Summary: This project aims to explore contemporary processes of negotiation of scientific and religious discourses among Muslim population in two different contexts. More specifically, I aim to conduct a pilot study to identify existing positions and dilemmas on COVID-19 vaccination and infertility treatments among Muslim people living in Barcelona and Tangier. These two cities respond to two distinct geographic realities with a different religious and social context. Following a qualitative methodology, based on semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observation, this project analyses which discourses emerge in these cases and how Muslim people negotiate religious and scientific intersections in the everyday life.
The main outputs of the project are the presentation at an international conference and the writing of two scientific articles. The project includes a specific phase of academic diffusion in which the main findings will be presented through these three outputs. First, the main findings of the pilot study will be presented at an international conference to promote a scientific exchange and receive feedback from other scholars. Second, a scientific article will be written and will be sent to a relevant journal of this thematic area, and third, another brief article will be published in a blog. In addition, the project’s main findings will also serve to inspire a postdoctoral research project and will be used to write applications for funded post-doctoral projects.
This project will have a clear impact in the study of both the intersection of religion, science, and Islam. This area of research is still not wide developed. The ethnographic perspective of this project will mean a clear contribution to the understanding of the relationship of islam and science, and will generate new empirical data. Moreover, the project will include the gender perspective transversally as it will be considered in both the methodology and analysis of results. Then, meeting one of the main aims of the INSBS grant programmes, the project will contribute in a novel way to the study of religion and science.
The project is also innovative because it considers and compares two cases between a European country and an African country. This contributesto overcome the tendency of focusing the research on “western” cases, while it also stresses the importance of comparing “Northern” and “Southern” countries. Moreover, following another aim of the grant scheme and the INSBS this comparative study can also contribute to the development of international network between Barcelona and Tangier.
