This research considers how varied and changing understandings of time
– as a religious, historic, and political category – shape how Turkish
Protestants practice their faith, understand who they are, and imagine
who they will be as Turkish citizens and as Christians during a period
of change and uncertainty in Turkey. The ways that Turkish
Protestants, who straddle national and religious histories,
speculative political futures, as well as Christian notions of change,
transformation, and the end of human history, respond to multiple
timelines can help explain the role of temporality in inhabiting a
plurality of conflicting religious and national identities, and
especially, how categories shift in the face of uncertainty. Through
ethnographic research this project will explore how Protestants in
Turkey negotiate multiple ways of understanding time and causality and
investigate how these negotiations affect how Protestants position
themselves in relationship with their Muslim and non-religious
neighbors as well as with other Christian groups in Turkey.
Eileen Sleesman Calderon is a PhD Candidate in the Department of
Anthropology at the University of Washington.
