Browsing by Subject "islam"
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(2001)The objective of the study was to understand individuality in Muslim women's dress. The research problems were, how individuality forms and appears in their dress. To answer these questions interviews were made with nine Muslim women who live in Finland. The interviews were analysed with the phenomenologically oriented content analysis method. The research report proceeds in a dialogue between theory and the analysis. In this study individuality in dress was studied as a process. Factors affecting to this process were considered: the individual, the set of identities, personality, self, religion, culture and social relationships. An essential part of the process was searching for a positive experience of self. The experience meant intuitive self-identification and satisfaction with the mirror reflection for the women. Individuality was the result of searching for the positive experience of self-identification, because for each woman different kinds of dress gave a feeling of suitability for the self. For example, for some Muslim women head covering is a way to express the self. They experience this as the right way for the good Muslim woman. For others head covering can mean the loss of positive self experience. Individuality in dress appeared in various ways. Some women cover their whole body including their head in public. Some women do not cover their head and some dress even in tight and revealing clothes. There are also Muslim women who cover their faces, they are not included in this study. Individuality appears also within groups that dress similarly. Individuality appeared with different kind of clothes, hairstyles, make-up, choices, details and colour. However, individuality is not only the noticeable differences in dress, but how each Muslim woman belongs to this reality and expresses herself within dress. This means that in this study individuality in dress is seen in a way that many Finns would not consider as individuality.
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(2001)The purpose of this research is to deepen the understanding of the culture of the veil among Somali women in Finland. The research deals with ethnicity, identity, easing the immigrant's readjustment with the help of one's own culture, and the connection between the religion of Islam and the veil. The veil will be studied from both the historical and religious point of view. The research will also familiarize the reader with the dress code for women in the Koran. The empirical part of the research is carried out as a qualitative study with the help of content analysis, with emphasis in phenomenology. The aim of the phenomenological research method is to reach a person's experience world, and to search for common contents from individual experiences. The material for this study has been collected by interviewing ten Somali women. Some of the women wear veils, some do not. It can be said, on the ground of this research, that the decision about taking on the veil is made by the women themselves. The main cause for wearing the veil is to indicate religiousness. As other motives we can see a search for security, enhancing of solidarity, individual interpretation of the instructions of the religion, covering the ethnic dress while outside, protecting men from the beauty of women, and wearing the veil in the mosque or while praying. As a latent motive we can point out the resisting of Western culture. Not wearing the veil can be justified by the women's need for independence, the veil being unpractical, the want of modernity, the alternation of different ways of dressing, the adaptation of the new culture, abandoning one's own culture, and abandoning the external emphasizing of the religion. Also the veil is not part of the Somali culture; it is a habit adapted from elsewhere.
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(1999)This is a case study, which has been done by ethnographical research. The subject of this research was the fourth class in one comprehensive school in the area of the capital in Finland. The fieldwork was done in the spring term in 1998. There were 24 pupils in the research class and two of them were muslimgirls from Somalia. The methods were participating observation, interviews, discussions and essays, which were written by the pupils. The purpose was to describe and understand the affectness of muslimgirls to the everyday life of this class. I wanted to find out how the teacher and other pupils felt about muslimgirls and what were the experiences of the muslimgirls about their school life and how their religion affected to their schoolday. The main results: Islam affected to the muslimgirls’ clothing and eating. They had islam lessons, they practised about fast and they were allowed to be away from school when they had religious holidays. The other pupils knew that the muslimgirls had the other religion than they had, but they didn’t think that it would affect to muslimgirls’ schoolday. Muslimgirls had Finnish girlfriends in their class and they had a good time together. Earlier the pupils bothered muslimgirls, but not so much anymore. Some boys in the class looked down on muslimgirls or they were hostile towards them. Muslimgirls had some problems at school. They had difficulties with some subjects and they had problems to adapt some habits of the school. The teacher thought that the co-operation with the parents of the muslimgirls was difficult. Despite of these problems the muslimgirls had a positive attitude towards school. In this case the muslimgirls had reached the period of integration according the acculturation theory of Berry. They had adapted well to the class because of their teacher. They also spoke Finnish very well and they had lived in Finland many years, which also helped their adaptation.
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