Publications
Peer-Reviewed Publications
(Forthcoming) Meaning of a Textbook: Religious Education, National Islam, and the Politics of Reform in the United Arab Emirates, Nations and Nationalism
The organization and content of Islamic education have been an object of Western scrutiny based on claims linking religious education to radicalism. Many Arab Gulf states have responded to such allegations with significant overhauls of their religious curricula. This article focuses on the politics of education reform in the United Arab Emirates. A detailed coding and analysis of 1500 pages of Islamic education textbooks reveal that religious education is a deeply politicized field. However, it promotes loyalty rather than radicalism. The reformed curriculum is used as a pedagogic tool by the state to advance national interpretations of Islam in support of domestic and international policy objectives, such as strengthening national identity against sub-national loyalties, securing political legitimacy, pacifying opposition, rebranding the state’s international image, and spurring economic development. This article advances the existing scholarship by bringing in the international dimension of domestic education reform and the precise mechanisms that we call emulation and generalization through which Islamic knowledge becomes functionalized for the state’s nationalist goals.
(2015) Maintaining ethnic boundaries in “non-ethnic” contexts: constructivist theory and the sexual reproduction of diversity, Theory and Society 44(1):33-64.
How can ethnic boundaries survive in contexts of legal racial equality and institutionalized ethnic mixing? Constructivist theories of ethnicity have long empha- sized the fluidity, rather than the durability, of ethnic boundaries. But the fact that ethnic boundaries often endure--and even thrive--in putatively non-ethnic political contexts suggests the need for sustained attention to the problem of boundary persistence. Based on an ethnographic study of ethnic boundaries in the Turkish case, this article argues that the regulation of the domain of sexuality and marriage can play a critical role in reproducing boundaries when political institutions neither acknowledge nor aid in the survival of ethnic diversity. Ultimately, the data provide substantial evidence that the transmission and internalization of informal rules of inter-ethnic sexual conduct are central to boundary maintenance.
Under Review
When Global Scripts Do Not Resonate: International Minority Rights and Local Repertoires of Diversity in Southern Turkey (with Matthias Koenig)
Rethinking Theories of Religious Change: Secularization and Religious Revival in Turkey and Beyond
Book Review
“Islam’s Marriage with Neoliberalism: State Transformation in Turkey.” (by Yıldız Atasoy) New Perspectives on Turkey 46(2): 250-53.
Other Publications
(2013) From religious schooling to mobilization in a secular state. Perspectives on Europe 43 (1): 145-149
Work in Progress
Islamist Mobilization in Turkey (book manuscript)
A Cultural Theory of Mobilization (journal manuscript)
Organizing under stress: Islamist collective action in Turkey (journal manuscript)
(Forthcoming) Meaning of a Textbook: Religious Education, National Islam, and the Politics of Reform in the United Arab Emirates, Nations and Nationalism
The organization and content of Islamic education have been an object of Western scrutiny based on claims linking religious education to radicalism. Many Arab Gulf states have responded to such allegations with significant overhauls of their religious curricula. This article focuses on the politics of education reform in the United Arab Emirates. A detailed coding and analysis of 1500 pages of Islamic education textbooks reveal that religious education is a deeply politicized field. However, it promotes loyalty rather than radicalism. The reformed curriculum is used as a pedagogic tool by the state to advance national interpretations of Islam in support of domestic and international policy objectives, such as strengthening national identity against sub-national loyalties, securing political legitimacy, pacifying opposition, rebranding the state’s international image, and spurring economic development. This article advances the existing scholarship by bringing in the international dimension of domestic education reform and the precise mechanisms that we call emulation and generalization through which Islamic knowledge becomes functionalized for the state’s nationalist goals.
(2015) Maintaining ethnic boundaries in “non-ethnic” contexts: constructivist theory and the sexual reproduction of diversity, Theory and Society 44(1):33-64.
How can ethnic boundaries survive in contexts of legal racial equality and institutionalized ethnic mixing? Constructivist theories of ethnicity have long empha- sized the fluidity, rather than the durability, of ethnic boundaries. But the fact that ethnic boundaries often endure--and even thrive--in putatively non-ethnic political contexts suggests the need for sustained attention to the problem of boundary persistence. Based on an ethnographic study of ethnic boundaries in the Turkish case, this article argues that the regulation of the domain of sexuality and marriage can play a critical role in reproducing boundaries when political institutions neither acknowledge nor aid in the survival of ethnic diversity. Ultimately, the data provide substantial evidence that the transmission and internalization of informal rules of inter-ethnic sexual conduct are central to boundary maintenance.
Under Review
When Global Scripts Do Not Resonate: International Minority Rights and Local Repertoires of Diversity in Southern Turkey (with Matthias Koenig)
Rethinking Theories of Religious Change: Secularization and Religious Revival in Turkey and Beyond
Book Review
“Islam’s Marriage with Neoliberalism: State Transformation in Turkey.” (by Yıldız Atasoy) New Perspectives on Turkey 46(2): 250-53.
Other Publications
(2013) From religious schooling to mobilization in a secular state. Perspectives on Europe 43 (1): 145-149
Work in Progress
Islamist Mobilization in Turkey (book manuscript)
A Cultural Theory of Mobilization (journal manuscript)
Organizing under stress: Islamist collective action in Turkey (journal manuscript)