My research project is mostly observational based so I want to spend at least 2-3 days this next week in different cafes around Rabat. I also want to experience sitting outside, inside, and upstairs at these cafes because each can have a very different dynamic. As I spend more time at these cafes I hope I can have more casual conversations with women like the one I had with the PhD student I met on the tram. Talking to women here has been intimidating so far since the norm is to keep to yourself (me and Grace were the only other women in this cafe). Fatima Sadiqi’s “Women, Gender, and Language in Morocco” and Zakia Salime’s chapter about Morocco in Arab Family Studies did not play much of a role in my final proposal at the end of D term and I believe they can be very beneficial. I think Salime can offer a unique perspective on what the private sphere is like for a Muslim/Moroccan family and Sadiqi can help to continue to try and help me form a firm backing and understanding for how of things working for women in Morocco and why. Since we do not have as many meetings this week, I feel like this would be a good time to spend a lot of time in public, even if its not at a cafe, and really start diving deeper into my written sources.
Where the sun sets 