Inheritance without the Heritage: The Fig Trees and the Ecological Effects of Imaginative Attachments to Fetih (Conquest) THIS EVENT IS FREE TO ATTEND AND NO REGISTRATION IS NECESSARY - JUST COME ALONG ON THE DAY. Turkey’s transformation from a multi-religious and multi-ethnic empire into a nation-state has caused the dismissal, transformation, replacement, denial, and destruction of several unrecognised material and immaterial heritage. The livelihoods and diverse artisanship once ingrained into nature and its medians have been shattered after decades of war, generations killed in violence, and later with the neoliberal economy that values particular types of production over others. Built on the understanding that heritage is beyond the cultural and the human, this paper connects a series of ethnographic data collected in a historically Jewish and Greek neighbourhood of Istanbul, Balat and Fener (B/F), to understand the interplay between the heritage as an imagined realm and the physical relationship to the inherited. Specifically, it focuses on the ways in which the new inhabitants, especially those who have been living in the area for four to seven decades, have been developing rapport and making sense of this historic area and its native flora (ie. fig trees) through the notion of fetih (conquest). Dr Sertaç Sehlikoglu is a social anthropologist whose work often focuses on the intangible aspects of human subjectivity that enable humans to change and transform social life. She analyses human agency and investigates its creative and imaginative capacities. In her current ERC-funded project “Takhayyul”, she directs this focus toward political transformation. The project is part of the turn towards dreams, desire, hope, nostalgia, and aspiration but it has yet to take effect in research on Islamist thought and practice. The failure to include imaginations and fantasies in political analysis is a result and malady of the Eurocentric rationality-oriented theories. We need fine-grained investigations into subjective, emotive, and imaginative forces. This project contributes to a wide array of scholarship ranging from political movements to populism, toxic nationalism, and imaginative/emotional visions of total domination as major challenges to social and political life. Sehlikoglu has formerly worked on human subjectivity and its agentive and imaginative capacities mostly through an analysis of gender and sexuality. Her first single-authored book, “Working Out Desire: Women, Sport, and Self-Making in Istanbul”, (2021) is a study of desiring self-making. It examines an urban trend 'spor merakı' (interest/curiosity in sport) as an object of desire shared by a broad and diverse group of women. The book also places women’s desiring subjectivity at the centre of analysis and thus pushes back against the conventional boundaries of scholarly interest in Muslim women as pious subjects. It presents the ways in which women's changing habits, leisure, and self-formation in the Muslim world and the Middle East are connected to their agentive capacities to shift and transform their conditions and socio-cultural capabilities. Jan 18 2024 15.00 - 16.30 Inheritance without the Heritage: The Fig Trees and the Ecological Effects of Imaginative Attachments to Fetih (Conquest) A special seminar by Dr Sertaç Sehlikoglu (University College London) delivered as part of the University of Edinburgh's Social Anthropology Department Seminar Series, co-sponsred by the Alwaleed Centre. 50 George Square Screening Room Find Venue
Inheritance without the Heritage: The Fig Trees and the Ecological Effects of Imaginative Attachments to Fetih (Conquest) THIS EVENT IS FREE TO ATTEND AND NO REGISTRATION IS NECESSARY - JUST COME ALONG ON THE DAY. Turkey’s transformation from a multi-religious and multi-ethnic empire into a nation-state has caused the dismissal, transformation, replacement, denial, and destruction of several unrecognised material and immaterial heritage. The livelihoods and diverse artisanship once ingrained into nature and its medians have been shattered after decades of war, generations killed in violence, and later with the neoliberal economy that values particular types of production over others. Built on the understanding that heritage is beyond the cultural and the human, this paper connects a series of ethnographic data collected in a historically Jewish and Greek neighbourhood of Istanbul, Balat and Fener (B/F), to understand the interplay between the heritage as an imagined realm and the physical relationship to the inherited. Specifically, it focuses on the ways in which the new inhabitants, especially those who have been living in the area for four to seven decades, have been developing rapport and making sense of this historic area and its native flora (ie. fig trees) through the notion of fetih (conquest). Dr Sertaç Sehlikoglu is a social anthropologist whose work often focuses on the intangible aspects of human subjectivity that enable humans to change and transform social life. She analyses human agency and investigates its creative and imaginative capacities. In her current ERC-funded project “Takhayyul”, she directs this focus toward political transformation. The project is part of the turn towards dreams, desire, hope, nostalgia, and aspiration but it has yet to take effect in research on Islamist thought and practice. The failure to include imaginations and fantasies in political analysis is a result and malady of the Eurocentric rationality-oriented theories. We need fine-grained investigations into subjective, emotive, and imaginative forces. This project contributes to a wide array of scholarship ranging from political movements to populism, toxic nationalism, and imaginative/emotional visions of total domination as major challenges to social and political life. Sehlikoglu has formerly worked on human subjectivity and its agentive and imaginative capacities mostly through an analysis of gender and sexuality. Her first single-authored book, “Working Out Desire: Women, Sport, and Self-Making in Istanbul”, (2021) is a study of desiring self-making. It examines an urban trend 'spor merakı' (interest/curiosity in sport) as an object of desire shared by a broad and diverse group of women. The book also places women’s desiring subjectivity at the centre of analysis and thus pushes back against the conventional boundaries of scholarly interest in Muslim women as pious subjects. It presents the ways in which women's changing habits, leisure, and self-formation in the Muslim world and the Middle East are connected to their agentive capacities to shift and transform their conditions and socio-cultural capabilities. Jan 18 2024 15.00 - 16.30 Inheritance without the Heritage: The Fig Trees and the Ecological Effects of Imaginative Attachments to Fetih (Conquest) A special seminar by Dr Sertaç Sehlikoglu (University College London) delivered as part of the University of Edinburgh's Social Anthropology Department Seminar Series, co-sponsred by the Alwaleed Centre. 50 George Square Screening Room Find Venue
Jan 18 2024 15.00 - 16.30 Inheritance without the Heritage: The Fig Trees and the Ecological Effects of Imaginative Attachments to Fetih (Conquest) A special seminar by Dr Sertaç Sehlikoglu (University College London) delivered as part of the University of Edinburgh's Social Anthropology Department Seminar Series, co-sponsred by the Alwaleed Centre.
