Associated scientists
The associated researchers at the Émile Durkheim Research Center contribute their valuable perspectives from sociology, law, philosophy and cultural studies. They research how crises and questions of justice shape our society. We present their work here.
Ryszard Bobrowicz
With an interdisciplinary background in law, comparative religious studies, as well as ecumenical and interreligious theology, Ryszard Bobrowicz specializes in normative pluralism and the management of diversity. As a Visiting Professor of Comparative Law and Religion at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Bonn and a Research Associate at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at KU Leuven, he examines how states, churches, public institutions, and international organizations handle diversity, as well as how individuals develop complex networks of faith, belonging, and behavior. His research focuses on the relationship between law and religion, particularly in its interpretative and constitutive dimensions.
With extensive experience collaborating with NGOs, he has worked with the Ecumenical Department of the Church of Sweden, the Commission of the Churches for Migrants in Europe, Refo500, the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, the European Academy of Religion and Society, and the Atlas of Religion or Belief Minority Rights. In 2020, he and his team from A World of Neighbours were awarded the Swedish Diversity Index Award, and in 2024, his monograph The Politics of Multifaith received a special mention for excellence in religious studies (Junior Category) as part of the Alberigo Prize, awarded by FSCIRE, the Region of Emilia-Romagna, and the European Academy of Religions.
Raja Sakrani is a jurist and a cultural science scholar. Currently, she is an Associated researcher at the recently founded Émile Durkheim Advanced Centre for Research about Crisis analysis. Since 2009 until 2022, she has been scientific coordinator at the Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study “Law as Culture” (Bonn) in the development and shaping of which she has been involved from the project planning stage, via fund-raising to implementation.
Her research focuses on the history of Islamic Law and the reciprocal presence of Islamic traditions in Europe, enlarging the view of how the Other is treated in a complicated normative situation. The understanding of this complexity is achieved through her studies trying to cross the characteristic phenomena of Islamic legal cultures: from the religious socialization of Muslims in Europe, to the legal and extra-legal modalities of conflict resolution, passing through the discourses on narrative memories and crossed collective identities. At the same time she continues to observe and analyze the development of human rights in the Muslim world, especially the situation of women and minorities.
Since 2020, she is member of Pluriel – University Platform for Research on Islam in Europe and Lebanon. She was the co-director of the international and interdisciplinary research project “Convivencia” with the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History at Frankfurt (2015-2018). She has conducted research and teaching activities at the Universities of Paris (Sorbonne), Bonn, Basel, Madrid and Oñati (the first course on “Islamic Legal Cultures and Accommodation of Islam in Europe” at the International Institute of Legal Sociology in Oñati (IISL)).