Suchergebnisse

This dissertation explores the contemporary place of Islam in urban life through a mixed-methods project based in Istanbul, Turkey. In cities around the world, the form and practice of Islam is being reshaped by new kinds of political governance, economic development, and cultural consumption. At the same time, debates about religious authority, social integration, and communal identity often revolve around questions of how people move through, transform, and inhabit the public and private spaces of the city as Muslims. Istanbul is a city in which those questions and debates have particular relevance.On the one hand, Islam is an unmistakable part of the city's landscape. Istanbul's mosques and minarets articulate a Muslim urban identity rooted in the very stones of the city. On the other hand, everyday practices of being Muslim in Istanbul today are also inextricable from a rapidly changing set of political, social, and economic transformations. These two dimensions –an Islam rooted in the city and an Islam woven through local, national, and transnational networks – come together in the Istanbul district of Ey?p, long known as one of Istanbul's most important Muslim shrines. In this dissertation, I argue that Ey?p's built environment functions as the key medium of connection through which both residents and visitors link themselves to the world around them, an act at the heart of making a place for Islam in the city. I show that the form of the built environment and the meanings it carries are not rooted and unchanging but the outcome of debates and contests between unequally positioned individuals and groups.Drawing on both archival and ethnographic methods, I show how, why, and with what consequences Ey?p's built environment has mediated different connections over the course of the 20th century. In Chapter One, I explore three different buildings in Ey?p that connected Islam to the modern in different ways: the construction of a new Halkevi (People's House), the restoration of the Zal Mahmut Paşa Mosque, and the expansion of Ey?p's road network. By placing Ey?p's religious landscape in a particular relationship to the modern city, these projects helped create a new image of urban Islam. Chapter Two turns to the 1990s, a period in which Ey?p's landscape was configured not as modern but as Ottoman. Excavating the cultural politics of the local municipality and the constellation of institutions, laws, and agendas that made Ey?p's redevelopment possible, I argue that making Ey?p Ottoman involved the articulation of new connections between past and present even as other connections between residents and the district's working-class landscapes were erased. Chapter Three focuses on the geography of observance that characterizes Ramadan in Ey?p. Avoiding simple mappings of religious versus secular space, I argue that this geography of Ramadan is best understood in terms of the overlapping connections that link private and public space, internal piety with external observance, and this one district with the world around. In Chapter Four, I examine the normative rules of place that govern how the Mosque of Ey?p Sultan should be used, moved through, and experienced. Rather than be rooted in place, I find that these rules are in fact the product of interconnections between people, places, and narratives. Focusing on three groups typically seen as out of place in the mosque – foreign visitors, tourists, and women – I argue that the greatest tensions are located not in the difference between Muslims and non-Muslims but in the different forms of being Muslim in this mosque.My archival and ethnographic study of the Istanbul district of Ey?p shows how Islam's place in the city is made through contested acts of connection. Although these connections take multiple forms and make use of diverse materials, the built environment functions as the key medium through which people articulate meaningful connections with the world around them. This dissertation brings together scholarship in cultural geography, cultural anthropology, urban studies, and Middle East area studies to provide a rich account of how Islam is lived, experienced, and articulated in relation to the changing city of Istanbul.

The study of social mobility enables us to assess the extent to which a given society is "open". Addressing this issue is particularly crucial in our democratic societies, where it is expected that the place of individuals in society should no longer be determined at birth, but rather by individual quality. The present inquiry investigates this issue in the context of Switzerland, a country characterised by specific institutional settings, notably through the close association its educational system shares with the labour market. Through a detailed empirical analysis based on robust statistical analyses carried out from a unique tailor-made dataset, I demonstrate that Swiss society has not become more open throughout the twentieth century. Although some barriers have lost some salience, Swiss society has overall remained extremely rigid. In particular, because it channels individuals into highly segmented tracks very early on, the Swiss educational system does not attenuate social background differences. Thus, Switzerland is found in a particular configuration where an individual's place in society is highly determined not only by his or her educational attainment, but also by his or her social background. In other words, Switzerland constitutes a sort of "non-meritocratic meritocracy". - L'étude de la mobilité sociale permet d'évaluer dans quelle mesure une société donnée est « ouverte ». S'intéresser à cette question est particulièrement crucial dans nos sociétés démocratiques, où il est attendu que la place des individus ne soit plus déterminée à la naissance, mais plutôt par les qualités individuelles. La présente étude examine cette question dans le cadre de la Suisse, un pays aux caractéristiques institutionnelles spécifiques, particulièrement de part le lien étroit que son système éducatif entretien avec le marché du travail. A travers une analyse empirique détaillée fondée sur des analyses statistiques robustes menées à partir d'un jeu de données unique construit sur-mesure, je démontre que la société ...

Analyses of mortality in Alaska and Labrador during the 1918 influenza pandemic indicate that influenza itself was only one of several factors influencing mortality in different communities. We discuss the added impact of exposure to influenza prior to the major waves of the pandemic in 1918 and cocirculation of other acute infectious diseases, including pneumonia, smallpox, and measles; chronic conditions such as nutritional deficiencies and tuberculosis; and social and cultural factors such as the economic climate, ethnicity, official responses, and access to health care. The emphasis is on potential explanations for differential mortality in these regions and on how the experiences of Labradoreans and Alaskans can help to inform us about the multitude of interrelated factors influencing modern health issues.

The starting point of this study is the fact that every production system entails a specific spatial organization and changes its physical environment. This research is an attempt to understand the industrialization period of Turkey's Early Republican Period (1930's) and the spatial effects of the new production system. Right after the Turkish War of Independence, The Republican Government of Turkey had aimed to establish an independent country and started to carry out a modernization and contemporization project. This project had different dimensions appealing to the institutional, economical, social and civic aspects of Turkey. The economical dimension included the industrialization and economical independence of Turkey. Besides its economical, political and social goals, the Republican Government had aimed to change the physical appearance of the country. The Government's first goal was to turn the country into the space of the National Turkish Republic State from an empire's land. Secondly, the small towns or settlements of the country we're supposed to become modern cities, the places of modernity, just like the modern cities of the industrial and developed countries of the world. That explains why the factories which were set up all around the country had played such a crucial role in the modernization period of Turkey at the beginning of the Republican era. They were not only economic achievements of the state; they also affected their physical and social environments and introduced the modern way of living particularly where they were set up.

The last few decades have marked a turning point in the role of women in Vietnam. Formerly acknowledged as the "Minister of Home Affairs," women were I able to break free from the shackles of traditional beliefs. These beliefs kept them i from having a life outside household servitude. During the decades of war, women displayed leadership and courage. In peace time, women educated themselves and later held important government positions as Vietnam transformed itself into a free market economy. The former second class citizens were able to distinguish themselves further in the economic, political, social realms. Now supported by government and an appreciative society, there is a brighter future for the women of Vietnam as leaders in the next century.

"A Social History of Twentieth-Century Europe offers a systematic overview on major aspects of social life, including population, family and households, social inequalities and mobility, the welfare state, work, consumption and leisure, social cleavages in politics, urbanization as well as education, religion and culture. It also addresses major debates and diverging interpretations of historical and social research regarding the history of European societies in the past one hundred years. Organized in ten thematic chapters, this book takes an interdisciplinary approach, making use of the methods and results of not only history, but also sociology, demography, economics and political science. Béla Tomka presents both the diversity and the commonalities of European societies looking not just to Western European countries, but Eastern, Central and Southern European countries as well. A perfect introduction for all students of European history."--Publisher's website.