Living Islam: Women, Religion and the Politicization of Culture in Turkey

by Ayse Saktanber

Overview

How and why have women come to play a central role in the political project of Islamic revivalism and in the power struggles between Islamic and secular forces in Turkey? In this innovative book Ayse Saktanber rejects approaches to this issue that ask what Islam means for the position of women, or see Muslim women as the "reverse" or the "dark" side of modernity. Taking as her subject matter families who have come together to "live Islam" as "conscious Muslims" in a suburb of Ankara, she attempts instead to "render thinkable" the experiences of women who are not situated within the discourse of modernity, and to look at the ways in which they have become crucial agents in the effort to make Islam a living social practice in a secular order.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781860641787
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/26/2002
Series:	Library of Modern Middle East Studies
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Ayse Saktanber lectures in sociology at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara.

Table of Contents

	Maps	viii
	Acknowledgements	ix
	Prologue	xv
	Introduction	1
I.1.	Islam in the Paradigm of Modernity	2
I.2.	Authenticity and Islamic Fundamentalism	7
I.3.	Islamist Women: An Unintended Consequence of Turkish Modernization	18
I	A Signpost of Islamic Revitalization: Women	30
I.1.	Sources of Dissidence	30
I.2.	The Woman's Place in an Islamic Moral Order	33
I.3.	Paradoxical Boundaries, Shifting Meanings: Women in Islamic Ideologies	36
1.3.1.	The Symbolic and Actual Meanings of Home in the Islamic Imagination	39
1.3.2.	Mothering in the Discourse of Modernity	42
I.4.	Islamic Revivalism as the Stimulus for the Study of Women in Turkey	44
I.5.	The Status of Islamist Women in Turkey Today: An Unresolved Puzzle	48
II	Story of the Field: 'They'll Never Let You in'	58
II.1.	The Field	58
II.2.	Entering into the Field: Prejudices, Opportunities and Coincidences	61
II.3.	The First Encounter	70
II.4.	Contesting the Status of Prestige among the Community Elite	81
II.5.	The Fieldwork, Methods and Strategies	90
III	The Conscious Muslim: A Sociological Profile	97
III.1.	Selection of the Study Group and Chief Informants	71
III.2.	Components of an Habitus	99
III.2.1.	Family and Marriage	99
III.2.2.	Education	101
III.2.3.	Professions	105
III.2.4.	Children	106
III.2.5.	Place of Origin, Migration and Settlement	110
III.3.	Faith and Taste: Bases of a Middle Class Ethos	112
IV	A New Storyline: Republican Secular Politics, Identity and the Islamic Challenge	121
IV.1.	The Question of Gender Politics and the Transfer of Identity	121
IV.2.	Formation of a National Identity and the Code of Honour	128
IV.3.	The Secularization of Turkishness through Art and Science	138
IV.4.	Shifting of Cultural Authenticity and Islamic Politics	147
V	Imagining an Islamic Community	164
V.1.	Actualizing the Ideal Past	164
V.2.	Politics of Resentment	174
V.3.	Counter-Society, Private Space and Islamic Community	179
VI	Inventing the Islamic Way of Life	190
VI.1.	Otherness: Setting the Boundaries of an Islamic Way of Life	190
VI.2.	'We women can even go out here at nights': Trust, Hope and Life Politics	194
VI.3.	Selected Moments from the 'Self-Narratives' of Muslim Women	213
VI.4.	Between Hope and Despair: Demarcation of Muslim Women's Identity	217
VII	Conclusions	232
Appendix I	The Survey Form	240
Appendix II	Tables	244
	Bibliography	249
	Index	267

Editorial Reviews

Examining Islamic revivalism within the secular state of Turkey, Saktanber (sociology and women's studies, Middle East Technical U., Turkey) especially focuses on the lived experiences of Islamist women, attempting to elucidate the strands of how women support the Islamist project and how they view themselves vis-<`a>-vis modernity. She argues that the Islamic revival should be seen as a response to the state's failures and as an attempt at moral transformation. She demonstrates that women have played an active role in the revival and suggests that these women see themselves as responding to male- dominated Western failings and construct themselves as the "other" in opposition. The book is distributed in the US by Palgrave. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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