This is a project I am working on with Dr. Joanna Krotofil from Jagiellonian University. We investigate the consequences of the lockdown for religious practice for Muslim women of various backgrounds.

See our Zoom talk about the research at George Mason University:

https://islamicstudiescenter.gmu.edu/events/11464

A collaborative investigation (with my colleagues Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska, Joanna Krotofil, and Beata Abdallah-Krzepkowska) into social identities of Polish women who have embraced Islam and live in Poland or the UK. We are writing a book together. As of 2021, we had two articles accepted by Sociology of Religion and the Journal of Contemporary Religions.

This project comprises a book, Muslim Women in Virtual Space (Routledge, 2014); journal articles in The Muslim World, Contemporary Islam, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, and Online: Heidelberg Journal of Religions; and a book chapter in the anthology Media, Gender and Religion (2013).

This involved my contributions to the annual Islamophobia in Europe Report in 2017, 2018, and 2019, as well as my chapter about representations of Islam in Polish media published in the Handbook of Religions and Journalism (2020).

"Some Muslim women told researcher Anna Piela that the pandemic allowed them to feel more comfortable adopting the niqab, which they had wanted to do before." more

I was invited by the program's author, Ruchi Tandon, to share some findings from my research on how women who wear the niqab are dealing with the pandemic, social distancing, and widespread mask-wearing.

"Dr Anna Piela, an academic and author of Wearing The Niqab (out next January), has reinterviewed some of her contributors since the start of the pandemic. Many told her they have found greater acceptance now that more people are covering up, she says. Loubna (a pseudonym) from Birmingham, says: “I went to a park the other day, and it felt completely different. (...)” more

Talking about the niqab in the context of the UK's new requirement to wear masks in public spaces

"Anna Piela, a visiting scholar in religious studies and gender at Northwestern University, has noted that Muslim women she interviewed said they find it easier to wear masks because it has softened the stigma of face coverings. 'Suddenly these women - who are often received in the West with open hostility for covering their faces - look a lot more like everyone else,' she wrote in an article in May (...)" more

"As Northwestern University scholar Anna Piela points out in an article for the Conversation, Muslim women are finding themselves looking a lot like everyone else.

'Now, in an unexpected turn of events, people across the West are jogging in face masks and grocery shopping in bandanas tied across their mouths. That’s making public life in the niqab much more pleasant, say Muslim women.' Piela wrote."

The best endorsement a is to be organically cited. Other examples include my work in syllabi of cool courses like

Veiling in the Muslim World (University of Texas);

Women in Scriptures (University of Texas);

Gender and Communication (Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism);

Intro to Gender Studies 125 (Manchester Metropolitan University, IN);

ART4001 Critical Debates: Photography (Middlesex University, UK)