The Women Preachers of the Secular State: The Politics of Preaching at the Intersection of Gender, Ethnicity and Sovereignty in Turkey

Abstract

This article analyzes the politics of preaching in Turkey in the last decade by focusing on the appointment of women as preachers and vice-muftis by the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), a state institution established for the protection of secular foundations through religious service. It asks what happens when women wearing headscarves become civil servants and give religious guidance in a secular state, which prohibits headscarves in public offices and schools. It shows that the context, the use and the interlocutors of preaching make ordinary religious activity a complicated political practice that interacts with gender, ethnicity and state sovereignty. It argues that exceptional integration of headscarved women into public offices would seem to be an achievement given the long lasting political activism of women over the headscarf, but in the final analysis it serves the sovereign power of the state, which aims to absorb both Islamist and Kurdish challenges by mobilizing women preachers.