Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Neo-Ottomanism (Gendered Nostalgia: Neo-Ottomanism in Islamist Women’s Media in Turkey)
Reporting period: 2020-09-07 to 2022-09-06
The authoritarianism of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey has been growing significantly, a trend legitimised since 2007 by neo-Ottomanism, which aims to revitalize the glory of the Ottoman Empire in contemporary society. The project aims to elucidate the current uses of history and nostalgia in Turkish politics and culture by focusing on the Islamic publishing sector and investigating the means by which women editors creatively contribute to this trend. By integrating gendered perspectives into discussions on neo-Ottomanist nostalgia and analysing the complexity of its transmission routes, the project offers novel insights, challenging existing gender-blind knowledge by addressing female agency in Islamist media. Islamist women’s journals in which an Islamic way of life is dictated through the religious, quotidian, cultural and psychological aspects of being an ideal Muslim woman vary greatly in terms of style, ownership, management, financial resources and target audiences. The project compares how authors and editors of these publications visually and rhetorically mediatise nationalist historical narratives by interlacing them with Islamic nostalgia. Five journals and magazines, namely Aysha, Yeşil Topuklar, Bizim Aile, Nihayet and Kadın ve Aile are selected to represent different sections and communities of Islamist women and their related contents covering the period 2007-2021 are analysed.
Data Collection – Work Package (WP) 1 (09-2020-12.2020): The state of the art is reviewed to include the recent publications in the very active field of neo-Ottomanism. I collected the published materials, selected, scanned and classified the relevant textual and visual contents. I presented the project at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies (CCRS) on 08.12.2020 with a research webinar hosted and organized by the Many Roads in Modernity Research Centre (MRM). I received feedback to improve my analytical and methodological framework. This was the first dissemination activity/deliverable activity and the milestone ending the work package.
Content Analysis – WP2 (01.2021 – 06.2021): I analysed the textual, visual, and aesthetic elements of the data and identified the emerging themes to be explored in the fieldwork. The dominant themes and categories of analyses were Islamic traditions and practices, Istanbul’s Ottoman and Islamic heritage, food, travel, Ottoman/Islamic architecture, Islamic modest clothing and historical inspirations. These themes determined the focal points in the fieldwork and I worked with Catharina Raudvere, the academic advisor of the project, on fieldwork design. Due to the COVID 19 pandemic, I postponed the main fieldtrip for a few months. Meanwhile, increasing authoritarian politics made communicating with some of the editors and authors difficult, even impossible. Thus, the fieldwork preparations and building initial contacts took more time than planned. On 21.05.2021 I presented a working paper based on the content analysis conducted in this work package entitled “History, Piety, and Fashion: Neo-Ottomanism in Islamist Women’s Media in Turkey” at the research webinar of the Comparative Cultural Studies group at CCRS which was the second deliverable of the project and the milestone ending the work package. I introduced the research at the annual meeting of DASR, Danish Society for Religious Studies on 21-22.06.2021 and participated in the 15th Conference of the European Sociological Association (ESA) with the paper entitled “Gendered Nostalgia: Neo-Ottomanism in Islamist Women’s Magazines in Turkey” on 31.08 - 3.09.2021.
Fieldwork - WP3 (07.2021 – 12.2021) I made a short field visit in July 2021 for an in-depth interview with the editor of Bizim Aile that explored the main themes identified in the content analysis and the publishing process of the journal. The second field visit was on 21.10.201-13.11 2021. I conducted two interviews in Istanbul, one was with the editor of Bizim Aile and one with an author from Kadın ve Aile, participated in a seminar of Bizim Aile’s publishing house, and visited various sites in the city, which are relevant to research subject. I collected a range of archival materials, and visual and textual data for contextualization. Meanwhile, several face-to-face interviews were postponed to take place online. I conducted an interview in Yalova with an author in Bizim Aile. The fieldwork report (milestone) explained that building an Ottoman identity for pious women and families was the main mission of the journals. The editors’ and authors’ worries about loss of femininity, modesty, Islamic values and national identity in face of globalization, capitalism, popular culture and feminist and LGBTQ movements were influential in determining the subjects to be covered. Ottoman heritage and history provided reliable references to achieve their aims.
Impact - WP4 (12.2021 - 09.2022): I analysed the fieldwork data and synthesized this analysis with the content analysis.
I presented the paper “Building Ties, Shelters and Identities: Ottoman History and Culture in Turkish Islamist Women’s Journals” at Practices, Aesthetics and Entanglements in Contemporary Muslim Piety Conference in Stockholm, Sweden on 31.08–1.09.2022 and presented the paper “Out of Politics into the Culture: Mediatizations of Neo-Ottomanism and Gendered Nostalgia in Turkey” at European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) General Conference 2022 at University of Innsbruck in Innsbruck, Austria on 22-26.08.2022. With the research grants of the Centre for European Studies at the Faculty of Humanities of UCPH, I organized the interdisciplinary workshop entitled “Modest Fashion: An Expression of Contemporary Muslim Women’s Lifestyles and Identities in Europe Workshop” at UCPH on 7.06.2022 and presented the paper “Kaftans in Style: Ottoman Impact on Modest Fashion”. The workshop enabled the participants to discuss cultural, economic, philosophical and artistic aspects of Muslim women’s modest clothing. Based on the feedback from the dissemination events, two articles entitled “History, Piety, and Fashion: Neo-Ottomanism in Islamist Women’s Magazines in Turkey” and “Building Ties, Shelters and Identities: Ottoman History and Culture in Turkish Islamist Women’s Journals” are drafted as the milestone.
Content Analysis – WP2 (01.2021 – 06.2021): I analysed the textual, visual, and aesthetic elements of the data and identified the emerging themes to be explored in the fieldwork. The dominant themes and categories of analyses were Islamic traditions and practices, Istanbul’s Ottoman and Islamic heritage, food, travel, Ottoman/Islamic architecture, Islamic modest clothing and historical inspirations. These themes determined the focal points in the fieldwork and I worked with Catharina Raudvere, the academic advisor of the project, on fieldwork design. Due to the COVID 19 pandemic, I postponed the main fieldtrip for a few months. Meanwhile, increasing authoritarian politics made communicating with some of the editors and authors difficult, even impossible. Thus, the fieldwork preparations and building initial contacts took more time than planned. On 21.05.2021 I presented a working paper based on the content analysis conducted in this work package entitled “History, Piety, and Fashion: Neo-Ottomanism in Islamist Women’s Media in Turkey” at the research webinar of the Comparative Cultural Studies group at CCRS which was the second deliverable of the project and the milestone ending the work package. I introduced the research at the annual meeting of DASR, Danish Society for Religious Studies on 21-22.06.2021 and participated in the 15th Conference of the European Sociological Association (ESA) with the paper entitled “Gendered Nostalgia: Neo-Ottomanism in Islamist Women’s Magazines in Turkey” on 31.08 - 3.09.2021.
Fieldwork - WP3 (07.2021 – 12.2021) I made a short field visit in July 2021 for an in-depth interview with the editor of Bizim Aile that explored the main themes identified in the content analysis and the publishing process of the journal. The second field visit was on 21.10.201-13.11 2021. I conducted two interviews in Istanbul, one was with the editor of Bizim Aile and one with an author from Kadın ve Aile, participated in a seminar of Bizim Aile’s publishing house, and visited various sites in the city, which are relevant to research subject. I collected a range of archival materials, and visual and textual data for contextualization. Meanwhile, several face-to-face interviews were postponed to take place online. I conducted an interview in Yalova with an author in Bizim Aile. The fieldwork report (milestone) explained that building an Ottoman identity for pious women and families was the main mission of the journals. The editors’ and authors’ worries about loss of femininity, modesty, Islamic values and national identity in face of globalization, capitalism, popular culture and feminist and LGBTQ movements were influential in determining the subjects to be covered. Ottoman heritage and history provided reliable references to achieve their aims.
Impact - WP4 (12.2021 - 09.2022): I analysed the fieldwork data and synthesized this analysis with the content analysis.
I presented the paper “Building Ties, Shelters and Identities: Ottoman History and Culture in Turkish Islamist Women’s Journals” at Practices, Aesthetics and Entanglements in Contemporary Muslim Piety Conference in Stockholm, Sweden on 31.08–1.09.2022 and presented the paper “Out of Politics into the Culture: Mediatizations of Neo-Ottomanism and Gendered Nostalgia in Turkey” at European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) General Conference 2022 at University of Innsbruck in Innsbruck, Austria on 22-26.08.2022. With the research grants of the Centre for European Studies at the Faculty of Humanities of UCPH, I organized the interdisciplinary workshop entitled “Modest Fashion: An Expression of Contemporary Muslim Women’s Lifestyles and Identities in Europe Workshop” at UCPH on 7.06.2022 and presented the paper “Kaftans in Style: Ottoman Impact on Modest Fashion”. The workshop enabled the participants to discuss cultural, economic, philosophical and artistic aspects of Muslim women’s modest clothing. Based on the feedback from the dissemination events, two articles entitled “History, Piety, and Fashion: Neo-Ottomanism in Islamist Women’s Magazines in Turkey” and “Building Ties, Shelters and Identities: Ottoman History and Culture in Turkish Islamist Women’s Journals” are drafted as the milestone.
By demonstrating the cultural tools through which neo-Ottomanism is produced in Islamist women’s journals, this project adds a vital dimension to the hitherto gender-blind scholarly work on the cultural facets of this ideology and how it is popularised through the agency of women authors. Theoretically articulating the field of Muslim women’s studies to nostalgia and critical heritage studies presents novel insights into contemporary neo-Ottomanism and the relationship between Islamist women’s identities and contemporary culture and politics. Comparative analysis of the publications’ discursive and paratextual elements and representing the editors and authors as producers of culture offer a major advancement in the existing literature.