This is a compilation of interviews that assessed individuals’ approaches to conversations on sexuality in religious African households. The interviewees have African roots ranging from Ghana, The Gambia, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. It was a great study to see that different views were almost displayed across every individual but there were some overlaps. With help from contemporary literary sources, I was able to be cautious in the questions I asked each individual and was aware of the goal, and that was to understand the African narrative of conversations surrounding sexuality especially whilst growing up in religious households.
This was such a great project!! I was interested for the entire video and I really enjoyed listening to everyone’s respones. I thought you asked interesting questions and I learned a lot!
When you presented this to class, and after I saw this on my own, I was struck with how similar some South Asian religious and African Religious households can be. In South Asia, sometimes we have, in my experience, troubles talking about anything related to sex and sexuality: which makes it hard for people to come out and be themselves. I wonder with better conversations– especially related to acceptance– we would be able to start being more progressive!
When you presented this to class, and after I saw this on my own, I was struck with how similar some South Asian religious and African Religious households can be. In South Asia, sometimes we have, in my experience, troubles talking about anything related to sex and sexuality: which makes it hard for people to come out and be themselves. I wonder with better conversations– especially related to acceptance– we would be able to start being more progressive!
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Great project! I loved the inclusion of personal stories and actually hearing the voices of your participants. I also appreciated the diversity of perspective that you had that I feel provided more of a complete analysis of your topic!
I loved how you approached your research topic! I think having a video where your interviewees were allowed to speak freely was great to get a better grasp of their experiences and I appreciated how you found people who have different geographical backgrounds because I think that we’ve seen that location and different societies can play a large role in the influence of people’s perspectives on religion. Great job!
I really enjoyed listening to the different perspectives of the people you included in the video. It was such an effective way to speak on the relationship between religion and growing up African. I especially thought it was interesting to see the differences between people who grew up mainly in the area compared to internationally. Overall a really well put together video!
It was interesting contrasting the people who grew up in America versus those that grew up in Africa. It was also refreshing to see the a little bit of variety in African religions, as in the media Muslims are typically portrayed as Middle Eastern, rather than any other race. It would definitely have been interesting to see even more religions that are found in Africa and hearing their viewpoints on this topic!
This was such a cool idea! I love the idea of basing your project entirely on personal stories, especially of stories and perspectives that aren’t always heard in these kinds of conversations about sexuality and faith. I really really liked how you spliced all the interviews together, instead of showing the entirety of them one at a time. I think it does a good job of demonstrating the similarities and differences in each of the participants and their responses.
This was really eye-opening Brian, and I think you did very well as an interviewer. Your questions were very fair, and although you may have disagreed with some of your guest’s ideas you kept a very neutral atmosphere about you. Very professional. This is a conversation that I had very little experience with, thank you for bringing this discussion to the forefront and highlighting the impact that culture and experiences has on our perception of sexuality!
These interviews were so interesting! Especially at primarily white colleges like the U of R, it is so important to bring forward the experiences of people from other cultures. Before this presentation I didn’t really know anything about what religious values surrounding sex are taught in African communities. I learned so much from this. Great job!
I love the interview format! I think it’s always better to hear people out and listen to them speak about their opinions and thoughts in their words as opposed to reading or hearing through someone else. Great work! 🙂
It was so interesting to see how the answers compared over the different interviews! I feel like it can sometimes be easy to generalize individuals experiences, especially when talking about the experiences of minority populations, so I think projects like this are really important in showing that groups are not monoliths, and I really enjoyed getting to hear your participants explain their personal experiences related to sexuality.
Love how you chose a project you related to and sought the perspectives of those around you to contribute to this project. Love how you highlighted these conversations and asked probing questions. It is unfortunate that none of the queer people you asked were able to feel comfortable enough to be involved in such a public project as I think their opinions would have been valuable, but, I think you just starting these conversations will help pave the way for acceptance of all sexualities, so, I commend you. I love listening to stories from other cultures and contrasting and comparing differences among them, so, your project was very intriguing to me.
I really loved your approach in the interviews it was very genuine and inquisitive. It was very interesting hearing the perspectives of the interviewed people and how some of the expressed opinions were so similar to other cultures which really indicates that even different religious traditions can often lead to having similar impacts on society somehow when it comes to topics such as sexuality.
I loved your project. I know that there was a struggle with the sound quality of this project on the professor’s computer but I just wanted to say that I thought that the way that you presented this project was really impactful and engaging. I liked being able to actually see and hear from the people that you interviewed – it felt very personal and real.
You chose some awesome people to interview. I love that you did not only stick to Christianity but also interviewed an Islamic student, his point of view was vital to the interviews. The students also kept us on our toes with humor, well done!
The medium that you choose is perfect to highlight the stories and perspectives of your interviews. It was interesting to see the thoughts and perspectives of those that shared their stories whether they grew up in the area or directly from Africa. The willingness for the participants to answer deep questions led to thoughtful and meaningful conversation that made the project fantastic.
I am very glad you were able to take your Take Five program and incorporate it into your project for this class. It’s such an interesting topic and something that really stood out to me in the video was when an interviewee spoke about how her mom always jokes she will end up with a white American man, because she’s too bossy for a black American man. That has less to do with sexuality, but I just found it a really interesting perspective. There were really thought provoking statements made throughout the video.