Hikmet Kocamaner

Grant Type

Post PhD Research Grant

Institutional Affiliation

North Carolina, Wilmington, U. of

Grant number

Gr. 10267

Approve Date

April 13, 2022

Project Title

Kocamaner, Hikmet (North Carolina, Wilmington, U. of) "Turkey’s Religious Infrastructures: Islam, Infrastructure, and Governance in Contemporary Turkey"

HIKMET KOCAMANER, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina, was awarded funding in April 2022 to aid research on “Turkey’s Religious Infrastructures: Islam, Infrastructure, and Governance in Contemporary Turkey.” The grantee used the entirety of the post-PhD grant to buy out my course load for the Spring semester (4 months). Combined with summer break (3 months), the post-PhD grant allowed the grantee to conduct research for about 7 months (January-August, 2024). During my fieldwork, the grantee was able to accomplish the research goals laid out in the grant application. As well as 15 non-Sunni and/or non-pious citizens, 20 Sunni-Muslim people were interviewed visiting the military coup memorial site about their memories of the night of the coup attempt with a focus on the “sela” call to prayers they heard over the centralized mosque loudspeaker network. Twelve Diyanet administrators and 20 Diyanet employees (both former and current) were interviewed about what the Diyanet’s data management infrastructure aims to accomplish, how it works, if it works as intended, and what happens if it doesn’t work properly or as intended. Participant observation was also conducted in mosques. Using data collected during this research, an article will be revised and resubmitted to American Anthropologist.