Academic Interests
My main research interest is in the broad area of feminist theory and methodology in the study of religion, with a particular focus on Islamic feminism/Islamic sexual ethics and South African Muslim women’s lived experiences.
Courses Taught
Background
- 2014 – 2015: Research Associate, KIFO (Institute for Church, Religion, and Worldview Research), Oslo, Norway
- 2013 – 2014: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Project: Contemporary Islamic Sexual Ethics and Islamic Feminism. (PI: Dr. Maheshvari Naidu)
- 2010 – 2012: A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Religious Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Project: South African Muslim Women, Gender, and Sexuality (PI: Associate Prof. Sa’diyya Shaikh)
- 2010: Doctor of Philosophy, Religious Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Thesis title: South African Muslim Women’s Experiences: Sexuality and Religious Discourses (Supervisor: Associate Prof. Sa’diyya Shaikh)
- 2005: Master of Social Science in Religious Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa (degree was awarded with Distinction). Thesis title: Contemporary Discourses on Muslim Women and Veiling: A Critical Analysis (Supervisor: Associate Prof. Sa’diyya Shaikh)
- 2005 – 2012: Researcher, Institute for Comparative Religion in Southern Africa (ICRSA), Director: Professor David Chidester, University of Cape Town
- 2003: Mellomfag, Religious Studies, University of Bergen, Norway
- 2002-2003: Grunnfag, Religious Studies, University of Bergen, Norway
- 1998-2002: General Teacher, Professional Degree Programme, Bergen University College, Norway
Academic Networks
- American Academy of Religion, Co-Chair “Religion and Sexuality Group” (2014- Present), Steering Committee Member (2012-2014).
- Islamic Africa, Editorial Advisory Board (2015-Present)
- African Association for the Study of Religions, Program Committee Member for the 6th AASR conference in Africa, 2013-2014.
- Journal for the Study of Religion, International Advisory Board (2014-Present), Editorial Board Member (2008-2013).
Tags:
Gender and Religion,
Religion and Society,
Feminist Theory and Methodology,
Gender Sexuality and Religion,
Islam and Gender,
Lived Religion,
Religion and Ecology
Publications
Selected Publications (Articles in peer reviewed journal)
- Hoel, Nina. “Exploring Women’s Madrasahs in South Africa: Implications for the Construction of Muslim Personhood and Religious Literacy.” Religious Education, forthcoming 2016.
- Hoel, Nina. 2015. “Engaging Islamic Sexual Ethics: Intimacy, Pleasure and Sacrality.” Sexualities, 18(1/2): 80-99.
- Hoel, Nina. 2013. “Feminism and Religion and the Politics of Location: Situating Islamic Feminism in South Africa.” Journal of Gender and Religion in Africa, 19(2): 73-89.
- Hoel, Nina. 2013. “Sexualising the Sacred, Sacralising Sexuality: An Analysis of Public Responses to Muslim Women’s Religious Leadership in the Context of a Cape Town Mosque.” Journal for the Study of Religion, 26(2): 25-41.
- Naidu, Maheshvari and Nina Hoel. 2013. “Continuities and Departures: Women’s Religious and Spiritual Leadership.” Journal for the Study of Religion, 26(2): 5-11.
- Hoel, Nina. 2013. “Corporeal Bodies, Religious Lives, and ‘Women’s Rights’: Engaging Islamic Body Politics among Muslim women in South Africa.” Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 27(4): 79-90. (Included in Routledge 2014 International Women’s Day Collection, “Inspiring Change”.
- Baderoon, Gabeba, Nina Hoel and Sa’diyya Shaikh. 2013. “Theorising Experience, Subjectivity and Narrative in Studies of Gender and Islam.” Journal for Islamic Studies, 33: 1-13.
- Hoel, Nina and Sa’diyya Shaikh. 2013. “Sexing Islamic Theology: Theorising Women’s Experience and Gender through ʿabd-Allah and khalīfah.” Journal for Islamic Studies, 33: 127-150.
- Hoel, Nina. 2013. “Embodying the Field: A Researcher’s Reflections on Power Dynamics, Positionality and the Nature of Research Relationships.” Fieldwork in Religion, 8(1): 27-49.
- Hoel, Nina and Sa’diyya Shaikh. 2013. “Sex as Ibadah: Religion, Gender and Subjectivity amongst South African Muslim Women.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 29(1): 69-91.
- Hoel, Nina. 2012. “Engaging Religious Leaders: South African Muslim Women’s Experiences in Matters Pertaining to Divorce Initiatives.” Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies, 38(2): 184-200.
- Hoel, Nina and Elaine Nogueira-Godsey. 2011. “Transforming Feminisms: Religion, Women and Ecology.” Journal for the Study of Religion, 24(2): 5-16.
- Shaikh, Sa’diyya, Nina Hoel and Ashraf Kagee. 2011. “Research Report: South African Muslim Women: Sexuality, Marriage and Reproductive Choices.” Journal for Islamic Studies, 31: 96-122.
- Hoel, Nina, Sa’diyya Shaikh and Ashraf Kagee. 2011. “Muslim Women’s Reflections on the Acceptability of Vaginal Microbicidal Products to Prevent HIV Infection.” Ethnicity & Health, 16(2): 89-106.
- Hoel, Nina. 2008/2009. “Flirtations with Muslim Female Sexuality.” Annual Review of Islam in Africa, Issue No. 10: 30-34.
- Hoel, Nina and Sa’diyya Shaikh. 2007. “Veiling, Secularism and Islamism: Gender Constructions in France and Iran.” Journal for the Study of Religion, 20(1): 111-129.
- Hoel, Nina. “Sex,” in The Islamic World: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Society. Edited by Gordon Newby and James Ciment, forthcoming 2015-2016
- Brottveit, Ånund, Ann Kristin Gresaker og Nina Hoel (2015, 9. oktober). Avgjørende dialog (kronikk), Vårt Land.
- Brottveit, Ånund, Ann Kristin Gresaker og Nina Hoel. 2015. «Det handler om verdensfreden!» En evaluering av rollen Samarbeidsrådet for tros- og livssynssamfunn, Norges Kristne Råd og Islamsk Råd Norge har i dialogarbeidet. KIFO Rapport 2015: 3. 166 sider. (ISBN 978-82-92972-40-3; ISSN 0807-7517)
- Botvar, Pål Ketil, Ånund Brottveit, Nina Hoel, Elisabet Haakedal, Ulla Schmidt. 2015. Avsluttet reform eller fortsatt læring og utvikling? Trosopplæring som arbeidsform i menighetene. KIFO Rapport 2015: 1. 92 sider. (ISBN 978-82-92972-38-0; ISSN 0807-7517)
- Shaikh, Sa’diyya, Nina Hoel and Ashraf Kagee. 2011. South African Muslim Women: Sexuality, Marriage and Reproductive Choices, Research Report. Booklet, 32 pp.
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Hoel, Nina
(2025).
Decolonizing Knowledges, Undisciplining Religion.
Religions.
16(3).
doi:
10.3390/rel16030374.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
The article engages in the undisciplining of the study of religion and proposes two central concepts/approaches for how to do so: the pluriverse and materiality. But what is undisciplining? And is it needed? To frame the undisciplining of the study of religion and render visible how I conceive of it as a needed practice, the article discusses the relationship between knowledge, materiality, power, and transformation. This relationship is concretized by prioritizing critical decolonial perspectives from the South African context. Here, I center materiality and the material effects of colonial discourse and epistemology as critical entry points. I also highlight the importance of embodied approaches to knowledge, illustrated through decolonial feminist engagements with post-qualitative methodologies. Informed by these critical insights, I unpack the concept of the pluriverse and highlight its epistemic and methodological relevance for the undisciplining of the study of religion. (Re-)turning to materiality, I foreground materiality as a creative and critical knowledge framework and argue for the varying ways it may function for rethinking and undisciplining the study of religion.
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Hoel, Nina
(2024).
Feminisme i Antropocen.
In Mjaaland, Marius Timmann; Eriksen, Thomas Hylland & Hessen, Dag Olav (Ed.),
Antropocen - menneskets tidsalder.
Res Publica.
ISSN 9788282263016.
Full text in Research Archive
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Hoel, Nina
(2023).
Crochet Methodology: Thinking Creatively about and with the Study of Religion in the Anthropocene.
African Journal of Gender and Religion (AJGR).
doi:
10.36615/ajgr.v29i2.2800.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
What stories of religion matter in the age of the Anthropocene? This paper begins by situating the Abundance Crochet Coral Reef, an installation of crocheted coralline landscapes exhibited at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, as a methodological motif and enactment to think creatively about and with the study of religion in the Anthropocene. Journeying through the current trends in various fields in the study of religion that are responsive to Anthropocene concerns, I argue that there is a growing body of scholarly work that troubles the dualisms and hierarchies of human-nature and nature-culture that have informed, and indeed, dominated, conceptualizations about religion and the study of religion. Finally, I turn to feminist theory to continue to in-tune religion storytelling (the study of religion) to the challenges of the Anthropocene. Drawing inspiration from the Abundance Crochet Coral Reef, I explore the concept of kinship to open creative vistas for methodological enrichment in the study of religion.
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Gray, Biko Mandela; Hoel, Nina; Bongmba, Elias K.; Nadar, Sarojini; Parsitau, Damaris Seleina & Nogueira-Godsey, Trad
(2020).
Intimately engaging with religion and sexuality.
Religious Studies Review.
ISSN 0319-485X.
46(3),
p. 317–319.
doi:
10.1111/rsr.14702.
Full text in Research Archive
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Hoel, Nina Birgette Petersen
(2019).
Taking the Body Seriously, Taking Relationalities Seriously: An Embodied and Relational Approach to Ethnographic Research in the Study of (Lived) Religion.
In Chryssides, George D. & Gregg, Stephen E. (Ed.),
The Insider/Outsider Debate. New Perspectives in the Study of Religion.
Equinox Publishing.
ISSN 9781781793435.
p. 88–109.
Full text in Research Archive
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Naidu, Maheshvari & Hoel, Nina
(2013).
Continuities and Departures: Women’s Religious and Spiritual Leadership.
Journal for the Study of Religion.
ISSN 1011-7601.
Full text in Research Archive
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Hoel, Nina
(2013).
Feminism and Religion and the Politics of Location: Situating Islamic Feminism in South Africa.
African Journal of Gender and Religion (AJGR).
Full text in Research Archive
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Hoel, Nina
(2013).
Sexualising the Sacred, Sacralising Sexuality: An Analysis of Public Responses to Muslim Women’s Religious Leadership in the Context of a Cape Town Mosque.
Journal for the Study of Religion.
ISSN 1011-7601.
Full text in Research Archive
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Hoel, Nina
(2012).
Engaging religious leaders: South African Muslim women’s experiences in matters pertaining to divorce initiatives.
Social Dynamics.
ISSN 0253-3952.
Full text in Research Archive
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Hoel, Nina & Nogueira-Godsey, Elaine
(2011).
Transforming Feminisms: Religion, Women, and Ecology.
Journal for the Study of Religion.
ISSN 1011-7601.
Full text in Research Archive
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View all works in NVA
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Botvar, Pål Ketil; Brottveit, Ånund; Hoel, Nina Birgette Petersen; Haakedal, Elisabet & Schmidt, Ulla
(2015).
Avsluttet reform eller fortsatt læring og utvikling? Trosopplæring som samarbeidsform i menighetene.
KIFO, Institutt for kirke-, religions- og livssynsforskning.
ISSN 9788292972380.
Full text in Research Archive
View all works in NVA
Published
Aug. 17, 2015 6:18 PM
- Last modified
Feb. 26, 2024 10:26 AM
