Editors’ Note

The Frontiers editorial team is honored to feature guest editor Hilde Granås Kjøstvedt and members of a Palestinian-Norwegian feminist collaboration for this special issue devoted to the theme of “Gendering Faith.” Kjøstvedt and the authors in this international academic exchange have been working since 2010 to formulate a common research agenda on feminism and Islam. The six articles, introduced by Kjøstvedt, represent a culmination of their collective efforts to examine the nuances and complexities of gender empowerment in Arab societies throughout the Middle East.

To complement this exploration of “gendering faith,” this issue also features the scholarship of Suchitra Samanta, Katherine Carter and Judy Aulette. Samanta expands the geographical reach of this issue by examining the efforts of impoverished young Muslim women in India to obtain an education. Carter and Aulette complicate the study of gender in the Middle East by focusing on the South-South migration of Ethiopian and Filipina domestic workers to Iraq.

For this issue we are proud to feature the artwork of Marina Kalinovsky. She utilizes ancient Greek as well as medieval motifs to explore female religiosity, reproductive power, and complex attachments to home. In addition, she portrays queenly power and geopolitical conflict through the metaphor of chess. Kalinovsky’s art is the perfect complement to the profound and provocative works that collectively examine how ideas about empowerment, gender, and religion traverse geographical borders.