Spreading Whose Word? Transnational Imams, Religion and Politics in Turkey's Mosques Abroad (France, UK, USA)

This research project investigates the religious policy of the Turkish state towards its diasporas and the global Muslim communities in the UK, France and the USA. The ethnographic examination focuses on translational Turkish mosques and their imams sent by the Directorate of the Religious Affairs (Diyanet). The project evaluates the modalities and limits of the Turkish religious policy by concentrating on the training, motivations, mobility and achievements of transnational imams and their mosques, as well as the various ways they are perceived by the local Turkish and global Muslim communities who host them. By concentrating on the lived experience of Turkish and global Muslim communities around the Turkish mosques, the research, therefore, contributes to a critical approach to soft power, assuming that subaltern agents and interactions on the ground are as decisive as policymakers in promoting national and religious ideologies abroad. Through an interdisciplinary approach at the crossroads of sociology, anthropology and political science, the research provides a comprehensive picture of the Turkish religious policies and its quest for the global Muslim leadership in transnational settings.