Prof. Dr. An Van Raemdonck

Professor An Van Raemdonck is a social anthropologist and Arabist with extensive fieldwork experience in the Middle East and Belgium. Her current research interests include the racialisation of Muslims; Islam in Europe and religion/secularism and reproductive rights in relation to race and religion. hold a PhD in Comparative Science of Cultures from Ghent University, Belgium (2016) and was guest professor at the Department of Middle East Studies of Ghent University (2017-2018). As postdoc researcher at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, VU University Amsterdam (2017-2020), she worked in a collaborative anthropological research project on the shifting meanings and contexts of early marriage among Syrian refugees in Jordan. Her latest research project investigates Islamic ethics and conviviality in Western superdiverse urban contexts.

Her work spans across several disciplinary fields and literatures including contemporary Islam, Muslim societies and the Middle East; critical development and postcolonial/decolonial theory; minority politics, migrant and refugee studies; gender & sexuality; and critical religion studies and (post)secularism. She previously served as editor of Religion and Gender, and currently serve as convenor of the Islam, Ethics and Diversity Network and as co-editor-in-chief of DiGeSt Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies