Short presentation

My research focus is contemporary Islam in Scandinavia. I am especially interested in what it means to practice as a devoted Muslim in a complex everyday life setting, and how bonds to religious communities as well as to the divine are established and maintained in such a setting. These questions are also highlighted in my book, Muslim Women and Pious Learning in Denmark (Brill).

Currently, I am working with Islam and aesthetics together with colleagues in the research project ’Pious Practices Among Danish Muslims’, led by professor Catharina Raudvere and funded by The Independent Research Fund Denmark. More specifically, I work on the sub-project ‘Framing Islam’, in which I investigate Scandinavian Islamic art and decorative items for interior decoration. I investigate the art and decorative items being produced and sold and the producers behind. I also investigate the aesthetic and theological choices of these producers, thus examining what art and decorative items for interior decoration can tell us about contemporary Scandinavian Muslim life.

My research interests lie in the study of material religion, ontological questions, and theories within the study of religion and anthropology and their interface. I am interested in ethnographic and anthropological approaches to the study of religion, both ‘online’ and ‘offline’. 

I teach and supervise students in the above mentioned themes, as well as but not limited to historical and contemporary Islam, knowledge and education in Islam, gender perspectives on religion, theory in the study of religion, and ethnographic methods.