CV

My book, The Muslim Social: Neoliberalism, Charity, and Poverty in Turkey was published by the Contemporary Issues in the Middle East Series of Syracuse University Press in 2024. Through an in-depth ethnography of Islamic charity in contemporary Turkey, the book provides an innovative analysis of everyday encounters between markets and religion. This discussion of the neoliberal transformation of Islamic charity exposes how a “desire to do good” might have unexpected political and economic implications. 

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Zencirci Gizem. (2025) “’Saving’ Anatolian Girls: Nationalism, Neoliberalism, and “Gendered Community” in Turkey.” Forthcoming Nov 2025, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies.

Zencirci, Gizem and Catherine Herrold. (2022) “Project-Think and the Fragmentation and Defragmentation of Civil Society in Egypt, Palestine, and Turkey.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 51 (3): 545-565. https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640211057450

Zencirci Gizem. (2021). “A Just Economy? Unifying and Dividing the Islamic Intellectual Field in Neoliberal Turkey.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 89(3), 840-862.  https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfab078 

Zencirci, Gizem. (2020). “Markets of Islam: Performative charity and the Muslim middle classes in Turkey,” Journal of Cultural Economy, 13(5), 610-625.https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2020.1741426 

Zencirci, Gizem. (2019). “Affective Politics of Structural Adjustment: “Cruel Optimism” and Turhan Selcuk’s Cartoons in Turkey, 1983-1986,” Journal of Social History, 53 (1): 53-75. https://doi.org/10.1093/jsh/shz030 

Zencirci, Gizem. (2015). “From Property to Civil Society: Historical Transformation of Vakıfs in Modern Turkey,” International Journal of Middle East Studies (47): 533-554. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743815000537 

Zencirci, Gizem. (2015). “Illusory Debates: How the ‘Sadaka Culture’ Discourse Masked the Rise of Social Assistance in Turkey,” Asian Journal of Social Science, 43 (1-2): 125-150. https://brill.com/view/journals/ajss/43/1-2/article-p125_7.xml 

Zencirci, Gizem. (2014). “Civil Society’s History: New Uses of Ottoman Heritage by the Justice of Development Party in Turkey,” European Journal of Turkish Studies, 19. https://doi.org/10.4000/ejts.5076 

Zencirci, Gizem. (2008). “The Headscarf in Turkey in the Public and State Spheres,” Middle Eastern Studies, 44 (5). (with Dilek Cindoglu) https://doi.org/10.1080/00263200802285187

Book Chapters

Zencirci, Gizem. (2012). “Secularism, Islam and the National Public Sphere: Politics of Commemorative Practices in Turkey” in Visualizing Secularism and Religion: Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, India. Eds. Alev Cinar, Srirupa Roy, Maha Yahya. University of Michigan Press.

Book Reviews

Zencirci Gizem. (2025) “A review of Hilal Alkan’s ‘Welfare as Gift: Welfare as Gift: Local Charity, Politics of Distribution, and Religion in Turkey’.” Religion, Politics, Ideology, Jul 1, 2025.

Zencirci, Gizem. (2025). “A review of Meral Ugur Çınar’s ‘Memory, Patriarchy and Economy in Turkey: Narratives of Political Power.’ The Middle East Journal, Vol. 78, Numbers 2-3, Winter-Spring 2025. 

Zencirci, Gizem. (2024). “A review of Meral Ugur Çınar’s ‘Memory, Patriarchy and Economy in Turkey: Narratives of Political Power.’ The Middle East Journal, forthcoming, Winter 24/25 Issue. 

Zencirci, Gizem. (2024). “A review of Timur Hammond’s ’Placing Islam: Geographies of Connection in Twentieth Century Istanbul.” Reading Religion https://readingreligion.org/9780520387430/placing-islam/. 

Zencirci, Gizem. (2024). “A review of Florian Weigand’s ’Waiting for Dignity: Legitimacy and Authority in Afghanistan.” Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 53, Issue 1. 

Zencirci, Gizem. (2015). “A review of ‘Turkey Reframed: Constituting Neoliberal Hegemony’.” Review of Middle East Studies, Vol. 49: (2). 

Zencirci, Gizem. (2014). “A review of Mona Atia’s ‘Building A House in Heaven’.” Sociology of Islam, Vol. 2: (3-4). 

Other Publications

Zencirci, Gizem. (2016) “Lessons from Turkey: Populist Nationalism and the Threat to Democracy.” Duck of Minerva. https://www.duckofminerva.com/2016/11/wptpn-lessons-from-turkey-populist-nationalism-and-the-threat-to-democracy.html 

Zencirci, Gizem. (2014). “Neoliberal Islam and Emergent Forms of Social Service Provision in Turkey,” Memo for the Islamist Social Services Workshop, POMEPS, September 23, 2014. https://pomeps.org/islamist-social-services-studies