Dr Ezgi Güner

Ezgi Güner is a Fellow in Contemporary Muslim Societies in a Globalised World, with research interests in race, religion, empire and global capitalism across the Middle East and Africa south of the Sahara.

Ezgi received her Ph.D. in Anthropology with a minor in African Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2020. Her dissertation, The soul of the White Muslim: Race, empire and Africa in Turkey examines Turkey’s growing relations with Africa south of the Sahara by looking at the state, business and civil society. Funded by the Social Science Research Council, her doctoral research draws on a multi-sited ethnography in Turkey, Tanzania, Senegal, Gambia and Benin. At the Alwaleed Centre, Ezgi is conducting a postdoctoral research on the Turkish Muslim communities in Cape Town and how they navigate the racial terrain of post-apartheid South Africa. She is also teaching on Islam in Africa and completing her book manuscript.

Before coming to Edinburgh, Ezgi was a visiting fellow in the Anthropology Department at Harvard University and an Ernst Mach fellow in the Centre for Southeast European Studies at University of Graz. She taught critical race theory in the Department of Sociology at Boğaziçi University and the Association for Migration Research in Istanbul. Her articles are published in POMEPS Studies, MERIP, and Religions.

Publications

Book Contributions:

Güner, E. (2022). Mapping Africa: Cartographies of Imagination and Intervention in Turkey. In: Erdoğan, B., Hisarlıoğlu, F. (eds) Critical Readings of Turkey’s Foreign Policy. Palgrave Studies in International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97637-8_5

Articles:

Güner, E. (2023). Transnational Muslim crossings and race in Africa: Introduction. Africa, 93(2), 189-200. doi:10.1017/S0001972023000232

Güner, E. 2021 “NGOization of Islamic Education: The post-coup Turkish state and Sufi orders in Africa south of the Sahara”. Kane O. Salem ZA. (Eds.) "Africa, Globalization and the Muslim Worlds" Special Issue, Religions.

Under review. Introduction to “Rethinking Islam in Africa: Towards Critical Race Ethnographies” Special Issue (co-authored with Rahman R.) Africa.

Güner, E. (2023). Rejoicing of the hearts: Turkish constructions of Muslim whiteness in Africa south of the Sahara. Africa, 93(2), 236-255. doi:10.1017/S0001972023000220

Other publications:

2021 “Rethinking Whiteness in Turkey Through the AKP’s Foreign Policy in Africa South of the Sahara,” Race—Legacies and Challenges, MERIP 299.

2020 “The Scalar Politics of Turkey’s Pivot to Africa,” Africa and the Middle East: Beyond the Divides POMEPS Studies 40.