From Property to Civil Society

The Historical Transformation of Vakif S in Modern Turkey (1923–2013)

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8969372
AutoresGizem Zencirci (0000-0002-6500-1683, autor correspondente)
Ano2015
Volume47
Fascículo3
Páginas533-554
Data de publicação2015-07-28
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743815000537
OpenAlexW2466494437
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas14
Referências citadas52

In this article, I argue that shifting development discourses have shaped the meaning and function of vakıf s (religious endowments) in Turkey since the establishment of the republic in 1923. I identify three periods defined by their distinctive development discourse, and show how each of these discourses made vakıf s into both an object and a site of development. In the etatist discourse of the 1930s, vakıf s were articulated as national treasures tasked with financing state-led economic development. With the shift to a mixed economy discourse in the 1960s, vakıf s were reconfigured as private philanthropic foundations expected to create a skilled labor force. The neoliberal development discourse of the 1980s transformed vakıf s into welfare organizations focused on poverty. This article shows that in all three of these periods, the relationship between state, Islam, economy, and society was articulated, legitimized, and consolidated with reference to a seemingly stagnant but in fact malleable institution inherited from the Ottoman Empire—the vakıf . I refer to this process as the “local production of development,” a conceptualization emphasizing how global discourses of development are formed and transformed at the local level

Civil society · Conceptualization · Economics · Economy · Empire · Meaning (existential · Ottoman empire · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · State (computer science · The Republic · Theology · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Society, and Development · Turkey's Politics and Society