Cures of the Heart (3 year PostDoc project in Egypt)

Cures of the Heart
Contagion, Purification, and Protection
among Muslims in Egypt
This ethnographic research and film project sets out to explore how Muslims in Egypt seek to purify and protect themselves against doubt, envy, disbelief, hypocrisy, and despair—malaises broadly conceived in Sunni-Islam as “illnesses of the heart.” On the basis of collaborative ethnographic film production, the project aims to capture potential moments of contagion and purification in a social situation where epidemics of such heart diseases reportedly are on the rise. Theoretically the study seeks to contribute with alternative and ethnographically grounded perspectives on the spread and prevention of what in “Western” medical terms would be described as “non-communicable diseases.”