BLOG – Lieke Schrijvers: Double Doctorate in Ghent

January 30, 2019.

Early September, I moved to Gent in Belgium to work on my dissertation for a few months. I am involved in a double doctorate project, which means that, if all goes well, I’ll obtain a PhD degree from Utrecht University, and one from Gent University. The reason to do so was because the expertise in gender and sexuality studies in Gent is very important to this research, particularly in the Center for Research on Culture and Gender (CRCG). Having these two research groups to participate in, and learn from, is a realization of the interdisciplinary aims of my project to combine gender studies and religious studies. Moreover, my second supervisor from Gent, prof. Chia Longman, is an experienced anthropologist and worked with Jewish women. My goal for this for month research stay thus was to write a draft version of the first case study: converted Dutch Jewish women. Most of my time was dedicated to this writing, but as it goes, other things got my attention as well.

A week after my move, in September, I joined an excellent seminar on ‘critical ethnography and feminist epistemology’, hosted by CRCG. Together with guest speakers Maria do Mar Pereira, Elizabeth Ettore and Don Kulick our group of PhD candidates discussed various topics, such as: dilemmas in ethnographic research, the value of self-positioning and auto-ethnography, and the role of sexuality in research. This gave me some important tools for data analysis and writing, as many dilemmas come back in my project. For example, how can we write about experiences of the ‘sacred’ from the secular space of the university? How can you be a critical feminist anthropologist, while at the same time giving space to the values of your interlocutors – which may, or may not, clash with your academic and personal ethics? Such dilemmas are characteristic for many fields of scholarship and not easily resolved, but I do value the opportunity to work through some of the questions.

Besides the seminar, I participated in the conference of the International Association for the Study of Religion and Gender in November, which was also hosted by the CRCG in Gent. Here, I presented part of my newly written chapter on Jewish converted women and their relation to sexuality. How do -or don’t-  converted orthodox Jewish women implement marital laws, such as the niddah? How are the conversion and coming out story of a lesbian interlocutor related?

On the topic of sexuality I wrote another article, based on a different case study, together with former Utrecht University colleague Daan Beekers. This article is about sexual ethics among Muslim and Christian young adults and is currently under review. Finally, I gave a guest lecture for master students in gender studies, and presented my research during the Center’s Brown Bag Seminar. These past months I was able to take some important steps in writing my dissertation, made possible by the research center and lovely city of Gent with its old canals, charming medieval city center, great coffee and lovely bookshops.