Refashioning MuslimsWomen between the New Conservatism and Neoliberalism in Istanbul

A rare account of neoliberal Muslim female subjectivity in Turkey’s elite Islamic bourgeois circles

• Focuses on the formation of neoliberal Muslim female subjectivity under AKP rule in Turkey
• Uses longitudinal ethnographic research to analyse how successful careers of Muslim female fashion professionals have established them as trustworthy public figures in various other fields, namely leisure, charity and the family
• Examines the emergence of Muslim fashionistas against the backdrop of the AKP’s hegemonic power in Turkey since 2002
• Challenges modernist, liberal and nonliberal conceptualization of Muslim women’s agency to move beyond the stereotypical and homogenizing portrayals of Muslim women as ‘oppressed’, ‘empowered’, or ‘strictly pious’
• Makes significant contribution to sociological and anthropological accounts of lived Islam by deriving a theoretical framework from Ricoeur’s notion of ‘narrative identity’
• Contributes to sociological and anthropological accounts of lived Islam by deriving a theoretical framework from Bourdieu’s notion of ‘regulated liberties’

Refashioning Muslims explores the self-presentations and daily performances of young, bourgeois, fashion-conscious Muslim female entrepreneurs who emerged as new social actors in fields of fashion, leisure, charity and the family during the 2010s. It examines how these 'Muslim fashionistas' significantly bolster governmental capacity to build public consent by projecting images of successful entrepreneurs, benevolent philanthropists and ideal mothers. However, their performances entail moments of imperfection and moral dilemma as they navigate market demands and everyday aspirations often conflicting with Islamic orthodoxy and traditional gender order.

The book analyses how Muslim fashionistas cooperate with and challenge religious, classed, and gendered ideals, shaping a neoliberal Muslim subjectivity in the new Turkey. Drawing on Ricoeur’s notion of ‘narrative identity’ and Bourdieu’s notion of ‘regulated liberties’, the book argues that women’s subjectivities are guided by the dynamic unity of the narrative configuration of the self, and formed through a complex interplay between autonomy and (self-)regulation.