So of late I’ve been thinking more about some quite heavy and really irresolvable topics like the extent of tolerance, cultural relativism (as usual), the concept of “the other” and why it’s so easy to label them as a threat, the discourse surrounding the “revolutions” in the Middle East right now and how in retrospect it will be interesting to see how what they were called and how they were described shaped what happened, what it means to say people don’t “understand” something or aren’t “ready” for something and how it seems to imply some sort of moral superiority or a feeling of “I know better than you do about how you should lead your life” that just feels wrong and icky.
I could blog about these things but I feel like I haven’t had a blog post in a while that wasn’t riddled with anthropological questions/issues of personal development. I also just feel like I should maybe scale it back a bit and keep it light and happy for once… maybe.
Of course, upon typing that and going through the rolodex of events that have happened since my last blog post, I can’t think of anything extraordinary enough to recount and somehow make funny. I should have known I can’t control how my blog posts go, so I’m just going to talk about whatever I want.
Yet another over share, but I was particularly excited about this so I feel like I should note it here, even though it’s probably something that no one who reads this needs to know: I succeeded in sleeping in my short shorts (as opposed to pants) and a shirt last night. After I turned off the lights I thought to myself, “screw it I can’t do this pants all the time thing anymore!” and changed.
Moving on, in a totally random and not very well transitioned way, this thing about people not being “ready” for something. A couple of weeks ago we had a lecturer here who said, “Jordanians are not ready for democracy”. At the time, everyone pretty much agreed with this statement (I sat stewing, bothered by it and not saying anything because I hadn’t quite figured out why).
Later on I came to the conclusion that it bothered me because to say something like that just sort of implies that you (whoever you are saying it):
1) are somehow smarter than the population being spoken of (or at least think you are),
2) that you should have control of what they are and are not exposed to,
3) and that you know what is best for them better than they themselves do.
1) are somehow smarter than the population being spoken of (or at least think you are),
2) that you should have control of what they are and are not exposed to,
3) and that you know what is best for them better than they themselves do.
Maybe it’s the lingering rebellious teenager in me but all of those things just sound so wrong. Speaking particularly on the subjects brought up by number two, it sort of seems reminiscent of discussions I’ve had before about the way in which tourism in certain areas of the world romanticizes and idealizes cultures or groups of people such that those cultures or groups of people are then incentivized to stay “tribal” or “indigenous” (whatever those terms mean) to cater to the tourism industry and what it wants to see and will pay money for. This conversation came up a lot in one of my classes last semester about the Maya and how tourism there and the ways in which “The west” comes to know the Maya as a people culturally stagnates them because tourism incentivizes the Maya representing themselves in ways that may not even be Maya in origin and definitely are not reminiscent of life for the modern Maya. I remember reading in this ethnography Mayas in the Marketplace something about a family giving tours of their home and covering up all of their modern appliances with blankets before people came through. Now that I’m talking it through, this is only vaguely related to number two above. Nevertheless, it’s something worth thinking about too.
Well, I’ve sort of lost my train of thought here, oh well. It’s scattered several places at the moment anyway, mish mushkilah.
I suppose something of note is the adjustment of my ISP topic! I actually got very excited about this because I had been annoyed with my topic for a bit because it felt just like a “survey” of ideas concerning how Jordanians think about dating and relationships. But here’s the new and improved direction explained in a rather convoluted, unnecessarily long fashion:
Not only have the ways in which Jordanian young adults think about dating and relationships shifted significantly from the views of their parents but, technology (specifically Facebook) has fundamentally altered the ways in which Jordanian youth form and navigate relationships.
I would like to focus in on how Facebook has played an elemental role in the evolution of the younger generations ideas about relationships and dating, how it helps begin relationships (in the sense that it allows a space for young adults to be flirtatious free of their parents watchful gaze), how it legitimates relationships in the eyes of peers, how it potentially leads to the early demise of relationships (by creating a false sense of intimate knowledge of one’s boyfriend or girlfriend), and (once back in America) I would like to expand this into a comparative study (looking at similar aspects of Facebook and the relationship world of young adults in the U.S.).
The evolution of my topic came about from contemplating how I would utilize the research upon returning to my home institution. Something I have recently become interested in is how Facebook back home in the U.S. has changed the way people publicly acknowledge their relationships and privately navigate their relationships. There seems to be a discourse popping up of being “Facebook official” and while some actively choose to express their relationship status on Facebook (even the newer and rather odd “divorced from” option) others actively do not participate in this practice and I’m curious to look into how people perceive this affects their relationships as well as what other think of their relationships. And it would be even more interesting to look at this phenomenon in Jordan where much of the relationship building (because of social constraints, I’m finding out) happens through technology (cell phones, internet cafes, and Facebook).
I’m pretty excited about where this is going because it actually is something I’m interested in looking at. I don’t know, does anyone out there have anything to say about this? Comments? Questions? Help at all in formation of topic? Or just general love? I don’t know, I feel like blog commenting isn’t yet a practice that has caught on. That or no one deems my blog interesting enough to comment on, oh well, I suppose talking it out with myself is just as nice.
Alas, I’m out of new information for tonight and am signing out for the day. Thanks for reading, once again. Love to you all. I hope your next cup of coffee is delightfully amazing.
1 comments:
meh, mabee coffee :)
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