1,721,021 research outputs found
Lived Islam in post-Soviet Russia: Officials, experts, and ordinary interpretations of Islam
No full textRecent anthropological scholarship on Islam has tended to carve out the ‘everyday’ as a space of Muslim life that has the potential to escape the normativity of religious discourses. In this paper, I discuss how the special issue edited by Di Puppo and Schmoller critically engages these debates by first moving the lens of attention from the religious to the ‘secular’ sphere as the source of normative discourse. The essays collected in the special issue focus indeed on the state’s and lay officials’ discourses in post-Soviet, self-declared secular Russia as the normative framework that defines much of the commitment and self-understanding of Muslims in the region. But the special issue does more. It also shows that far from remaining stalled in their own respective domains, normative discourses and ‘daily practices’ intertwine profoundly, as Muslims navigate through the normative dichotomies that are imposed on them by national and supranational global discourses. In the process, Muslims in post-Soviet Russia are able to bend these denominations to their needs, as they struggle to see legitimised their status of citizens belonging to a minority religious confession. In this vein, I conclude by suggesting that rather than reproducing static oppositions between the levels of discourse and that of practice, it is to the mutual interactions between the two and to the alternative possibilities that are disclosed by Muslim life within and without overdetermined limits that we have to turn when investigating the multiplicity and diversity of Islam in Post-Soviet Russia and beyond
L’islamismo turco prima e dopo Gezi: fra conservatorismo, paure e contesa sociale
No full textLe proteste di Gezi Park del maggio 2013 sono state un punto di svolta nella storia della Turchia contemporanea. Da un lato esse hanno inaugurato una nuova modalità di azione politica per la società turca e coinvolto per la prima volta una nuova generazione di giovanissimi, d’ispirazione in senso lato progressista, che non si erano mai affacciati alla politica. Dall’altro hanno fatto riemergere in modo drammatico e risolutivo la storica spaccatura esistente nella società turca tra la sua componente conservatrice-religiosa e quella laicosecolare. Dal fallimento di quelle proteste è uscito rafforzato il disegno finalizzato a mantenere le redini della società turca. Un disegno portato avanti con coerenza da Erdoğan, che ha dovuto tuttavia scontare le tensioni e le differenze di visione politico-culturale (e di interessi) esistenti all’interno stesso del campo polticoreligioso. Emblematico da questo punto di vista è il violento contrasto che ha finito per opporre Erdoğan e Fethullah Gülen.The paper sheds light on the complex process of re-articulation of the Islamic field in Turkey after the upheavals of June 2013 and the following sociopolitical developments in the country. In particular, it sheds light on the renewed exacerbation of the tension between the two macro-groups in which Turkish society has been divided since the foundation of the republic in 1923: the religious-conservatives and the secular camp. In this regard, it argues that the Gezi protests were a turning point, as they opened the way for a stiffening of the peace process opened by the AKP administration in 2012 by determining a radical turn in the party’s policies. By focusing on the implications that these changes had on the Islamic camp, the paper points to how, especially following the coup attempt of July 2016, religious groups in the country have been in large part co-opted by the state and do not seem to enjoy much space for action at the moment
"Do not cross your legs" Islamic sociability, reciprocity and brotherhood in Turkey
No full textBased on intense fieldwork inside the Islamic preaching-educational community of Fethullah Gülen in Istanbul, the paper explores the way Islamic sociability forms structure daily interactions and foster connectedeness among the religious brotherhood there. In a counterweight to what I see as an excess of emphasis that recent trends in the anthropology of Islam have put on notions of Islamic discipline and ethical self-fashioning, I offer an alternative perspective from which to look at how devout Muslims experience Islam and come to inhabit particular conceptions of self and personhood
Narrative islamiche di partecipazione civica. Libertà, responsabilità e attivismo religioso nella Turchia contemporanea
No full textBased on fieldwork conducted between 2009 and 2010 with young students living within two Islamic communities in contemporary Turkey, the paper sheds light on narratives of religiously-grounded civic engagement within these communities. It illustrates how, in their meetings, the students did not only strengthen their faith but also thought about their place and role, as future community members, in the reformist project of their community. In this regard, the paper looks at self-narratives of a good Muslim life and at how young people rely on such narratives to make sense of their individual aspirations and to construct their religious identity in the context of modern-day Turkey. In this light, the paper questions general views that tend to depict religious traditions as simply consisting of normative prescriptions about one’s conduct. As shown, they are also the terrain of deep ethical considerations regarding the state of our society, and how this should be transformed, no matter how participating in such a project of social reform may be demanding for my interlocutors
Reading Islam: Life and Politics of Brotherhood in Modern Turkey
No full textIn Reading Islam Fabio Vicini offers a journey within the intimate relations, reading practices, and forms of intellectual engagement that regulate Muslim life in two enclosed religious communities in Istanbul. Combining anthropological observation with textual and genealogical analysis, he illustrates how the modes of thought and social engagement promoted by these two communities are the outcome of complex intellectual entanglements with modern discourses about science, education, the self, and Muslims’ place and responsibility in society. In this way, Reading Islam sheds light on the formation of new generations of faithful and socially active Muslims over the last thirty years and on their impact on the turn of Turkey from an assertive secularist Republic to an Islamic-oriented form of governance
«Pregare non è tutto»: volontarismo, neoliberismo e vita musulmana nella Turchia di oggi
No full textThe paper investigates the way Muslims working as volunteers in a faith-based organizationin Turkey think of their activism as a significant, and often essential, part of living aMuslim life in today’s society. Based on interviews with volunteers and fieldwork within the organization,it tackles questions related to how Muslim forms of commitment have emerged andchanged, both in shape and meaning, in the context of the broader socioeconomic neoliberal restructuringin the country since the 1980s. In this vein, the paper explores how new understandingsof a Muslim life as no longer centered only on the performance of core Islamic obligationshave developed in connection with these processes. In this regard, the paper also illustrates thecomplex process of resignification of long-standing notions of charity and good action in Islamin the light of these structural transformations
Post-Islamism or Veering Toward Political Modernity? State, Ideology and Islam in Turkey
No full textIn this article I assess the suitability of exploring the entanglement of state and Islam in Turkey under the rubric of post-Islamism. This is achieved through an exploration of the composite intertwining of religious discourse, historical and teleological imaginaries, and ideals of civic engagement within the Gülen movement. In my view not only does the post-Islamist thesis appear to be limited in regard to analyzing this and similar cases, but it also dangerously echoes recurrent neo-orientalist narratives, which in essence circumscribe how Islam can be “inclusive” and open to ideals of “individual freedom,” “pluralism,” and to Western ideals of democracy. In this paper I argue that it is instead the ideologization of religious discourse – a specific product of political modernity – which hinders Islamic movements such as the Gülen and others from realizing the full potential of Islam as an alternative global civilizational discourse to that of liberal modernity
Gülen’s rethinking of Islamic pattern and its socio-political effects
No full textOver recent decades Islamic traditions have emerged in new forms in different parts of the Muslim world, interacting differently with secular and neo-liberal patterns of thought and action. In Turkey Fethullah Gülen’s community has been a powerful player in the national debate about the place of Islam in individual and collective life. Through emphasis on the importance of ‘secular education’ and a commitment to the defence of both democratic principles and international human rights, Gülen has diffused a new and appealing version of how a ‘good Muslim’ should act in contemporary society. In particular he has defended the role of Islam in the formation of individuals as ethically-responsible moral subjects, a project that overlaps significantly with the ‘secular’ one of forming responsible citizens. Concomitantly, he has shifted the Sufi emphasis on self-discipline/self-denial towards an active, socially oriented service of others – a form of religious effort that implies a strongly ‘secular’ faith in the human ability to make this world better. This paper looks at the lives of some members of the community to show how this pattern of conduct has affected them. They say that teaching and learning ‘secular’ scientific subjects, combined with total dedication to the project of the movement, constitute, for them, ways to accomplish Islamic deeds and come closer to God. This leads to a consideration of how such a rethinking of Islamic activism has influenced political and sociological transition in Turkey, and a discussion of the potential contribution of the movement towards the development of a more human society in contemporary Europe
Rappresentare l'Islam: le produzioni cinematografiche del movimento di Fetullah Gülen
No full textRinomato per le sue scuole in più di 120 paesi, a partire dagli anni novanta il movimento di Fethullah Gülen ha esteso le sue attività in diversi campi del sapere. Fra queti ha sponsorizzato diverse serie televisive (un genere molto popolare in Turchia) che vengono trasmesse da Samanyolu, la piattaforma televisiva del movimento. Le più recenti produzioni cinematografiche del movimento sono invece meno conosciute. In questo saggio propongo una lettura antropologica di due di questi film: Kelebek (Faralla, 2009) e Selam (Pace, 2013)
Representing Islam: Cinematographic Productions of the Gülen Movement
No full textRenowned for its schools in over 120 countries, the Fethullah Gülen movement has extended its broad spread of cultural propositions into other fields since the end of the ‘90s. Among these, the numerous television series (a very popular genre in Turkey) broadcast by the movement’s platform Samanyolu TV occupy an important position. Recent cinematic productions financed by the movement are much less numerous and less well-known. Here, Kelebek (Butterfly, 2009) and Selam (Peace, 2013) will be analysed
- …
