Friday, February 1, 2008

Introduction

I did a lot of research last semester on the contemporary political climate of Morocco thinking that I would go there this summer to conduct qualitative research for my thesis. When reality set in, I asked myself, "How are you going to pay for this?" I realized that I didn't have the money to go over there for three months and interview people. I was ready to change topics when one of my professors suggested performing web-based research- so here I am. I've been following some of the blogs either written by Moroccans or written about Morocco. This blog will serve as a diary for my experiences while carrying out this research, and I hope people partcipating in the Blogoma will come here to share their thoughts and opinions. My French is very poor and my Arabic is non-existent but I have a collegue that is willing to translate so feel free to post in your preferred language. If I post on your website and it is incoherent, please forgive me because I will be using translation software.

J'ai fait beaucoup de recherche le semestre dernier sur le climat politique contemporaine du Maroc et j'ai pensai y aller cet été pour mener des recherches qualitatives pour ma thèse. Quand je me suis demandé, «Comment j'allai payer pour cela?" Je me suis rendu compte que je n'avais pas l'argent pour aller au maroc pour trois mois. J'étais prête à changer mon sujet lorsque l'un de mes professeurs a suggéré d'effectuer des recherches sur le Web-donc je suis ici. J'ai suivi quelques-uns des blogs rédigés par des Marocains ou écrit sur le Maroc. Ce blog sera un journal de mes expériences dans l'exécution de cette recherche, et j'espère que les gens partcipant dans la Blogoma viendront ici pour partager leurs idées et leurs opinions. Mon francais est très pauvre et mon arabe est inexistante, mais j'ai un collègue qui est prête à traduire n'hésitez pas à envoyer dans la langue de votre choix.

BTW, I tried to translate this into Arabic too but it was really bad so I left it out.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Reb, welcome to the blogosphere! :D

Here are a couple of my favorite blogs for hot topics on Moroccan politics.

http://www.blog.ma/obiterdicta/

http://www.larbi.org/

Good luck with your project, if there is anything I can do to help let me know.

Reb said...

Hi Myrtus,
Thanks for your support and for visiting! I have been looking at those bloggers, but it takes me forever because my French is so poor (too bad I can't leave the French-speaking majority out :)). BTW, I like your blog so I'm sure that we'll talk soon.
Reb

Jillian said...

Hi Reb,

I'd be happy to offer suggestions - what exactly are you looking for (just politics?). Also, I saw that you commented on one of my Global Voices posts - if you look back through my (and Lydia Beyoud's) Morocco post, you'll find lots of links to Morocco-related blogs (I also have a fairly comprehensive list on my own blog: http://www.moroccosavvy.com/taamarbuuta)

Reb said...

Hi Taamarbuuta,
I actually used your list of English-speaking bloggers (THANK YOU! THANK YOU!) to decide which one's to use for my content analysis (I further narrowed them by bloggers that discussed the September 2007 Elections). My research question is the following: how do significant bloggers of the Blogoma (both French and English-speaking)discuss Islam in their blogs, especially as it relates to politics? Thanks for stopping by and hope to talk to you soon.
Reb

khalidhassani said...

Hi, Reb there are really excellent Moroccan blogs out there, indeed you need to speak french, but did you http://www.google.com/translate_t ?

Among my prefered blogs : http://www.larbi.org and http://www.citoyenhmida.org/ from there you can find other bloggers posting.

Good luck

Reb said...

Hi khalidhassani,
Thank you for your suggestions. I have been following those blogs and the Google translator is my best friend these days because I am also tackling the blogs in Arabic. If you know of any good Arabic blogs with which to start, please let me know.
Thanks,
Reb