Biography

Nina ter Laan is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. She obtained her Ph.D. in Religious Studies (Islam Studies) at the Radboud University in Nijmegen (The Netherlands) in 2016, and her Master's degree in Cultural Anthropology at the same university in 2004. Her MA research focused on activist painters in the Moroccan Amazigh (Berber) movement. Her doctoral research examined the political usages of Islam-inspired music in Morocco. During her Ph.D., she taught at the Departments of Cultural Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies at Leiden University (2013-2015). After receiving her Ph.D., Nina worked as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at Utrecht University (The Netherlands) between 2016 and 2020. There, as a member of the research team  Religious Matters in an Entangled World  ( led by Prof. Dr. Birgit Meyer), she studied homemaking practices and belonging among Dutch and Flemish converts who emigrated to Morocco. As of November 2020, she works as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cologne and the Collaborative Research Center Media of Cooperation (CRC, University of Siegen) on a collaborative and interdisciplinary project focusing on Digital Public Spheres and Social Transformation in Morocco.

Thematic interests and regional focus

Nina ter Laan's research focuses on Islam, aesthetic practices, and politics of belonging. Her regional expertise centers on Morocco. Using an ethnographic approach, she takes various aesthetic practices as entry points to explore religious experiences and practices in conversation with political formations in pluralistic settings. In related inquiries, she investigated music and sound, visual art, and homemaking practices to explore complex connections between religion, the politics of belonging, migration, and citizenship. 

Morocco  -  Media - Material religion  - Islam  - Music and sound  - Politics of belonging  - Migration - Homemaking  - Conversion