Marianne Hafnor Bøe

Professor i religionsvitenskap

Faculty of Arts and Education
Department of Cultural Studies and Languages
HG O-228
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Bio

My research centers around the intersections of religion, law and gender. I have specialised in Islam, Shiism, Islamic family law, and Muslim communities in Iran and Norway, and I am interested in legal regulations of religion, religion in everyday life, religious minorities, feminist Islam, as well as didactics of religion and religious education. I have worked with textual analysis, and done ethnographic research, including in-depth interviews and observations in both Norway and Iran. 

I completed a PhD in the study of religions at University of Bergen (UiB) in 2013. During the PhD I was affiliated with the Centre for Women’s and Gender Research at UiB. From 2015, I continued as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at UiB. My postdoctoral research project was entitled “Religious Law and Everyday Life: Shifting Practices of Mahr in Legal Pluralistic Norway”, funded by the Research Council of Norway. From 2018-2019, I worked at the Department of Education at University of Stavanger, and from 2019 I have been at the Department of Cultural Science and Languages.

In the academic year 2016-2017, I was a Fulbright Fellow at Northeastern University in Boston (USA). I have also been a visiting fellow at the Centre for Gender Studies at SOAS, University of London (2011), and at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen (2022).  

Over the years, I have taught courses on all levels of higher education on topics such as Islam, religious minorities, Middle Eastern studies, theory and methods in the study of religions, gender and religion, gender theory, religious education and didactics of religion. 

My publications include books, articles and book chapters on regulations and practices of Muslim family law in Iran and Norway, on Shi‘i Islam and Muslim communities in Norway, on the combination of Islam and feminism, as well as on theory and methods in the study of religions. 

I am one of three editors of the journal DIN - tidsskrift for religion og kultur

Selected publications:

Bøe, Marianne H. and Mona H. Farstad. 2023. Islam - tradisjon, tilhørighet og praksis. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk. Link

Bøe, Marianne H. 2022. Hvem kan stå foran? Religionsmangfold og diskusjoner om likestilling blant norske muslimer. I H. V. Kleive, J. G. Lillebø & K.-W. Sæther (Red.), Møter og mangfold: Religion og kultur i historie, samtid og skole (Kap. 4, s. 83–107). Cappelen Damm Akademisk. https://doi.org/10.23865/ noasp.156.ch4

Bøe, Marianne H. 2022. "En sykehusimam for alle? Organisering og representasjon i religions- og livssynsbetjening ('chaplaincy') for muslimer på norske sykehus". DIN - tidsskrift for religion og kultur, 1: 2022, 35-61. 

Bøe, Marianne H. & Kalvig Anne. 2020. Mennesker, meninger, makter: en innføring i religionsvitenskap. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk.

Bøe, Marianne H. 2019. Feminisme i islam. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. 

Bøe, Marianne. 2018. Annotated Legal Documents on Islam in Europe: Norway. Leiden: Brill. 

Bøe, Marianne. 2018. Lived Experiences of Norway's Regulation of Mahr. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, 31:1, pp. 58-74. https://doi.org/10.18261/issn.1890-7008-2018-01-04


Bøe, Marianne. 2015. Family Law in Contemporary Iran: Women's Rights Activism and Shari'a. London: I.B.Tauris. 

PhD Supervision:

  • Aashima Budal: "Religious Taboo: The influence of sacred Hindu stories in the isolation and peril of menstruating Hindu women of Nepal"
  • Annam Azeem: "Freedoms and Contraints: How Muslim women experience religious belonging in Western Norway"
Publications