UPCOMING CONFERENCE: DIGITAL ISLAM ACROSS EUROPE (27&28 May 2025, University of Edinburgh)
Featuring contributions from the five project research teams based in the UK, Spain, Poland, Sweden and Lithuania, alongside additional papers from scholars working across Europe.
Registration link: https://llc.ed.ac.uk/form/conference-registration-digital
More information & programme: https://llc.ed.ac.uk/digital-islam-across-europe-conference
Conference “Digital Religions: Technological and Spiritual Transformations” in Barcelona (Spain), 13-14 February 2025
Avi Astor, head of the Spanish Team in the DigitIslam project will host a conference in collaboration with the Religious Affairs Office of Barcelona City Council and the Investigacions en Sociologia de la Religió (ISOR) research group. Gary R Bunt of the UK Team will deliver one of the keynote speeches. Rosa Martinez Cuadros, Berta Güell and Zouhair El Hairan of the Spanish Team will also be presenting and moderating discussions.
Program (in Catalan) can be found here: https://media-edg.barcelona.cat/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/03090054/programa-Religions-Digitals-DEF.pdf
Interview with Gary R Bunt and Fouad Gehad Marei in the context of this conference: https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/oficina-afers-religiosos/en/news/fragmented-religion-a-conversation-between-gary-r-bunt-and-fouad-gehad-marei-on-spirituality-in-the-digital-age-1493720
Photos of the event: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dretsdeciutadania/albums/72177720324093250/
Report on the event: https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/oficina-afers-religiosos/en/noticies/between-the-occult-and-the-evident-the-oar-launches-a-workshop-to-reflect-on-spirituality-in-the-digital-age-1489066
Presentation of the DigitIslam project and Spanish premilary results: https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/oficina-afers-religiosos/en/blog/religion-internet-new-dynamics-authority-and-new-spaces-knowledge-and-dissemination
Presentation of web archiving at IIPC RSS Webinar, 26 February 2025
Anna Grasso of the UK team will be presenting archives and data visualisation methods at the IIPC RSS Webinar “Scholarship with Web Archive Collection Data” alongside other researchers on February 26th. More information & registration here: https://netpreserve.org/event/iipc-rss-webinar-scholarship-with-web-archive-collection-data/
Presentation of UK team initial results at the ‘Muslim Converts in Britain and Beyond: Transitions and Transformations’ conference organised by Islam-UK Centre and Muslims in Britain Research Network, 9 January 2025.
Anna Grasso of the UK Team presented a paper entitled “Exploring the online experiences of British Muslim converts: Insights from an ongoing research project”. Programme of the conference can be found here.
Presentation of web archiving & UK team initial results at the RECOVIRA project event in Manchester, 28 October 2024
The UK Team (represented by Co-I Prof Gary R Bunt and Postdoctoral researcher Dr Anna Grasso) introduced the project’s web archives as well as some UK Qualitative and Quantitative initial results at the RECOVIRA project event. This was a great opportunity to share reflections and findings between CHANSE-funded projects.
Artist Julia Miranda took visual minutes of all presentations including ours. A beautiful and innovative approach to capturing these insights.
Ethics presentation at the CHANSE mid-term conference in Bucharest, 18-19 September 2024
Members from the Lithuanian (Arvydas Kumpis), Polish (Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska & Joanna Krotofil), Spanish (Avi Astor) and UK (Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor & Anna Grasso) teams attended the CHANSE mid-term conference in Bucharest.
Professor Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor from the UK team presented insights from the project in the panel on “Ethics in data, research, professional and community practice”.
Presentation of initial results at the EASR conference in Gothenburg, 19-23 August 2024
Members of the DigiIslam project presented a panel at the EASR conference. Presentations were given from the Lithuania Team (represented by Co-I Egdūnas Račius and Postdoc Arvydas Kumpis), the Poland team (represented by Postdoc Mateusz Chudziak) and the Sweden Team (represented by Co-Is Göran Larsson and Erika Willander). The UK Team (represented by Co-I Gary Bunt and Postdoctoral researcher Anna Grasso) introduced the project’s web archives.
Professor Thijl Sunier kindly accepted to be our discussant.
Presentation of initial Qualitative and Quantitative results at the BRAIS 2024 conference in Leeds, 20th & 21st of May 2024
Members of the DigiIslam project presented two panels (Qualitative & Quantitative) at the BRAIS 2024 conference. Presentations were given from the Lithuania Team (represented by Co-I Egdūnas Račius), the Poland team (represented by Co-I Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska) Spain Team (represented by Co-I Avi Astor as well as Postdoctoral researchers Rosa Martinez Cuadros and Ghufran Khir Allah) Sweden Team (represented by Co-Is Göran Larsson and Erika Willander) as well as the UK Team (represented by Co-I Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor and Postdoctoral researcher Anna Grasso). UK Co-I and web archiving lead Gary Bunt was also present at the conference presenting his own research as well as promoting the DigitIslam project’s new archives.
Professor Seán McLoughlin kindly accepted to be our discussant for the Quantitative panel presentations.
Online workshop “Self-presentation, image creation and lifestyle promotion in the social media” for Muslim women in Poland, 14th & 28th of October 2023
The online workshop addressed Muslim women engaged in running Islam-related social media accounts.
The main purpose was to increase awareness of the technical aspects of navigating social media platforms to achieve higher reach, increase visibility, and avoid the risks associated with online activity, including immunity to related stress. During the first part of the workshop (14.10.2023), the participants had the opportunity to become familiar with the essential theory of social media practices and ethics. They also spoke about their profiles on social media and Internet experience. During the second part (28.10.2023), women showed the results of their Internet activities within the last 2 weeks according to guidelines from the host. Detailed issues concerning women’s online activity have been also discussed with the host as well as with the other participants.
The host – prof. Magdalena Kachniewska
The Organisers – prof. Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska, Iga Wermińska-Wiśnicka, Jaśmina Samsel.
Egdūnas Račius (Lithuania Team, Vytautas Magnus University) presented our project during the “Digital Innovations during Covid: Cross-National Insights ” roundtable at the EASR conference in Vilnius. The roundtable brought together different scholars working on projects concerning how religious groups and actors are negotiating digital technologies in different national contexts.
CHANSE Kick-Off Conference in Tallinn, Estonia June 1-2, 2023
The Digital Islam Across Europe team attended the Tallinn kick-off conference to present their research project.
Workshop with Polish Teachers, Kutno, Poland, May 29, 2023
On May 29, 2023 the Polish team organised a workshop for teachers about introducing Islamic content online. Around 15 teachers from the 1st High school of J. Dąbrowski in Kutno participated in the workshop. The workshop was delivered by Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska.
“Religion and Spirituality as Sites of Learning” Conference organized by the Donner Institute and the LeNeRe-project (Learning from new religion and spirituality), Åbo/Turku, Finland, May 15-17, 2023
Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska and Joanna Krotofil participated in an international conference “Religion and Spirituality as Sites of Learning” organized by the Donner Institute and Learning From New Religion and Spirituality (LeNeRe) in Turku (Finland) on 15-17 May 2023. They presented a paper entitled “Polish Islamic Internet as Site of Learning”.
