The Takhayyul project is a collaborative anthropological study aimed at tracing and excavating imaginative forces in the formation of Islamist political aspirations in the interconnected regions that are historically interconnected via the three Islamic Empires (Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal): the Balkans, the Middle East, and South Asia.
The project has employed novel methodologies and interdisciplinary developments to achieve its three goals. 1) To provide the conceptual basis for an anthropology of imagination by identifying the ways in which people forge shared realities and collective emotions, aspirations, and longings. 2) To deepen the anthropological knowledge and understanding of Islamism by pushing against the epistemological constraints of rationality and reality. 3) To broaden and enrich the limits of ethnography with an historical and ethnographic excavation of the imaginary through a comparative perspective across time and space. By exploring the shared realities, collective emotions, aspirations, and longings that underlie Islamist formations, the project started offering in-depth insight into the political and cultural contexts of these regions, enriching both scholarly and public understanding.
In the first three years, the project experimented with an innovative comparative research design that combines the historical and ethnographic excavations of imaginative elements, including dreams and aspirations. This approach not only deepened our understanding of the role of imagination in Islamist formations but also expanded the possibilities for comparative analysis across time and space. By integrating historical and ethnographic methods of inquiry, the project provides a multifaceted view of the imaginative underpinnings of political dreams and aspirations, revealing how these elements are shaped by and shape social and political realities. This innovative approach will further push the boundaries of scholarship in anthropology and Islamic studies, offering new insights into the dynamics of Islamisms.
The project on the anthropological study of imaginative forces in the formation of Islamist political aspirations has concluded, and we are proud to report groundbreaking and world-changing outputs that will have a lasting impact on the field of anthropology and beyond. It achieved its three core aims: providing the conceptual basis for an anthropology of imagination, deepening anthropological knowledge and understanding of Islamisms, and broadening ethnography with a historical and comparative perspective on the imaginary.
The first output is a conceptual framework for an anthropology of imagination. By tracing the formation of Islamist political aspirations in three different parts of the Islamdom, the project has identified the ways in which people forge shared realities and collective emotions, aspirations, and longings. This conceptual framework opens up new avenues of research beyond Islamist formations and can be applied to other social and political movements.
The second output is a deepened understanding of Islamisms beyond epistemological constraints of rationality and reality. By exploring the imaginative forces that influence Islamist political aspirations, our project has challenged the dominant discourse that reduces Islamisms to a simple binary of secularism versus religion. We have shown that imagination plays a crucial role in shaping political aspirations and that this must be accounted for in any analysis of Islamism.
The third output is the broadening and enriching of the limits of ethnography with an historical and ethnographic excavation of the imaginary through a comparative perspective across time and space. The project's comparative approach has led to new insights into the similarities and differences in the ways in which imagination is used in Islamist formations across the Balkans, the Middle East, and South Asia. By integrating historical and ethnographic data, the project has shed light on the complex and intertwined histories, communities, and post-imperial trajectories of these regions.
