David Tittensor

The house of service : the Gülen movement and Islam's third way

Preface Abbreviations Note on Transliteration and Turkish Pronunciation Introduction PART ONE: The Gulen Movement in Context 1. Islam in Turkey: Continuities in Spite of Change 2. All is Not What it Seems: A Critical Appraisal of Modern Turkey 3. The Development of a Vision PART TWO: The Gulen Movement in Practice 4. Voices from Within, Voices from Without: Movement Teachers and Students Speak for Themselves 5. Divergence Between the Mission and the Message: Interrogation of a Double Standard 6. Placing the Gulen Movement in the Global Order: The Need for a New Typology Conclusion - A Singular Movement with a Modern Day Mission Notes Bibliography Index

Doing political ethnography in a difficult climate: A Turkish case study

In recent times, there has been a great deal of soul-searching about terms such as ‘deception’ and ‘informed consent’ and, consequently, ethics review boards have applied the biomedical ethics model to the ethnographic endeavour and the wider social sciences. However, these new strictures are problematic, particularly when undertaking politically sensitive research. Drawing on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey on the maligned religious organization known as the Gülen Movement, this paper will argue that informed consent is not always the most appropriate approach when researching hard-to-reach or hidden communities. Rather, it will seek to illustrate that rapport, trust, friendship and reciprocity are worthy substitutes.

Islam's Modern Day Ibn Battutas: Gülen Teachers Journeying Towards the Divine

There is a longstanding debate on whether Muslims can be modern. Some argue that they can only be so if they forsake their traditions and embrace rationalism. In this article I argue that the Gülen Movement, a transnational Turkish Muslim educational activist network has found a middle ground by blending religious traditions with modern day realities. Drawing on interviews from the movements teachers and graduates of its schools, from Turkey, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, I explore, through the prism of al-riḥla fī ṭalab al-ʿilm (travel in search of knowledge), their maintenance of the longstanding Islamic ritual of travel as a means of excelling both professionally and religiously. In turn, I demonstrate how the movement, on a number of levels, effectively reconciles the spiritual and the everyday through updating Islamic practices to better integrate themselves and other Muslims into a globalised world.

The Gülen Movement and Surviving in Exile: The case of Australia

ABSTRACT In 2010, cracks began to emerge in the tacit alliance between the ruling Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party in Turkey, AK Party) and the Gülen Movement (GM) and escalated into an all-out struggle in 2013. Following the failed 15 July coup in 2016, Erdoğan sought to eradicate the movement completely, seizing

Introducing and Contextualising Feminised Migration

11 billion in GM assets and purging over 150,000 people from all sectors, public and private. However, Erdoğan is aware that victory at home will not defeat the GM, as it operates in around 160 countries. As a result, he has put pressure on many nations to crackdown on the GM and their activities. While this approach has had some success in the Gulf Countries, Africa and South East Asia, it has been largely ineffective in the West, and Australia is no exception. Therefore, this paper will explore the Australian case and look at the factors behind continued local support for the GM. It will argue that the GM has made excellent use of opportunity spaces and structures in both academia and the NGO sector where it has been able to control its own narrative and engage effectively in cultural diplomacy, particularly amongst the political class.

The Feminisation of Migration? A Critical Overview

The increased prominence of female migration, along with a much wider array of push and pull factors, has often led scholars to focus on only one issue as it pertains to women and migration, such as human trafficking or remittances. Indeed, it is unusual for a volume to focus on more than one particular aspect of the migratory experience with much of the literature focusing on the plight of domestic workers. Thus, the aim of this volume has been to provide a wider survey that captures the multiplicity of drivers and resultant policy formations across a variety of regions. Further, in doing so it has sought to provide a balanced account that takes into consideration the structural drivers of migration without losing sight of individual agency and how these two intersect.

The Gülen movement and the case of a secret agenda: putting the debate in perspective

This chapter explores the key historical drivers of women’s migration from within both sending nations and receiving societies. The key to understanding the increased prominence of female migration is the evolving nature of gender relations across the spectrum as well as the critical role played by local, national, regional and transnational socio-economic factors in creating the need for a women-centric form of human mobility. Alongside this, the chapter also explores the issue of agency in relation to female migrants in both the Indonesian and Mexican contexts and how this is often masked by discourses of exploitation and victimisation.

Social Capital and Public Policy – The Current Challenge Facing the Victorian Government

The Gülen movement, a charity-based Turkish Muslim educational activist network, went global in the 1990s and has established approximately 1,000 secular educational institutions in more than 100 countries. The movement has an estimated worth of

Islam and development: exploring the invisible aid economy

25 billion, making it perhaps the largest faith-based transnational organization in the world today. However, in the wake of 9/11 and increased global anxiety about terrorism, mistrust regarding Muslims and Islam has grown. Suspicion is not only confined to stereotypes about jihadists, with some commentators arguing that Islam itself is the problem, and that any deeply religious Muslim should be viewed with distrust. The Gülen movement has not escaped this analysis and this outwardly secular educational organization has been accused of secretly proselytizing and indoctrinating students in its schools. This article analyses the popular discourse around the movement in Turkey and abroad and weighs the evidence for and against the allegations. It contends not only that they are baseless, and fail to furnish any evidence, but also that they appear to be part of a broader double standard vis-à-vis reporting and commentary on Christian missionary groups and their activities. In particular, the religious philosophy and activities of the Gülen movement are juxtaposed with those of World Vision.