Line’s research expertise covers religion, gender, feminism and women’s movements, migration and ethnic relations, citizenship and identities, higher education, and public policy. Her latest book Intersectional Feminist Research Methodologies: Applications in the Social Sciences and Humanities (co-edited with Jennifer Cooke) is published Open Access by Routledge. Line is currently leading a research project on Muslim students and staff at university, funded by the Aziz Foundation and Loughborough University. She is also part of the interdisciplinary research project ‘Negotiating Values in Teacher Education’, funded by the Research Council of Norway and led by Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway.
Line's book Religion, Gender and Citizenship: Women of Faith, Gender Equality and Feminism (with Beatrice Halsaa; Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), was called a 'landmark contribution to scholarship'. It explores views and experiences of Christian and Muslim women living in Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom in relation to their faith, identities and citizenship. It also examines their views on gender equality, women's movements and feminism. Line also introduced the concept of ‘lived religious citizenship’ in an article for the journal Citizenship Studies (2015). In a further research contribution (Social Compass, 2017), Line proposed a typology of different secular feminist approaches to religion in Western contexts (read here).
Line’s earlier book, Majority-Minority Relations in Contemporary Women’s Movements: Strategic Sisterhood (with Beatrice Halsaa; Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) compares contemporary women’s movements in Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, with particular attention to relations between women from majoritised and minoritised ethnic backgrounds within women’s movement organisations. The 2016 and 2012 books emerged from the research project Gendered citizenship in multicultural Europe: The impact of contemporary women’s movements, funded by the European Commission. Line was Work Package Leader for the theme “Multicultural citizenship: Intersections between feminism, ethnic identity and religion”, and led an international, collaborative team of researchers. Her work within FEMCIT also included a study of how women’s movement activists understand citizenship (see Nyhagen Predelli, Halsaa and Thun 2012).
Line has initiated, worked on and led research projects that have investigated the experiences of ethnic minorities, including Muslim women and men, ethnic minority women’s organisations, and immigrant organisations. Her research in Norway on the participation of Muslim women in mosques and on Muslim women’s diverse views on gender relations has been published in the European Journal of Women’s Studies and in Gender & Society. In a project funded by the Research Council of Norway, she studied immigrant organisations in Norway with a view to their involvement in political decision-making processes. This followed on from her previous research on the national political influence of ethnic minority women’s organisations, jointly commissioned by the Norwegian Research Programme on Power and Democracy and the Norwegian Ministry of Children and Family Affairs. Line also led the evaluation of the Contact Committee for Immigrants and the Authorities in Norway, commissioned by the Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. For her PhD, Line undertook significant historical-sociological research on gender and religion, published in her book Issues of Gender, Race, and Class in the Norwegian Missionary Society in Nineteenth Century Norway and Madagascar (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2003).
Line’s research has informed public policy work on social cohesion in the UK and in Norway. In 2018 her research evidence featured in the report ‘The Ties that Bind: Citizenship and Civic Engagement in the 21st Century’, published by the House of Lords Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement, following on from her invited oral evidence and her written evidence to the Committee in 2017. In 2016 she gave oral and written evidence to the Citizens UK’s Citizens Commission on Islam, Participation & Public Life. Her evidence was quoted anonymously in UK Citizens ‘The Missing Muslims’ report published in 2017. She has also written articles on Muslim women, mosques and citizenship for the academic blog The Conversation.
