Abstract

This presentation will seek to bring together two seemingly disparate topics: the critical theory of Islamist women intellectuals in Turkey and the turn in political science toward self-reflexive interpretivist methodologies. Cognizant of the growing scholarly and media interest in Muslim women after 9/11, Islamist women intellectuals in Turkey have mobilized their unique standpoint to engage with and respond to the conversion of their discourse, public work, and subjectivities into social scientific categories and theses. Firstly, the speaker will argue that their insights collectively point to a critical theory that deconstructs the process of sociologization of Muslim women, intending to reveal the tensions, contradictions and ambiguities that inhere in social scientific analysis/translation of piety. Secondly, she will relate Islamist women’s critical theoretic engagements with their social scientific reflections to the “interpretive turn” toward self-reflexive scholarship. Not only must the researcher be aware of the ways in which her social positionality affects her research, she must also recognize the potential for scholarly analysis to politicize the actors studied. This will be demonstrated through the critical reactions of Islamist women intellectuals to the categories produced by scholarly analysis. Ultimately, the speaker is working toward a rigorous, multi-faceted exploration of Islamic activism, one that recognizes contemporary Islamist women activists as intellectuals and producers of political thought, and that considers scholarly discourses as part of the “field” to be studied.