From here, Irina and Julie went to go with Clifford to present brief research proposals to UvA students. In the meantime I started heading over to the Amsterdam Historical Museum to check out the fashion exhibition by foot. On the way there I saw a Moroccan restaurant which I took note of. Luckily, both Irina and I arrived simultaneously and we entered into the fashion exhibit. The exhibit was focused on Amsterdam fashion houses which was a wonderful topic but was distant from our research so Irina asked staff about where in the museum we could find info on Muslim history. We were directed to the top floor where there was a small section on Turkish immigrant construction laborers and a bit on their resistance. We then headed back and on the way checked out the Moroccan restaurant which was unfortunately closed.
Irina and I split up, she took her bike down to Amsterdam West while I returned to Amsterdam Oost to do more observation and wait to interview the girl at 5:00 pm (who ended up turning down the interview for today & said I could come tomorrow). As I observed I went into a blokker store and managed to ask an employee if she was Muslim, which she replied yes. She was busy at the moment but let me know she ends work at 6:00 pm and said I could come in Saturday at 6:00 pm to interview her. I also went into a Turkish bakery where I saw a girl wearing hijab but she spoke little english and directed me to a male worker who was very kind and willing to talk to me. I did a mini interview with him and he said I was welcome to come again. I then went back to Manzana, a Muslim trendy clothing store. I actually went next door to a travels service and the hong-kong young woman there led me to the Manzana store and conversed with them in Dutch and explained my situation. We got one headscarved employee who spoke good english but she apologized she (and her peers) were all too busy. So I had to let it be, but the woman from hong-kong was very kind and mentioned I could try a Muslim Community Center (which we will plan to go to).
In the next few hours I kept trying to approach Muslim women workers or shoppers. I got one woman's email address so I can email her dutch questions so she can respond as well as a woman who spoke decent english's phone number which I will call tomorrow. Unfortunately, the girl I wanted to interview @ 5:00 pm said she was busy until 6 and had to go home because she was tired so she suggested coming tomorrow at 3:00 pm.
The best development we had today was from 4:30 to 6:30 when we went back to visit the young Muslim man who ran a Moroccan fashion & Islamic book store. Inside today there were two sisters, one who wore a headscarf and one who didn't. We interviewed them briefly with the helpful introduction by the Moroccan young man. Another older man who was a regular costumer was also there and he was very willing to talk and told us he was happy we were coming to do research by talking to Muslim women directly. Transcriptions of what was said will be up asap. The Moroccan young man gave us contacts to a Dutch woman who is very knowledgeable in Islam as well as a man who recently converted to Islam. We also got to try on head scarves!
Basic summary of findings:
-Saw one Muslim girl with a non Muslim friend, wearing jeans and a trendy fashion top
(seemed completely western - besides ethnicity couldn't tell Muslim)
-Saw a couple Muslim girls dressed with white/light headscarf and colorful baby doll dresses + white paints
(body dress looked very western style which contrasted sharply with headscarf, looked surprisingly trendy & attractive, seemed to go against the 'cover up' idea. Since I couldn't see the hair I was drawn naturally to their body which showed quite a lot of chest/upper figure)
-Lots of head-scarved young women (20s - 30s) have children & strollers or are pregnant.
(Not sure if it's cultural to have children & perhaps relatively early for Muslim women? Or maybe just once married / becoming mothers they start wearing head scarves?)
-Young girls do not wear head scarves that often, saw a 14-15 year old girl wear one though today while her young sister age 5 or so didn't
(Perhaps culturally there is a certain age to start wearing head scarves - appears to be age 10 from interviews today)
-Saw a woman wearing full burqa in the Oost market
(Apparently Netherlands have banned burqa in public, so I'm not sure how this woman is wearing it - could be that it is not tightly enforced)
Major points:
*Only small percentage of Muslim women here in Amsterdam wear head-scarves. Therefore the population we notice is definitely going to be biased. We understand that our focus will be on why they choose to wear one even when not majority/popular so this is not a detractor, only something to keep in consideration that we are dealing with a unique group.
*According to Muslim men we have talked to as well as girls themselves, the hijab is worn by personal choice (at least by principal). The idea is for a woman to wear the head scarf for herself when she feels ready
*Head scarf is worn around possible marriage candidates (thus pertaining to public in general as well) - so at home in front of mom, dad, sisters & brothers women can take it off but interestingly in front of cousins must put it back on. Woman with girl friends it is ok to have it off.
Will be interesting from here to investigate Muslim men and whether they feel anything negative towards women who don't wear head scarves - do they have a bias against them? (as some online sources claim) What is the range of freedom to choose head scarf wearing across different Muslim nationalities? How much of the 'free choice' is really free choice? How does growing up in Dutch culture combined with family/nationality (this dynamic) impact the choice?
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