Marta Dominguez Diaz

Anthropology of Islam

Study of Religion

Transnational Islam

Islam in North-Africa

Islam in Europe

Ethnic groups in the Maghreb

Historical Anthropology

Historical Anthropology

Gender Studies

• 2018-Senionr Lecturer of Islamic Studies. Universität St Gallen.
• 2012-2018 - Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies. Universität St Gallen, Switzerland. 
• 2009-2012 - Junior Research Fellowship.Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations in collaboration with the Centre of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Faculty of Middle Eastern and Asian Studies, Cambridge University, United Kingdom.  

September 2016 – September 2024 ‘Ethnogenesis among North African Andalusians’. Interviews with members of the Andalusian and Sephardic communities in Turkey, Israel, Tunisia, Morocco and Spain. 

• Outcome: Monograph published by Edinburgh University Press (Europe) and two peer-reviewed articles. 

September 2014 – September 2018 ‘the Swiss Ummaproject, Muslim Political Representation in Switzerland’. Interviews with leaders of the 10 biggest Muslim Organisations in Switzerland were held between September 2013 and June 2014. 

• Outcome: conference paper and journal article.  

September 2013 – October 2016 ‘Muslim-Christian Relations in Ceuta and Melilla’. 

• Outcome: 1)Organizer of the International Workshop on the Anthropology of Borderlands ‘Religion at the Borderland; Conceptualizing ‘Borders’ through the Study of Religion’ held in St Gallen in October 2013. 2) a peer-reviewed paper.  Completed.          

September 2009 - February 2012    ‘Endings with Meaning. An Exploration of Jewish and Muslim Ritual Practises Related to Death, Dying and Bereavement in Britain’ – The Woolf Institute, Cambridge, UK. 

• Outcome: Symposium, two peer-reviewed articles, teaching materials for course with masters’ students, medical practitioners, and hospital staff. Completed.                                                        

September 2006 - ongoing   ‘Female embodied religious identities in the transnational Sufi Order Qadiriyya Budshishiyya’. 

• Outcome: PhD Thesis, Monograph published by Routledge and peer-reviewed articles. 

• 2013  “Kulturen, Institutionen, Märkte” KIM Conference Funding Award, HSG. Awards to fund the International Anthropology Symposium ‘Religion at the Borderland’ at the University of St Gallen, 30th - 31st October 2013.  
• 2010    Islamic Studies Network Project Funding - The Higher Education Academy of the UK Government. Award to produce the teaching materials and support the teaching of a course on the Cultural diversity of Muslim life cycle rites across the world.  
• 2006- 2009     Fundación Caja Madrid. Spain.   Scholarship for Doctorate Studies in Social Sciences  
• 2002-2005      Becas para Estudiantes de Licenciatura, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. Scholarship for Undergraduate Studies

November  2023        

• ‘Historical Ethnography, a Critical Enquiry on the Interplay between Anthropology and History’; Ethnography Talks, University of St Gallen, St Gallen.

August 2022              

• ‘The performative Nature of Emotion in Sufism: Studying Islamic Mystical Feeling as Emotional Practices’; International Conference ‘Practices, Aesthetics and Entanglements in Contemporary Muslim Piety’, The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, Stockholm.

June 2022                   

• ‘The making and remaking of an Andalusian identity, ethnic mobilizations in the aftermath of the Arab Spring’; SHSS-HSG Research Retreat, Ittingen-Kartausen, Switzerland.

May 2022                   

• ‘The Andalusians of Tunisia, Cultural pride and Privilege longing; Cultural Revivalism at the Crossroads of Identity and Class, Past and Present’; The Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies (CEMS), Central European University, CEU, Vienna.

December 2021          

• ‘Mothering him: gender, love, feminine suffering and the maternal in French Sufi autobiographical writings’; International Symposium, ‘Sufism and Gender in Contemporary Societies’, Università Ca’Foscari Venezia & Fondazione Giorgio Cini.

June 2021                   

• ‘Old and new Andalusians: elites and minorities in Tunisia today’ ‘; International Online workshop ‘The Concept of Minority, a Critical Appraisal’, University of St Gallen.

September 2019.

• ‘Sensing the body to dilute the self: the corporeal acquisition of a Sufi identity; International conference ‘Sufism and the Body', University of Utrecht. 

April 2019.

• ‘Dinámicas de 'otredad' en la etnogénesis andalusí en Túnez: búsquedas identitarias motivadas por el otro’; International conference ‘Túnez y el Mediterráneo en la Edad Moderna: Identidades, conflictos y representaciones, (Homenaje a Slimane Mostafa Zbiss y Mikel de Epalza’, National Archives, Tunis, Tunisia. 

December 2018.         

• ‘The translatable and un-translatable in transnational religion; Moroccan Sufism beyond Arabic and the performative acts of ‘explaining’ Islam ’, International Conference, European languages as Islamic lingua francas, University of Amsterdam.

April 2016                 

• ‘Between two or three worlds; Reversion to Islam, marocanité and Western Sufism in the tariqa Budshishiyya; International Workshop: Sufism East and West, Universität Erfurt, Germany.  

October 2015             

• ‘El sufismo marroquí a través de sus prácticas – una mirada antropológica a la tariqa Budshishiyya’; Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, Spain. 

October 2015             

• ‘El Sufismo Contemporáneo y las disputas por el “corazón” del Islam’; Seminario de Historia y Religión, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. 

October 2014             

• ‘Debunking Some Myths on the Study of Contemporary Islam, the case of the Moroccan Sufi Order Qadiriyya Budshishiyya’; Seminar für Nahoststudien, Universität Basel, Switzerland. 

October 2013             

• ‘My Civilisation, your Barbarianism; Religious Identity and the Re-appropriation of al-Andalus in the Moroccan-Spanish Borderland.’ at the ‘Religion at the Borderland; Conceptualizing “Borders”through the Study of Religion’ Anthropology Symposium, University of St Gallen,Switzerland.  

January 2013              

• ‘The“Swiss Umma” Project; the struggles and dilemmas of a nascent Muslim Umbrella Organisation’ at the ‘Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance’Conference, Bishopgate Institute London, University of Bristol and AHRC/ESRCproject on Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance, United Kingdom. 

September 2011         

‘Dying the same way? A comparative perspective on Jewish and Muslim understandings of death’, at the ‘Intertwined Worlds: The Judaeo-Islamic Tradition’ Symposium,University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.  

September 2010         

• ‘Transplanting Moroccan Sufism or Enacting New Eclecticisms? Transnational Identities and Regional Religiosities in the Qadiriyya Today’, at the ‘Religions and Migrations in Southern Europe’ Conference, University of Porto, Portugal.  

May 2010                   

• ‘The way you live is the way you die: Framing religious narratives in Muslim and Jewish mortuary religiosities in Britain today’, at the ‘Death Day’ Conference,Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Winchester, United Kingdom.    

February 2010            

• ‘End of life, death and Bereavement among Muslims in the UK’, College of Healthcare Chaplains, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

November 2009         

• ‘Transculturating Sulami. Readaptation of the Central Asian Medieval Sufi Heritage for Western European Audiences Today’, at the ‘International Conference on Central Asian Islamic Identities’, International Kazakh-Turkish University, Turkestan,Republic of Kazakhstan.

October 2008             

• ‘Mediating between Sulami’s Kitab al-Futuwah and Modern Sufi Readers. Agency and Transmission of Medieval Sufism in the Tariqa Budshishiyya Today’, at The‘Cambridge Symposium on Middle Eastern Studies: Knowledge and Language in Middle Eastern Societies,’ Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.  

June 2008                   

• ‘Islamic Journeys Of The Soul Expressed In European Female Bodies. Religious Conversion as Bodily Enactments’, at the ‘Perspectives on Intercorporeality and Intersubjectivity Conference’, University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland.  

May 2008                   

• ‘The European Budshishiyya, a Plural Map of Islamic Religiosities Within a Global Sufi Movement Today’ at the Postgraduate Conference, School of Oriental and African Studies, Faculty of Languages and Cultures, University of London,United Kingdom.  

April 2008                  

• ‘Spanish Budshishiyya: Local Embodiment of a Global Sufi Order’ at the 2008 International Conference: ‘Twenty Years and More: Research into Minority Religions, New Religious Movements and ‘the New Spirituality’, Cesnur, Center for Studies on New Religions, London School of Economics, United Kingdom.   

• 2015                Associate Fellow at the Orient-Institut in Istanbul, as part of the project "Sepharad and al-Andalus Today"