Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents

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Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
OP - February 13, 2012, 05:02 PM

Since September last year, I’ve been working on an ESRC-funded study of apostasy/leave-taking from Islam. My primary research question is what it means to leave Islam, how this occurs and with what consequences for the apostate/leave-taker.
I have already carried out a number of life-history interviews with ex-Muslims – some of them prominent members of this forum (a big thank you to all those kind people!). But I need to do more interviews. This is an invitation – indeed a plea – for more respondents to come forward to be interviewed.
About the interview: it would focus on your own life-history and personal experiences. The interview itself would be recorded and last about two hours. The oral recording would then be transcribed. I would work on this transcript, masking all personalized references to you (i.e. names of places, people, family members, place of birth etc would be changed). You would be given a pseudonym (you can choose this). Once the interview has been transcribed, I would then destroy the actual recording, so that what remains from the interview will be an anonymized transcript, untraceable to you. Prior to the interview you will be given a participant consent form to sign. This guarantees confidentiality.
You may wish to know how I will use the information gathered in the interview. The study I’m working on will be published in the form of a book and one or two academic journal articles. The interviews I’m doing with ex-Muslims will form an important part of my data for the book and these articles. The transcript from the interview will not be published in its entirety, but – depending on the information recovered in the interview – I may quote from it or make reference to it.
If you’re willing to participate in the study, please do let me know when you would be available for interview. I’m fully prepared to travel anywhere in the UK to visit you so that we can speak.
Your experiences are crucial to my study. Any help would be massively appreciated.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Simon Cottee
Bangor University
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #1 - February 13, 2012, 05:08 PM

The people from here you've already interviewed told me that you showed up to their homes completely nekkid aside from a short, very revealing white lab coat, holding on a clipboard and digital recorder, then told them the interview would go better if they were also naked. Care to explain yourself?

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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #2 - February 13, 2012, 05:18 PM

Racoon Rapist – what an exquisite user name.
I can’t believe you rumbled me in this way!
You are of course right in one sense - interviewing is about self-exposure – but not the kind you refer to.
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #3 - February 13, 2012, 05:41 PM

Just so everyone knows, this is legit and Simon isn't an extremist Muslim looking to kill you. Check his previous topic here:
http://www.councilofexmuslims.com/index.php?topic=10249.msg264344

I'm not in UK so I can't participate. Looking forward to seeing your work though. Please post back here once it's published.
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #4 - February 13, 2012, 05:54 PM

Hi Tmp,

Thanks for this.
I’m planning a research trip to the US and Canada in May, so if there are any ex-Muslims there who’d be willing to be interviewed, please get in touch.
Following on from what Racoon R. said above, it is indeed difficult to conceal a weapon under my snug lab-coat.

All the best tmp
Simon
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #5 - February 13, 2012, 06:01 PM

I did this. I would confirm that it really was a nekkid interview but I wouldn't want to put anybody off and people expect that sort of thing from me.

But yes, if any of you are in the UK you should try to take part. It was an interesting experience, sort of therapeutic in a small way to talk about the past.

Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #6 - February 13, 2012, 06:16 PM

Thanks Berbs.
It is true: Berbs was very revealing. As you would fully expect from her.
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #7 - February 13, 2012, 07:33 PM

Could I do this in a month or two?
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #8 - February 13, 2012, 09:20 PM

I'm up for doing one sometime in April.

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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #9 - February 13, 2012, 10:02 PM

You batting for the other side Prince?

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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #10 - February 13, 2012, 10:24 PM

Hi

Is your study large enough to find out for example what factors might make a difference, for example nationality, branch of Islam, level of education?

Do you want it publicised more widely, for example on twitter?

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

A.A. Milne,

"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #11 - February 13, 2012, 11:15 PM

I support your efforts, Simon. Hope you find enough ex-Muslims for your research study.

"Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so." -- Bertrand Russell

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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #12 - February 13, 2012, 11:36 PM

Hi Moi,
Thanks for your inquiry. My primary interest is the experience of ex-Muslims in the western secular context. Because it is a qualitative study, the size of the sample is quite modest – I aim to interview about 25-30 ex-Muslims. The sample I have so far is already quite diverse, although the experiences I’ve been recording centre on some common themes. These themes, as it turns out and fascinatingly, are universal. The problems and difficulties ex-Muslims face are in some sense directly related to their own specific life-experiences the choices they make. But they are also, in another sense, characteristically human problems and difficulties: What does it mean to experience doubts over one’s beliefs, values and very identity? Why is it often so difficult to confront our doubts? What does it mean to experience confusion over what we believe or who we are? What does it mean, and how does it feel, to keep one’s doubts or anxieties hidden from others, especially those we love? What does that do to us? What does it mean to live a life that isn’t true to our feelings and core sense of who we are? How do we negotiate the dilemma over the desire to live a life on one’s own terms and the desire not to cause pain or torment to our friends and loved ones? What does it feel like to be constantly misunderstood or constantly misrepresented? How should we deal with our past and try to move beyond it? What do we most long for in life (human connection?) and what do we most fear (loneliness, isolation?)? On what terms should we define ourselves and how should we live our lives in the face of the difficulties, confusions and complexities that confront us?
The epigraph to the book I’m writing on ex-Muslims is from Horace: ‘Change only the name and this story is about you’. Ex-Muslim stories (I mean the experiences ex-Muslims relay – I don’t mean the stories themselves are fictional) are fundamentally human stories, with all-too-common human themes: love, loss, loneliness, the search for meaning and connection. It’s this that I want to write about.
I’m not sure if the above can be compressed into a tweet!
Simon
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #13 - February 13, 2012, 11:36 PM

ateapotist: thank you for your kind words!
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #14 - February 13, 2012, 11:44 PM

we need a dr. simon in canada...

you're writing a book.. can't wait to read it..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV9vdUjuWxc
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #15 - February 14, 2012, 08:21 PM

I love this, but not quite sure about its political correctness!

Quote
Of all the desiccated, bitter, cruel, sun beaten wildernesses which starve and thirst beyond the edges of Africa’s luscious jungled centre, there cannot be one more Christless than the one which begins at the northern foot of Mount Kenya and stretches to the foothills of Abyssinia, and from there to the dried-out glittering tip of Cape Gardafui where the hot karif winds blow in from where the long sharks race under the thin blue skin of the ocean. You can never think of those wildernesses without thinking of daggers and spears, rolling fierce eyes under mops of dusty black crinkly hair, of mad stubborn camels, rocks too hot to touch, and blood feuds whose origins cannot be remembered, only honoured in the stabbing. But of all the races of Africa there cannot be one better to live among than the most difficult, the proudest, the bravest, the vainest, the most merciless, the friendliest; the Somalis.

I knew an Italian priest who had spent over thirty years among the Somalis, and he made two converts, and it amazed me that he got even those two. The Prophet has no more fervent, and ignorant followers, but it is not their fault they are ignorant. Their natural intelligence is second to none and when the education factories start work among them they should surprise Africa, and themselves.

Gerald Hanley Warriors – Life and death among the Somalis Eland London 2004 isbn 0 907 871 83 6

It sounds like leaving Islam is becoming easier!

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

A.A. Milne,

"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #16 - February 14, 2012, 08:29 PM

On identity, I came across a comment by a refugee that coming to Britain was like being lost in an ocean, they had nothing around them now in common with their background. With children very often not speaking the same language as their parents, all sorts of issues arise.

But a common response is, you were living under a tree, what are you complaining about?

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

A.A. Milne,

"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #17 - February 14, 2012, 10:56 PM

Quote from: Raccoon Rapist on February 13, 2012, 05:08 PM
The people from here you've already interviewed told me that you showed up to their homes completely nekkid aside from a short, very revealing white lab coat, holding on a clipboard and digital recorder, then told them the interview would go better if they were also naked. Care to explain yourself?

I missed out on this experience. Mine involved full clothing and no nakeyness whatsoever .
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #18 - February 15, 2012, 10:36 AM

I wonder if what apostasy actually is is recreating one's self. Maybe it is about role and theatre, presentation of self in everyday life.

Some societies have become incredibly institutionalised, insisting everyone should be as they say, and do terrifying things to enforce this, well documented by Amnesty International. Maybe North Korea and Saudi Arabia have more in common than we realise!

Instead of just taking on a new role with a new set of clothes and different scenes, people often have to learn new languages, completely different basic assumptions, new ways of thinking and being. Dreaming, is it in the first language or a new language - a friend, completely fluent in English and Urdu, always counts in her first language Urdu, she wasn't sure what language she dreamt in.

I know it is pop psychology, but Rita Carter Multiplicity discusses this. She doesn't take it further and look at imaginary friends, or changing religion, or going to no religion.

Marlene Winnell is a very valuable source for people leaving fundamentalist Xianity. I wonder if similar resources are needed for people leaving Islam.

My general impression is that this is an area that really hits the classic taboo stuff, and is surrounded by death threats.

But it definitely needs looking at!

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

A.A. Milne,

"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #19 - February 15, 2012, 10:41 AM

On the theatre theme, I do wonder if there is a general attitude of drama around Islam, in comparison with thinking about stuff. I find the following a valuable comparison!

Quote
When 16-year-old Natalie first started dating her boyfriend, her mother did something that would mortify most American parents: She took her to the doctor’s office to get her contraceptives. Her mother wasn’t weirded out by the fact that her teen daughter was about to have sex — in fact, she fully supported it. She merely wanted to make sure that she was doing it safely, and responsibly. A couple of months later, when it finally happened, her parents were totally accepting. As her father put it, “sixteen is a beautiful age” to lose your virginity.

If that seems like an unfamiliar attitude toward sex and parenting, it might have something to do with the fact that Natalie’s parents aren’t American — they’re Dutch. They are one of dozens of Dutch families interviewed by Amy T. Schalet, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, in her new book, “Not Under My Roof.” Schalet’s book compares the sexual attitudes of American and Dutch parents and her findings are nothing short of staggering: Whereas most American parents panic about the idea of allowing their kids to have sex with other kids under their roof, for many Dutch parents, it’s not only fine — it’s responsible parenting.

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/30/solving_americas_teen_sex_problem/singleton/

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

A.A. Milne,

"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #20 - February 17, 2012, 09:30 AM

I'm neither brave nor particularily altruistic but I gave it a spin and I'm definitely glad I did.

This sort of research is vital-so I would recommend everyone who can to volunteer, even if you feel shy. Simon was professional, friendly and understanding and I enjoyed the experience.

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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #21 - February 17, 2012, 11:59 AM

Quote from: moi on February 15, 2012, 10:41 AM
On the theatre theme

Fascinating as they are, aren't your contributions to this thread a bit of a stream-of-consciosness monologue?
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #22 - February 24, 2012, 12:12 AM

Simon...if you are stll looking. I was muslim for17 years and lived in the middle east for 23 years. I left islam some 5 years ago (was married to an arab/muslim for 20 years) and eventually came back to the states. If you would like any information from me regarding my experience, feel free to ask.

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
Richard Dawkins

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/richard_dawkins_2.html#ixzz1mkNk9lM4
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #23 - March 13, 2012, 07:33 AM

I've just been interviewed. It was a good experience, and I recommend it.

To echo what's already been said: Simon's an ideal interviewer - pretty, too, if that's any encouragement - and knows his subject, but he really should have more volunteers (and if you haven't already done so, please consider it). I'm convinced that his project is worthwhile, and that I did something worth doing by participating.

Before it gets too late, you will find escape.
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy – Call for More Respondents
Reply #24 - March 13, 2012, 07:51 AM

I did the interview thing, don't think I contributed much, was definitely an interesting experience.

Also was thinking, how people say the meaning of life is about experiences, something as simple as meeting a stranger and chatting, it was fun and I think I gained more from it than Simon I don't get/give myself the opportunity for more diverse experiences.

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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #25 - March 13, 2012, 08:33 AM

uuuuhh, getting nervous here,
how the probing goes, Stardust?
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #26 - March 13, 2012, 08:39 AM

I'm in London and I can give an interview.

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Sky-bound was the mind, earth-bound the body rests."
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #27 - March 23, 2012, 04:17 PM

Been interviewed,
Good experience for me,
I'm very glad I did it.
Now eagerly waiting for
Dr Simon progress on his studies.
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #28 - March 23, 2012, 04:26 PM

I have a cunning plan. Let's deluge him with interviewees.

Me, I plan to have extensive plastic surgery so he can interview me again. He's THAT good, people.

Before it gets too late, you will find escape.
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Re: Research Study on Apostasy ? Call for More Respondents
Reply #29 - March 23, 2012, 05:02 PM

Hi Dr Simon, no I'm not paranoid,
I'm ex-muslimah, I'm new here ,
do care to interview me ?
Ohohohoh
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