PhD pre-defence seminar – Pernille Friis Jensen

Gendered Mosques and Women’s Belonging: A study of mosques as gendered organizations in Denmark and implications for women’s participation.

PhD pre-defence seminar with Pernille Friis Jensen, Ph.d. fellow, ToRS.

External discussant: dr. Sevgi Adak, Aga Khan University, London.

The PhD project is a part of the research project Danish Mosques: Significance, Use and Influence, funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark 2017-2022, led by Brian Arly Jacobsen. The overall purpose of Danish Mosques: Significance, Use, and Influence is to investigate the forms, rationales, internal dynamics, and relations of power of mosques in Denmark. The PhD project contributes to this by exploring mosques as gendered organizations from women’s perspective: To investigate how gendered (sub)structures of different mosque organizations consist of processes and practices of organizing that continually recreate gender relations; to examine how mosques produce mosque belonging for women, and how certain narratives about gender complementarity and citizenship as ethics are produced in reaction to external and internal pressure. The study aims to contribute with insights into how gender matters in the dynamics of practices and identities as well as power within mosques. This serves to exemplify how gender and religion intersect in complex ways in the Muslim organizational field in contemporary Denmark and what mosques can be, seen from women’s perspective, consequently contributing to realizing a fuller understanding of organized Islam in Denmark.