Health, European Muslims and Gender: Medical Authority and Assisted Reproductive Technologies in Islam
What?
This project explores how Muslims in a minority context in Europe navigate between the authority of medical science and the authority of religion, and to what extent this affect their access to health care.
By studying infertility treatments offered and used by Muslim populations of Oslo and Barcelona, this project will advance scientific knowledge on the intersection between health inequality, religion and gender.
The project is funded by the Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships (2023). Grant agreement ID: 101148857
The project will achieve the following objectives:
01. analyse how health professionals understand the relationship between Islam, infertility, and reproductive health.
O2. Identify and analyse the main sources of authority and legitimation for Muslims in Western Europe on infertility and other related reproductive medical matters
O3. Analyse to what extent the Islamic regulations can result in inequality and exclusion in health care system.
O4. Publish reports to provide information and recommendations for health professionals and policy makers who address issues on infertility, gender, health, migration, and religious diversity.
How and where?
This project will include a comparative dimension, as research will be conducted in two European cities in which Muslims constitute a growing minority: Oslo and Barcelona.
The main techniques will be interviews with:
- Muslim women and men who have used or considered the use of ART
- Health Professionals with experience in ART
- Key Informants (religious leaders and organisation’s leaders)
When?
HEMGEN is a two-year project which started in September 2025 and will finish in August 2027
Who?
Rosa Martínez-Cuadros is the main researcher of HEMGEN. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at OsloMet University, with experience in conducting research on Islam, gender, religious diversity and politics. She has collaborated on several research projects on Islam, religious diversity, public space and the intersection between health and religion.
In 2022, she received funding from the INSBS (International Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society) at the University of Birmingham to lead and develop a project on Islam, gender and health, with fieldwork carried out in Barcelona and Tangier. She was also co-PI of the RELIG23-24 project, entitled “Religious communities and moral entrepreneurs in a context of affective polarization”.
She holds a PhD in Sociology, with International Mention and Cum Laude Mention, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (2022), and during her doctorate she was a visiting researcher at the University of Birmingham. She was formerly a Juan de la Cierva researcher at the University of Barcelona (2024–2025) and, in 2023, she completed a postdoctoral stay at the University of Bergamo funded by a COST Network (CORE). She has also been a collaborating professor at the Open University of Catalonia.