This summer, I will collect narratives from various Yemeni women activists in Dearborn, Michigan and, via Zoom, from Yemen, to perform a thematic analysis to understand the range of standpoints that inspire their activism. Approaching human rights discourses from the perspectives of Yemeni women will show how they create new senses of justice in and through Islam, a focus lacking in the literature of social sciences and humanities. I am extremely passionate about this project, however, I anticipate that there will be difficulties to overcome to ensure full completion of it.
Time management is the biggest hurdle I will have to overcome as I often struggle to balance my personal and professional life. As I will be graduating in the upcoming fall seamster, I will also be in the final stages of editing and defending my honor’s thesis. This simply means that I have to write most of my honor’s thesis by the end of this summer and finish it early in the fall semester. To overcome this, I have already communicated with my thesis supervisor about this deadline and we have created a plan that I have started acting upon since the fall of 2022.
I have read several books and articles on Muslim women’s thoughts on the tensions and convergences between Islam and human rights discourse. I am also in the process of writing a literature review which surveys books, scholarly articles, and other sources relevant to my topic thus granting me the ability to understand where my research fits within my field(s) of study and reveal any gaps that may exist in the literature. I will be constructing chapters for my thesis and sending my work to an editor starting mid-June as my thesis supervisor suggested it would be helpful to gain feedback from others, which allows me to send him work that is not focused on grammatical issues but content-related issues.
Another issue I foresee overcoming is the possibility of changing my research methodology. This can happen due to a new COVID-19 variant, XBB.1.5, in Detroit, Michigan drastically increasing or I find some of my methods will not work in Dearborn. If the former issue arises, I will simply conduct all of my interviews online, via Zoom, and oral informed consent procedures will be conducted both for the interviews and for permission to audio record. If the latter issue arises, I am already informed on other ethnographic field methods I can use due to my enrollment in a research methods course in the spring of 2023 that was taught by Professor Joseph Hellweg. These are the two biggest hurdles that may be challenging to overcome, but I will overcome it and complete my honor’s thesis.
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