Rafif A.D. Hakiem is an Assistant Professor at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia and an Academic Associate with the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia in the UK. Her research interest is in Islamic aesthetics and spirituality within society and education. She joined UEA’s UNESCO Chair Programme in adult literacy and learning for social transformation as a result of her research interest in  issues of education in developing countries and her visual participatory transformative approach to research. Her work during her doctoral research with young women in Saudi Arabia has raised a specific interest in the dynamic of gender and she continues to research within this area. Her current work focuses on Saudi women’s academic identity.