“New religiosities” have recently been established as a fruitful concept for the study of beliefs and practices associated with the new age stream, modern esotericism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. These new religiosities are seen as corollaries of the secularization, individualization and globalization of Western societies. Non-Western societies and especially the Muslim world have been ignored in these debates, both due to a lack of data and due to the assumption of a lack of similar processes in these cultures. Our project proposes to study the emergence and development of new religiosities in Turkey, a secularized Muslim country, whose legal approach to religions has been designed with reference to French laicism. New religiosities are widespread in Turkey, but almost unstudied: for one, since the attitudes of local scholars are largely hostile or dismissive, and for another, since Islamic studies and Turkology regard such phenomena as insufficiently “authentic” to be worthy objects of study. Our project proposal is designed as an interdisciplinary research program for our research group of 25 scholars from a variety of academic disciplines. The research group will employ theories and methods from religious studies, history, anthropology, sociology, and literature. Our working plan is organized along theoretical and methodological lines and is supposed to compel the scholars to engage with theories and methods beyond their own discipline. The project intends to help integrate important French and German academic discourses. While German academia has done fundamental work on new religiosities unnoticed in France, it would benefit from French modern and postmodern critiques of secularization and modernity. The knowledge produced by our research will help lay the groundwork for a global and comparative understanding of new religiosities, which is intrinsically linked to the conceptions of secularization, individualization, and globalization. We will utilize the research results as part of our theoretical and comparative endeavor to question the essentialist assumptions underlying those concepts, as they pertain to the proposed exceptionalism of Christian Europe and the supposed “nature” of Muslim cultures. This critical stance will also enable us to embark on a deconstruction of “Turkishness” that shall positively impact the Turkish approach to new religiosities. Furthermore, we will contribute to the academic debates on the construction of identity, circulation, religious authority, gender in Islam, and the definition and borders of religion. Institutionally, our research project will foster the promising cross-border ties among the young scholars and the research institutes involved.

This project focuses on the logic and narratives of genocidal and infra-genocidal violence in the Caucasus and Turkestan (Central Asia) during the First World War (understood as a Greater War), from the beginning of the Balkan Wars (1912) to 1923/24, which marked the emergence of new modern states (Republic of Turkey and Soviet Central Asian Republics). These two major regions, which are still poorly studied by Western research on the First World War and by research on the colonial and imperial history, have common characteristics: these regions are geographically located at the confluence of major continental empires (Ottoman, Russian, Chinese, Persian); they are politically experiencing a period of transition of extreme violence for the civilian and military populations, moving from an imperial and colonial situation to highly assimilating ethno-national states; they can be understood as peripheral and secondary fronts of the Great War in the sense that they constitute only partially front-line areas while their minority populations benefit from a low integration into the imperial armies (they mainly escape military conscription to serve in labor battalions); they are at locus of a fundamental militia and paramilitary phenomenon that are perpetrating mass crimes. This singular situation gives rise to exterminating violence, by their massive and intentional nature: in addition to the genocide of Armenians, massacres decimate a very large part of the Pontic Greeks (Ottoman Empire), the Assyrian-Chaldeans (Ottoman Empire and Persia) and the Kara-Kyrgyz (Russian Empire). Thus, this project consists of a testimonial and documentary collect: since historiographies are new and relatively modest on these subjects, it is necessary to undertake fundamental research of documentation and collection of primary sources, which will be analyzed both in terms of content, from a historical point of view (description of the logic of violence, interactions between ethnic and religious groups, the role of the State, the army, militias, etc.), and in terms of form. How to bear witness and in which language (language of the executioner, the victim, third language)? With which lexicon and vocabulary, with which format (song, poetry...)? How does this document circulate? How is it translated, edited, distributed, received, perhaps hijacked? This project also consists of reflective and analytical research which aims, in the light of the testimonies and research undertaken in archives, to analyze the context of the emergence of this exterminating violence, its implementation, its gradual disappearance, the reprisals it generates or its possible resurgence(s) at later periods. The team is composed of 10 researchers, who have been working on these issues for a long time.

Attachment to the Prophet is shared by all the different individuals, groups and communities which define themselves as Muslims, whether Sunni or Shi?i, whether attached to the letter or rather the spirit of Islam, whether proponents of Islamic reform or secular Muslims. As a focus for personal emulation and normative precedence and as a source of hope for salvation, cultural pride and empowerment, the Prophet of Islam continues his presence among the Muslim believers. This includes eschatological beliefs about him which connect the beginnings of Islam (and for some also the origin oft he whole created world) with the present time and the end of days. A metahistorical immediacy is also evoked by the transmitted Prophetical sayings, which speak to the believer and suggest blessing and even victory for those who keep hold the Prophetic Sunna. Building on patterns of piety which emerged already in later medieval times, the Prophetic model has since the early modern period (its beginning taken here from c. 1450) increasingly moved among both Sunni and Shi?i Muslims into the core of personal and collective efforts to strengthen the individual and to renew Islamic culture and politics. But the increased attachment to the Prophet has equally reinforced and deepened the existing fractures within Islam, and also the tensions and conflicts with non-­Muslims, which have gained in intensity whenever the Prophet and his image are at stake. The joint explorative enterprise intended by this Franco-­German research group, which has been engaged in academic exchange for a number of years, seeks to explore the various forms of attachment to the Prophet which have contributed to the formation of the Muslim individual and to the development of Islamic culture and politics since the early modern period, in a time of continuing expansion but also decentering of the Muslim world. The three-­years programme will in its first year focus on the development of the doctrinal, cultural and medial representations of the Prophet (1. "Representations of the Prophet: figurations and controversies"). It will shift in the second year to the Prophet as a ressource of personal and collective empowerment and of legal and political authority and power (2. "Heirs of the Prophet: authority and power"). The third year will be dedicated to the dynamics of individual and collective experience connected with Prophetic piety (3. "Prophetic piety between individual and collective experience"). The programme is designed to clear the ground for interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to the history of Prophetic piety and its different dimensions since the early modern period. Its larger goal is to contribute to a better understanding of the interplay between religion, society and politics in a central field of Islamic culture which has turned over the last decades into an arena of conflict on an increasingly global scale.

As opposed to studies which analyze the diffusion and circulation of practices, instruments, norms, and forms of knowledge as a stage subsequent to their localized production, the TRANSFAIRE project aims to study symbolic and technical instruments that are produced and reproduced by circulation. Instead of employing the notion of “transfer,” which assumes that there are elements which are allegedly “specific” to each of the regions concerned, our approach focuses on modalities of “trans-action”, and pays close attention to processes of translation and co-production of normative vehicles and of the fabric out of which politics is made. The project focuses on a broadly defined (post-)Ottoman Mediterranean as its main field of inquiry. Our goal is dual in nature: on the one hand, we propose a new approach to connections, concomitances, and interdependencies in which (post-)Ottoman spaces are to be considered an integral part, contrary to studies which limit themselves to considering exchange in terms of one-way diffusion and importation. On the other hand, we aim to draw up a revised chronology of the modalities of governance and extroversion of the Empire and the Republic, detached from the great rifts which have marked narratives of political history. The TRANSFAIRE project builds upon the results of the ANR-funded research group TRANSTUR in 2008-2012. It brings together 25 scholars from the fields of history, political science, sociology, anthropology, and geography, 9 of them being Istanbul-based. Its priorities are organized along three main axes: 1) The forms of materiality of political objectivization; 2) The analysis of devolutions and normative (re)investment; 3) The challenges and actors of translation. Each of these axes is treated by a small team, whose activities are coordinated by one member, able to work autonomously or as a part of horizontal projects. The general organization is structured around two geographical poles, one in Paris, the other in Istanbul. At each one of the two sites a permanent correspondent, recruited as a postdoctoral research assistant, sees to the organization of the team’s activities and assists the main coordinator, while ensuring the pooling and sharing of activities amongst the team members. Bimonthly seminars ensure coherence and exchange within each “pole.” Yearly work meetings, held in executive session, will allow individual difficulties to be addressed, completed work to be presented, and publishing projects to be discussed by the entire team. Scientific dissemination and visibility will be carried out by multiple methods: academic workshops; an international conference presenting the results of completed research; collaboration with members of the TEPSIS LabEx (EHESS / HESAM), of which the Centre for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan and Central Asian Studies (CETOBAC), the main partner of the current project, is an integral part; public outreach activities; and the creation of an internet site. The TRANSFAIRE project will equally contribute to higher education and training: the seminars will contribute to expanding the offer of academic courses in Paris and Istanbul; graduate workshops will be organized, and presentations for undergraduate students are also planned. In sum, the financial support of the ANR will reinforce an active research network already well in place, and will help promote the formulation of generalizable theoretical ideas. This will be made possible by the broad multidisciplinary background of the team members, as well as their profound knowledge of the historical and geographical themes under discussion. The knowledge produced by this project will equally be of interest to an ever-growing number of scholars, decision-makers, and members of the general public, given the significant transformations of the regional equilibrium in which are engaged the current states of the post-Ottoman space.

This project focuses on the exploitation of bitumen deposits in southern Albania and proposes a transhistorical and transdisciplinary approach. It is based on a double hypothesis and has a twofold objective: on the one hand, we consider that this natural resource has shaped the region from which it is extracted in the longue durée and we will seek to explain to what extent its mode of exploitation, its uses and circulation have affected the surrounding society (land property structures, intercommunity relations, religious beliefs and practices, landscape and health status of the population). On the other hand, we consider that the bitumen as an “object” invites to an interdisciplinary approach and we propose to use it as an observatory of the implementation of the collaboration between disciplines (archeology, history, geology, anthropology, geography), thus reflecting on how each discipline involved contributes to building that object and, in turn, is affected by it. The project is scientifically organized around four themes: - Material and technological dimension. As the bitumen material is at the centre of the project, it is a question of studying, through chemical and physical analyses and studies, present or past, the different types of extracted products, their qualities, the possibilities and techniques of extraction; the location, extent and type of deposits; the types of transformations (on site or off site - for example, Marseille, Bari, etc.) and the uses of these products, as well as their packaging. Other materials and objects needed for the production and transport chain will also be considered. - Material and technological dimension. As bitumen material is at the centre of the project, it is a question of studying, through chemical and physical analyses and studies, present or past, the different types of products extracted, their qualities, the possibilities and techniques of extraction; the location, extent and type of deposits; the types of transformation and uses of these products, as well as their packaging. Other materials and objects necessary for the production and transport chain will also be studied. - Knowledge and beliefs. In Antiquity, the bitumen deposit was associated with a sanctuary located in the south of the Greek colony of Apollonia of Illyria founded by Corinth in the last quarter of the 7th century BC. This sanctuary of the Nymphs, which was also a bitumen deposit exploited from antiquity and where a flame permanently burned, visible from afar in the landscape, was the source of a singular oracle, but its exact location remains to be discovered. It is also a question of looking at the evolution of technical and commercial knowledge, from antiquity to scientific studies, from the end of the 18th century onwards. - Territories, spaces, landscapes. This dimension concerns the territory used and mobilized according to the times for the extraction of bitumen. Attention will be paid to the link with land issues, as the mine was located in the Ottoman period in an imperial domain, which later became a state farm in the 20th century. The concession system introduced in the second half of the 19th century also raises the question of sovereignty. At a regional level, therefore, it will also be necessary to analyse the articulation with the agro-sylvo-pastoral space, as well as the impact on the landscape and the environment. - Men and women. This concerns the social dimension, be it the question of the organisation of work (ethno-confessional, men and women, managers/workers, local/foreign) and the interactions between different groups (Muslims, Vlachs, foreigners) or its institutional frameworks. Specific forms of labour (such as forced labour mentioned for the Ottoman and communist periods) and their articulation with other activities, including agro-sylvo-pastoral activities, will also be studied.