I am a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at the University of Chicago. My research examines a central question arising in contentious times: How do people understand and navigate a collective life shaped by fundamental disagreements? To engage with this problem-space amid the global rise of right-wing politics, I work on the intersections of religious belonging and gendered citizenship as critical arenas of polarized politics in Turkey/Türkiye. My dissertation project analyzes the worldview of Turkish conservative Sunni Muslim women revealed in the everyday activities of state women preachers, who serve as both Islamic educators and public servants in a contentious social landscape. My ethnographic findings demonstrate that these preachers promote generosity as a religious virtue to an audience often inclined to intervene in others’ religious lives, with these interventions sometimes verging on oppression. By examining how generosity operates in a polarized society, I explore its role in mediating fundamental disagreements, managing interpersonal conflicts, and justifying inclusion and exclusion in social and political life. This approach highlights the nuanced ways in which generosity informs how people (fail to) reconcile divergent views on governance, religious tradition, and collective identity. My work demonstrates how this conditional generosity is central to Turkish conservative women’s worldview and politics, shaping the polarized landscape they share with social others. I hold an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Anthropology and Asian History from Seoul National University. 

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Dissertation title: "The Edge of Generosity: Conservative Women and Bureaucratized Islamic Education in Polarized Turkey"