Rahma Bavelaar

Rahma BAVELAAR moved from the Netherlands to Cairo in 2004 and is currently completing her PhD thesis in Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. In her research she uses life-history interviews to explore discourses and practices around interfaith marriage in Egypt. Through the lens of these ‘private experiences’ she explores how church-state relations, developments in personal status legislation, feminist activism and the politics of religious identity impact and are impacted by intimate histories. She previously studied at SOAS and Northwestern where she worked on anti-colonial Sufi movements and poetry in the Horn of Africa.