Towards a thesis question...

This week, unfortunately, I don't have any exciting pictures to show. We've had the most wonderful weekend - Friday, Saturday, and Sunday all full of sun and blue skies!

What I have been doing, although it's rather un-photogenic, is thinking and talking about my upcoming thesis. I've had several very thought provoking conversations, but my ideas are still vague.

I started off thinking that I would do a case study of an Islamic or interfaith HIV/AIDS organization to see how it balanced religion and theology when dealing with such a contentious topic. However, this presents several challenges, including: there aren't too many of these organizations; when they do exist they often have not been formally evaluated (so I couldn't say that *this* is an approach that "works"); and many of the Islamic or interfaith efforts to prevent the spread of HIV have been conducted on an ad-hoc basis (so there's no formal organization to examine).

So, this led me to consider doing something more theoretically focused, but still practically applicable. In a conversation with Georges Tiendrebeogo I considered an Islamic "how to" for abstinence, for which I could look at writings on Islam broadly and also consult interviews with specific Islamic sources. The idea here is to go beyond abstinence as a prohibition and into a positive construction of it within the religious community.

That got me thinking about approaches to HIV prevention in general, which today tend to focus around the "ABC" model - abstinence, "being faithful," and condoms. Condoms, of course, are the traditional sticking point for religion (although some Muslims have advocated condom use), but "A" and "B" are often easily promoted by religious figures. An interesting thing about Islam is that it (in most readings) supports sexuality, within certain constraints. So that's where I've ended up for now, contemplating writing about some aspect of Islamic sexual ethics in the era of HIV/AIDS.

Obviously, as you can tell from the three paragraphs it took me to explain where I am now, I need a point of focus. Fortunately, I still have time. If you have any feedback, please either leave a comment or send me an email!