More than anything, this experience provided me with something more valuable than I can really explain: mental invigoration and energy. It's almost as if someone said, "you're going about this all wrong. Here--here's where you start," without ever explicitly saying this.
It was about the comments I got in the workshop. It was about the questions I was asked to answer during my presentations. And, more than anything, it was about the rejection I got yesterday for my article. At first, I was sad. Really sad. But then it hit me this morning--I had been framing this portion all wrong. In fact, I'd been thinking about the dissertation itself all wrong. I kept trying to think about it as a singular project that needed to use the same methods throughout and see everything in the same light. I realized that's not what I need to do at all. It's the same topic and elements, yes, but more like 3 different projects using the same data to get to different aspects of the picture.
In the first portion, I'm exploring newspaper data and community interviews, really focusing on discourse analysis to figure out what the power structures present are and how the larger narratives reaffirm the works of folks like Tehranian (2009), Beyoumi (2008), and Maira (2009), who all state that Muslims have been framed as a monolithic whole, of one mind and thought, looking similarly, and of "the imagined unified region known as the Middle East" (Tehranian). I'm able to show the shift in focus over time through basic numerical data, as there are far more articles in 2001 on Muslims and Arabs than there were prior. Though the numbers decrease after 2001, there are still surges in some years such as 2003 (the start of the Iraq War seems to have some impact here) and 2005 (I'm not really sure why on that one!) and they haven't receded to pre-2001 numbers yet. Framing has also changed as where "Arab" used to be the primary word of choice (and often used inaccurately in the OP ED pieces I'm looking at), "Muslim" is now more in focus and the words are slightly more likely to occur together (which indicates to a degree an increased awareness that just because someone is "Arab" doesn't mean that they are Muslim!) Community interviews reveal a divide in knowledge about realities post-9/11 (but as I'm still transcribing these and not yet begun to analyze much, I don't want to say much on this at this point!)
The next section of the project looks at the narratives of my "core" participants. Using a sort of open coding and grounded theory approach, we've looked for themes similar across the narratives to talk about some important questions and concepts that have come up in the analysis process. While this, I believe, doesn't do justice to the stories themselves, it's a nice way to summarize findings and raise a few questions. To better address the stories as a whole and present a less comparative approach, each of these four narratives is presented as a case study of sorts, in narrative inquiry style/methodology.
Finally, and in order to answer the final question ("how do the individual narratives align or disalign with larger discourses in media and the community?") ...I'm not sure. This, I think, as I get further into narrative inquiry methods, this may actually be addressed in the case study narratives themselves.
The challenge I was given at the workshop, I think, has become another important question for me to answer in the findings. One of the other dissertating folks said "I'd love to hear the ways in which these stories and this process has shaped you and your identity/identities." I really hadn't thought about it before, but I think this is probably the next chapter or portion of a chapter that I start working on as it's been on my mind for the last five days straight :D As usual, I think the hardest portion will be writing the conclusions and implications.
Like I said, it's almost like it suddenly hit me that this is 3 different projects using the same data and therefore making it seem like a mess from afar, but more like a three dimensional, multi-disiciplinary image as you get down to it. A challenge to create, for sure, but it's become an important creation for me as I hope to help others from multiple understandings within education perceive the importance and complexity of the issues I'm trying to address.
I'd love to hear any other thoughts/questions out there! As it stands, the intro is done (with some more lit review to be worked on/added, of course), and the newspaper/community interview chapter is about half finished. I have 3 of the 4 narratives drafted though still in progress, and I'm honestly hoping to get to work on the findings now. No, I know I'm not "done" with the analysis, but there are things that keep coming up and need to be addressed for sure, even if I end up having to scrap it later because it no longer seems accurate at the end. With any luck, I'll have a draft at least of everything by July :D It is happening and it will happen. It's such a good feeling to come home from the conference and realize I'm actually sort of closer than I thought I was to finishing!
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