Siyaset Bilimi Seminer Serisi: Neslihan Çevik (University of Virginia)
Sanat ve Sosyal Bilimler Fakültesi
Religious
Revival in Modern
by
Neslihan Çevik
Postdoctoral
Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture,
Thursday, January 6, 2011
13:00-14:30
FASS 2034
Abstract:
Contemporary
In my current book project, I argue that these new
institutions, from Islamic hotels to civil associations, embody a new type of
Islamic orthodoxy, which I term as Muslimism. Neither fundamentalist rejection
nor liberal submission, Muslimism embraces aspects of modern life while
submitting that life to a sacred, moral order resulting in a hybrid identity
frame. Within that frame, the aim is not that of capturing the state but to
contrive a lifestyle in which the individual-believer can be incorporated into
modernity while entertaining and preserving an Islam-proper living. This does
not mean Muslimism is a mere cultural expression. Muslimists engage the
political space by exerting civic pressure, promoting new elites – such as the
Muslimist electoral support to the Justice and Development Party– and new
policies—in particular to push state polices and the laic model of secularism
towards more neutral and democratic lines.
Based on an historical reading, the project
identified the mechanisms (agents, conditions, and social spaces) that
generated Muslimism, and the empirical analysis (mainly based on interviews
with leaders of pro-Islamic civil and political organizations that are
identifiable as Muslimists) mapped the Muslimist discourse to identify its core
characteristics. These characteristics include for example cherishing of
conciliatory politics, cultural tolerance, political liberalization,
individuation, voluntary associations, and globalist objectives (both in terms
of IR and culture) and repudiation of cultural conservatism, authoritarianism,
literalism, polarization, and traditionalism.