Faculty of Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies, Department of Islam, Politics and Society
Alkorani joined Radboud as an assistant professor in 2021; she was a RUNOMI affiliate for two years before becoming formally incorporated as Sector Plan member in 2023.
What are you working on, and how does your work relate to the focus of RUNOMI?
Broadly speaking, my research explores how dramatic sociohistorical and political changes impact migrants’ everyday lives and religious practices. My first project investigated how migrants living in Dubai (in the United Arab Emirates – UAE) were affected by state attempts to reform Islam after the Arab Spring. I traced how government-led efforts to depoliticize Islam shaped how migrant Muslim women related to God, their families and friends, and their inner selves. This research resulted in several peer-reviewed articles and is the subject of my ongoing book manuscript. At the same time, I am developing a new research project which explores the same themes of migrant life and religiosity amidst upheaval through a focus on food. It follows the diasporic Syrian foodways that have emerged in the Netherlands and the UAE since 2011, analyzing how restaurants, food stores, and home catering businesses have been sites of new kinds of social encounter. Questions of migrant inclusion and integration, entrepreneurship, and identity figure centrally into this project – all key matters under RUNOMI’s purview.
Are you involved in other RUNOMI related projects?
In connection to my current research, in 2023-4, I designed and led a Project Impact course at Radboud’s Honour’s Academy. Project Impact is an extracurricular MA program dedicated towards producing a positive social impact. Our course, titled “Foodie, Entrepreneur, Refugee: ‘Refugee Restaurants’ as Sites of Encounter,” explored the role of Syrian restaurants in social and economic integration. Over eight months, I trained a multidisciplinary group of seven MA students to do fieldwork, analyze data, and present it to multiple audiences and stakeholders: academics, journalists, policy-makers, restaurant owners, and newcomers. Our efforts resulted in a policy paper, poster presentation at a conference on migrant inclusion, and the creation of a student-led NGO devoted to empowering newcomers. This coming year, I will lead a Radboud Summer School entitled “Mapping Migrant Lifeworlds: Encounters around Food and Religion” dedicated to offering students a toolkit of qualitative research methods oriented towards charting migrant’s everyday life experiences.
Selected outputs
Alkorani, Joud. 2024. Thinking critically, acting flexibly: Global forms of religiosity among millennial Muslim women in the UAE, Social Compass 71(1): 26-42. Full text
Alkorani, Joud. 2023. “Configuring Communities: The Materialities of Dubai’s Migrant Marriages” For Muslim Marriage and Non-Marriage: Where Religion and Politics Meet Intimate Life, edited by Julie McBrien and Annelies Moors, Leuven University Press, 177-198. Full text
Alkorani, Joud. 2021. “Some Kind of Family: Hijra between People and Places.” Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life 15 (1): 17-33. Full text