Graduate Student, Anthropology
University of Arizona, School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies
About
Research Interests: media, religion, secularism, governmentality, biopolitics, politics of the family
Current Research:
Several Islamically-oriented television channels have flourished since the liberalization of the broadcasting industry in Turkey in the 1990's. An overview of the programs aired on these Islamic channels reveals that the family -- more than the ritualistic and scriptural aspects of Islam -- has become their main focus. My project examines the relationship between the increasing prominence placed by Islamic television channels on the family and changing constellations of religion and secularism as well as emerging forms of governance in contemporary Turkey. Through an ethnographic investigation of media professionals involved in Islamic television production, viewers of Islamic television stations, and state institutions and officials taking part in the regulation of broadcasting in Turkey, my project explores how Islamic television stations in Turkey establish the family as the generator of a neoliberal idea of citizenship and of a modern yet Islamically appropriate lifestyle. By situating TV as a technology through which the self, household, and the family are administered and new moral norms are cultivated, this research offers a unique opportunity to examine how the convergence of neoliberal forms of governance and visual culture with existing and novel configurations of Islamic discourses and practices is experienced in every day life.
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