Women, Religion, and the State in Contemporary Turkey


Book Description

Tracing the centrality of women in the definition of Turkish secularism, this study investigates the 2003 decision to increase the number of women officers employed by the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). It explores how, as professional religious officers, the female Diyanet preachers epitomize a pious, modern and highly educated woman whose role in society has been raised to prominence. Based on extensive fieldwork in Turkey, and drawing on a rich ethnography of the activities conducted by Diyanet women preachers in Istanbul, Chiara Maritato disentangles the state's attempt to standardize a multifaceted female religious participation. In using the feminization of the Diyanet as a prism through which to understand the significance of a renewed presence of Islam in the Turkish public realm, she casts light on a broader reformulation of religious services for women and families in Turkey, and pinpoints how this pervasive moral support has been able to penetrate and reshape even secular spaces.




The Religious Identity of Young Muslim Women in Berlin


Book Description

The Religious Identity of Young Muslim Women in Berlin offers an in-depth ethnographic account of Muslim youth’s religious identity formation and their everyday life engagement with Islam. It deals with the reconstruction of selfhood and the collective content of identity formation in an urban and transnational setting.




Muslim Civil Society and the Politics of Religious Freedom in Turkey


Book Description

In contemporary Turkey, a plethora of Muslim NGOs, spanning the sectarian divide between Sunni and Alevi Muslims, has called into question statist sovereignty over Islam. Muslim Civil Society and the Politics of Religious Freedom in Turkey is an ethnographic study of these institutions and their distinctive, nongovernmental politics of religious freedom.




Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa


Book Description

This volume combines ethnographic accounts of fieldwork with overviews of recent anthropological literature about the region on topics such as Islam, gender, youth, and new media. It addresses contemporary debates about modernity, nation building, and the link between the ideology of power and the production of knowledge. Contributors include established and emerging scholars known for the depth and quality of their ethnographic writing and for their interventions in current theory.




Islamist Mobilization in Turkey


Book Description

This ethnography of contemporary Istanbul charts the success of Islamist mobilization through the eyes of ordinary people. Drawing on interviews gathered over twenty years of fieldwork, White focuses on the appeal of Islamic politics in the fabric of Turkish society and among mobilizing and mobilized elites, women, and educated populations.




We Have No Microbes Here


Book Description

Examining traditional metaphors used to describe the body and its suffering, this study situates a Turkish Black Sea village community in expanding networks of labor migration and medical technologies as well as within international discourses on science and religion."--BOOK JACKET.




Ethnographies of Islam


Book Description

This comparative approach to the various uses of the ethnographic method in research about Islam in anthropology and other social sciences is particularly relevant in the current climate. Political discourses and stereotypical media portrayals of Islam as a monolithic civilisation have prevented the emergence of cultural pluralism and individual freedom. Such discourses are countered by the contributors who show the diversity and plurality of Muslim societies and promote a reflection on how the ethnographic method allows the description, representation and analysis of the social and cultural complexity of Muslim societies in the discourse of anthropology.




Ethnographic Feminisms


Book Description

This book is written by anthropologists who are currently engaged in research on gender. The editors argue for the development of an ethnography-based feminism that both pays heed to what women in specific circumstances identify as their concerns and recognizes the contradictions inherent in the goals of feminist anthropology. The essays consider a range of "awkward" issues, including feminism in international contexts, the invisibility of women's working lives, and the problems of voice and ethnographic representation. Referring to a variety of ethnographic contexts, and working from diverse perspectives, the contributors examine the multiple dilemmas and conflicts of gender and power.




Ethnographic Feminisms


Book Description

This significant new study contains the work of anthropologists engaged in doing research on gender. The editors argue for the creation of an ethnography-based feminism that, at the same time, pays heed to what women in specific circumstances identify as their concerns and also recognizes contradictions inherent in the goals of a feminist anthropology. These essays grapple with a range of awkward issues, including feminism in international contexts, the invisibility of women's working lives, and the problems of voice and ethnographic representation. Referring to a variety of ethnographic contexts, and working from diverse perspectives, the contributors examine the multiple dilemmas and conflicts of gender and power.A volume which will not only constitute a significant contribution to the social sciences literature both theoretically and substantively, but will also place Canadian feminist anthropology on the cutting edge of global feminist anthropology. I strongly recommend it. Valda Blundell Carleton University




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