Deniz Kaptan Receives Hella Mears Fellowship
Congratulations to Deniz Kaptan, a third-year political science student studying international relations and comparative politics, on receiving the Hella Mears Fellowship from the Center for German & European Studies! The Hella Mears Fellowship is awarded to outstanding graduate students in the humanities and social sciences for dissertation projects that advance our understanding of Europe. Learn more about Deniz's research and how the Hella Mears Fellowship will support her work in the Q&A below.
What is the focus of your research?
My research is focused on religious groups that exist as non-state & non-violent actors and their emergence & diffusion in time; essentially, the path by which some religious groups, and not others, become important domestic actors, and even international actors with certain societal & economic advantages. Religious groups, in this sense, are important as a part of the interest groups that can potentially inform both the public opinion and policy-making processes of states. Understanding their "path" therefore entails unpacking the web of social, economic, and political systems & dynamics in which they exist. As such, one of the significant parts of this "path" is state reactions to religious groups. In terms of religious groups as domestic and international actors, there is variation in state reactions to religious groups, whether the state is incorporating, simply ignoring, or applying systemic repression. These reactions are also dynamic and subject to changes over time, due to shifts in governments, regime types, or specific actions the religious groups decide to take. My research revolves around these considerations regarding religious groups' social, economic, and political advantages & disadvantages, and how they evolve as domestic & international actors.
How did you become interested in this topic?
Coming to the University of Minnesota, I was interested in working on surveillance mechanisms that states utilize. My coursework, however, made me reconsider my observations growing up in Turkey and engagements with Turkish politics literature. The seminar on Religion & Politics and the State-Building class I took made me think and ask questions about the route the Republic of Turkey took with secular politics and secularization of the state & society. I realized that certain religious groups, which lost the legal/official bases, did not, in fact, disappear physically from the social network. My curiosity soon shifted to religious groups in other countries with secular constitutions and the state-religious group relations in these cases. I started seeing similarities and differences between the conditions under which certain religious groups receive positive reactions, while others get neutral or negative reactions from their home states, which led me to ask: why?
What does your research look like?
While still in the preliminary stages of the research, it looks like there is potential in archival research, oral history, and semi-structured interviews. I find it important to start from the point of view of the people: the members of the groups, how they view religion & religiosity, where they position themselves within the socio-economic structure of the country, and the activities of the religious group that they adhere to. Simultaneously, interviews with certain state officials are also important to determine how the policymakers perceive the religious group.
Some religious groups with a long history have established archives where their statutes and teachings are available; these, together with oral histories and memoirs regarding the founding or essential figures of the religious groups, will help determine how the group defines itself, what roles they attribute to themselves, and what their relationship with the state & society is. Using a wide range of qualitative data sources, I'm planning to complete a triangulation of three main sources of information: the decision-maker circle of the religious group, the society, and the state.
Why is this research important?
This research framework is important because it will help situate religious groups and the effect of religion in state and society in its fluidity. Existing research on religion and international politics shows the importance of religion in causing violence, bringing peace, or achieving diplomatic goals through soft power. Framing religious groups as essential and effective economic, social, and political actors, I see my research as focusing on something more subtle that we do not often realize or think about.
I think this framework will also be in conversation with the growing literature on right-wing politics, ethnoreligious nationalism, and in specific issue areas, such as abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, that are increasingly polarizing societies and redefining political extremes based on arguments grounded in religion and politics.
How will the Hella Mears Fellowship support your research?
Working as a Mears Fellow this summer supports my research first and foremost by making archival work around the world possible. Moreover, the fellowship supports me by facilitating my access to written resources from abroad and enabling me to reach additional resources like interpreters for religious texts written in different languages. I am grateful for being selected to be a Mears Fellow.
