Browsing by Author "Scott, Rachel M."

Now showing 1 - 13 of 13
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    American Muslim Philanthropy in Flux: Effects of Community Building and Identity Formation
    Khan, Sabithulla (Virginia Tech, 2015-08-31)
    American Muslim Philanthropy in flux is concerned with several interlinked ideas. From a discussion of how American Muslim communities have emerged, to the role of identity and philanthropy in creating them, this study is a careful examination of the central role that philanthropy has played in these processes. While mainstream American discourses have had and continue to have a profound impact on how religiously inspired giving occurs, recent scholarship has shown that the ways in which religious giving is changing in America is quite unique. Several discourses impact how we understand charity and philanthropy, including, but not limited to those of religion, economy, social policy etc. I argue, through the papers that comprise this dissertation that philanthropy has a key role in how community is shaped among American Muslims and also that new formulations of philanthropic giving are emerging, that are moving in the direction of more strategic giving, incorporating ideals of a marketized, consumer driven philanthropy. The discourses of giving are impacting practices and I suggest that a close examination of organizational discourses will help us understand how American Muslim identity, civil society and philanthropy are being formulated.
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    Beyond Minority Identity Politics: Rethinking Progressive Islam through Food
    Dahlan-Taylor, Magfirah (Virginia Tech, 2012-05-02)
    In this dissertation, I analyze the challenges of speaking about religion, ethics, and politics as a Muslim in America beyond the language of minority identity. I investigated the different ways Muslims negotiate the demands of Islamic dietary laws in their everyday lives by collecting primary data gathered through interviews with Muslims from different localities. The answers given by the participants in this study speak to more than the particular issue of how Muslims understand and carry out the demands of Islamic dietary laws given the reality of living in a country where Muslims are a minority group. They reflect a discourse on Islamic dietary laws that is framed primarily within the language of exclusive privatized religious identity and individual consumerism. In this dissertation, I seek to propose a different discourse on Islamic dietary laws, one that is characterized by greater inclusivity and challenges the language of exclusive privatized religious identity and individual consumerism.
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    Christian Minorities and the Struggle for Nineveh: The Assyrian Democratic Movement in Iraq and the Nineveh Plains Protection Units
    Kruczek, Gregory John (Virginia Tech, 2019-02-05)
    Northern Iraq's Christians are a second-order minority. That is, they are a minority within a minority. They occupy a tenuous position between the Arab-dominated central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government. All Christians in northern Iraq desire to remain in their historic homelands. Yet efforts to advance a common political goal have been rare. Differences within the Iraqi Christian community center on three interrelated points: 1) the adoption and advancement of the Assyrian ethno-nationalist identity; 2) the struggle for leadership of the community between secular parties and church officials; and 3) the securing of group rights through either Baghdad or Erbil, which is typified by the debate over a province for minorities in the Nineveh Plain. The Islamic State's invasion in June 2014 made this dynamic even more complex. This dissertation explores how a second-order minority mobilized to protect its homelands during state breakdown and state recalibration. It examines how an Iraqi Christian political party, the Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), responded to the rise and spread of the Islamic State. More specifically, it analyzes the ADM's creation of a self-defense force, the Nineveh Plains Protection Units (NPU), and how the party positioned itself for the post-conflict state. Data generated through ethnographic fieldwork, combined with existing primary and secondary sources, reveals a detailed process whereby security threats shaped mobilization. Notions of historic homelands and distrust of both the central government and KRG were the central factors shaping this outcome. The ADM created the NPU to liberate occupied lands. More importantly, the NPU was created to ensure Christians retained a place in their historic homelands after the Islamic State was evicted. The use of the name "Nineveh Plains Protection Units" held strategic importance. The binding principle of the NPU was an indigenous-based attachment to the Nineveh Plain, including the right to defend it, and Christianity in Iraq. Both elements captured the common threads among all Iraqi Christians and the claim they make on the state. The ADM, therefore, was particularly attuned to Iraq's pre-Islamic ancient Mesopotamian heritage. This ironically echoed earlier efforts by the Ba'ath regime to instill a Mesopotamian identity among citizens by glorifying a common Assyrian and Babylonian heritage all could presumably share. Second-order minority status meant the ADM had to eventually align with either Baghdad or Erbil. The ADM chose Baghdad, effectively balancing against ISIS and the KRG in the Nineveh Plain. Baghdad proved a willing partner for a time. The ADM, however, was left alone to navigate the Nineveh Plain's position in the September 2017 Kurdistan referendum on independence.
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    Disciplining Religious Bodies, Forming Secular Bodies: Atatürk, Modern Power and Secular Affect
    Pervaiz, Mohammed Naeem (Virginia Tech, 2020-07-07)
    This work is an investigation into secular and religious male embodiment in Turkey. The explorations in this work are interdisciplinary showing how the European body became coded and formed onto the archetype of a universal secular male body. In particular, I show how the secular male body formed during the rupture between empire (Ottoman) and nation-state (Turkey). I focus in particular how the body of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (d. 1938) became the way in which the secular body was disciplined, taught and performed. I explore the enigmatic indeterminacy of the secular male body by showing how the secular functions as a separating power, partitioning men into public (secular) and private (religious) persons. I try and capture how secular life was coherently and discursively constructed in the early Turkish Republic through brute force, humiliation and acquiescence. Thinking with Wittgenstein and Foucault, I do not theorize the secular, nor do I employ special critical theoretical strategies such as archeology or deconstruction to unsettle the secular. Such theoretical strategies may themselves be an expression of secular power. Instead, I follow how secular power works in the utterances, institutions (horizontal power in ordinary life as well as vertical state power) and bodily practices of subjects through what anthropologists influenced by the seminal work of Talal Asad call a "discursive-embodied" tradition. Here, I comment on several Kemalist sources of inspiration such as the journal La Turquie Kemaliste, Atatürk's Anıtkabir Mausoleum, bodies memorialized in Kemalist museums and early Republican newspapers. I go on to examine ethnographically how a contemporary Nekşibendi sufi community in Istanbul practice embodiment and view secular life. For them and many other of my interlocutors, the partitioning of men into public and private persons constituted a separation of a "form" from its "life", what was called to me a "hypocrite" body (munafiq). The munafiq body does not so easily live well with views of embodiment that coalesce "inner" and "outer" life in sufism, thus reifying in some sufi circles in Istanbul the problem of religious and secular embodiment in Turkey today.
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    An Elusive Victory - Egyptian Workers Challenge the Regime (2006-2012)
    El-Shazli, Heba Fawzi (Virginia Tech, 2015-02-06)
    "We started the 2011 revolution and the rest of Egypt followed," say Egyptian workers with strong conviction. Egyptian independent workers' continuous claims of contention and repertoires of protest were one of several main factors leading to the January 25, 2011 uprising. After thirty-two years of a Mubarak-led authoritarian regime, massive protests began in January 2011 and forced President Mubarak to step down from his position. The first question of this research endeavor is: how did Egyptian workers challenge the regime and how they became one of the factors leading to the January 2011 uprising? These workers were organized into loose networks of different independent groups that had been protesting for a decade and longer prior to January 2011. However, their regular protests for over a decade before 2011 challenged the authoritarian regime. This dissertation examines the combative role of Egyptian independent workers' formal and informal organizations as a contentious social movement to challenge the regime. It will examine the evolving role of workers as socio-economic actors and then as political actors in political transitions. Social Movement Theory (SMT) and its mechanisms and Social Movement Unionism (SMU) will be the lenses through which this research will be presented. The methodology will be the comparative case studies of two different movements where workers who advocated for their rights for a decade prior to January 2011 experienced significantly differing outcomes. One case study showcases the municipal real estate tax collection workers who were able to establish a successful social movement and then create an independent trade union. The second case study examines an influential group of garment and textile workers, who also developed an effective social movement, yet were not able to take it to the next step to establish an independent union. I will explore within this research a second question: why one group of workers was able to establish an independent union while the other arguably more influential group of workers, the garment and textile workers, was not able to do so. This had an impact on the influence they were able to exercise over the regime in addition to their effectiveness as a social movement for change.
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    Explanation and Critique of the Iranian Reform Movement: Alternative Discourses for a Conservative Regime
    Namatpour, Ali (Virginia Tech, 2016-06-29)
    This thesis analyzes the failures, achievements, and some of the possible political ramifications of the reform movement in Iran since the Islamic Revolution. It focuses on religious intellectual discourses in the context of the intellectual trajectory of Islamic thought from the revolutionary period to the post-revolutionary reformist phase. This thesis examines the role of the post-revolutionary intellectuals after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini. For reaching this goal, this research presents an analysis of the historical processes which resulted in the formation and growth of the religious intellectuals in Iran. The thesis begins by explaining the basis of Shia political thought and its growth trend which leads to the theory of velayate faqih as the main response to the question of the political legitimacy in Shia doctrine. I argue that the emergence of the reformist ideas related to the decline of the revolutionary model of the Islamic government, which dominated the decade after the revolution. I discuss how the reformists and the religious intellectuals challenge the socio-economic and the political hegemony of the Islamic government. Finally, I explore the politics of the reform movement after the election of President Khatami in 1997, and consider the failures and achievements of the reformist government in the socio-political sphere. The thesis explores the reformists victory was the first step for reforming the power structure which might lead to the transformation of the socio-political and economic liberalization, and which combines modern political thought with a religious framework in the power structure in Iran.
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    The Interaction of Civic Nationalism and Radical Islam: A Theoretical Examination and Empirical Analysis
    Marinello, Frank Charles (Virginia Tech, 2006-05-08)
    This thesis engages the question of the impact of religion on civic nationalism in the western European context. Civic nationalism, it suggests, is an identarian nationalist construct that is pursued by a liberal state's population through various historical linkages, myth construction, modern outlook, and propaganda. (Smith 2001) (Gellner 1997) The central question is whether civic nationalism, as a method of unifying a population, can compete with the concentrated cultural influence of an equally viable identity construction. Radical Islam is the focus point of this comparison. A powerful religious identity, radical Islam instills in its members a similar sense of unity through belief in core values and utilizes the existence of external threats to reinforce its allegiances. Through this theoretical and empirical exercise, the profound challenge of the civic nation to maintain feelings of unity without inspiring the imagination and mysticism usually inherent in nationalism is investigated. A victim of its own values, the civic nation aspires to harness the unifying force of more negative forms of nationalism without the hateful and exclusive practices usually associated with such group identities while also denying the deep theocratic roots that give nationalism its impermeable quality. The competition of these identarian constructions is empirically examined through a multi-form analysis of reactions to the July 7th, 2005 terrorist bombings of the London transportation system.
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    Islam and the Social Construction of Risk: A Discourse Analysis of the Fatwa to the Muria Nuclear Power Plant in Indonesia
    Pradheksa, Pratama Yudha (Virginia Tech, 2017-06-16)
    This thesis analyzes Badan Tenaga Atom Nasional (BATAN, the Indonesia National Nuclear Energy Agency and the the Ulama of Pengurus Cabang Nahdlatul Ulama (PCNU, the Islamic scholars of District Branch of Nahdlatul Ulama) Jepara’s different risk assessments of the purposed nuclear power plant in Muria, Indonesia. Using a discourse analysis combined with the social construction of risk from a science and technology studies (STS) perspective, this thesis focuses on the Ulama’s risk assessments, and looks at how the Islamic interpretations of fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) and the knowledge of perceived risk of the State’s nuclear inexpertise, environmental degradations, the type of the reactor, and foreign technological dependence are used simultaneously by the Ulama of the PCNU Jepara to construct maslahah (benefits) and mafsadah (disadvantages) on the fatwa to the proposed Muria nuclear power plant. I argue that the different risk assessments converge on the proposed Muria nuclear power plant, which are based on not only scientific and political discourse but also Islamic beliefs. In contrast to alternative forms of knowledge, Islamic belief not only has orientations to the social world but also the afterlife. I found the Ulama’s concerns regarding perceived risk of the State’s nuclear inexpertise did not change whether from the authoritarian regime to the democratic model. Across the contesting political regimes, the Ulama articulated their concerns of perceived risk of the State’s nuclear inexpertise through distrust of the State’s capacities and capabilities in handling a commercial nuclear power plant. Furthermore, the different ways of constructing risk through BATAN and the Ulama depict the contested meaning of national identity after the Indonesia independence. Lastly, this thesis offers a unique view of studying Islam and the social construction of risk from a non-Western context.
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    Islamic Authority and the Articulation of Jihad: Approaching Jihadist Authority through the Islamist Magazine Inspire
    LaChette, Aleisha (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-15)
    This thesis examines the impact of changing views of legitimate Islamic authority on conceptions of jihad. Spearheaded by militant Sunni movements, jihad in the modern era has taken on new purposes and practices that more closely resemble general understandings of terrorism than the regulated forms of warfare cemented during the classical period of Islam. Contrasting the historical authority of the caliph or political leader and the ulama over the concept of jihad with the modern state and ulama's lack of control over the concept offers a partial explanation of the divergence of contemporary jihad from the classical or traditional views. This thesis uses the concept of individual jihad as communicated through the jihadist magazine Inspire, to counter the dismissal of radical articulations of jihad as un-Islamic and therefore illegitimate, and to demonstrate how such forms instead reflect the opportunistic replacement of traditional political and religious authority by the jihadist as the true defender of Islam and consequently the rightful interpreter of Islamic law.
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    Like Jacob with Esau: The 3D Printed Replica and the Future of the Museum
    Walton, James Andrew (Virginia Tech, 2018-06-13)
    The importance of the aura, the metaphysical element that gives art, artifacts, and other objects of cultural heritage their authenticity, has been heavily contemplated ever since the publication of Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." This thesis strives to add to this conversation and expand upon it by delving into the emergence of additive manufacturing, or what is more commonly known as 3D printing, and its relation to museums and other institutions that comprise the public humanities. This technology challenges the auratic properties of an exhibit by first digitizing it onto a computer by scanning it and then uploading this data to a 3D printer, which then proceeds to replicate the scanned exhibit down to incredibly fine details. For museums the possibility that 3D printed replicas, increasingly able to be indistinguishable from the original and capable of being produced in great numbers at ease, replacing their auratic exhibits is a very real possibility to consider. This thesis argues that some museums are responding by despatializing their exhibitions in order to uphold their auratic exhibits, while others are offsetting the potential loss by turning their exhibitions into tactile, multisensory experiences. Either option, which are not mutually exclusive, transforms the traditional museum. This thesis ultimately concludes that it's possible to reconcile the auratic exhibit with the 3D printed replica should these institutions properly adapt. Doing so will allow them to continue fulfilling their mission statements to preserve and promote the auratic exhibits well into the future.
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    Marriage, the Family, and Security in Israel:  The Paradox of the Liberal State
    Jordan, Holly A. (Virginia Tech, 2016-06-20)
    This study offers an interpretation of political change in Israel through an examination of amendments to Israel's personal status laws (PSLs) - ""laws governing marriage, divorce, death, inheritance, and adoption. I found that separate ethno-religious groups, including Arab Muslims, non-Western Jews, and non-religious persons (including some secular Jews), do not enjoy equal access to the civil right of marriage and divorce that citizens commonly enjoy within other Western liberal nations. Marriage and divorce within Israel are only accessble through, and sanctioned by, religious institutions. I argue that Israel's PSLs reflect a significant paradox within liberalism, namely the inherent tension between the state's guarantee of religious rights versus the constitutional protection of citizens' civil rights. My research begins within political theory, grounded in theories of liberalism, biopolitics, nationalism, and post-colonial studies. Part one traces the history of Israel from the late Ottoman period through the founding of the State in 1948, with consideration paid both to Israel's founders (and the political Zionisms they espoused) and to political Zionism's critics (including Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, and Judith Butler). I then turn to a examination of Israel's PSLs, asking what is at stake when a liberal, democratic nation bases its laws governing marriage and divorce upon religious law rather than developing civil laws governing these institutions. Part two considers four legal arrangements caught in a crucial political paradox: laws and programs regulating the lives of women, laws outlawing polygynous marriages, changes in laws surrounding exogamous and cross-border marriages, and the treatment of Ethiopian Jews under the law. Each of these cases demonstrate the ways PSLs are used to address growing concerns over the security and national identity of the Jewish State. Through these four examples, Israel's concerns over national identity, citizenship, and security become manifest, and one important instance of the paradox of liberalism comes into focus. Ultimately, while Israel is unique as the world's only Jewish state, Israel becomes understandable as a liberal state experiencing many of the same anxieties and internal liberal problematics experienced by other states as well.
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    A Postcolonial Inquiry of Women's Political Agency in Aceh, Indonesia: Towards a Muslim Feminist Approach?
    Taylor, Reed W. (Virginia Tech, 2012-08-13)
    In this dissertation, I develop a postcolonial theoretical approach to localized Muslim feminism(s) in Aceh, Indonesia, based on interviews with women in Aceh in 2009 and 2010. One of the central aims of this study is to challenge the dominant exclusivist discourse of "Islamic" feminism by providing a viable alternative for "Muslim" feminism(s), derived from collaborative, indigenous, and post-secular politics. I address the need for a religious feminist model of subjectivity that incorporates both the political and ethical dimensions of agency in potentially non-patriarchal and non-state-centric formations. I suggest a communal understanding of religious law as an alternative to conceptualizing religious law (syariah) in terms of a personal ethical code or a system of laws emanating from a state. I propose an alternative discourse of feminist agency and religious identity, one that reaches beyond a secular-liberal epistemology and challenges the hegemonic discourse of state-centrism within a privatized religious identity.
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    Recasting Islamic Law: Religion and the Nation State in Egyptian Constitution Making
    Scott, Rachel M. (Cornell University Press, 2021-03)
    By examining the intersection of Islamic law, state law, religion, and culture in the Egyptian nation-building process, Recasting Islamic Law highlights how the sharia, when attached to constitutional commitments, is reshaped into modern Islamic state law. Rachel M. Scott analyzes the complex effects of constitutional commitments to the sharia in the wake of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. She argues that the sharia is not dismantled by the modern state when it is applied as modern Islamic state law, but rather recast in its service. In showing the particular forms that the sharia takes when it is applied as modern Islamic state law, Scott pushes back against assumptions that introductions of the sharia into modern state law result in either the revival of medieval Islam or in its complete transformation. Scott engages with premodern law and with the Ottoman legal legacy on topics concerning Egypt's Coptic community, women's rights, personal status law, and the relationship between religious scholars and the Supreme Constitutional Court. Recasting Islamic Law considers modern Islamic state law's discontinuities and its continuities with premodern sharia.