Erik Skare

Researcher
Image of Erik  Skare
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Mobile phone 0047 934 57 696
Room PAM 437
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Visiting address Niels Henrik Abels vei 36 P. A. Munchs hus 0371 OSLO

Academic interests

I am a postdoctoral researcher and historian based at the University of Oslo and my disciplinary background is Arabic and Middle East Studies. I specialize on Palestinian history with a particular focus on religion and secular politics and its role in Palestinian armed and non-violent resistance. My PhD thesis studied the history of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The thesis was published as a monograph by Cambridge University Press titled A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Faith, Awareness, and Revolution in the Middle East and was awarded the Palestine Book Award (2021). My work has been cited in The Washington PostLe Monde Diplomatique, and other international news outlets.

I am currently working on two book projects. The first book is a brief history of Palestinian Islamism and analyzes its evolution the last seventy-five years. The second book looks at the transformation of Palestinian religious practices the last fifty years and how the emergence of both Hamas and PIJ influenced a de-secularization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I am also interested in the advancement of the digital humanities and computational methodology, and I organize the Digital IKOS (DIKOS) research group at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo, with Jacob Høigilt. The aim of DIKOS is to encourage scholars in the humanities to use computational methods and digital tools in research through themed seminars, hands-on, problem-solving workshops, and sharing through our website. We concentrate on applying R to analyze data, create visualizations, and working with text.

For my full academic CV, click here.

Background

  • Postdoctoral researcher, University of Oslo (2024- )
  • Researcher, University of Oslo (2022-2024)
  • Associate researcher, Sciences Po (2022-2024)
  • Postdoctoral researcher, Sciences Po (2020-2022)
  • Doctoral research fellow, University of Oslo (2020)
  • Research assistant, Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (2015-2016)
  • Master's degree in Arabic, University of Oslo (2015)
  • Bachelor's degree in Arabic, University of Bergen (2013)
  • Palestine and Arab Studies, Birzeit University (2012/2013)

I was a postdoctoral researcher and, then, an associate researcher at the Center for International Studies (CERI) at Sciences Po in Paris where I worked with Dr. Stéphane Lacroix on the EU Horizon 2020-funded PREVEX project (Preventing Violent Extremism in the Balkans and the MENA). The overarching objective of PREVEX was to put forward more fine-tuned and effective approaches to preventing violent extremism in the broader MENA region by understanding how different drivers operate. Particular emphasis was placed on the non-occurrence of violent extremism in so-called "enabling environments".

I was also a part of the research initiative on energy transition in the Middle East (GreenMENA) where I employed computational statistics to analyze whether there had been a shift in discourse in Norway and Kuwait the last two decades related to climate change and renewable energy, and, if so, why this shift occurred and whether such a shift was caused and conditioned by the same set of variables.

Awards and scholarships

Appointments

Books

I have authored the following books:

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Tags: Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Palestine, Middle East, CIMS, Digital Humanities

Publications

Books

Skare, Erik. Road to October 7. A Brief History of Palestinian Islamism. New York: Verso Books, forthcoming.

Skare, Erik. A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Faith, Awareness, and Revolution in the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Skare, Erik. Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Islamist Writings on Religion and Resistance. London: I.B.Tauris, 2021.

Skare, Erik. Digital Jihad: Palestinian Resistance in the Digital Era. London: Zed Books, 2016.

Articles/book chapters

Skare, Erik. "Staying Safe by Being Good? The EU's Normative Decline as a Security Actor in the Middle East." European Journal of International Security 8, no. 3 (2023): 337-353.

Skare, Erik. “La Palestine s’est-elle islamisée?” In Araborama. Ce que la Palestine apporte au monde, 229-234. Edited by Bertrand Badie, Christophe Ayad & Leyla Dakhli. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2023 .

Colin Powers, Erik Skare, Georges Fahmi, Nouran Ahmed, Ahmad Mhidi, Myriam Ababsa & Olivier Roy. "Why Individuals and Communities do not Turn to Violent Extremism." Perspectives on Terrorism 17, no. 1 (2023): 1-17.

Skare, Erik & Stéphane Lacroix. "Les quatre «R» de la déradicalisation dans le monde arabe (1990-2020).” In Politiques de lutte contre la radicalisation. Edited by Juliette Galonnier, Stéphane Lacroix & Nadia Marzouki. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po (2022): 87-104.

Skare, Erik. "Affluent and Well-Educated? Analyzing the Socio-Economic Backgrounds of Fallen Palestinian Islamist Militants." The Middle East Journal 76, no. 1 (2022): 72-92.

Skare, Erik. "Insulated Eruptions of Discontent: Palestinian Protests in the Absence of Trusted Organisations." Contemporary Levant 7, no. 2 (2022): 106-117.

Skare, Erik. "Controlling the State in the Political Theory of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad." Religions 12, no. 1010 (2021): 1-12.

Skare, Erik. "Digital Surveillance/Militant Resistance: Categorizing the “Proto-state Hacker.” Television and New Media 20, no. 7 (2019): 670-685.

Academic essays

Skare, Erik. "Texts or Praxes: How Do We Best Understand Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad after October 7?" CTC Sentinel 16, no. 10 (2023): 34-39.

  • Powers, Colin; Skare, Erik; Fahmi, Georges; Ahmed, Nouran; Mhidi, Ahmed & Ababsa, Myriam [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2023). Why Individuals and Communities Do Not Turn to Violent Extremism. Perspectives on Terrorism (PT). ISSN 2334-3745. 17(1), p. 1–17. Full text in Research Archive
  • Skare, Erik (2022). Staying safe by being good? The EU's normative decline as a security actor in the Middle East. European Journal of International Security. ISSN 2057-5637. 8(3), p. 337–353. doi: 10.1017/eis.2022.29. Full text in Research Archive
  • Skare, Erik & Lacroix, Stephane (2022). Les quatre « R » de la déradicalisation dans le monde arabe (1990-2020). In Galonnier, Juliette; Lacroix, Stephane & Marzouki, Nadia (Ed.), Politiques de lutte contre la radicalisation. Les Presses de Sciences Po. ISSN 9782724639407. p. 87–104.
  • Skare, Erik (2022). Affluent and Well-Educated? Analyzing the Socioeconomic Backgrounds of Fallen Palestinian Islamist Militants. The Middle East Journal. ISSN 0026-3141. 76(1), p. 72–92. doi: 10.3751/76.1.14.
  • Skare, Erik (2022). Insulated eruptions of discontent: Palestinian protests in the absence of trusted organisations. Contemporary Levant. ISSN 2058-1831. 7(2), p. 106–117. doi: 10.1080/20581831.2021.1972571.
  • Skare, Erik (2021). Controlling the State in the Political Theory of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad . Religions. ISSN 2077-1444. 12(11), p. 1–12. doi: 10.3390/rel12111010.

View all works in Cristin

  • Skare, Erik (2021). Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Islamist Writings on Resistance and Religion. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 9780755635924. 256 p.
  • Skare, Erik (2021). A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Faith, Awareness, and Revolution in the Middle East. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108845069. 334 p.

View all works in Cristin

View all works in Cristin

Published Aug. 23, 2016 3:32 PM - Last modified Feb. 16, 2024 11:22 AM