Isaac/Fiona/Cassie:
Focus: Squatting
Presentation: They seemed to have everything together. My only concern was how well they would be able to follow through on the human part of this project (making squatting contacts while in Amsterdam). The fact that there is public squatting (the cafes and whatnot) should help, but the homelessness aspect of Cassie's project seems like it might be a little bit difficult to make a reality. Nonetheless, the group covered all their bases and most potential problems and seemed like they had a well developed project and presentation fairly early in the game.
Ruben/Emily
Focus: Religion/politics
Presentation: My only question about their presentation is how they will draw conclusions about such a broad topic with so little time/information to go off of. I liked their idea of close-reading documents in the various religious institutions they plan to visit, but interviewing three religious leaders didn't seem like it would give the whole spectrum of responses one might need. For example, my one brush with Catholicism (in which I almost threw a used tissue in some holy water and nearly dumped my Catholic boyfriend... but that's a different story) was a Sunday service in Philadelphia that commenced with one of the church members urging everyone to rally for some anti-gay marriage legislation that was being considered. However, I do know that the Catholic church in my hometown has several out and proud gay attendees and the politics of the Pennsylvania service were not necessarily representative of Catholicism as a whole. The views of one religious leader can not necessarily represent the whole spectrum of a religion, so drawing conclusions from one place may not be wholly accurate.
Lauren/Emily
Focus: Access to health care
Presentation: I like the idea of this presentation; however, in my mind it seemed a little bit broad. Perhaps the questions needed to be less open ended, although I know that they did them just a little while before so they don't have everything ironed out yet. I think maybe another problem I had was that the some of the questions they asked seemed like they could be whole projects within themselves; access to abortion and contraception are politically and religiously loaded issues that might require a more in-depth examination, and access to women doctors for Muslims could be a very interesting research paper on its own (pipeline issues, religious issues, etc.). A final issue I had was how they were going to get their women to talk to them. They addressed this issue a little bit, but I also wonder what incentive there will be for women to take time to talk about this very personal information.
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1 comment:
Excellent comments, and well put. In terms of the religion group's focus, you're right to note that there is no necessarily continuous relationship between the views of individuals (leaders, attendees--or whatever the appropriate noun should be; teachers, students; dr.s., patients; etc.). We're right back into the part/whole problematic. Each group is in different ways seeking to refine its account of the limits of what it seeks to define and explore.
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