The Surreptitious Scholar
The Challenges of Conducting Interviews with Iraqi-Shi’a Muslim Participants in Dearborn, Michigan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v10i1.24040Keywords:
Dearborn, diasporas, Iraqis, Michigan, Shi’a MuslimsAbstract
In attempting to measure and compare the level of religiosity among two waves of Iraqi-Shi’a Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, the researcher was required to interview fifty members from this diasporic community. However, attempting to conduct research with these groups proved difficult as it was believed that the researcher was either a “journalist” working for a major media outlet or, more severely, a “spy” working for a government agency and posing as a scholar. The level of suspicion initially exuded by the community proved to be a significant obstruction to this research project. In order to help dissolve the sense of suspicion that permeated the atmosphere, the researcher undertook a few unique strategies to ensure his identity and ease the fears held by the participant community.
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References
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Walbridge, Linda S. 1997 Without Forgetting the Imam: Lebanese Shi’ism in an American Community. Wayne State University Press, Detroit.
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Al-Marashi, Ibrahim 2002 Iraq’s Security and Intelligence Network: A Guide and Analysis. Middle East Review of International Affairs 6(3). Online: http://www.gloria-center.org/2002/09/al-marashi-2002-09-01/ (accessed February 17, 2015).
Barrett, Richard A. 1967 Benabarre: The Modernization of a Spanish Village. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.
Boulianne, Shelley 2008 Incentives. In Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods, vol. 1, edited by P. J. Lavrakas, 328-31. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412963947.n218
Brasch, Walter M. 2005 America’s Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government’s Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights. Peter Lang, New York.
Cainkar, Louise 2009 Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience after 9/11. Russell Sage Foundation, New York.
Chryssides, George D., and Ron Geaves 2007 The Study of Religion: An Introduction to Key Ideas and Methods. Continuum, London.
Coffey, Amanda 1999 The Ethnographic Self: Fieldwork and the Representation of Identity. Sage Publications, London.
Cohen, Louis, Lawrence Manion and Keith Morrison 2007 Research Methods in Education. 6th ed. Routledge, London.
Egan, Paul 2009 Prosecutors: Metro Area Men Spied for Saddam. The Detroit News. Online: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20090103/METRO/901030379.
Etzioni, Amitai 2004 How Patriotic is the Patriot Act? Freedom versus Security in the Age of Terrorism. Routledge, London.
Hammersley, Martyn, and Paul Atkinson 1995 Ethnography: Principles in Practice. 2nd ed. Routledge, London.
Howell, Sally, and Amaney Jamal 2009 The Aftermath of the 9/11 Attacks. In Citizenship and Crisis Arab Detroit After 9/11, edited by Detroit Arab American Study Team, 69-100. Russell Sage Foundation, New York.
Iraqi-Shi’a Community of Dearborn, Michigan 2011–2012 United States Interviews Wave One (IW1) and Wave Two (IW2) Participant Designations A to Y. Interviews conducted with and by the author.
Karim, Karim H. 2006 American Media’s Coverage of Muslims: The Historical Roots of Contemporary Portrayals. In Muslims and the News Media, edited by E. Poole and J. E. Richardson, 116-27. I.B. Tauris, London.
Knott, Kim 2010 Insider/Outsider Perspectives. In The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, edited by J. R. Hinnells, 2nd ed., 259-73. Routledge, London.
Krupa, Gregg (journalist) 2011 Phone conversation with author.
Krupa, Gregg, and Ron Hansen 2007 Locals Expected Iraq Spy Charges. The Detroit News. Online: http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=keyword&s_search_type=keyword&p_product=DTNB&p_theme=gannett&s_site=detnews
Leinwand, Donna 2008 FBI Follows Paper Trail to Uncover Iraqi Spies. USAToday. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-03-02-Iraqispyinside_N.htm.
Lindlof, Thomas R., and Bryan C. Taylor 2011 Qualitative Communication Research Methods. 3rd ed. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Marranci, Gabriele 2008 The Anthropology of Islam. Berg, Oxford.
McCall, George J. 2006 The Fieldwork Tradition. In The Sage Handbook of Fieldwork, edited by D. Hobbs and R. Wright, 3-21. Sage Publications, London
Monshipouri, Mahmood 2010 The War on Terror and Muslims in the West. In Muslims in the West after 9/11: Religion, Politics and Law, edited by J. Cesari, 45-66. Routledge, London.
Qazwini, Imam Hassan 2007 American Crescent: A Muslim Cleric on the Power of his Faith, the Struggle against Prejudice, and the Future of Islam and America. Random House, New York.
Sherif, Bahira 2001 The Ambiguity of Boundaries in the Fieldwork Experience: Establishing Rapport and Negotiating Insider/Outsider Status. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(4): 436-47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/107780040100700403
Simpson, Bob 2006 “You Don’t Do Fieldwork, Fieldwork Does You”: Between Subjectivation and Objectivation in Anthropological Fieldwork.” In The Sage Handbook of Fieldwork, edited by D. Hobbs and R. Wright, 125-37. Sage Publications, London.
Stoeltje, Beverly J., Christine L. Fox and Stephen Olbrys 1999 The Self in “Fieldwork”: A Methodological Concern. Journal of American Folklore, 112(444): 158-82. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/541947
Suleiman, Yasir, and Paul Anderson 2008 “Conducting Fieldwork in the Middle East”: Report of a Workshop held at the University of Edinburgh on 12 February 2007. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 35(2): 151-71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13530190802180571
Takim, Liyakat Nathani 2009 Shi’ism in America. New York University Press, New York.
Walbridge, Linda S. 1997 Without Forgetting the Imam: Lebanese Shi’ism in an American Community. Wayne State University Press, Detroit.
White, Ed 2009 Mich. Man who Spied for Iraq Gets Nearly 4 Years. Associated Press. Online: http://www.homeland1.com/domestic-international-terrorism/articles/501768-Mich-man-who-spied-for-Iraq-gets-nearly-4-years/
Published
2016-01-15
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Cappucci, J. (2016). The Surreptitious Scholar: The Challenges of Conducting Interviews with Iraqi-Shi’a Muslim Participants in Dearborn, Michigan. Fieldwork in Religion, 10(1), 82-96. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v10i1.24040
