Academic interests
My field of research is Middle East politics, with particular emphasis on questions related to citizenship and the relationship between religion, law and politics in Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait, Qatar, Morocco and Egypt. Recent publications include an edited book (in Norwegian) with Nils A. Butenschøn on cities in the Middle East where I wrote the chapter on Doha: Brennpunkt Midtøsten: Byene som prisme (Universitetsforlaget, 2018), female lawyers' legal mobilization to reform patriarchal laws in the Middle East. See for example Female Citizenship in Kuwait and Qatar: Globalization and pressures for reform in two rentier states (2016), Female Lawyers in Morocco, Lebanon and Kuwait speak after 2011 (2016) og Enfranchised Minors: Women as People in the Middle East after the 2011 Uprisings (2017). I earned my Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo in 2012 with a thesis entitled The Politicization of the demos in the Middle East: Citizenship between Membership and Participation in the State.
Background
I am a political scientist with degrees in social anthropology and Arabic from the University of Oslo (1992). At Østfold University College I teach courses in international relations, political analysis and comparative politics. I worked previously as a researcher at Fafo Research Institute (1993 - 2000), and as research assistant at the Department of political science, University of Oslo (1991 - 1993). I have worked at Østfold University College since 2004. I have done fieldwork in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar and Morocco.
Awards
- Prize for Research Dissemination in 2014.
Academic Cooperation
Work in progress (2018 - ): "The Unfolding Transformation of the State System in the Middle East" with Lars Mjøset (University of Oslo), Nils A. Butenschøn (Norwegian Centre for Human Rights / Norsk senter for menneskerettigheter (SMR), and Kristian Berg Harpviken (Peace Research Institute (PRIO) / Fredsforskningsinsituttet).
Gender and Judging in the Middle East & Africa (2016 - ) with Monika Lindbekk (Lunds Universitet), Josephine Dawuni (Howard University) and Ulrike Schultz (FernUniversitãt in Hagen), Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law.
AreaS is a collaborative research group at Østfold University College where researchers on states and regions such as the Middle East, France, Great Britain, Spain and Italy are involved. Our research includes electoral politics, medialized politics and women's political participation. See my report from American University of Beirut (oktober / October 2017).
The New Middle East: Emerging Political and Ideological Trends (2015 - 2016), Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo.
"The Re-Birth Of Arab Citizenship? The Arab Uprisings and State-Society Relations in the Arab World" (2014 - 2016) under the leadership of Nils A. Butenschøn and Roel Meijer at the Middle East Institute, Radboud University (NL). My article "Female Citizenship and the Franchise in Kuwait after 2005" was published in The Crisis of Citizenship in the Arab World. (Butenschøn & Meijer, eds.), E. J. Brill, 2016.