Oliveira Ribas Marzena, Visiting Fellow (2026)

Marzena Oliveira Ribas is a PhD candidate at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) and affiliated with the VORTEX (Coping with the Varieties of Radicalisation into Terrorism and Extremism) Doctoral Network. She holds a Master’s degree in Psychology with a specialisation in Clinical Psychology from the University of Gdańsk and a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering with a specialisation in Informatics in Medicine from Gdańsk University of Technology.

In her thesis, she investigates how far-right and Islamist online groups use gendered narratives to construct communities. Grounded in uncertainty-identity theory (UIT), her research examines how these narratives help reduce gender-related uncertainty and strengthen group cohesion. Through a comparative analysis of six English-speaking Telegram groups—comprising Islamist and far-right communities that are male-oriented, female-oriented, or mixed—she examines how gendered narratives differ across ideological lines (Islamist vs. far-right), target audiences (men vs. women), and underlying sources of authority (religious vs. non-religious)