The Norwegian WP4 report on religious citizenship, based on interviews with 20 women belonging to the Norwegian State Church, the Pentecostals, the Sunni and Shia communities was presented and discussed at a seminar at the University of Oslo on May 11th 2010. The questions addressed the extent to which religion establishes barriers or possibilities for women. What do faith communities – Christian and Muslim – do in relation to gender equality? How do religious women talk about their religious identity, gender equality and feminism? Does the notion of religious citizenship make sense to them?

 
Synnøve H. Stendal, leader of the Seksjon for diakoni og samfunn i de sentralkirkelige råd gave a talk on the Gender Equality work in the Church of Norway, and Karima Solberg, previously member of the Islamic Council Norway and previous member of the board of the Islamic Association (Det Islamske Forbundet) on Gender equality work within Muslim communities in Norway. Professor Beatrice Halsaa and Phd fellow Cecilie Thun presented an overview of the aims, the research methods and some of the results of the report “Religion, gender and citizenship: A case study of Christian and Muslim women in Norway." This was followed by comments from professor Jone Salomonsen, professor at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo and from Christine M. Jacobsen, senior researcher at IMER (International Migration and Ethnic Relations Research Unit) at the University of Bergen. The well attended seminar ended with an open
discussion among all participants.

In the picutre, from left: Synnøve H. Stendahl; Jone Salomonsen; Christine Jacobsen, Karima Solberg og Cecilie Thun.