Terje Østebø

Terje Østebø holds a joint appointment in the Department of Religion and the Center for African Studies. He received his Ph.D. in the History of Religions from Stockholm University. Before joining the faculty of the University of Florida, he was an Assistant Professor at NLA University College in Bergen, Norway.

His main areas of research are Islam in Africa, particularly in Ethiopia and in the Horn of Africa, and he has extensive field-work and research experience from Ethiopia. His recent book (Brill, Leiden) focuses on the emergence and trajectory of the Salafi movement in Ethiopia from the late 1960s to the present. It offers a nuanced understanding of the interaction between the outside (global) and the local, with a particular focus on the role of agents of change in relation to audience, and explores the process of religious change as a dialectic development.

Other research foci include contemporary Islamic reform, Salafism, Islamic cultures, inter-religious relations in Africa/Ethiopia, as well as ethnic identity, religion and politics and public representations of religion. He is soon publishing an edited volume on contemporary Islam in Ethiopian and the Horn of Africa, and is also currently working on a major research project that deals with the relationship between religious and ethnic identity, with Islam and different ethno-nationalist movements in the Horn of Africa as the case in point.

He has a broad experience with teaching, both in Norway and abroad. Such teaching includes Islam in Ethiopia (both from historical and contemporary perspectives), Ethiopian history, contemporary Ethiopian society & politics, as well as religion and politics on the Horn of Africa. He also has extensive experience with teaching courses on Islam and Muslim cultures in East Africa, Christian-Muslim relations in East Africa, Christianity in contemporary Africa, as well as African Traditional Religions. The teaching has been carried out within the discipline of Religious Studies and in cross-disciplinary settings. He is also fluent in Oromo and has good knowledge of Amharic.

Recent books:
Muslim Ethiopia: Transforming Identities and New Representations (co-edited with Patrick Desplat). Forthcoming, New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Localising Salafism: Religious Change among Oromo Muslims in Bale, Ethiopia. Brill: Leiden, 2012.
Localising Salafism: Religious Change among Oromo Muslims in Bale, Ethiopia. Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2008.
A History of Islam and Inter-religious Relations in Bale, Ethiopia. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell International, 2005.

http://religion.ufl.edu/faculty/core/...