My team met today for our weekly meeting, where we discuss where we are in our research. Today we focused on planning when to meet for the deadlines.
One of the main problems we seem to be facing as a group is still coherency of narrative and how the story map is going to be analyzed. The plan to confront these problems is to have all our information up on the google doc by next Tuesday, along with a paragraph describing the narrative we see within our own individual topics, and some ideas for the points we find important to put on the maps. Then, we will all meet in person the next day to discuss the narrative.
I have some hope that the narrative will come together organically and naturally. Our topics of beauty standards, gender expression, and fashion are all interlinked, so a similar narrative for all three may emerge. I know we are already noticing many continuities within our topics, and I think that these similarities can be shaped into a greater, overarching narrative. We also have to figure out how the geography intersects, and how to arrange the points on the map in a cohesive manner. Maybe similarities will arise once we see the research from everyone’s individual topic. Then comes the issue of in what order to arrange the points on the map. Maybe we’ll be lucky and a clear pattern will emerge!
I have been facing some small issues concerning my own individual project. I have yet to find any Uygher fashion designers, or find any evidence about whether traditional clothing is the norm for day to day life. The artifact I have included shows a wedding celebration, and I’m wondering if they normally wear clothes like the ones pictured outside of special occasions. Other pictures I have seen of Uyghers at market places or other everyday areas seem to show a similar style of clothing. I also have to find some more scholarly sources: most sources I have found just through Google searches, and are often just descriptions of the clothing normally worn, or focus more on the ways the current social situation affects attire.
Despite all of this, I have still learned a lot of interesting information! It’s very interesting to me the way fashion can be used to tell information about a person: for example, unmarried Uygher girls often wear their hair in many braids, while girls who are married only wear two braids.  Another interest I have is seeing how their fashion relates to their Muslim faith.
So, even though we have faced some issues with this project, and still have some problems to resolve, I am still confident we will be able to create an interesting and cohesive final project!