I AM a senior lecturer in social anthropology and run the Gender and Middle East Studies Master programme at the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, at the University of Exeter.

I am an Italian of Palestinian origin. I moved to the UK to do a PhD 10 years ago and came back in 2007, when I started my job at the University of Exeter.

My interest in women and gender arose when I was studying for my BA and later during my MA, when I began to study the double and triple burdens that women bear, especially in countries where their rights as women are continuously jeopardised by patriarchal cultures, occupations, military intervention and economic deprivation.

Towards the end of the 1990s, with a rising number of migrants, the presence of other cultures was becoming more visible in Europe. The Muslim woman was perceived as being a victim or a powerless person.

I felt there was a need to show that, despite having come from challenging backgrounds and situations, Muslim and Middle Eastern women had always been active in trying to change their lives.

My PhD focused on Moroccan migrant women and particularly on how, increasingly, these women who leave their countries do not renounce the symbolic, material and cultural links and ties of the world they left behind.

In our contemporary era, these ties are even more intense than in the past, and migrants are able to conduct lives across places. Having dual identities and loyalties does not mean failing to be a good citizen in Europe, but actually contributes to make Europe more plural. I continually strive to show that migrant women and their offspring very often produce new and innovative cultures that contribute to refresh European societies and identities.

While I was doing my PhD, I also felt the need to counteract the image of veiled Muslim women as a symbol of oppression. Even though I consider myself a secular woman who had a very western education, I still felt the need to give a voice to these women, who kept being portrayed, especially after 9/11, as the symbol of everything that was incompatible with western culture.

I am also interested to show how often the way we perceive Muslim women in Europe is very much affected by media coverage of what's going on in far-off places. That is not always the most helpful way of understanding our neighbours.

After 9/11, everything about the oppression of Muslim women came from a very problematic account of the war in Afghanistan and people suddenly started to see their Muslim neighbours in a cynical and stigmatised way.

One of the most exciting aspects of working here is that we have students from all over the world. The Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter is a great place to learn about how people from different cultures, religions and background can easily coexist and enrich each other.

In the institute I feel privileged to be able to enjoy a very nice cosmopolitan atmosphere. With students coming from countries as diverse as Kenya, Saudi Arabia, France, Sudan, Iran and Kurdistan, just to mention a few, every class is a pleasure and an occasion to learn something new.

I consider my class to be a laboratory of coexistence and of fresh ideas and this has been so far the most exciting aspect of my teaching experience here.