas where jobs are, or are those people essentially cut off unless they have their own vehicles? Does it help keep the populations segregated? If so how do people feel about it, do they like it the way it is even though the Dutch are supposed to be so pro-equality? What is the feeling of bus/train drivers towards those who use public transportation?....

c) I am definitely leaning towards the pilot study or exploration end of the spectrum as far as research goals go, I'd like to have the freedom to talk to whomever without being constrained by what is acceptable for academic research.

d) The biggest challenges so far are definitely figuring out and defining for sure what I plan to study and finding a for sure group to do a project with. Then of course narrowing down what kind of methods to use to find out whatever information we are interested in. I think almost any project would start with internet research and use of existing literature, and then move to see if we want to do mostly observational study, or interviews, surveys, and on..

I am still open to a lot of ideas...and any comments or anyone else interested in anything I've said, or who might need a group should definitely let me know!

IDEAS?

Ideas: Originally I had thrown around some ideas about studying issues of sustainability in Amsterdam. It is known as an innovative city with positive attitudes towards sustaining the environment. People use bikes rather than cars, I had read about the recycling of old abandoned public spaces into hip new clubs in Rotterdam, and other examples of sustainable practices all throughout the country. But how would I tie ideas about sustainability with those of pragmatic tolerance? And exactly how could I go about studying any of it? My main interest is to find some way address and study the issues of sustainability in Amsterdam, and what it says about the Netherlands and the views of people that live there.

Questions: What are the attitudes towards sustainable practices? What are examples of actual sustainable practices? Is it even really all that important to the people of the city? Are the attitudes forced on society by laws/policies? Or are they readily supported by the public, or even pushed by the public? Is there a conflict between trying to conserve the city and trying to implement new urban planning? Do the policies and practices currently implemented even seem to be working? How do they differ from other areas of Europe? Or of with major urban areas in the United States or Canada? Are the attitudes of the public in these areas different?.....

Evidence: I am still pretty unsure about how to go about this kind of study, and exactly where to focus it, or if it is even a valid point to consider. It would require internet/library research about policies in the city, and perhaps more research in comparing policies with other cities in the world, and other research about examples of practices in the city, including likely visiting real sites. Perhaps it would also entail interviews of citizens and policy makers, urban planners, architects, business owners, home owners, college students, recent immigrants etc etc about their attitudes towards the issues.

However this is definitely not my only possible path in research…I also am intrigued by the artists of Amsterdam and what kind of work they produce and whether it is a reflection of their views towards policies or life in Amsterdam. (How do they feel about prostitution, marijuana, euthanasia, etc) Are there trends throughout history? How does it differ from other European art, how is it similar? Has recent immigration had a sharp influence? What does art in the Netherlands say about the people that live there? Is there a pronounced art culture? Is it vastly separated from the rest of society, or integrated? Is art important to the culture of Amsterdam? What is the environment of museums and galleries? Is there distinct art that is political in nature such as Theo van Gogh’s films? Does it actually have any influence on the attitudes of the public? Do the attitudes held by artists represent those of the rest of the public? What about the style of art…is there something distinct about it, is there anything inherently ‘Dutch’ about the art it produces?...

I am particularly interested in visual art….but that could include paintings, drawings, photography, 3D installations……but also other forms of art could be equally if not more telling…music, music culture, literature, theater……

As far as finding evidence this would include looking at a large variety of works of art, visiting galleries, interviewing artists if possible, studying the art history of the Netherlands and of Europe, interviewing the public to study public perceptions, etc.

I feel as though there are so many possibilities for study in this city, and the main problem is going to be narrowing down an idea enough to actually get a good amount of information on it in order to analyze and come up with a good research project and final product. I am definitely open to many other ideas, this is just a starting point, and I feel as though there is so much to consider that I could continue writing pages and pages about possible ideas that I would find equally interesting….

...on "Submission"

Prior to viewing the short film of "Submission" by Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali I had prepared myself for something particlarly provocative or appalling and yet my initial reaction once finishing the film was far from one of shock. A man was killed just for that? Clearly Ali is using the film in order to show what she sees as a negative aspect of Islam (stemming I can only assume from her personal experiences with the religion), but it seems as though there is much more offensive material about religion including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc. out in the realm of media. This film in particular seems to equate the men who follow the Qu'ran to wife beaters or rapists of women which could be the case, but these instances of abuse do not occur only within followers of Islam. As a strong feminist Ali must realize that inequality between the sexes exists throughout all societies and religions. Admittedly I am not a person of religion, I know little of the Qu'ran or the Islamic faith, yet the larger issue in this film seems to be the oppression of women in this culture. It seems much less about the actual religion, but in general about the views of a community of people that maybe legitimized by the teachings of the Qu'ran but even more so are legitimized by the members of the society. Is it really the teachings of the religion that are the problem, or is it simply how certain individuals misconstrue religious texts to suit their needs. From background readings I know that Ali considers the entire religion to be a means of oppresion, but I am a little unclear about what point Ali and van Gogh are really trying to make here with the film. If just to bring an important issue to light, then they have definitely succeeded, but I don't feel this video is all that affective at changing people's views of Islam. I certaintly haven't now decided to equate the religion completely with violence and opression of women. Perhaps it is simply because van Gogh was murdered before the final portions of the series were created, and that all together would tell a more complete and convincing story.

I found many expected viewpoints in responses to the video. In opinionjournal.com Leon de Winter, a novelist discusses his critiques to the film. He believes that "people offended by this film have a big problem." He discusses some of the same ideas I noticed, such as that the nudity in the film isn't really there. He also goes on to talk about some of the issues we brought about in our discussions, such as the idea that liberal multiculturalists could live peacefully with radical Muslims was perhaps not ever going to be a reality, and that it was an issue the politically correct Dutch media tried not to ever address. Other responses I found were many short ones reflecting the view of the Muslim communities, people made statements about how the film was a product of Ali's ignorance about Islam or a creation based only on the teachings of her misguided parents. There was of course a lot of support for the film, one of the first responses on the Youtube.com site is one in excitement about the 2nd part of the film. Many people discussed similar view points to Ali and van Gogh's about the evil of Islam and it's use as a way to oppress women in society.