My observations in the Mosque on the breaching experiment

I decided to test what is the appropriate way to dress to enter the mosque. On Friday I went to the mosque wearing tight clothes, which is breaking the norms and rules of the mosque. When people saw me on my tight pants and a small top they were looking at me with strange faces. When men saw me they were saying, “Haram” which means forbidden. On that Friday, I saw all kinds of faces looking at me. I felt like the whole world was staring at me at that moment. But I didn’t care because I was there to test something, which I will explain later after my observations of intentionally breaking norms that are highly respected.

First of all, when a person enters the Mosque, he/she needs to greet first by saying, “Assalamouallakoum” at the same time remove the shoes and place them on the shelves. Once, this is done then everyone has to do the clean-up which is called “Hoodoo”. This involved watching the hands, the mouth, the nose, the face, the ears, the head and the end the feet, As soon as they finished taking the “Hoodoo” then they may either pray or touch the Qur’an to read it. This process goes for both males and females in the Mosque. Mosque is divided into two sections: Males section and the females section. In the males’ section they’re separated into status, roles, and classes. For instance, the Imam is the person who leads the prayers as a status. However, to acquire this status the person has to be very educated in term of the Qur’an in which people are convinced to make him their leader. In other words, the Imam is considered an achieved status, because it was his own efforts that made him in that position. His actions concern the social institution as well. Therefore, people expect him to behave normal as a role. This man is given the most power to lead people through prayers and to advice the followers.

            In the males’ section, people site by class. The rich men site in the front lines after the Imam, who always sites in the front line in the Mosque, because They to donate large amount of money to help the poor and sick individuals in the community. People are very quiet in the mosque. They do engage into conversations but in between little groups or when they are reading the Qur’an. I noticed that females do not go into males ’section, especially if they’re inappropriately dressed up. Women should only wear lose clothes and a hijab which covers their heads.

            In the other hand, women are very social in their section. Although, they site in group when reading the Qur’an or eating a meal especially, during Ramadan. But that’s part of being socially bound.  Now, the breaching experiment was entering the males section with my tight pants and top, and most of all, without my hijab. The Imam and the other fellow Muslim’s men were surprised at my behavior. They were wondering why I went the mosque dressed in that manner. I knew the questions on their minds when we were looking at each other on that scene. However, one of them asked me, what I was doing on the men’s hall without my hijab and wearing tight clothes. But then, I explained to him that it was an experiment, And that I was just testing their behaviors about breaking the norms and the rules of the Mosque.

The social culure that shapes our daily lives

 

We live in a society where social institutions are part of our daily lives. People know how to behave in different settings within the Social structure because the rules, norms, and the beliefs are obvious. Therefore, we are expected to behave according to the social structure we are part of at a particular movement. For instance, the way a person behaves in a party with friends is not the same way he/she would behaves when in a meeting with a lawyer or an interview for a job. However, someone may challenges the social structure of a work place such as coming late to work and not doing the job properly. This person may not have accepted the norms, believes, and rules of that job. Therefore, he/she decided to violate it by not coming on time and doing the job right.  In other words, we only respect our social institutions when we agree about the rules, norms of the social structure.

Social structures vary depending on the culture it belongs to. As we know, we all belong to a particular culture that makes us significant in way or the other because we have different sets of believes, values, norms, and behaviors that the society we live in expect us to comprehend. For example, in my culture society expects women to get married at an early age than what American society expects from their women. The marriage institution is taken seriously in my culture than most cultures do around the world.

Statuses and Roles play an important thing in our lives. Status defines who we are and our positions in the society. For example, I am a student, a daughter, a classmate and an employee within the social structure I participate in, whether its school, work, and family.  So, the roles I adopt while I am in these structures shape my behaviors towards each status. Like being a daughter, you’re expected to be respectful to your parents as well as other individuals. It’s obvious that we adopt roles as quick as we get involve in a social structure. We do not need to be told that the rules we just understand them how to obey or disobey if we choose to reject the norms or rules of that institution.

As a human being in a society we interact with different people every day in our lives. These interactions are associated with people we mostly have similar activities that we can share together as a society. As the book said, sociologists use two methods; such as ethnomethodology, as a way people understand one another during their daily activities.  In other words, social structure could be put in different types of levels; Micro level, the Meso level, and the macro level. Now, all these help us interact to each other within the social structures of a daily life.

 

 

The qu'ran is a non-material culture,because its include some group of people's beliefs and values. Through the qu'ran muslims navigate their view points of the world by understanding the message that has been transfered. using this holy book also make it easy to behave appropriately. For instance, how to dress by not exposing their body for both men and females.

this kids value eduaction in term of accumulilating knowledge of the real world. Its a public school that helps poor people in the society to become educated.

 

This cola nuts are traditional obejcts that sybolized our ideal culture. We use this nutes to show respect to the elderly people, especially in ceremonies like weddings, babyshowers, founerals etc.

 

 

This house represents material culture in Guinea. Most houses in the capital look like this image. However, people are nowadays designing it with more colorful items.

This is a subculture group of females in a small town that adopt the same lifestyles and values and above all speak the same language called"Foulani".

 

 

This masdijd is the symbol of Islam. it could also be a material culture that represnts a group of people who practice the same beliefs. i also see it as dominant culture in my coutry, because it permeats indivuduals to practices the religion they are part of by those in power.

 

this house exists only in the country side of guinea. Our ancestors used to live in houses like this one on the image. its a material culture as well because this kind of house still exists in my village. It was left for the new generation, although its litle modified now but very similar because the culture is meant to be alive.

 

 

 

Artificial objects in guinea. These arts represent tradition and culture in guinea,especially in a subculture of mandingo people. They ussually live in the west-East of guinea. Its could be also High culture.

 

 Musical objects seeing as material culture. People are still using these instruments in the musical industry.

 Traditional dance, its part of a subculture in guinean society. They have the same lifestyle,and values.

 

This flag's colors symbolized essential thing the country. Red, presents the blood that had been shed during war in Guinea. The yellow symbolized the natural resources that the country possesses which was the reason of the war. The french people did not just colonized us but they rather seized our natural resourceses. Whereas, the green represents the view of the nature. as you can see in this picture.