Politics of the Family in the New Turkey | Hikmet Kocamaner

E358 | Discourses surrounding the family and morality have played an important role in modern political debates. In this episode, we discuss the politics of family in Turkey and its relationship to both religion and government policy. Our guest Hikmet Kocamaner discusses how the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs--the Diyanet--oversees a range of activities concerning the family as part of the project of a "New Turkey" championed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). In particular, we discuss family-oriented television programming related to Diyanet. While distinctively Islamic in their rhetoric, these programs in fact serve as a fascinating meeting point for various expert approaches to social issues and the family, demonstrating the complex entanglement of Islamic and secular institutions in modern Turkey. More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2018/04/family.html Hikmet Kocamaner is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he teaches anthropology of gender, ethnographic writing, and religion and politics. His article on Islamic television and the politics of the family was published in Anthropological Quarterly. He is currently completing his book manuscript, provisionally entitled Governing the Family through Religion in a Secular State: Islam, Expertise, and the Politics of the Family in the New Turkey. Chris Gratien is Assistant Professor of History at University of Virginia, where he teaches classes on global environmental history and the Middle East. He is currently preparing a monograph about the environmental history of the Cilicia region of the former Ottoman Empire from the 1850s until the 1950s. CREDITS Episode No. 358 Release Date: 17 April 2018 Recording Location: Harvard University Audio editing by Chris Gratien and Hikmet Kocamaner Special thanks to Mutelif for "Samsa" and Kara Günes for "Istanbul" Bibliography courtesy of Hikmet Kocamaner available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2018/04/family.html