Suchergebnisse

Is Hizmet liberal? The question is intractable both for Hizmet actors and for the Turkish public sphere more broadly. In this essay, I marshal ethnographic research carried out over several years among Hizmet institutions in Istanbul to shed light on the politics of this question. I examine several characteristic Hizmet institutions in order to argue that Hizmet forges a synthesis between Islamic and liberal discourses and practices. This synthesis unravels dichotomous images of Islam and liberalism as necessarily opposed. In particular, I analyze ethical values such as "positive action" (müspet hareket), "service" (hizmet), and piety (taqwa), as well as initiatives, such as interreligious dialogue (dinler arası diyalog), carried out by Hizmet-affiliated charitable foundations/pious endowments (vakıflar). By way of conclusion, I reevaluate the title question of the article to unpack the dialectical tension embedded between liberal political projects and liberalism as a disciplining power.

This volume presents ten visual essays that reflect on the historical, cultural and socio-political legacies of empires. Drawing on a variety of visual genres and forms, including photographs, illustrated advertisements, stills from site-specific art performances and films, and maps, the book illuminates the contours of empire's social worlds and its political legacies through the visual essay. The guiding, titular metaphor, sharpening the haze, captures our commitment to frame empire from different vantage points, seeking focus within its plural modes of power. We contend that critical scholarship on empires would benefit from more creative attempts to reveal and confront empire. Broadly, the essays track a course from interrogations of imperial pasts to subversive reinscriptions of imperial images in the present, even as both projects inform each author's intervention.