My name is Lina, I am 31 years old and originally from Sweden. Since 2020 I have been a PhD student at the Faculty of Theology and Religious studies at Vrije Universiteit, where I am researching faith-based social-, theological-, and advocacy engagement for queer refugees. The focus cities of my research are Stockholm, Dresden, and Hannover. I am using an ethnographic research method, which includes interviews and observational studies in the respective cities, to understand how faith-based organizations view their role in civil society and how they relate to the queer refugee population and its needs.
Thanks to financial support from the Catharina Halkes Fonds, last year I was able to conduct two vital research trips to Dresden and Hannover, to collect the final data for my dissertation. In each city I conducted interviews, visited churches, attended worship services, did city walks, and made important ethnographic observations. In Hannover I was also able to visit Christopher Street Day (Pride).
The two trips concluded my data collection and gave me the missing pieces of material needed in order to complete my PhD. I have since processed the data that I have collected and am now in the process of writing the articles that make up my dissertation.