Based on a reading of:
Carolyn Ellis, The Autoethnographic I (Oxford: AltaMira, 2004, p.212-214)
While Muslim blogs include notables from both sides of the gender divide, most Muslim journals are written by women. The more intimate, literate, intricate, pedestrian, emotionally literate, subjective and personal blogs, henceforth to be referred to as online journals, tend to be written by women, in my experience. I suspect this is true of non-Muslims, too. Such journals, I have noted, exist within mutually supportive online networks. A few years ago, I found myself following some of the more motherly Muslim ones, being a ‘mummy’ myself, particularly those who cleverly combined journals with more journalistic bloggery – e.g. Koonj. There really ought to be a “best journal” category in the Brass Crescent awards.
Interestingly, my all-time favourite online journal is authored by a non-Muslim: My Boyfriend is a Twat. It is gloriously frank and funny, but such was my commitment to blogs (political, objective, relatively short), MBIAT dropped off my blogbridge (rss engine) radar some time ago. Now I am back exploring the journal format for myself, or at least some kind of amalgam of blog and journal, insha Allah…
Filed under: autoethnography, blog, tasneem project, writing
